Just took a very large step toward completing work on “My Worlds”

The backend utilities to update the Characters database are officially complete 🙂  This represented the biggest challenge and the most code in the whole of the “My Worlds” section.  Everything from here out – from a coding standpoint – is simplicity.

Of course, I still need to go through and enter at least a decent number of characters for launch ( Only have five in there for now, and most of their listings are incomplete placeholders for testing purposes )

What’s left before launching the new section:

Add plenty of characters to the database.

Fix a decent number of maps and get them in the database.

Finish coding front-end display for “Danica Info”

Code back-end utilities for “Danica Info”

Update old docs, create a few new ones, and get them in the database.

Design the “Misc.” page front-end display.

Code back-end utilities for “Misc.”

Load the database for the miscellaneous stuff.

Going to take a little break, relax, and enjoy the accomplishment for a few mintues, and then see about finishing that third Devan story for the Shorts page.

I’ve written 3k words on the final episode of the Devan trilogy for the web shorts page today.  That’s somewhere in the vicinity of the 3/4 done range, I believe.  It’s possible this one may run longer once I’m into the main thrust ( pun intended ) of the short tale.

I also did some work on the characters page for “My Worlds” today.  I removed my default hard code for the dropdown menus, and the page now generates those from the database properly.  I created a couple of “no headshot” images, and added a male character in order to test some things that are different between the sexes.

I also decided that since there are so few characters who are going to have a lot of images ( beyond those present on the webpages and covers already ) that I was going to remove the “image gallery” links.  You might not even know about this if you haven’t checked out the previews on the forum.

Instead, I’m going to move the “appeared in” listing over there below the headshot of the character, and make all the links clickable to the appropriate story within the “My Work” database.  I coded all this out today and tested it.

The next step for that page is to begin coding my backend utilities so I can add data without doing it raw from the sql database, and so I can test the utilities themselves.  Most of this will be common coding I’ve done before.  I am going to delve into a bit of new territory with the “appears in” listing, though.  I’m going to read the story database and pull up a full listing of stories that I can somehow mark.

In most cases where I’ve used a list like this, I’ve been a bit lazy and used a method that’s quicker to program, but a bit more difficult to update.  That’s because in most places such a list is used, I won’t have to update it very often, or in very many places.  With characters, there’s the possibility that I may have to update a lot of characters every time I post a new story, so I’ll want to expend the effort up front this time.

If you haven’t checked out the previews thread on the forum, I’ll mention that I’ve also finished the coding for the “Maps” section and roughed out the “Danica Info” page as well.  What I’m working on right now with characters is the biggest part of getting “My Worlds” online, and finally having all those links on the front page active.

I just ate ( probably too much ) not too long ago, and that’s making me too drowsy to write at the moment.  If the young one doesn’t take a nap, I’ll probably look into editing some of the old maps to make the text more readable, since that’s something that requires a completely different kind of concentration that won’t cause me to nod off while I’m doing it.

The time spent updating covers may have seemed like a waste to a lot of people, but it’s this — the feeling of accomplishment and forward momentum that comes with it — that I was hoping for.  My muse needs prompting to get off her pretty little ass, and this seemed to work this time.

Maybe more later, either in a new post, or added to this one.