ABCtales Redesign

We have been talking about doing a few aesthetic changes for some time, and with some help from our IT team we are proud to announce the launch of a new face for ABC.

The majority of the changes should be in place by the end of the day on November 28th, and some things may be missing in the interim - but we'll have everything back in place by then. The site may also be down for a few hours while changes are being made. If things are missing or out of place, or you just feel lost on Friday, don't hesitate to get in touch via the contact form below.

Most of the changes are superficial, and are designed to make the site simpler and easier to use. But there are also a few new features for you all to explore:

On the home page we will now be featuring our picks of the day and picks of the week, so you can always stay abreast of the latest, best content on ABC;

You will now be able to upload pictures to go with your stories and poems (we even have a few stock images to choose from - if you have suggestions for these send them along!);

You can now search through stories based on awards;

There is now a button that will allow you to single out great criticism on poems and stories - every user can single out two comments a day as 'great feedback' to reward those users who take the time to deeply read work and give meaningful feedback. They're the people who make ABC a great environment for writers and we want to single out the work that they do.

If you have any comments, suggestions or queries about the changes - things you like or don't like, things about the old site you'd like brought back, or ideas for what else we might do to improve the site further - please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via at luke@abctales.com

All the best,
Luke Neima and the ABCtales Team

Comments

Looking good but unable to see new entries. It comes up as error: EntityMalformedException: Missing bundle property on entity of type taxonomy_term. in entity_extract_ids() (line 7697 of /var/www/product_drupal_7_trunk/includes/common.inc).

 

frown  I can't read new entries as Luigi has mentioned above.  Blighters and Florian both have new pieces up but I can't open them.

It would be better if all of ones stories appear on ones  account page by default, that I think is fairly crucial.

 

These are all important problems and urgent issues - thanks for pointing them out. We're hard at work fixing everything. The next couple of days will no doubt be bumpy but everything should be in order by the weekend. 

Please keep posting your comments and problems here, as you notice things, and we'll do our best to get to them all as soon as possible.

I have already posted this as a reply to a comment in the Forum but maybe it should be looked at as part of the redesign.

Quote:

There seems to be inconsistencies regarding Story and Poem of the week. Whereas Denzella's story shows red cherries plus a starred blue book, the current choices have golden cherries + books.

My own poems of the week, dating back to 2006 and 2007, show the starred green book but no cherries of any colour.

 

Hey Luigi,

All your stories and poems of the week going back to 2000 should have cherries shortly.

Gold cherries are for picks of the day, while red cherries are regular editor picks - so there may be some differences here. For the past little while, I have been awarding poem and stories of the week picks of the day (as they count for Friday and the weekend). But I think we may change that going forward, and keep pick of the day separate from poem / story of the week (except for those that will, inevitably, be chosen for both!)

Don't you worry, Ben - we're all over twitter: @ABC_Tales. Now following you!

Apart from the fact that the background's a bit too flesh-coloured, and the text could be darker and clearer (I'm blind as a bat), I really like it. Clean, modern and with good new features. Well, done Luke and team. I might even horrify you by posting some of my work (again) :)

Another thing I might suggest, is a short explanation next to the certificates. I don't know about our US and Canadian friends, but I had to look up Certificate U and PG as I didn't know what they meant (assume they're exclusive to the UK). 

Also, it it not possible to preview work before you upload it?

 

Good point - and one that Luke and I discussed yesterday so great minds think alike. I'm really pleased with the re-design - although I take the point about the text being a little light and would want to see it bolder.

Otherwise, a great job all round in my opinion, once the inevitable glitches are fixed. The problem with glitches is that they never show up until you go 'live'. Ho Hum.

xx to all,

Tony

Hi there, I've only just checked out the new look site and really, really like it! Well done to everyone who's been involved in its redesign - it looks so sleek but homely (if that's possible?).

I hope more users check it out, that it grows in popularity, and I'll be sure to let you know if I notice any glitches other than the ones mentioned above!

A brilliant job, guys.

Y.

 

I don't seem to be able to use the preview option after writing a story, whether published or unpublished.

This function works on comments.

 

Thanks for the brilliant feedback, all.

We'll try to get the preview page working as soon as possible, it's a useful thing and shouldn't take long to reinstate.

The contrasts and colours definitely need tweaking - we'll be trying to get the balance right over the next few days. The most important thing is that it's easy to read on the site!

Thanks for mentioning the certificates, Andrea. In North America we have similar things, G instead of U but we both use PG. They may be worth spelling out.

Ben - the idea of a mobile / tablet app is already in the works. The basic idea now is to do a monthly digital magazine, including work from the site as well as a few features. I like your idea about offline reading - that's certainly something we'll try to integrate. 

If you have any more dev ideas, don't hesitate to open a thread in the forum - or you can always write directly to me.

Thanks again for all of your comments - we'll work on addressing them all as soon as possible.

One more observation on items that may require attention: the 'Competions' link on the 'read' list does not pick up the 'Competion entries' and results in a blank page. 

 

I have come across a new idiosyncracy, the title of my latest  is split over two lines like this                              A

Good Sport.

Also I can preview a story after editing it but not when new.