New story system

Jon Bjarnason  
We are in the process of replacing the story system, which is the living heart of CC, so it's a bit nerve wrecking. You might have seen a preview of this in the last hook weekend but now we are about to roll it out site-wide.
I need some brave volunteers to help me test this. Let me know in the comments if you want to help.

As you might have seen in some of my previous blogs, we've been hard at work converting the old website to the new and shiny one.

In this iteration I am tackling the hardest and most critical aspect of the website. The story and critting process itself. *gulp*

To give you guys a little taste here are some of the highlights of the new changes

Submit story page

  • Rich WYSIWYG text editor, no more fiddling around with tags. Just copy&paste from your editor and you're good to go
  • Include images in your submission (premium)
  • Story is saved automatically as draft so you can finish and submit it later
  • Free pass has been discontinued, you now pay number of credits proportional to the number of slots you are bumping.

Crit page

  • Crit is saved in your browser's local state as well as on the server and therefore you should never lose any work even if you lose all internet connectivity. The crit will simply be uploaded automatically when you connect.
  • Same rich text editor as in the submit story wizard, colors, hundreds of emojies, upload images and all that nice stuff

View story & crit pages

  • More formatting options
  • Better mobile support
  • Better printer support (just select print directly, no special 'printer friendly' page)
  • Mark crit as 'done'
  • Report crit
  • Revise crit after it has been submitted (premium gold)
  • Revise story now allows you to revise using the rich text editor just as when you are submitting the story, no more fiddling around with 'edit paragraphs' and 'freeze inline crits' and all that nonsense (same premium restrictions apply)

View all crits page

  • More intuitive layout
  • Easy select&deselect crits
  • Nice printer friendly view

Grades

  • Grade questions have been deprecated. Now just give 1-5 stars
  • Thank you note and grades have been split up, you don't need to grade to send note and vice versa
  • You can change your given grades. If you make a mistake in grading or simply change your mind just reset the grade and have another go.

Novels

  • Novels have been simplified greatly
  • Revisions and 'chapter containers' have been deprecated. Now just pick a chapter number when you submit a story.
  • Easier to rearrange chapters and include/exclude submissions, no more need to 'disconnect' to keep your novel tidy.
  • There is a little less functionality in the novel system as a consequence of these changes but the decreased complexity is more important.
  • Outlines have been removed and 'glossary' added instead which is more useful in my opinion.
  • All in all, the novel system is much more natural to work with and easier all around in this new iteration and requires no training. When premium members submit chapters there's now no reason not to use this.

There are more changes to come which I am excited to share with you in the near future. Many thanks to Lmdewit for testing and providing feedback.

Now I need more volunteers to test this for me and try to break it in new and interesting ways. Let me know in the comments below if you want to help.

19+ Comments

Xxchlorine

Hey, I can try it out. Though I don’t have premium so my personal experience is heavily limited.

Dec-09 2021

Mommabaird

wouldn’t mind trying it out, keep in mind that I’m onlyi really available every other week. I.e. this week I’m working. will be back off next Wednesday night (I’m at work as I speak)

Dec-09 2021

Jmceachen

Hi! I can try it out. Let me know how I can help.

Dec-09 2021

Ejquinn

Let me know how I can help.
Personally I LOVE THE CONCEPT OF RETAINING FORMATTED TEXT. Some of us write keeping the page graphics in mind as we edit. Like it’s concrete poetry.

Dec-09 2021

Abucsaru

I wouldn’t mind helping out!

Dec-09 2021

Fosterbm

I would definitely be interested in trying it out! I’m pretty close to finishing my next chapter to post in a day or two.

Dec-09 2021

Kairn

Sure, I’ll help! :slight_smile:

Dec-10 2021

Chduffy

I’ll help. I am in here every day! I’d love to see how editing works while a story is still in the public queue.
~Chris

Dec-10 2021

Vkkerji

I’ll share my thoughts when I use the new features! I appreciate your hard work in making CC even more user-friendly!

Dec-10 2021

Nonnib

Thank you all for offering your assistance. I’ve picked out the four most active members to start off with (@Vkkerji, @Chduffy, @Kairn and @Abucsaru) and invited you into a new forum where we can go through the specifics.

Dec-10 2021

Dougp

Sounds considerably simpler, much needed and appreciated. Nice work.

Dec-12 2021

Chalkie

I’d like to help too. I just put some stories up for review and have another one ready to go for Wednesday, if that timeline fits?

Dec-12 2021

Nonnib

Sure, you’re welcome to try it out and give feedback on this thread. When you see a button like this you can try out the new interface.

image

Keep in mind that this is brand new and there are likely to be some issues. Use it at your own risk and please let me know of all issues that you encounter. :slight_smile:

Note that formatting from new stories and crits does not work in the old interface and vice versa.
Therefore if you submit a ‘new-style’ story you should crit it using the new style crit interface. If you crit an old-style story with the new crit interface the formatting that you put in will not be seen in the old style crit interface.
Because of this I would recommend experimenting with the new interface with your crit partners in private queues to start off with.

Dec-12 2021

Kayoakley

I am excited about the new features. I like that it’s becoming more mobile-friendly since I like to critique when I’m not at home. I also like the fact that we can edit critiques and grades.
However, I do like the grading system the way it was before. If I see my grade has dropped, I know exactly what I did wrong, and I can be more mindful of it in the future. A simple 5-star system would make it more difficult for us to know how we can improve.

Dec-12 2021

Nonnib

I’ve started working on some frequently asked questions for the migration. Let me know what questions you have and I’ll add them in.

https://new.critiquecircle.com/faq/7/204

Dec-12 2021

Jimsheasby

Tried this out today. I noticed that when you copy the text from the author, it is highlighted in blue. Then when I change it, I still need to go back and unhighlight it. Why not have the text paste in without highlighting? If it is a direct quote, I will tag it as such.

Dec-13 2021

Nonnib

Fixed, thanks!

Dec-13 2021

Joysworld

I agree with Jimsheasby but as I critiqued using the new story editor, the blue highlights disappeared. I like the new system . It works fine for me. I am waiting for the reply from the person I critiqued to know if she likes the new story editor or not. Thank you Nonnib.

Dec-14 2021

Jimsheasby

The person I sent the crit to on the new system replied that they could not see the critique comments when they wrote the thank you so they were not able to paste in any quotes to comment on.

Also, as you critique, the story no longer has the percentage-read indicator on the top left side of the story.

Dec-14 2021
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