Amount

Library Functionality

29 Mar 2018 07:35 #59000 by circes_cup
Library Functionality was created by circes_cup
Am I the only one who is completely confused by how the Library works? Example: a story called “In Tune Part 3” was recently posted by Furlough. I read a bit and thought, “Wow, I like how this guy writes. What else has he done?” So, I naturally went to the library, and selected “Search by Author”. I had to page through about eight screens to get to “F”, for Furlough. But when I got there, there was no “F”. On “Sort by Author”, the libary jumps stright from “Erikphandel” to “Gilborn”. I KNOW this guy has written other stuff for SWM, but it just aint there.
  • On Sort by Author, is there a way to get to the middle of the alphabet without paging through a dozen screens?
  • In addition to Sort by Author, is there also a Search by Author function that I am overlooking?
  • And where exactly are Furlough’s stories?
This may question may sound very mechanical in nature, but I think it’s important for authors to know that posting a story to SWM means that interested readers will have an easy time finding it.

I’m hoping that this is just me being an idiot, and that everybody else has a very easy time using the library and getting directly to all those great stories. I’m hoping that a few pointers will make me smarter about navigating the library. Thanks in advance for any thoughts you all can offer!

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • circes_cup
  • circes_cup's Avatar Topic Author
  • Offline
  • Junior Member
  • Junior Member
More
29 Mar 2018 08:36 #59002 by njae
Replied by njae on topic Library Functionality
The sort by author feature is using a different field as the username. If you look into your profile thrmeres two different name fields. That is the one used for sorting. If its different to the username, this confusion happens.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 08:55 #59003 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Library Functionality

njae wrote: The sort by author feature is using a different field as the username. If you look into your profile thrmeres two different name fields. That is the one used for sorting. If its different to the username, this confusion happens.


Unfortunately that's the case, the "Sort by Author" function use the real name field rather than username. Fats has already tried to fix it several times, but with each software update we get a soft reboot of the entire system. As a result if user put "Frank Doyle" as his real name, but use the alias "Setek22" his stories will be filed under "F" rather than "S". :(

Anyway the rest of Furlong's stories are here , here and here

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 09:34 #59006 by deathgeonous
Replied by deathgeonous on topic Library Functionality
Ok, pardon me for say so, but that sounds all sorts of stupid. Totally believable, but utterly stupid.
The following user(s) said Thank You: jumperprime

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 10:32 #59009 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Library Functionality

deathgeonous wrote: Ok, pardon me for say so, but that sounds all sorts of stupid. Totally believable, but utterly stupid.


I know. Fats has tried to fix it for a long, long time, but every update screw things over.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 14:27 #59011 by circes_cup
Replied by circes_cup on topic Library Functionality
And on an author sort, to get to the middle of the alphabet, must one page through seven or eight screens? Or is there another way?

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • circes_cup
  • circes_cup's Avatar Topic Author
  • Offline
  • Junior Member
  • Junior Member
More
29 Mar 2018 15:13 #59012 by njae
Replied by njae on topic Library Functionality
I fear there's no other way for that. One has to considert that the library software does not seem to be meant for the scenario it is used here. It feels more like a better way to make content for a homepage/blog, not being a true library with a lot of different authors that are not part of the site staff.

Back in the day I tried to circumvent these issues with two things:
1, The series library - not a perfect alternative but at least all stories belonging to a series are stored at the same place
2. The classic library view sorted by author - since it used the same data, the only difference here was the presentation. As a simple list, the respective stories were easier to look through (like what you get with the TAGs cloud right now), and iirc there were also more entries per page to reduce the amount of pages to go through.

One way to fix this would be to make a category for each author (above a certain number of installments). Every story can have multiple categories and right now, every story gets posted in the category SWM Library. If it's a workshop entry it will land in the SWM Workshops category, to be moved into a sub-category for the respective workshop by the admin/librarian. There's also the Series Library category, which houses sub-categories for each series of stories. An author-specific category would work in a very similar manner - including accessing it from the story itself.

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to the backend, so I have no idea how much effort that would be. Woodclaw will probably hate me if he has to edit everything on his own. It does sound like a job for SQL, however.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 15:18 #59013 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Library Functionality

njae wrote: I fear there's no other way for that. One has to considert that the library software does not seem to be meant for the scenario it is used here. It feels more like a better way to make content for a homepage/blog, not being a true library with a lot of different authors that are not part of the site staff.

Back in the day I tried to circumvent these issues with two things:
1, The series library - not a perfect alternative but at least all stories belonging to a series are stored at the same place
2. The classic library view sorted by author - since it used the same data, the only difference here was the presentation. As a simple list, the respective stories were easier to look through (like what you get with the TAGs cloud right now), and iirc there were also more entries per page to reduce the amount of pages to go through.

One way to fix this would be to make a category for each author (above a certain number of installments). Every story can have multiple categories and right now, every story gets posted in the category SWM Library. If it's a workshop entry it will land in the SWM Workshops category, to be moved into a sub-category for the respective workshop by the admin/librarian. There's also the Series Library category, which houses sub-categories for each series of stories. An author-specific category would work in a very similar manner - including accessing it from the story itself.

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to the backend, so I have no idea how much effort that would be. Woodclaw will probably hate me if he has to edit everything on his own. It does sound like a job for SQL, however.


It is a way to circumvent the problem for sure.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
29 Mar 2018 16:26 #59014 by fats
Replied by fats on topic Library Functionality
I've been working on the redevelopment of the site or the last 6 months, 5 of those months has been working on the library, there are so many little issues and problems that I thought it should take no time to get them resolved, but each time I fix one problem another pop's up. what people have been describing in this thread are the problems that I've been trying to fix, it's getting me to the point of dumping the library software and changing it up for something else,

Believe you and me I know your suffering with the problems o the library, but you are not suffering as much as I am.

Fats
The following user(s) said Thank You: Woodclaw, slim36, mastadon, compy, Markiehoe, circes_cup, Gargamel

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • fats
  • fats's Avatar
  • Away
  • Administrator
  • Administrator
More
29 Mar 2018 20:48 #59017 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic Library Functionality

fats wrote: I've been working on the redevelopment of the site or the last 6 months, 5 of those months has been working on the library, there are so many little issues and problems that I thought it should take no time to get them resolved, but each time I fix one problem another pop's up. what people have been describing in this thread are the problems that I've been trying to fix, it's getting me to the point of dumping the library software and changing it up for something else,

Believe you and me I know your suffering with the problems o the library, but you are not suffering as much as I am.

Fats


I will say that posting stories is very easy right now. The current release makes it easy to embed pictures in text and format. Not quite as easy as in messages in the Forum, but very workable. I'm happy with that.

Shadar

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • shadar
  • shadar's Avatar
  • Offline
  • Uberposter par Excellence
  • Uberposter par Excellence
More
29 Mar 2018 21:39 #59019 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Library Functionality

fats wrote: I've been working on the redevelopment of the site or the last 6 months, 5 of those months has been working on the library, there are so many little issues and problems that I thought it should take no time to get them resolved, but each time I fix one problem another pop's up. what people have been describing in this thread are the problems that I've been trying to fix, it's getting me to the point of dumping the library software and changing it up for something else,

Believe you and me I know your suffering with the problems o the library, but you are not suffering as much as I am.

Fats


Knowing some of the details behind the scene I can confirm how much effort Fats has put into fixing the site. The big issue with the Library is just that we probably pushed some parts of the software to its limits.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
Time to create page: 0.068 seconds