Update and New Feature Roll-out

Kallak
Kallak

May I have your attention please!

It's official! The newest batch of features and updates for Obsidian Portal has arrived! In this announcement, I'll be going over everything included in today's release, and making sure you receive all the important details. So let's dive right in!

Subscription Updates

In our quest to keep improving the site and bringing you more (and updated) features, some adjustments and additions have been made to Obsidian Portal's subscription service. For starters, a second subscription tier has been added! Located "between" Basic and Ascendant in terms of price and available features, our new Adventurer tier is intended to cater to new(er) or aspiring GMs just getting started, as well as players who wish to support continued development without having to go "all in".

Next, the price for new Ascendant subscriptions going forward has been raised slightly - from $4.99 monthly and $39.99 annually to $5.99 monthly and $49.99 annually. This change is intended to help fund future development cycles as well as be a reflection of the increased value inherent in an Ascendant account as a result of the new features that have been added (and will continue to be added as time goes on). As for our existing Ascendants, we have left your subscription price unchanged, as a token of our appreciation for your loyalty and support. We wouldn't be where we are today without you!

Finally, since we are now servicing two different subscription levels with two different payment schedule options each, we've updated and added to the existing functionality for changing or updating your subscription. Switching from one tier to the other, or from one payment schedule to the other is as easy as a single button click. We've also added proration on the back end, so you can change your subscription configuration at any time and your price for the remainder of the billing cycle will be adjusted automatically. As always, you can visit the Plans page for full details.

Dice Roller

That's right, it's back! The dice roller returns to Obsidian Portal, with a brand new look and updated capabilities. Whether for single rolls or pools of dice, this feature is situated to meet your needs. Options are included for target numbers, exploding dice, and roll modifiers. The output tracks the roll result, total roll, and (if set) the number of successes versus the target number.

Access to this feature requires an Ascendant or Adventurer membership subscription.

Page Auto-Outlining

Are you sick of endless scrolling on your campaign's longest pages? Are you tired of having to manually insert links and anchor points throughout your page to make navigating it not suck? Do you wish there was an easier way to get to specific sections of your page? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then we've got just the thing for you! With the new auto-outlining feature, your same-page navigation happens automatically. All you do is check a single box to turn it on and the rest is done for you! No more anchor tags, no more scrolling for days, no more hunting for the section you want!

Access to this feature requires an Ascendant membership subscription.

Insertable JavaScript

You've read the preview, you've seen the screen captures - and now you can have it on your campaigns! Insertable JavaScript is here! Spice up your pages with elements from our suite of customizable scripts. Best of all, there's no coding required! Our user-friendly insertion buttons do all the work, letting you add random generators, image carousels and more quickly and easily. All that's required is a few clicks and your input.

Access to this feature requires an Ascendant membership subscription. Additionally, while the inserted code will work with either editor, the insertion buttons only appear on the Textile editor at this time. Users presently using the CKEditor may need to familiarize themselves with how to Set the Default Editor in order to make use of these buttons.

Default Editor: Textile

As the saying goes: "What's old is new again"! In light of the fact that the freshly added insertion buttons for the insertable JavaScript feature are not yet available on the CKEditor, Obsidian Portal's original editor - the Textile editor - has been returned to its former place as the default editor for all newly created campaigns. Similarly to when the CKEditor was rolled out, we won't force an editor change on anyone's existing campaigns, but we want to take what steps we can to ensure that no Ascendant misses out on using these buttons in the future.

New User Assistance

Our campaign to make the site more new-user-friendly continues, and for this patch we've added some "getting started" information to a user's profile page if they don't have any campaigns. These quick tips help give some direction and provide links to instructional material on the Help page. With new users landing on their profile page upon logging in for the first time, this was a prime location to put this assistance-based content, and will hopefully get our newest members up and running that much faster.

~~~

That's going to do it for the moment. If there ends up being anything I've missed, I'll update this post and let you guys know. Enjoy! We look forward to hearing your feedback.

All the best,
- Kallak

Comments

  • Krothos
    Krothos
    Posts: 230

    It feels like my birthday all over again! Thank you Kallak and Team! You're the BEST!

     

  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530

    Nice to see updates like this coming through. Well done guys.

  • Knight_of_Nothing
    Knight_of_Nothing
    Posts: 7

    Excited for the new features! But I am also hoping for good news on the existing defects, especially the tags! Any update..? 

  • Kallak
    Kallak
    Posts: 1,090

    Hey @Knight_of_Nothing, work on fixing tags and Google maps is still ongoing. This issues haven't been forgotten and should be repaired sometime over the next couple weeks (though we can certainly pray for sooner).

    We know these 2 bugs are frustrating, so we appreciate everyone hanging in there while we get to the root of the problem.

    All the best,
    - Kallak
  • Abersade
    Abersade
    Posts: 417

    Fantastic!

    GM of Rise of the Durnskald: Wrath of the Fallen Goddess - February 2016 CotM

    GM of Core: The Ashes of Alcarna - April 2020 CotM

    GM of Stream of Kairos

    Need CSS Help? It may be covered here: Abersade's CSS Hub

  • Abersade
    Abersade
    Posts: 417

    Just tried out the Dice Roller and it's great, why no love for d10s in the Advanced Rolls section though?

    GM of Rise of the Durnskald: Wrath of the Fallen Goddess - February 2016 CotM

    GM of Core: The Ashes of Alcarna - April 2020 CotM

    GM of Stream of Kairos

    Need CSS Help? It may be covered here: Abersade's CSS Hub

  • Kallak
    Kallak
    Posts: 1,090

    @Abersade, Thanks for spotting this. Will pass it to the necessary folks straight away.

    All the best,
    - Kallak
  • Keryth987
    Keryth987
    Posts: 1,047

    Playing aorund wiht the carousel and implementing it on Shadows, however, it seems that images from multiple pages (and I have alot) get unchecked form being selected when moving form page to page. I got around this by making one carousel and then a second to steal the code from, but thats cumbersome

    If anyone is curious, what I'm doing wiht it can be seen HERE

  • Keryth987
    Keryth987
    Posts: 1,047

    Anyone using the other new features? I'm looking for ideas how to utilize them as I'm drawing blanks right now

  • Kallak
    Kallak
    Posts: 1,090 edited October 2018

    Here's a few ideas/things I've thought of. I typically use OP to help run my games as well as share them, so a fair amount of my ideas are in that vein:

    Tooltips:

    (a) When putting a character reference into a paragraph or adventure log write-up, make the name a tooltip title rather than a link. Then in the tooltip put the character portrait as a link to the character. Adds a "visual" and retains the usage as a link.

    (b) Store page numbers or rules notes in your GM notes without having them interrupt the flow of the writing/description.

    Random Generators:

    (a) Create a "template" with generators slotted in (think mad libs) to use as a GM resource when running or prepping. Stuff that's handy and reusable, but harder to come up with on the fly. Brief NPC descriptions, book titles in a library, features and colors of a flag/banner, etc..

    (b) Convert your favorite GM table (random encounter, villain plot, tavern name, etc..) into a usable tool in the GM-only areas of your campaign site.

    (c) Create a "template" to generate things to assist or inspire player ideas (family/background details, past events/professions, etc...) for use during character creation or similar.

    Accordion:

    (a) Separate the details/descriptions of the different phases of character creation into distinct parts with an accordion on a character creation page.

    (b) Create a single section accordion to make a collapsible box for notes or other information you want included but not necessarily taking up screen real estate at all times.

    ~~~

    Nothing groundbreaking per se, but just a few ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure we'll see more as time goes on and people experiment more.

    Post edited by Kallak on
    All the best,
    - Kallak
  • JaymesBolton
    JaymesBolton
    Posts: 278 edited October 2018
    @kallaany chance we can get fate dice on the dice roller? Also is there a reason the accordion function does not work on character pages?
    Post edited by JaymesBolton on
  • SkidAce
    SkidAce
    Posts: 830

    Any chance you can turn off the chrome obsidian portal notifications that just started?

  • JaymesBolton
    JaymesBolton
    Posts: 278

    @skidace I think that is a chrome thing. I have been getting it on most websites I visit on chrome now. 

  • SkidAce
    SkidAce
    Posts: 830

    Thanks....will research more thoroughly. 

  • crimsonknave
    crimsonknave
    Posts: 28

    The dice roller currently loses all rolls when I exit it. I'd really love to see those persist and be visible for everyone in the campaign as a history. Related to that, it would be really nice to be able to give a 'reason' for your roll. AKA "rolled a 6 on 'Stealth'" so everyone knows what's going on and can see.

  • Notsonoble
    Notsonoble
    Posts: 8

    So this is old but it's where these features were discussed so I'll put it here. I've noticed lately that the buttons on the side for adding the accordion, carrosel and dice roller have their image right justified, while the old features buttons are centered. It's not the end of the world, but it does bug my ocd a bit, and probably is a little css thing.

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