Category Archives: Website

Woot!

*laugh*

Figured out how to get around the login/logout issue. Just need to use a logout “warning” page. Makes sense to have one anyhow, to alert people that they’ll lose their image filters if they logout.

I’m also going to edit the news blurb display to link to the main page of the blog here instead of the permalink. I looked at it for a few seconds, and I could have done it at any time.

Been too long since I coded.

Probably won’t get the computer power-down, clean-out, and transfer done today, although I really need to because my mouse is shot, and it’s really annoying. The left-click sticks. I’ve got a new mouse but I just haven’t installed the sucker yet.

But with that annoying logout problem finally stomped flat, I’ve accomplished something that’s been vexing me ever since I started working on the website. So, I’m going to relax for a little bit ( Hey, it’s only the first day of my vacation. Give me a break ) and then look into adding that other antagonist scene into the existing but unpublished chapters of SOTM.

After that, I’ll decide whether to forge ahead with Ch. 16 ( already in progress ) or work on Lowborn for a bit.

That is, unless one of my other story ideas hits me hard. I’m not going to argue with my muse much at this point. Don’t think that would be prudent at this juncture.

Figured something out

I was messing around and researching a little today, and I think I’ve discovered the problem I was having with adding the login to the pages to track image filtering settings.

The page I was testing on had the wordpress blurbs at the bottom that you see on the index and the homepage preview. While login worked perfectly well, logout always failed and gave an error on the forum.

I finally realized that it was a database conflict, because wordpress and the forum have thier own databases. A little more research has turned up potential variable conflicts between the forum and wordpress, meaning that even if I resolve the database issue, I still may not be able to integrate the WordPress blurbs and the forum login on the same page.

What I’m thinking about doing is hunting around for a plugin that I’ve seen which will send wordpress posts to the forum software that I’m using. If I can find that functionality, then I can probably use the forum functionality to grab those copies of my news posts from the forum for display, and simply put a blog link in there instead of the permalink to the actual news post.

Truthfully, I don’t like the way it is now anyhow. It goes to the current post on the blurb, and not to the “top” of the blog. That’s one of the reasons I hacked in the “Blog Home” link at the top of WordPress. If I have a top link to the home of the blog, it will take you to the page with the most recent posts, instead of only the last post I’ve made.

That’s something to work on next week. If that works, then I’ll probably utilize the forum database to store all of my information for the website. The names I always end up using for things are so ate-up that the odds of a conflict are almost nonexistant. I use utterly non-conventional names for damn near everything. They’re perfectly logical to me, but nobody else would ever think of them *laugh*

Never once in the several years of forum modification programming that I engaged in did the very first table name that popped in my head conflict with any other. Likewise, adding a new field to an existing table never proved an issued.

On that same note, I’ve never had a random series of numbers after my user name on anything since I started using the internet. My mind simply doesn’t work like anyone else’s, and my default names are never taken, no matter where I go.

I don’t like the method I was going to use to store the settings for image filtering, simply because of the way the modification I installed to the forum handles dropdown settings. First, it stores them in the dumbest table I’ve ever seen, and stores them in text format. All I need is a simple 0-3 setting, and it’s storing a buttload of worthless text for every user.

I’ll be using my own table for user settings for the website. In time, I may become familiar enough with the forum software to integrate them in the member CP as well. It looks like the forum software is about to undergo a major upgrade to a new version, though. Experience tells me to not waste my time learning anything about the software when a completely new version is close to beta testing. As soon as I get everything figured out, the whole kit-n-kaboodle will have changed with the new software.

So, it’s likely that website settings will be separate from forum settings for a while after I get the website up into functionality. They will share a login, however. If you’re logged in to the website, you’ll be logged in to the forum. The website settings simply won’t be available from the forum until I’ve decided that the version of the forum software is stable and unlikely to undergo major changes in the near future.

I’m not really worried about having a different login for wordpress at this point. Once the forum is up, most people will probably comment there, anyway. It will give much more functionality than the blog for commenting.

WordPress will stay as my main news page, though. I spent too much damn time archiving all those ancient “what’s new” pages into this, and I ain’t bloody well doing that again. Trying to move all of them to the forum simply wouldn’t be logical, because WordPress displays them in a much cleaner fashion than a forum section would.

I’ll probably figure out a way to make the “News” section I’m using to post blurbs on the main site invisible from the forum, actually. It would be redundant.

In case nobody’s noticed, I tend to ramble. Half the time when I’m coding, I type up stuff like this just to remind me of what I was planning rather than making a notes file. If I don’t need specific information that could jeopardize security, it just makes it easier for me to find on a blog or an updates thread or whatever *laugh*

Finally got something done

Finally got around to creating the “preview pages” page to link all the stuff I’ll present as I work on the new site. This leaves that section of the index page open to also potentially link new stories when I release them.

:: Crosses Fingers ::

There’s nothing new as far as previews, but all the previews will be linked from that one page from now on.

I have more images on hand for new pages — courtesy of RejectReality. Just need to make new pages to use them on *laugh*

I’ve also opened up both Lowborn and Sisters of the Mists in recent days, reading back through existing chapters in preparation to work on them again.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that I’m going to have to edit the last couple of published chapters of SOTM to get the story rolling correctly again. I just haven’t shown enough of the “bad guys” part of the plot. That needs to be in there, and I don’t think I can put it in the unpublished chapters completely and keep the flow smooth.

I could be wrong, though. It’ll be up to when I really knuckle down to determine that.

Likewise, I have some ideas floating around for Les Lumens stories. I really need to be thinking about the next story in the “Of the Wood” series, since I’ve put one of those out for every Earth Day, even when I was barely writing at all. I’d like to keep that tradition up.

We’ll see how my motivation goes today. I might just get some more done on the website. Writing isn’t likely today. I think it best if I not try that until I’m on vacation and I have the whole house to myself with no distractions. Once I’m rolling, I might just be able to keep the momentum up.

Speaking of vacation: I’m going to power down the computer and do some maintainence ( blowing out the dust, new power strip, etc. ) and that will be the perfect opportunity to also boot up the old computer to transfer over my programming stuff from it. That’s what I really need to get the site updates rolling.

At this point, I need to start creating the databases that will let me add information to the website from an admin panel. For that, I need all my old programming stuff to refresh my memory. I’ll do a few tests — and perhaps previews — using dummy information entered into the new database manually, and then start coding the admin panel to actually enter stuff into the database to use.

Plugging Away

Have the reorganization and transitions complete in Barren Harvest. Just a matter of moving forward from where I left off now.

There will probably be a new preview page up soon, and I’m going to create a preview selection page to link from the main page, in order to keep all the previews organized.

The new page that will be going up will be the one that displays the cover images for my stories. It’s going to be dynamic, with one page handling displaying all the covers whether they’re pop-up links from my story listings or viewing via the new cover browser.

There will be a link to the cover browser somewhere when I finish deciding the navigation of the site. You’ll also be able to get to it from any cover image that you click to view. I’m probably going to have a slideshow option for this as well.

The main reason I’m working on this is that it’s getting me back into dynamic coding. Most of what I’ve done so far has been primarily static with a little php tossed in. This page will be entirely generated by php depending upon the information passed to it from the last click.

The preview is going to use hard-coded data, but the final will actually read from the database to get the data for each cover image.

Just the next step into making the whole website more dynamic. I’m taking it one step at a time, because it’s been forever and a day since I wrote any code.

Back to writing on Barren Harest.

Barren Harvest Update

Finally finished reorganizing Barren Harvest. Even though the Harvest Festival is primarily Halloween, I guess there are elements of Thanksgiving in there as well. Still, it should have come out before Halloween :p

I cut out the dramatic scene and finished the transition, which will add another new scene to the story. I’m going to read back through and adjust what came after the scene I cut, and then proceed from there.

Feel like writing today, so here’s hoping that nothing gets in the way.

I’m going to update the blog in a minute, so I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t mess up my theme/widgets or anything.

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