Site Log

For those of you who have never come across a site log before, it's basically for posting site updates and the like - allowing me to keep everyone in the know with what's going on here. I figured it would be extremely fitting to use the site's story system for this purpose. There will likely be a permalink somewhere on the main page to this story at some point.

per MsGooch72's request, timestamps have now been added to all entries - take note that a few timestamps may be invalid/incorrect because of modifications to the site's database - in general they are correct though

So, I have a tad bit of sad news - what with impending college and a long list of work I have promised to other people for their websites, I won't have as much time to devote to storybuilder as I have in the past. Rest assured though, should I get the itch to do something REALLY cool on the site, I will shirk my responsibilities straight away and program on storybuilder. However, as it stands, there may be only minor changes to the site for a few months. As soon as I can, I will start work on storybuilder again, as I have a long and spectacular list of features to implement. I hope everyone else is looking forward to it as much as I am.

So, because I am leaving for college, I had to migrate servers - however, it seems that this particular server is especially prone to glitches in the page generation - I see about a 50% glitch rate which is extremely unacceptable - I'll need to do some looking around, see, what's going on, etc - just expect a bumpy road for a little bit

I did some browsing around, and cetain things seem to give it more grief than others - in addition, I tried a few potential fixes, to no avail. This kinda makes me nervous - I don't want the site falling apart just because I need to leave for school - bear with me for a few days while I try to fix this

So, I don't know if anybody really noticed, but the site is back up and is operating on a newer, and surprisingly faster, server - I say surprisingly because it was actually supposed to be a slower server, but that computer ended up not working out for a variety of reasons. However, the bug reporting system is down because of some configuration changes during the migration so all bugs should be reported to (email) bugs at buildastory dot com. Happy storybuilding!

Sorry about the downtime today everyone - since I switched servers, there was a configuration issue where sometimes the site would try to go to the old server which is no longer online - it has been fixed and shouldn't happen again.

So Storybuilder is approaching 800 entries, 100 stories, and 75 users. Most normal people wouldn't consider this a milestone, especially considering the low activity level of 80% of the users (though that activity level is reminiscent of much of the internet's userbase), but I am no normal person. Considering that this site was conceived two years ago as a simple modified messageboard for my friends to write together, I'm excited about how far it has come and my big plans for where it will go.

While it may not seem like much has been happening around the site recently, a fair amount has, and though I'm not going to go into all of it(my list of "future work" is actually quite long and may never be completed - voting and illustrations are items I've been working on recently), I will highlight a few things here. I'm working on updating some of the designs from plain green header boxes to look more like the newer ones you see on the view stories page. In addition, I have been tweaking various designs all over the site for better usability and display and will continue to do so as I notice problems conveying information properly. My goal is that you are able to find whatever stories you like and whatever information you need even when you have relatively little information to supply about it.

That said, I'm working on a new set of "search" tools to integrate with and complement the current set. They will:
-allow you to find semiabandoned stories to write on
-allow you to cross reference user searches with story searches with category searches
-allow you to find stories based upon a whole new set of criteria, such as length and detail, number of users who HAVE written on it, number of users who have recently written on it, as well as whether or not you are allowed to write on it

I'm hoping that these new methods of finding stories will allow people to better find what they like to read and write on

Happy writing,
Nick

so I briefly mentioned illustrations in the above entry. Be aware - they are almost here. I need to add a few small features to them, but the bulk of the programming is done.

The features will include:
-The ability to upload images and insert them anywhere in the story you like (I haven't decided the limit of number of images yet)
-The ability to add captions to your illustrations
-The ability to comment on any illustration
-The ability to see a gallery of illustrations for any given story in addition to the viewing of that image in the regular story page.
-POTENTIALLY (no promises, and almost definitely not at launch) the ability to see all the illustrations a single user has done.

Look for this in the next few days, though my days turn to weeks, and I might be busy this weekend(Frisbee tournament - though it may be rained out). If it is rained out, the illustrations system should be up by Sunday. I'll change the spotlight on the front page when it happens.

Happy drawing,
Nick

So the two people who have been to this site in the last week may be saying...hmmmm...Nick said that the illustrations system would be up on Sunday. Today is Thursday, Thursday is after Sunday - What's up? Well, a new deadline I kind of made for myself for another project for a client is approaching, and I really want to get this done so that it can help them in a few differenet areas soon. Once that's done, I'll finish up on the illustrations, which are, rest assured, looking VERY nice - if I may say so. Anyway, hope everyone is enjoying themselves
-Nick