forum Quick heads up: everyone's migrating to a new categories/fields system

Started September 04, 2018 by @andrew health_and_safety flash_onAdmin

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I'll write something more in depth about what all is new tomorrow (as it's almost 5AM now), but I just wanted to give a quick heads up that the site might be temporarily slow at times today while everyone is migrated over to the new fields system. It's still a V1 and very much a platform to add new features onto, but I wanted to get it out so people can start using it immediately and I'll continue to improve it over time.

Some notable features:

• You can now hide entire categories (even default ones like Overview or Looks) on pages
• You can now delete, hide, or add fields to any category (even default ones)
• You can now customize the icon used on page categories to any of over 300 icons :)

Check it out with the big customize button after clicking Characters, Locations, Items, etc in the sidebar – it'll whisk you off to a new page for you to customize every page of that type at once.

Please let me know if you see any issues! Good night!

Yay! This is so exciting. :D I can’t wait to try it all out!

same

For when you're well-rested: I've noticed that nearly every category is deletable, including most of the default ones. I haven't tried it (don't want to lose important default data) but I'm wondering if it might be better to have the default categories able to be hidden but not deleted (or possibly a 'reset to default' button)? Just so no-one has to remake the page template from scratch after realising their customised version isn't what they wanted.

EDIT: Another strange thing I've noticed is that the categories within a tab have been flipped in order. (So, in the Overview tab, instead of being Name, Role, Other Names, Gender, Age, etc., the first field is now Age, with Name at the very end of the Overview tab.)

EDIT: There doesn't appear to be a way to delete any custom tabs that have been created. (There may be one and I've just missed it, but I can't work out how to do it.) Will custom tabs/categories/fields be able to be renamed?

Thanks for the detailed heads up @Riorlyne – I'll look into those issues now! :)

Edit: One thing of note is that the custom categories still delete themselves after you've deleted all the fields in them, but I'll definitely add an easier button to delete the category (and all its fields) at once.

Thank you so much for this update! It'll definitely make notebook a lot easier to use and more convenient for me)!
I noticed two things that you could add to improve usability further (if you wanted to):
(or these features already exist and I just can't find them because I'm technologically challenged)
(EDIT: So I've decided to add examples to both of these because even I got confused reading over them)

• Being able to organise the order of custom fields within a tab.
  [For example, I added an "Illnesses" tab to the character pages some months ago, but I added the fields as I came up with them and they're in an extremely illogical and un-intuitive order now (such as: the name of the illness is the second-to-last thing I see as I scroll down). I haven't found a way to re-shuffle these fields without deleting them and creating them in the order I want them in, which would mean that I lose the information I've already entered]
• Being able to customize the fields/tabs/categories for each individual page as opposed to all pages of that type.
  [I'm not sure if this is actually plausible, or if this is already a thing and I just can't find it, but it would be really cool to tailor a page exactly to an individual's needs. For example, it'd be awesome to be able to add "relationship with Steve" to a character page without having "relationship with Steve" show up as a tab for every character I create for ever and ever Amen (because not all of my characters are going to know a person named Steve and if they did it probably wouldn't be important).]

I apologise that this is so long and that it sounds so demanding and whiny, because I do really love what you've done so far and I'm very grateful! Thanks for all you do!

Edit: One thing of note is that the custom categories still delete themselves after you've deleted all the fields in them, but I'll definitely add an easier button to delete the category (and all its fields) at once.

I had a few categories that had no fields in them listed on my character settings screen, and there was no way to delete them from the setting screen or from the character edit screen (screenshots attached), but when I added a field to them and then deleted that field from the character edit screen, the category was deleted. The easier button will be a lot easier! Thanks for looking at that.

In further updates (whenever you get the essential stuff done, of course!) will renaming one's custom categories/fields be an option?

Thanks, guys! I appreciate the detailed bug reports! Working through them as fast as I can.

Another strange thing I've noticed is that the categories within a tab have been flipped in order.

Just pushed out a quick fix for field ordering that ensures that name fields and universe fields always come first; the other fields are still somewhat out of order, but I plan on adding the ability for anyone to reorder fields (as well as categories) pretty quickly. Ensuring name and universe come first (as they're pretty important and don't really make sense at the end of the form) should be a nice stepping stone toward that.

I'm wondering if it might be better to have the default categories able to be hidden but not deleted (or possibly a 'reset to default' button)?

A "reset to default" button is exactly what I have planned! The code to do so already exists in the back-end, but I need to hook it up to that page so people can do it at will (and figure out some weird edge-cases with it around how to handle custom fields, what to do with answers on existing fields, etc). Soon. :)

Being able to customize the fields/tabs/categories for each individual page as opposed to all pages of that type.

This is something that's been requested a few times that I need to think through more of how to actually implement it, but I'm definitely for this idea as long as I can make it clear what's happening in the UI (so people aren't confused some fields are on some pages and not on others). Definitely on me though, so I'll see what I can do.

In further updates (whenever you get the essential stuff done, of course!) will renaming one's custom categories/fields be an option?

Yep! Reordering and editing are next on the list – not just for your custom fields, but for all the default fields as well. The new system effectively treats default and custom fields the same (with the exception of name, universe, and linking fields), which makes adding this kind of functionality a lot easier without having to add a bunch of logic saying "if this was a default, do this, otherwise do that". More customization is always better in my book, as long as there are some safeguards in place (like a "reset to defaults" button). I want to make sure everyone can customize their pages exactly to their wants and specifications – even the default fields (which, I guess, can be viewed more like "suggested" fields now). :)

It's great to hear that all this stuff is in the pipeline! :D

Yep! Reordering and editing are next on the list – not just for your custom fields, but for all the default fields as well. The new system effectively treats default and custom fields the same (with the exception of name, universe, and linking fields), which makes adding this kind of functionality a lot easier without having to add a bunch of logic saying "if this was a default, do this, otherwise do that". More customization is always better in my book, as long as there are some safeguards in place (like a "reset to defaults" button). I want to make sure everyone can customize their pages exactly to their wants and specifications – even the default fields (which, I guess, can be viewed more like "suggested" fields now). :)

In terms of 'linking' fields, will there be the possibility to add those? (For example, a 'Boss' field in a new category, 'Employment', that allows the user to link to an existing character.)

Also, this idea just occurred to me - would it be possible to share a customised template? (Maybe as a Premium feature especially if it's a huge amount of work for you.) It would probably work better with the individually-customised pages that ninja was suggesting, but could work for all. Say a user goes to a lot of effort customising a character template that has a lot of new fields and categories that others think are really useful - instead of others copying over each field into their own character template manually, it would be handy to have some sort of code whereby one could 'import' another user's template (perhaps only if that user has allowed their template to be shared) and tweak it from there. And the 'reset' button you're planning would just change the template back to the default.

I realise this would probably be a lot of work, but it's something I can see users using, especially with customisation to the Nth degree on its way!

Ensuring name and universe come first (as they're pretty important and don't really make sense at the end of the form) should be a nice stepping stone toward that.

@andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer) - Would it be possible to have whichever field it is that appears in smaller text in the header to come 'first' (i.e., second or third) as well? In the character template it's the 'Role' field, and on other pages it's the 'Description' field. Because that bit of text shows up in other places (like when viewing all pages of a certain type), I think it's another one that's important to have right at the start.

I'm with @Riorlyne with being able to link in fields or change the pages that are already linked when customizing stuff. Hope this is something that will be looked into.

In terms of 'linking' fields, will there be the possibility to add those?

Yes! Linking fields were excluded from this initial release since they're a bit difficult as they are and I'm trying to figure out how best to implement them in the new system. The original plan was to let people create linking fields and select what kind of page it links to (as well as edit existing linking fields), but I'm now looking at the idea of letting any field link to any page, regardless of whether it's a text or link field (in other words, have a button you can use to link any page of any type you want in addition to any other text you want to write). Surprisingly, that'd probably be a bit easier to code as well. I'm working on a solution now that I think will work out soon (either this week or early next).

@SmoothGardener I haven't forgotten about the deity link on magic – I'm hoping to get custom links working in the new system and add it from there instead of doing it now and doing it again when the custom links are migrated. Sorry about the delay!

Also, this idea just occurred to me - would it be possible to share a customised template? (Maybe as a Premium feature especially if it's a huge amount of work for you.) It would probably work better with the individually-customised pages that ninja was suggesting, but could work for all. Say a user goes to a lot of effort customising a character template that has a lot of new fields and categories that others think are really useful - instead of others copying over each field into their own character template manually, it would be handy to have some sort of code whereby one could 'import' another user's template (perhaps only if that user has allowed their template to be shared) and tweak it from there.

Yes, yes, yes! I think you'll be excited by the grand vision of this page explained in the blog post (probably tonight or tomorrow). :)

Yes, yes, yes! I think you'll be excited by the grand vision of this page explained in the blog post (probably tonight or tomorrow). :)

I know I'll be excited! :D I'll be on the lookout for it for sure!

Hi! Thanks for all of the exciting updates! I was wondering if I would be possible to add some sorting components to the Universe category? I love that you can isolate that you look at to a single universe, but I'm wondering if you could to that to a smaller group within the universe. So for example lets say I have 26 total characters, but I only want to look at the 18 that belong to one universe, but then I only want to look at the 6 major characters in my first book. Would it be possible to nest a group within the universes? And also is there a way to customize the settings for order of characters, like instead of alphabetically by first name, alphabetically by last name (so that family members can be close together?)

Great updates! However, the suggestions have disappeared and I miss them a bit.

@A Name With No Girl - smart suggestions will be coming back! To quote andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer),

… since we just moved over to a new fields system, suggestions are temporarily disabled until it can be rewritten with the new system in mind. I plan on re-enabling it and expanding to a second type of page soon.

@Riorlyne - Oh, I've missed this one. Thanks :)
I would like to mention that as someone who isn't the best in English, they've helped me a lot, so I can't wait for them to come back.

Looking forward to all the new changes. Thanks for all your hard work!