New Lit Story Page Preview

Hello Lit Authors!

We are getting ready to roll out the public BETA of the new Literotica Story Page.

If you would like to see it and give it a try before we make the official announcement, you can do so right now. The page is not quite ready and there are several open issues, but we figured you might want to take a look before everyone else since you actually wrote the stories that are being shown on the page.

If you would like to see the new Story Page, please login to your Lit Control Panel and go to Options then My Options. On that tab, you'll see the following option:
Participate in early site feature versions beta-testing

If you turn that on, you'll immediately start seeing the New Story Page whenever you browse the site. All other pages should remain the same. You can also switch back at any time if you want to.

There are several open issues, and the speed is not as fast as it should be yet, but what you see there is very close to what we plan to launch to users in 2020. Your feedback will help us make it better before the launch.

Please send us email feedback, post here, or click any of the "Send Feedback On This Page" or "Report Page" links to let us know about any issues you find.

Thank you!

There are a number of known issues we are working on right now including:

When you have the New Story Page turned on, the "new comment on your story" Activity Feed notifications will come in before the comment appears on the New Story Page. This can cause problems in displaying the newest comments on the New Story Page.

This is just an issue with the way that new comments are displayed on the new page. We hope to have this resolved before the weekend, but it could be next week.

No useful feedback yet but it's real pretty.

I can't access it. When I try to save the change at My Options I get the message "You are not authorized. You have to check that cookies are enabled and Login." But cookies ARE enabled and I AM logged in. Not sure what's going on.

SimonDoom said:

I can't access it. When I try to save the change at My Options I get the message "You are not authorized. You have to check that cookies are enabled and Login." But cookies ARE enabled and I AM logged in. Not sure what's going on.

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That's strange, especially since you need to be logged in to even see that page.

What browser and browser version are you using? I just tested it again in Chrome and Firefox and it seemed to work on the devices I tested. I would like to get more info to try to track down the error you're seeing.

Thank you.

Manu said:

That's strange, especially since you need to be logged in to even see that page.

What browser and browser version are you using? I just tested it again in Chrome and Firefox and it seemed to work on the devices I tested. I would like to get more info to try to track down the error you're seeing.

Thank you.

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I use Chrome. Another thing -- I can't see my "All Activity" or "Works Activity" pages. My "Works" page shows up fine. Weird.

Interesting!

One thing I like about it is that it seems easier and more inviting to leave a comment on it.

Also, on the right side of the screen near all the story stats, it says "30 minutes." I'm assuming that's the estimated reading time of the story based on the story length, just like many news articles have nowadays. It's a cool feature.


If I could make a small suggestion:

At the end of the page, would it be possible to make the page numbers bigger? It looks faint, and someone skimming the story would think that the story is already finished.

I closed my browser and opened it and re-logged on. Now I can access everything, but I can't see the new New Story page. It looks the same as before.

On my My Options page, it won't seem to let me change the Participate in Early Site Features option. Weird.

Manu said:

Please send us email feedback, post here, or click any of the "Send Feedback On This Page" or "Report Page" links to let us know about any issues you find.

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You don't answer them. Many of us have asked for the profile editing to be restored here on the forum, but you've ignored all contact.

Very nice, in my opinion. It's cool to see the number of followers immediately below the author name. The wider display of the story looks good as well. I also like the ease of bookmarking a story, and the new way the voting/comments appear at the bottom of the last story page. Overall, I believe the new layout is an upgrade.

Never mind. I accessed it. I was just being a dork boomer.

Quick reactions:

I was accustomed to the old font and style, but this definitely looks more up to date and contemporary. The text is easy to read. I used to spend a lot more time at other erotic story websites, and I haven't done so much lately, but my impression is it's better looking than any of them I can think of.

The extra features are a big plus. Having an easy to use bookmark feature is terrific. A big upgrade. I've been looking for this for a while.

I like the extra information that's available - number of followers, etc.

I really like the way you've handled the Tag feature in the top right corner of the story. You give the reader the option of seeing the tags or not. Some authors, myself included, have encouraged putting tags at the beginning, so authors can tip off readers about things that might squick them, but this way the reader has the option NOT to look at tags before reading. A very good choice, in my opinion.

I think it's smart not to change things too much -- keeping the color scheme, the [literotica] logo, etc. The brand is familiar and strong. Smart to keep it, but in an updated style.

Have you increased the number of "similar stories" that are visible? I think it was five before. If you changed this, that's good too.

The editorial description under each of the stars is a good thing, in my opinion. I'll be curious to see if it has any impact on reader voting.

Altogether, a significant upgrade, as far as I can see. And it looks good.

I checked it out. It looks very nice. I like it.

SimonDoom said:

I really like the way you've handled the Tag feature in the top right corner of the story. You give the reader the option of seeing the tags or not. Some authors, myself included, have encouraged putting tags at the beginning, so authors can tip off readers about things that might squick them, but this way the reader has the option NOT to look at tags before reading. A very good choice, in my opinion.

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Good point on the option not to; avoids spoilers (which I assume was your point). On that note, I should point out that Manu also made a smart move in hiding them by default.

The estimated read time feature is interesting and useful. I haven't seen that anywhere else. I wonder what it's based on.

JohnDavidSmith said:

Good point on the option not to; avoids spoilers (which I assume was your point). On that note, I should point out that Manu also made a smart move in hiding them by default.

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Yes, that was my point. With this feature, as authors we can tip off readers about content they may not want, but readers who prefer surprise don't have to review the tags. It hadn't even occurred to me to do it this way, but it's better than just listing all the tags at the top of the page, which is how I had suggested doing it in previous threads.

The key to moving forward is to enhance freedom, flexibility, and functionality for readers and authors alike. I think this new page does that.

I checked it out. In general I like it. The only suggestion I have is; The background seems too bright. More contrast from the text page might be something to consider.

I'm loving the new look right now.

Author follower count is informative to readers branching out to new authors.

Estimated read time is a nice touch.

Story description right there on the first page is a great quality improvement. Can't tell you how many times I've gone through the contest stories one by one going back and forth between story and author pages just so i could read the descriptions.

No one has brought this up yet, but the 'Share Story' feature looks promising as well. It would be nice to see if that helps open up the community when it comes to sharing work with others. Granted, porn preference can be a very private thing, but we're all anonymous here...mostly.

Can't tell you how glad I am to see a bookmark option finally. Before you used to have to manually look up a story in order to bookmark it. Now it looks so much easier.


at a first glance, the only thing i would recommend would be a thicker line underneath the current page number at the bottom. With the low profile font on the numbers a slightly thicker line would pop a little more.

SoB

PS Are there any changes to the commenting features with this? It would be really nice to be able to comment back to a reader in the comments section, and for them to actually be notified that I responded.

Ok, it took a little doing because something weird kept happening when I reenterd my password, but, finally...

I like the new look too. Having the option to look at the tags, and the story info helps in letting you know what you're in for. I also like the estimated reading time. I'd often wished that the number of pages in a story was at the top, but this helps just as much.

It's a nice, clean presentation, the font it pretty easy to read (for my middle aged eyes). I'm not nearly as webdesign savvy as a lot of people, but I definitely like it.

Ah yes. I was wondering when y'all would get around to the story side. It looks great, yet really bright. I have to turn on Dark Night Mode... it reads much better that way.

Didn't see anything amiss but I only gave it a cursory look.

You should really have a switch to turn on night mode, like you do in the Lit. App.

Son_of_Battles said:

Are there any changes to the commenting features with this? It would be really nice to be able to comment back to a reader in the comments section, and for them to actually be notified that I responded.

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I would love this feature too.

Overall, I like the new look and am also interested to see what happens with the share feature.

On my (elderly) phone, there's less contrast between the text and the background than formerly. Since a lot of Lit readers are middle aged and older, that could cause frustration. That would be my only nitpick.

SimonDoom said:

The estimated read time feature is interesting and useful. I haven't seen that anywhere else. I wonder what it's based on.

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I'm guessing story length. Looking at mine, it's about fifteen minutes a Lit page = 250 words a minute (which is pretty much my reading speed). We need a slow reader to do the maths for their stories - it might be clever enough to calculate my average time on page.

Or, a simpler test - my first listed story shows 39 minutes. Does everyone see 39 minutes?

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/a-love-song-for-sara

Needs a one-time toggle to turn the banner ad permanently off. I don't ever want to see banner ads.

Other than that, the last page format might encourage more comments, and having tags switchable on the first page is a big double plus. Looks good.

electricblue66 said:

I'm guessing story length. Looking at mine, it's about fifteen minutes a Lit page = 250 words a minute (which is pretty much my reading speed). We need a slow reader to do the maths for their stories - it might be clever enough to calculate my average time on page.

Or, a simpler test - my first listed story shows 39 minutes. Does everyone see 39 minutes?

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/a-love-song-for-sara

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I knew it was based on length. I could tell after looking at the numbers attached to my stories. I just wonder where they go the estimated words-per-minute figure.

Laurel has read who knows how many stories, so she's probably got a good idea. Plus all the stat's. Time on page, etc.

Rustyoznail said:

Laurel has read who knows how many stories, so she's probably got a good idea. Plus all the stat's. Time on page, etc.

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You might be surprised by how few of the stories Laurel actually reads.