ADDED - Adventure Log - Titles only please?

DMaple
DMaple
edited August 2007 in Feature Requests

Comments

  • DMaple
    DMaple
    Posts: 63
    Could the first Adventure log page just be titles, sub heading and date? Mine is getting awfully big even with only a couple of entries in it. The titles are already hyperlinks to the article details anyway.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    Yes, this is a good idea. A lot of blog software handles this by truncating to a short amount of text (like a single paragraph) for each posting, with the title being a link to the entire post. In addition, we could limit the number of posts displayed on a single page. That way, there would be multiple pages, allowing the page to load a little faster.

    It's pretty standard stuff, we just haven't gotten around to it. It's good to hear that people notice, though. It helps us prioritize smaller updates like this. I'll see if I can whip this up over the weekend.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    I added the pagination. It still shows the full article text, but will only show 10 at a time. Maybe not perfect, but it's better than before...
  • DMaple
    DMaple
    Posts: 63
    Is it worth dropping it to lower or is it possible to set your own value, just I tend to do long posts rather than lots of little ones. I'm not sure how other people are using it though.
  • DMaple
    DMaple
    Posts: 63
    Anyone else have an opinion on this? I've noticed some people rather than using the adventure log to directly contain the page they set up wiki pages with the full text, and have stubs in the log as a work around. I'm finding displaying the full text from 10 entries is too many for me.
  • Charsen
    Charsen
    Posts: 85
    Yeah, that's what I do for "Sins of the Father":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/60 - I made two adventure logs. One for news, one for a list of all the adventures. I think it's easier to manage... I dunno. I'd love to have all my adventure logs be actual game logs, but I like having an index that just says the names, when they were updated, and some kind of catchy tagline. It just looks more manageable imo.
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    It's what I do for The Vale - the adventure log contains brief comments and then a link to a wiki page with the full narrative.

    And I just recently realized (gasp!) I could and should use HTML links so people can go through them all chronologically without having to keep going back to the adventure log.
  • IceBob
    IceBob
    Posts: 98
    That's likely what I'll cut to for "A Deadly Affair":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/deadlyaffair, as my adventure logs are getting rather gigantic. I suppose that's what happens when you run a more narrative game with less combat, though.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    This is getting ugly fast. I just saw someone who was achieving this effect by posting the teaser as the main post, and then putting all the content in a comment. "See for yourself.":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/cliffportcaves/adventure-log/session-1 Ugh! That's nasty and definitely not how we intended this to be done.

    (Note: I don't blame the author. This sort of behavior indicates the software is not user friendly, so I blame us, the developers.)

    Both Wordpress and Drupal (other blog/publishing platforms) offer a way to do this, using special tags that are inserted into the content of the post. For example...


    This is the text that displays on the main page. It's called a teaser.
    Everything is displayed up until the point you add:



    The rest of this is displayed in the full post...


    I much prefer this to automated solutions of "cut it off at XXX words or characters", since that often results in nonsensical teasers. This way, you can choose the size of your teaser, or just ignore it altogether.

    I'll toss this in as a high-priority feature. I didn't realize it was that frustrating until I saw the comment thingy...
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    Ok, I think I've got it figured out. I will use the tag like Wordpress does. On the main adventure log page, this will display "Click here to see the full post" or something similar, which will take you to the full post.

    No more using wiki pages or comments to handle the full blog text!

    I think I will be able to do it this weekend, so it's tentatively scheduled for rollout on Sunday night.
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    Oooh! It'd take a little re-working on my end, but I am totally in favor of this on the ground that then my Wiki can just be all the extra stuff, like world setting and family tree and whatever else ends up relevant but isn't plot narrative.

    I look forward to it, and send hugs of either thanks or consolation depending on how the tests go. =)
  • Charsen
    Charsen
    Posts: 85
    Hmm, yep, I'll need to adjust my logs again, hehe. :)
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    I've just checked in the code for this. I will roll it out to the server in our scheduled Sunday night / Monday morning deployment.

    Nothing will change until you go in and start inserting the more tags into your posts. So, if you don't want to use it, you don't have to.

    For those that do want to use it, it works like this:

    Here is the teaser



    Here is the rest of the post


    Note: Don't go starting yet, as the code is only executed when you click the save button. So if you go and start now, nothing will happen when we roll the code out.
  • DMaple
    DMaple
    Posts: 63
    Cool I´ll give it a go Monday night.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    It's in there! We added it Sunday night, as "some have already discovered":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/savage-tide

    As always, let me know if there are any problems.
  • DMaple
    DMaple
    Posts: 63
    Looks to be working fine.
  • DarthKrzysztof
    DarthKrzysztof
    Posts: 132
    Worked well for me as well - I've been looking forward to this feature for awhile (though I've been quiet about it).

    It should be noted, for those who haven't tried it yet, that the tag is totally invisible in the adventure log itself, so you can drop it in the middle of a paragraph without breaking it into two paragraphs when you click through.
  • brassbaboon
    brassbaboon
    Posts: 1
    Thanks Micah, not only for making this change, but for even finding my adventure log to see that I was struggling with it. I have begun to use the new feature, and it is doing what I needed it to do.

    Now if only the adventure log could be arranged top to bottom instead of bottom to top... heh.

    Really, I am very impressed with your attention to this. Thanks again.
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