New Fuwanovel Site

Tay · July 9, 2016

New front site is live! Note: logins are restricted to a closed beta, but you can go through the site, now. Please see this blog post: http://fuwanovel.net/2016/07/new-fuwanovel-site/

Feedback Survey

If you have a second, I would really appreciate your feedback on the new site. You can find a quick survey here.

7/10 Updates

Fixed/Addressed:

@Nosebleed - Change the rounded sort-by-release-type section on http://fuwanovel.net/visual-novels-browse/ - Um. No. But thanks. I'd prefer to see you suffer.
@Silvz- "New releases are showing stuff from 2014" - I mentioned this in my post. Right now I've only uploaded a handful of games to see how the site does under load.
@Silvz - Moving twitter up - I'll definitely play around with this over time. Right now the twitter widget isn't working very well, anyway, so I'm going to eventually scope out other options.
@Kenshin_sama - Strange options in the feedback survey - If it was perfectly implemented at-launch, it just wouldn't have that buggy Fuwanovel goodness. ; P
@Silvz - Search bars for custom post types (reviews, VNs, etc.) - Excellent point. Should be coming later today.
@kingdomcome - Fixed with a crappy, temp fix. Thanks!
@Decay - Forums VNTS menu item broken - Fixed!
@Decay - One Small Fire Review is missing - Restored!
@Decay - VNs retain odd information - Yep. Post time is actually useful: it'll be used to mark the game's or patch's release, so that'll stay. Author, however, is something a bit more complicated. It'll either be removed, or it'll be switched to represent the patch or publisher of the game.
@Decay - SonoHana games reviews section oddities - Yep. I've already addressed that in each of the Sono Hana games' description section. It'll be specific to the SonoHana games, and isn't something I expect to do with any other games or series.
@Decay - Game page layout with possible sidebar - I agree with you, and that's been my plan for the games pages: having an integrated sidebar with those bits that runs down the right side of the page, while removing the true sidebars. That's why the individual VN pages' sidebar is empty atm.

In-Progress:

@Amuzie - Request Desktop Site - Hm. You can do this on your phone's browser, but you're looking for a link/button on the site itself to do that, right? That's something I'll need to look into. Right now the site is set up to be responsive by design.
@Decay - Review Header Images Problem - I'll get them all straightened out today. I have to edit some stuff about each review, anyway
@Decay - Limitations of WP games pages vs database - Well-said, and exactly right. A fuller database implementation IS coming, but it's something we're going to need to save up for. I collected a grand total of 22 bids to do the front site coding, and for what we wanted, the bill was going to be between $7000 for a relatively inexperienced coder to $25,000 for a mid-to-top-ish tier developer. (Just going to stop and point out that @Nayleen would absolutely qualify as top-tier, and consistently donates an unbelievable amount of time to help us out. We're very, very lucky to have you, Nay. Thank you for all you do.) I'm scoping out custom coding to get a custom plugin to pull from a custom games DB and feed into a design template we can modify at any time. So that's where we're headed. At some point when things settle down and I can publish an updated site financial report, I'll try and put all of this down on paper. But, yeah, we're saving up for that. This is not the final solution.

7/12 Updates

More Updates:

Back-end permissions are all set up
Email system is up and working. (Well. Probably working.
Updated sidebar game picks and July's Game of the Month
Rough-ish and prob temp fix for front page slider
Some limited updates to VNTL-Moon
Some aesthetic fixes
Went through and fixed all FuwaReviews. If @solidbatman or @Decay want me to re-do a few banners to 16:9s (or so), just let me know which ones. I think the long banners are mostly okay. Some of Ryechu's are ugly, now, but they're part of the nukige series and I didn't feel like looking around for alternatives. The other one I can remember, Decay's Euphoria, actually looks kinda cool. But just let me know.
Updated reviews back-end
Minor emotional breakdown
Figured out the problem with the Twitter section on homepage (Answer: Twitter sucks)
Fixed and updated some podcast issues
Fixed reviews hub display bug on really, really old android devices
Tweaked some settings to improve performance
Sat despondently in a near-empty room, pondering the Academy section
VNTS podcast now has almost 700 downloads! (link)

Next Up:

Import email subscriber lists
Customize and add search options
Take a look at Decay's game page stuff
Set up alternate layout options for custom post types to remove authors (etc.) from game pages and the like

Darklord Rooke · July 9, 2016

The site didn't blow up? You raised my expectations, and now ... I bought new post-apocalyptic clothing and everything to celebrate

We all appreciate the hard work you and Nay have put into this. Looks awesome.

Nosebleed · July 9, 2016

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE FIX THIS MONSTROSITY

Tay · July 9, 2016

Just now, Nosebleed said:

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE FIX THIS MONSTROSITY

Nevah.

But yeah, I will, just not now. I want you people to suffer as I have suffered.

nohman · July 9, 2016

Nice job, it's been a long time coming and I imagine it must feel nice to be entering the final stretch at last. Until the next redesign, at least. :upupu:

12 minutes ago, Tay said:

I want you people to suffer as I have suffered.

The markings of Tay's official face-heel turn?

Silvz · July 9, 2016

I don't know if that is really a problem or just wasn't fixed yet but the section "new releases" is showing stuff from July 2014 instead of 2016, such as Katahane and Sonohana.

I'd also suggest, if possible, to move the Twitter section up, maybe next to "from the fuwazette". However, that is just my opinion, just so people can follow Tweets better.

Good job

SilverLi · July 9, 2016

Posted a lot of suggestions and thoughts in the survey you created. But overall great job Tay and Nayleen (if we got someone in the shadows send our regards). The overall impression is great. A weird satisfaction seeing the new site I can't explain.

I'm proud that we got such a great community with competent and knowledgeable people. A huge THANK YOU to you all contributing your spare time.

Amuzie · July 9, 2016

Don't know whether there's a different version if you're on your phone. If that's the case then the mobile version seems to be lacking the all important "request desktop site" option. And if it's there then I apologize for my blindness.

Kenshin_sama · July 9, 2016

The wording for one of your questions on the last page is a little odd, and the other only has one option. Left some page feedback on the survey. Other than that, great site, Tay! :sachi:

Yuuko · July 9, 2016

4 minutes ago, Kenshin_sama said:

Reveal hidden contents

The wording for one of your questions on the last page is a little odd, and the other only has one option. Left some page feedback on the survey. Other than that, great site, Tay!

Tay likes naming things to "Thing 1" and "Option 1" and "That option 2"

Fiddle · July 9, 2016

26 minutes ago, Kenshin_sama said:

Hide contents

The wording for one of your questions on the last page is a little odd, and the other only has one option. Left some page feedback on the survey. Other than that, great site, Tay!

Well I happen to think the questions are perfectly fine, and there should be even more with this level of statistical insight.

How would you rate the new site?

5 stars out of 10
1 out of 3 stars
Twelve

Which of the following answer choices is your favorite?

The bottom one
The top one

What other comments do you have about the new site?

Yes
No

LiquidShu · July 10, 2016

It seems I may change my homepage to the new front site for the first time in two years :sachi: Good job on the site Tay and Naylean~ Too bad I won't ever get to use the sentence "where's the new front page" to piss off Fuwanovel again.

Silvz · July 10, 2016

also, Tay, I didn't notice this before answering the survey, but there is no "search" bar for Reviews and Browse VNS. Even though I can choose the filters I want, I can't look especifically for a VN name. On reviews, I can only look for "fuwa's team" reviewers, not for member reviews.

Tay · July 10, 2016

38 minutes ago, Silvz said:

also, Tay, I didn't notice this before answering the survey, but there is no "search" bar for Reviews and Browse VNS. Even though I can choose the filters I want, I can't look especifically for a VN name. On reviews, I can only look for "fuwa's team" reviewers, not for member reviews.

Yep. Up next on my list. I'll get that up tomorrow AM. I'd like to wait a bit, first, since we have 504s @Nayleen, if he can find a sec, should look at, first, in the logs. Pretty sure it's an issue with sending email.

kingdomcome · July 10, 2016

Takes me to wordpress login.

Decay · July 10, 2016

Feedback and bug reports, some minor, some bigger, completely unsorted:

Latest VNTS link in the forums leads to a 404'ed page since we redid the categories.
VN reviews now display their featured images in the review like blog articles do. This isn't the same as the old behavior, and some reviews were formatted accounting for no automatic header image, with some overly large featured images and sometimes double images up top. Solution is to either reformat old reviews or remove the featured images from the actual review.
The "One Small Fire at a Time" review draft went missing.
VN entries retain unnecessary data thanks to them technically being other kinds of articles, such as post time and author.
Some VN entries link to reviews of other VNs. This is mainly the Sonohana games as far as I can tell, which all link to the Remembering When We Met review.
The obtainment info, walkthroughs, saves, and FAQ links are too far down the page and require far too much scrolling. These are the things that people will primarily use this site for, as it's stuff that either VNDB doesn't provide or is provided in an easier to understand manner here. Since these are so important, I feel like they should be displayed much more prominently. This is a difficult problem to solve, since aesthetically just slapping it right up top wouldn't look nice, and leading off with basic VN info makes a lot of sense. I do not know what Tay's grand plans for the sidebar is, but I would actually suggest removing the sidebar from the VN pages and using the editor to add another column with this information there. Maybe include sidebar stuff somewhere else, at the top or bottom of the page. If this isn't feasible, then maybe moving this info above the images and videos would be best.

I have mild concerns about the VN stuff being run through wordpress and not being an actual database. This does make it easier to develop initially and I understand with as slow as things have been going for us we can't exactly afford the time or money to stop and develop a whole new database system for this. But still, I can see us being in a situation nine months from now where we want to change one little thing about the way things are done and end up having to edit 500 articles to do it. Like, say, what if we want to change the way the "Where to get" section is formatted at some point? It also just leads to weird little inconsistencies that seem super minor at first glance but ultimately gives off a somewhat amateurish vibe, like how links to patches are given in slightly different ways for a lot of VNs. I guess there's nothing we can do about this considering our current situation. I guess I just wanted to express my slight irritation at this position we're in. Please don't take this as a "this isn't good enough, please fix." I'd take a slightly gimped front site over no front site any day of the week.

Overall, I really like that this gives a central place to find walkthroughs, reviews, patches, etc. That's actually surprisingly convenient and I expect it to be a really useful part of the site. I'll reiterate my pie in the sky idea from another thread. I'd like the ability to tag any thread with the name of any VN on our site, and have that thread show up in a list of "recent discussions" or something similar on that VN's page, to tie together the forums with everything else on the site. This seems theoretically possible, but would likely require an extensive amount of custom coding work, so I expect it to be infeasible.

Tay · July 10, 2016

Feedback Updates (Mirrored in OP)

Fixed/Addressed:

@Nosebleed - Change the rounded sort-by-release-type section on http://fuwanovel.net/visual-novels-browse/ - Um. No. But thanks. I'd prefer to see you suffer.
@Silvz- "New releases are showing stuff from 2014" - I mentioned this in my post. Right now I've only uploaded a handful of games to see how the site does under load.
@Silvz - Moving twitter up - I'll definitely play around with this over time. Right now the twitter widget isn't working very well, anyway, so I'm going to eventually scope out other options.
@Kenshin_sama - Strange options in the feedback survey - If it was perfectly implemented at-launch, it just wouldn't have that buggy Fuwanovel goodness. ; P
@Silvz - Search bars for custom post types (reviews, VNs, etc.) - Excellent point. Should be coming later today.
@kingdomcome - Fixed with a crappy, temp fix. Thanks!
@Decay - Forums VNTS menu item broken - Fixed!
@Decay - One Small Fire Review is missing - Restored!
@Decay - VNs retain odd information - Yep. Post time is actually useful: it'll be used to mark the game's or patch's release, so that'll stay. Author, however, is something a bit more complicated. It'll either be removed, or it'll be switched to represent the patch or publisher of the game.
@Decay - SonoHana games reviews section oddities - Yep. I've already addressed that in each of the Sono Hana games' description section. It'll be specific to the SonoHana games, and isn't something I expect to do with any other games or series.
@Decay - Game page layout with possible sidebar - I agree with you, and that's been my plan for the games pages: having an integrated sidebar with those bits that runs down the right side of the page, while removing the true sidebars. That's why the individual VN pages' sidebar is empty atm.

In-Progress:

@Amuzie - Request Desktop Site - Hm. You can do this on your phone's browser, but you're looking for a link/button on the site itself to do that, right? That's something I'll need to look into. Right now the site is set up to be responsive by design.
@Decay - Review Header Images Problem - I'll get them all straightened out today. I have to edit some stuff about each review, anyway
@Decay - Limitations of WP games pages vs database - Well-said, and exactly right. A fuller database implementation IS coming, but it's something we're going to need to save up for. I collected a grand total of 22 bids to do the front site coding, and for what we wanted, the bill was going to be between $7000 for a relatively inexperienced coder to $25,000 for a mid-to-top-ish tier developer. (Just going to stop and point out that @Nayleen would absolutely qualify as top-tier, and consistently donates an unbelievable amount of time to help us out. We're very, very lucky to have you, Nay. Thank you for all you do.) I'm scoping out custom coding to get a custom plugin to pull from a custom games DB and feed into a design template we can modify at any time. So that's where we're headed. At some point when things settle down and I can publish an updated site financial report, I'll try and put all of this down on paper. But, yeah, we're saving up for that. This is not the final solution.

Arcadeotic · July 10, 2016

Well, that was poorly worded

What I meant is when are the banners submitted to this thread implemented?

Edited July 11, 2016 by Arcadeotic

DarkZedge · July 10, 2016

As I've told you before I quite like the new look of the site :sachi: and it's even better since we didn't all explode in the upgrade process :sacchan:

Decay · July 10, 2016

Other things that I was going to put on that list but forgot about:

The filter selection boxes seem broken in Chrome, they only stay open for as long as you hold down the left mouse button on them.
The VN section needs a search function. Once the VN count starts reaching the hundreds, finding a specific VN you want needs to still be easy.

Kaoru · July 11, 2016

Everything is in alphabetical order now! I'm so happy about that now! :mare:

I'll give my input....

Linux needs to be added to the 'Platforms' category. (I'm aware that not many VNs are available on Linux, but I think it'd be best to cover all bases.)
M > M needs to be added for the female audience under 'Relationship Type'. (Not valid, as I read the 'Updates' and saw that it will be added.)
Alphabetical order should be applied to the results of the filters. (Not an issue, but something I thought I'd address.)

Suggestions....

Nothing to suggest at this time.

solidbatman · July 11, 2016

I'll be going through into more detail tomorrow since I'll have time to look into it finally (fuck everything about ancient Greek plays I am so damn sick of reading them).

My main complaint is the about section. Why in gods name did you choose Little Busters! images. I want no part of this community anymore if we chose that monstrosity to represent us.

In all seriousness, I like the direction. Again, more detailed observations and feedback tomorrow.

Mr Poltroon · July 11, 2016

4 hours ago, solidbatman said:

My main complaint is the about section. Why in gods name did you choose Little Busters! images. I want no part of this community anymore if we chose that monstrosity to represent us.

Tay, you've got a great opportunity here. Don't miss it.

Aside from that, I'll be filling out the survey in a few days, when I get to properly sit down in front of a computer.

Tay · July 11, 2016

21 hours ago, KaoDoroSesu said:

Everything is in alphabetical order now! I'm so happy about that now!

I'll give my input....

Linux needs to be added to the 'Platforms' category. (I'm aware that not many VNs are available on Linux, but I think it'd be best to cover all bases.)

M > M needs to be added for the female audience under 'Relationship Type'. (Not valid, as I read the 'Updates' and saw that it will be added.)

Alphabetical order should be applied to the results of the filters. (Not an issue, but something I thought I'd address.)

Suggestions....

Nothing to suggest at this time.

Just FYI: All the relationship types will be represented, I just haven't uploaded games that feature M > M, yet. (But they'll be there!)

DarkForestCrow · July 12, 2016

Pretty nice design. Minimalistic, fast, good-looking.

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