New Lit Control Panel Testers - Info, Updates, Reports & More

Not so good to post a story

It is a real disadvantage not to be able to see how many Lit pages your story is going to post at. Yeah, I know that any story posts at roughly 3500 words per Lit screen, but the old system let me know exactly. Also, I'm a bit peeved that I can't edit on view submission.
The actual statistics shown are great, but are very hard to read even on a 20 inch monitor, and I dislike the approximations. I suppose I could adapt to them better if I had 1.85 million readers, but I don't, and very few of us do.
Otherwise, after a bit of fooling around to see how the new system works, it will do. I must admit that I can't agree with the idea that the new control panel looks better. It looks grey. I can't imagine how it will work for a new story, when ninety-five per cent of whatever reaction you will ever get comes in the first couple of days. That I'll see, I suppose.
GT

********** Required

I only use Tor Browser, which does not allow **********.

As ********** is required to log in to the submissions area, I can no longer do this.

We've been using the new control panel exclusively for the past few weeks.

The https://www.literotica.com/my/#/works/stories/published is the main one we use. Having the votes as a raw number is great. Having to hover over the views to see the number is REALLY annoying.

On the https://www.literotica.com/my/#/activity/all page it would be nice to have the old functionality of the unfavorite / stopped following.

The fonts on the scores are definitely too small.

For the story submission preview, there is still no indication of the story length in pages.

-MM

I'd like to see different colors for what's happening under Works Activity. Maybe a red heart for when someone favorites your story and then a green, blue, orange (any color) for when someone leaves a comment. Clueing on the shape difference isn't quite as easy.

Seriously Manu, I still want to see the actual # of views. Not mouse over to see them. I track my views and right now that's a copy and paste into an excel spreadsheet. With the new layout there's no way I can copy. I have to write it down and do you have any idea what a pain in the ass that is.

Also, I'll say this again. When I put a new story up I like to check quite a few times a day to see how it's going over that first week. It's a Pavlov's doggy thing - I write for readers and readers views are my food. I can't mouseover on my phone so I can't see the views incrementing. I think a lot of us are like that and really, I want that back. I don't want a summary that I have to mouseover to see and then key in.

Please just give us the total views back.

Also
(1) Story titles too big
(2) Stats too small

I'm not going to bother commenting on this again. Right now, kinda sucky. It's one of those "please fix it" things.

On the "Help" page from the new menu, when you get there the entire right half of the page is that literotica.com "Contact Us" graphic. Why not change that? It's kinda meaningless and really, there isn't a "contact us" function anywhere on the page. It'd be better if it was some kind of "Literotica.com" graphic without the erroneous contact me text.

Followers / Following Page
- list 10 per page is kind of meaningless and again, all that wasted space. Just make it one line per follower, reduce the size of the text for the user name and make it some useful # of followers per page, like 100 users or something. THAT would be a bit more useful altho for some writers it would still be an impossible number of pages. Also make it sortable, like newest to oldest or something like that.

Reading List
- Same issue. Takes up too much space. Current reading list is usable, this one again has way too much white space, story titles way too large

ChloeTzang said:

Seriously Manu, I still want to see the actual # of views. Not mouse over to see them. I track my views and right now that's a copy and paste into an excel spreadsheet.

Click to expand...

Can't agree with this more. We want the raw unmodified statistics viewable.

What is the use of this image https://www.literotica.com/my/assets/images/published.png?
It is on the published page, https://www.literotica.com/my/#/works/stories/published.
It isn't needed for each story there and takes a bunch of space where numbers could be displayed.

-MM

ChloeTzang said:

Also
(1) Story titles too big
(2) Stats too small

Click to expand...

Said that before, several times, hard to scan a page when font takes up too much real estate.
Whatever you do, please continue to support the old favorites page as it is 1000% easier to use - mainly because I can see it all at a glance and not waste time paging backwards and forwards.
I mainly use favorites for series management, and at least one author has begged readers not to do this as it buggers up his statistics so I know I'm not alone in this, the sort is useful when I am checking for multiple episodes to purge out earlier ones.
I already follow far too many authors (actually I think some of them are dead) so I'd rather follow a series and be notified of new episodes rather than be notified of stories by favorited authors. That way I can use favoriting more judiciously.
Whatever you do, do not led this design aesthetic infect the main site because it will become unusable. I have already abandoned other favorite sites because they have adopted 'mobile design guidelines' which have never been properly validated.
So, priorities
Smaller title fonts. 10pt max please, Series management, maybe sort author submissions page, but not if the result looks as naff as the new control panel.
Let readers see the number of pages before they start reading and the submission date and summary at the top of the first page - it's in the Html, so show it.
Thank you

ChloeTzang said:

Seriously Manu, I still want to see the actual # of views. Not mouse over to see them. I track my views and right now that's a copy and paste into an excel spreadsheet. With the new layout there's no way I can copy. I have to write it down and do you have any idea what a pain in the ass that is.

Also, I'll say this again. When I put a new story up I like to check quite a few times a day to see how it's going over that first week. It's a Pavlov's doggy thing - I write for readers and readers views are my food. I can't mouseover on my phone so I can't see the views incrementing. I think a lot of us are like that and really, I want that back. I don't want a summary that I have to mouseover to see and then key in.

Please just give us the total views back.

Click to expand...

This.

I also obsess over stats when I post a new story, as well as put everything into a spreadsheet. Compared to the 'classic' stats page, it's cumbersome if not impossible depending on the viewing platform.

Also, I'm old. I like bigger text, especially on my cellphone that always wants to put everything into a size six font. Is it possible to have a preference setting so we can set our own size? Some want a max font of 10, but I wouldn't mind the choise of 16 for when my eyes are tired at the end of the day.

Thanks for your work on this!

Also, I do like the layout of the new page. It's groupings (following/followed, etc) are nice, and the new features exposed are some things I've wanted to see for a while. I also like the rounded count for views when I'm not in the mood for geeking out over stats and only want a quick view of what each story has.

However... The classic page for overall stats, nicely grouped in tables, is what many of us use for obsessing. It's making most of the same DB queries that the new UI has, but it doesn't look like the classic page needs much time spent on updates. Is it possible that if you do move the main profile area to the NewUI, that you could leave the ClassicUI stats page in place?

With all of the rukus about font sizes, colors, results per page, page counts, etc, a profile setting for each should make most people happy with the views they can customize. We all know you can't make everyone 100% happy 100% of the time, but we can surely compromise if you can.

Thanks

unknown Beta

I like it...didn't know it was in test mode, but it makes profile editing super easy..and the design is sleek. now if the Lit gurus could only fix my ignore button...

Hi I would like to report a malicious message but don't know how to. Can you p,ease advise me?
Thanks Suzie x x

Notifications

Is it by accident or design that the notifications bit of My Home Latest Activity All Activity has stopped working today? Please, that bit was extraordinately useful.

i concur...

The "All Activity" page now appears as if there is no known content - and pretends that I am not following any authors (when I was following plenty of them yesterday). so something, either database-side or website software-side is out of synch here.

ag2507 said:

Is it by accident or design that the notifications bit of My Home Latest Activity All Activity has stopped working today? Please, that bit was extraordinately useful.

Click to expand...

GrandPaM said:

The "All Activity" page now appears as if there is no known content - and pretends that I am not following any authors (when I was following plenty of them yesterday). so something, either database-side or website software-side is out of synch here.

Click to expand...

Sorry about the issue. Can you let me know if this issue is resolved for you now?

Thank you!

Stories Gone?

All my stories are gone from the new screen.

Wes99 said:

All my stories are gone from the new screen.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply.

When you write "new screen" does that mean the Activity Feed or your submissions (as an author)?

Also, can you see other activity in the Activity Feeds?

Thank you again.

Activity feed

I meant the Activity Feed shows no activity

Thanks

Manu said:

Sorry about the issue. Can you let me know if this issue is resolved for you now?

Thank you!

Click to expand...

All now seems well with the world. Thank you - made us panic somewhat.

On a related topic, it would be really, really nice if you put Favorite Stories and Read later into the vertical navigation bar, either as sub menus of Reading Lists or even replacing it. I do hope that you plan a more usable mechanism to add stories to the Read Later list?

FYI, here's how it might work: right now I run through the Story categories (and new) to determine what I want to read and stack them up as Tabs, then I work through them to read. None of the browsers are that reliable so occasionally I run into problems having the tabs render. I then have to either close out the browser (pain if I have other important work open) and restart or even reboot. Your read later mechanism is a reliable alternative and it is also device agnostic - a huge benefit. However to work properly I need to be able to add to Read later from the category lists and it would be nice to do from the My Home listing.

Thanks for your patience

ag2507 said:

On a related topic, it would be really, really nice if you put Favorite Stories and Read later into the vertical navigation bar, either as sub menus of Reading Lists or even replacing it. I do hope that you plan a more usable mechanism to add stories to the Read Later list?

FYI, here's how it might work: right now I run through the Story categories (and new) to determine what I want to read and stack them up as Tabs, then I work through them to read. None of the browsers are that reliable so occasionally I run into problems having the tabs render. I then have to either close out the browser (pain if I have other important work open) and restart or even reboot. Your read later mechanism is a reliable alternative and it is also device agnostic - a huge benefit. However to work properly I need to be able to add to Read later from the category lists and it would be nice to do from the My Home listing.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the feedback and suggestions, they are useful and relevant to some things that I'm working on right now.

In the header menu for logged in users, we have the following items:

1. Home
2. Options
3. Works
4. Lists / Favorites
5. Following
-----
Other Stuff

Item #4 links to your Lists page, where all Lists including Favorites and Read Later are available.

Currently, to access either Favorites or Read Later, it takes three clicks - one to open the menu, two to click to the Lists page, three to open whichever List you want to see.

Are you suggesting that we add Favorites/Read Later to the menu, something like:
1. Home
2. Options
3. Works
4. My Lists
- 4a. Favorites
- 4b. Read Later
5. Following

That would save a single click (reducing the number required from three to two clicks) for those two specific Lists. It would not help with any custom Lists, and it's probably not realistic to include custom Lists in the menu because we can't control their number or title length.

As far as adding items to your Read Later list, the new universal Story Listing Block has a bookmark icon. You should be able to add stories to any List from any page on the site that has full Story Listing Blocks. Category Hubs, the New Stories Page, Tags Portal, User Profiles, etc. will all include the new Story Listing Block.

We are planning to open our BETA testing of the new Tags Portal to more users soon so that we can get more feedback on the new design and the new Story Listing Block.

Thank you again for the feedback, please keep it coming.

Manu said:

Are you suggesting that we add Favorites/Read Later to the menu, something like:
1. Home
2. Options
3. Works
4. My Lists
- 4a. Favorites
- 4b. Read Later
5. Following

That would save a single click (reducing the number required from three to two clicks) for those two specific Lists. It would not help with any custom Lists, and it's probably not realistic to include custom Lists in the menu because we can't control their number or title length.

Click to expand...

Thanks, yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting. I find myself flipping backwards and forwards between 1. Home and 4a. Favorites so often that the extra click matters.
Scenario - 4 stories appear in the Events list. I then have to flip back to favorites to see if I have read a previous chapter and which chapter for each one of the 4. Then as I go through the Categories, I have to do the same for each story I think I have been following. Hence losing a click n times over would be sweet.
Thanks

GrandTeton said:

It is a real disadvantage not to be able to see how many Lit pages your story is going to post at. Yeah, I know that any story posts at roughly 3500 words per Lit screen, but the old system let me know exactly. Also, I'm a bit peeved that I can't edit on view submission.
The actual statistics shown are great, but are very hard to read even on a 20 inch monitor, and I dislike the approximations. I suppose I could adapt to them better if I had 1.85 million readers, but I don't, and very few of us do.
Otherwise, after a bit of fooling around to see how the new system works, it will do. I must admit that I can't agree with the idea that the new control panel looks better. It looks grey. I can't imagine how it will work for a new story, when ninety-five per cent of whatever reaction you will ever get comes in the first couple of days. That I'll see, I suppose.
GT

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!

With the increasing number of users on mobile, it's hard to say exact number of "pages" as the page length could change on different devices.

We are currently working on a solution for those authors who want to see "raw" stats now.

As far as the visual appearance of the Control Panel, we're planning to roll out an update soon with some slightly darker fonts. Titles will be slightly smaller and stats data will be slightly bigger. Hopefully, it will be an improvement.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your opinion.

Thanks for the Response

I've been submitting stories using the new interface and one suggestion I have is that authors get some kind of notice when a story is approved (as used to happen once upon a time). For authors like me with a limited fan base, the activity page works well enough to catch responses, though the idea of a differently coloured icon for comments is a good one. Comments are far more important than favourites for an author.

Except for keeping statistics on my stories, I never go back to the old format. However, a simple copy of the old format is far more informative than one of the new even if it doesn't have favourites.

It never occurred to me that page length is (or even could be) different on different devices. I can go with the word count I use if that's the case.
GT

Why Change ??

I have not seen any advantages. In fact, I haven't found out how to reach my Favorites Page.
Why did you decide to change format?

New, really?

The new format sucks. I don't know what prompted you to mess with a simple, clear way to access stories, but you did. And it sucks! I will continue to use the old system till you pull it than I'll be gone. Shame really as I like the variety of stories but I won't put up with a site that is clearly much worse than what you have now. Who sold you this software anyway? Whoever it was, don't buy a used car from them unless you like walking. New doesn't always mean better and in this case it means worse.