The My Library page now has a bright yellow background in the chapter column when a story has new unread content. This used to be a soothing green. The yellow is a bit jarring considering it's supposed to be a dark theme. Can it be toned down a bit please?
The actual main reading pages look to be fine still and that's where I spend most of the time.
On the active serials page, the notes column now has an army green highlight color. I'm not sure if that's what you toned the chapter column on the All Bookmarks and Reading Queue page to or not, but clearing my browser's cache and pulling down the pages hasn't helped, it's still bright yellow on those pages for me. Maybe it used to be even brighter?
No obvious changes until I got to the Comments. Where they used to be ~1/3 of the page wide, now there is just a few-pixel-wide border and it's nearly full page. A bit jarring and the text seems to run right up to the border, which makes it a bit harder to read.
I do like the nice little list below the Post button that shows what HTML tags are allowed. If it works. That's new.
I made some changes. Please check. You'll have to reload the stylesheet. Usually pulling down the page makes it reload.
The yellow is better but still not great #460 looks much nicer to me than the #660 it is now.
Also the font size seemed jump with the new CSS (in setting it was showing 16, manualy setting it to 12 looked much better) maybe this was becasue I hadn't set a font size before?
What is the point of changing it anyway? The green was fine on the dark theme. Yellow usually means there is something iffy going on (which is what I initially thought).
On the All Bookmarks page, Chap column, the black text on army green background is hard to read. Can it be the same white text like the Upd. Notes column on Active Serials?
Except that there seems to be some new options at the bottom of story pages in a "This story is in your Library" box:
(Remove from Library, Remove From Queue, Edit Bookmark).
I'm not sure whether those are actually 'new' or I just ignored/didn't really notice them till now.
Anyhow, nothing major.
Also: Quibble: rolling the cursor over the message in the yellow alert box The message turns white (practically invisible, and disconcerting) even though when rolling over the "Hide" option at the other end, that option gets highlighted (much better).
Except that there seems to be some new options at the bottom of story pages in a "This story is in your Library" box:
(Remove from Library, Remove From Queue, Edit Bookmark).
I'm not sure whether those are actually 'new' or I just ignored/didn't really notice them till now.
Yeah, It has been there for a little while. I think it got redesigned a week or two ago.
It's the exact same code to start a thread as to reply. You replied, that means you should also be able to create a new thread. I don't see how something could block you from starting threads.
When I'm reading a story, the column with the text appears even narrower to me. I've always favored a little wider than we had, but I can live with it. I don't remember the link to the previous and next chapter in the header before; that's a nice touch. However, it could've been there all along, but I just realized it.
My two abandoned stories are still glaring at me with angry, bright yellow. It reminds me I lost my way on them... Good work Laz!!!
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Mozilla Firefox 115.27.0esr (64-bit)
Modern Dark
No visual issues or even noticeable changes in any screen I have went through as a reader, and as a writer. All checked after a computer reboot, then using Ctrl F5 to clear the page and force a reload. Looks great on my side.
Windows 10, desktop, chrome. Annoying yellow previously mentioned in the active serials page where I spend most of my time. If possible I would prefer an option for things to remain the same. Then again, I suppose progress moves on.
Had some more time to root around, and all of the links on the left of the homepage (ongoing serials, complete stories, older stories) open up full-width like the updated stories list.
5 When looking at links in the Top Lists, the lists take up the full width of the browser window (from memory it used to be the same width as the Home page stream) and it looks quite off-putting.
A border on either side about the width of the score column would be good (or the same width as the Home page stream again to make the look more consistent).
Such as "Recently Deleted Stories", we only see the date when a story was deleted. The entries also take up more vertical real-estate than before, I think it was one line per entry then and now we have a couple of blank lines between entries.
Mac and Safari here, but 'More' does what it's supposed to โ 10 stories matching my criteria. It's soooo much fun debugging inconsistent errors. Here's hoping it gets worked out for those having an issue.
O.K., currently Win 10 Pro {Version 22H2 for x64 (KB5065957)} and Firefox 142.0.1 and only thing I'm noting is a 'note' of "(has Book Ad)" next to the "More Info" link in the main page story discription otherwise no other changes for me.
Thanks, but I thought there was some option to choose the theme for the Home/library/etc display. That's at least what I gathered from Lazeez mention of selected themes when reporting bugs.
I thought there was some option to choose the theme for the Home/library/etc display.
The selected theme will be used for all of those. Unless you were thinking of some way to select different themes for each? Sorry, One theme to rule them all. :)
No, the issue seems to be the themes aren't applying 9 times out of 10. I did manage somehow to change it to the 2025 theme which made me realise the other times I tried to set the theme it simple didn't apply.
TCL phone, Android, chrome, all settings default except font size for ancient eyes.
No problems yet, just a couple of questions. FWDLIW, what's with the "not" symbol after the sender's name? And why the transparent green bar down the right side in Mail? A brief explanation of the symbols at the bottom of a message would be appreciated.
If I had any money to spare, I would send a kind thank you for all your hard work.
There's a lot messed up with the theme that may or may not be related to whatever update is happening. https://imgur.com/a/Uk4bn1r link to screenshots. Basically just a lot of unreadable parts of the site. Switching to Modern light, some of the pages remain unreadable. I had to restart FF to change.
For what it's worth, today I just saw there's a theme called "2025" that looked a lot like Minimalist but figured I'd give it a shot and see.
Firefox 142 Linux not sure what theme I'm using (or how to find out)
The top of the homepage (the header bar that starts with the logo) has a slightly different scaling on most elements to that used on other pages, which is annoying when switching between them. See animated gif at https://imgur.com/zgQUhTx
1. The column widths are less than ideal: the story titles are smushed, basically two words in width (so wrapping several lines) and the Info column is bloated with LOTS of padding around the โ and >> icons, making that column almost as wide as the Accessed column.
2. There's no border lines between rows of the Chap column, unlike the rest of the table.
The ratings for Plot and Technical Qualities are not bolded, but the Appeal to Reviewer is. Intentional? It looks odd, and I've always understood the three components are supposed to be given equal ranking.
Edit to add: the same one of three ratings bolded also is on the list my own reviews.
Linux, Firefox.
seems to be a problem setting the theme.
when clicking on a theme the screen will blink as if reloading, but not select the theme.
I did manage once to select the 2025 theme and back to Modern w/Auto-Dark-Mode somehow, but haven't been able to duplicate the feat or select any other themes
Win7 Pro, IE11. What I want to know is how to get the original screen layout back. Similar to the home page, where there is a centered grid with wide borders either side, rather than the current view which I cannot seem to change, where the grid is stretched over the entire width of the screen. Maybe it's just me, but I want to be able to see the entirety of the information presented like a document, rather than having to view it like a tennis match, i.e. virtually turning my head side to side.
5 - As it seems the main table extends the entire screen instead of just the center as on new_stories.php
Comparing the parsed HTML from new_stories and updated_stories it looks like it is missing
div="wrapper"
before
table id="head-t"
the closing div is at the end on both
I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I just noticed the absense of the "Click to load more text" link halfway through a page. The whole page loads now without interruption.
I've also just checked on Firefox 142.0.1 in a different story, and it's the same.
I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I just noticed the absense of the "Click to load more text" link halfway through a page. The whole page loads now without interruption.
5 When a thread has been selected, the posts expand to the full width of the browser window.
The date & time stamp are there, however the Reply, Report, Back to top and Private Message icons are all missing.
On other threads, the width stays the same as it was previously- ie the same as the main forum page & topic pages.
EDIT- that appears to have been fixed, although there is no border (thin solid vertical line) on the left or right of the posts.
So in Threaded view; posts indented on the left have no white space between the border and their indented position, so it looks rather odd.
And i noticed when i went to edit this post- the Edit and Delete post icons are missing, there is just a small underscore below where they should be (used the mouse over to find them).
EDIT- the border issue has been fixed. Thankyou.
Now just the missing Edit and Delete icons issue remains.
The underscores are also gone, and the icons are now larger than they were before the fix.
Also the text is now also slightly larger- i have now reduced the text size for listings back to what it was before all the changes, and i can still read the forum posts.
Since yesterday ie a further change after your initial set of changes, forum threads have a huge space for the title, borders are sometimes absent and the symbols at the bottom of each post (reply/abuse/top/PM) have been replaced by hyphens.
Firefox 52.9.0 ESR on Windows XP.
ETA: Edit and Delete show as hyphens a level above the other hyphens.
YESTERDAY, I had noticed no changes. TODAY, I noticed there is a difference on the forum pages. The forum seems the same, UNTIL I click on a specific topic. Then I notice that the fonts seem different, possibly smaller. The text seems more crowded. Don't really like it, but it won't kill me.
No changes in story fonts or anyplace else, just inside the forum topics
YESTERDAY, I had noticed no changes. TODAY, I noticed there is a difference on the forum pages. The forum seems the same, UNTIL I click on a specific topic. Then I notice that the fonts seem different, possibly smaller. The text seems more crowded. Don't really like it, but it won't kill me.
No changes in story fonts or anyplace else, just inside the forum topics
Additionally, there is no left margin AT ALL for the text. It really crowds against the left edge, almost to the point of a missing letter on every line.
I noticed a change in the text size over the site in general.
For some reason the forums are smaller than the other pages-
Setting the text size so that it's OK in the forums, makes everything else much bigger; setting the stories & listing pages so the text is a good size makes the forum text too small.
Both mechanisms you mentioned haven't been altered. Which means the non-stickiness of the theme and the non-hiding of the note, is not a bug on my end.
I suggest you reboot the iPad. Also, if you're using a private tab for the site, the 'Hide' link for the notifications won't work as it depends on a cookie and a private tab deletes the cookies.
For me, the links on the left side of the home page continue to open full-width.
In this thread, most if not all quoted text appears as a blacked-out bar, but if you attempt to copy inside the black the intended text is then highlighted. Also, all options inside a post (reply, etc) do not show the expected icons, only small dashes bottom-right of the post. Moving cursor over the dash brings up the expected icon.
edit - When viewing already-read posts they are greyed-out as usual, and then the icons lower-right show up as white-outlined.
Mac, Safari, Classic theme (I never changed the theme so I think that's what it's called)..
URL of the page I'm commenting on: https://storiesonline.net/library/my.php
When I go to My Library, there seems to be a column added to the left with links. I don't remember that being there, at least not in its current format. The reason I believe that is I no longer see all the columns of data. I have to scroll to the right to see the Score and Info columns (I actually see part of the Score column).
When I go to My Library, there seems to be a column added to the left with links. I don't remember that being there, at least not in its current format. The reason I believe that is I no longer see all the columns of data. I have to scroll to the right to see the Score and Info columns (I actually see part of the Score column).
The left column has always been there. It was really stuck to the edge of the page. Now it's slightly offset.
I changed the spacing in the library to restore a tighter layout.
Yeah, now that it's narrower and I see all the columns on the screen with your latest changes I realize it was always there. But my mind never saw it because I didn't use it on the My Library page. It just stuck out when it became wider.
Your latest changes are good (including the paler yellow in the Chap column).
I don't know what P (Program) and R (Rating) are, and now that they are one letter each I won't even remember that they're Program and Rating. Since they're only one letter, would a mouseover be helpful?
1 - System: Windows11
2 - Browser: Edge
3 - The theme: Dark
4 - Page url: All story Reader Comments(checked 5, all the same) Sample: https://storiesonline.net/n/49977/forever-yours-by-aroslav/10
5 - Description: While the rest of the site is in dark mode, the Reader Comments section remains stubbornly Black text on White background.
Description: While the rest of the site is in dark mode, the Reader Comments section remains stubbornly Black text on White background.
Stories use a different formatting mechanism than the rest of the site. It's highly configurable. Depending on which style you create, the system will try to figure out if it's dark text on light background or the reverse and will try to use a dark mode theme for the comments if it's light text on dark background.
1. Windows 10 Pro
2. LibreWolf 136.0-2
3. Classic
4. https://storiesonline.net/d/s6/t13882/something-is-wrong-the
5:
Separating line missing from forum posts.
There is three - - - under forum post icons, and on the post listed above, the icons is also missing.
1 - Debian GNU/Linux
2 - Firefox & Chromium
3 - Night. But applies to All
4 - Any Story, so here's the top one from the feed: https://storiesonline.net/s/22595/emptied-purse
5 - The #story CSS Selector has a rule for max-width: 35em;
It's fine when reading on my phone. But on a 20"+ display, over 2/3 of my screen is now wasted space.
The #story CSS Selector has a rule for max-width: 35em;
It's fine when reading on my phone. But on a 20"+ display, over 2/3 of my screen is now wasted space.
The story display system is independent from themes.
It allows you infinite customization, including that 35em max width. Create your own stylesheet and be comfortable:
Windows, Firefox, Classic theme, while editing a story review (https://storiesonline.net/review/myReviews.php?id=XXXX&cmd=editPosted), the labels for the rating dropdowns are doubled. That is, what appears is:
I posted this already but I was obviously not clear in my description. On the Homepage, top left, just below the title, is a box that states how many stories there are on the site and a date/time stamp (down to the second) of when that page was loaded. It was previously on all pages but is now missing from My Library and most of it's subpages.
missing last update date/time stamp on most of the My Library pages
At the end of a story, leaving a comment, the page slowly scrolled upwards, including the text box I was typing in, the end of the story, and the first few comments below the text box.
Having the text scroll as I read a story might be convenient, though disconcerting. Typing into a text box that is slowly scrolling up to the top of the window is a little annoying.
At the end of a story, leaving a comment, the page slowly scrolled upwards, including the text box I was typing in, the end of the story, and the first few comments below the text box.
The auto-scroller has a keyboard short cut (escape key), so if you hit the escape key, it starts scrolling. It doesn't stop on its own when it reaches the bottom of the story. It only stops when you navigate to a different story or hit escape again to stop the auto-scroller.
So if the form is scrolling up, hit the escape key to stop it.
3 - The theme you have selected: Browser theme? Default Storiesonline theme? Probably default, I'm not sure where to change it, if possible
4 - Page url where the problem manifests itself: Bookmarks and Reading Queue
5 - As accurate of a description of the issue as you can: The cells in the "Chapter" column no longer have borders. All other cells do. Also, the text size seems to have changed overnight. Text that appeared on one line now wraps around. Being able to set font size would be a plus.
I find that using 1/3 of the page for the storyline title, smashes everything else together in a confusing manner. I would appreciate if the storyline title could be placed at the top and the balance of the entries below it.
I'm testing your statement.
OpenSUSE Leap 15.6, Seamonkey, presumably Classic.
Mind you, the 4 icons (for Reply to Post, Report Abuse, back to top, Send Private Message) are smaller than they should be. I don't frequent the Forum when using my smartphone but can imagine that selecting the correct one of them using my outsized fingers could be pretty fraught.
Win 10 Pro, multiple browsers, Classic theme & no problems with those icons or their size (they're proportional to the size of the text, which i've made bigger).
However, the Delete and Edit icons are still missing. There are just the underscores to show where they should be.
I used to get four hyphens but now they've disappeared. However mouseover causes blueish squares to appear, and clicking on the correct one allowed this reply.
I used to get four hyphens but now they've disappeared. However mouseover causes blueish squares to appear, and clicking on the correct one allowed this reply.
Unfortunately I still get the blueish squares on mouseover, even after shutting down my browser to clear cookies and cache. However it's still usable as I was able to make this reply.
When the post is one of my own, so I'm allowed to edit or delete it, there are six blueish squares.
ETA Actually the hyphens were more useful. At least I could see where to mouseover rather than having to grope around.
For many years I have used a window 960w for reading stories and other menus like the reading queue which had a good layout with that same width. Now, the reading queue (https://storiesonline.net/library/my.php) seems all jammed up with columns spaced weirdly, compressing up the story names most resulting in a much longer list (pixel wise) and scrolled horizontally in the same 960w. Much harder to navigate. Windows, Firefox latest, Classic theme.
Now, the reading queue (https://storiesonline.net/library/my.php) seems all jammed up with columns spaced weirdly, compressing up the story names most resulting in a much longer list (pixel wise) and scrolled horizontally in the same 960w.
I reworked some measurements and column titles with your width in mind. The 'Prog' column's title is now 'P' and the 'Rating' column's title is now 'R' (those two columns took a lot of space simply for their titles as the content is a single digit or a bullet).
Check it out.
You can also shrink the font size to make even more fit on screen, if you use 8pt (the minimum) I'm sure you can have decent enough width for the story's title.
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Mozilla Firefox 115.27.0esr (64-bit)
Modern Dark
An update to what I posted earlier. The banner for announcements looks like baby vomit, being some kind of green brown color that is ANNOYING AS HELL. I expect a banner for an announcement to be a bright color, even though I am using a dark theme. If not, make the color something that does not look like puke, please. My suggestion would be a brick red, with the blue highlighted words showing up just as well, but not being a nauseating color.
5 - The button at the top, that toggles between the fully history and today's stories, has a dark purple background with black text until you hover over it (or push on it for iPad) when it turns white. Unreadable in the purple/black combination.
2025 theme is not ready yet. But I had to release the main code to make sure that the existing themes are ok.
Tomorrow, 2025 will be hidden until it's mostly ready and then it will be open to more rigorous testing.
Thank you for the report and I'll fix the button color scheme. By the way, 2025 will be strictly auto-dark, auto-light modes. If your computer/device is in dark mode, the theme will be dark.
As I've said before, I really like your site. You put a lot of work into keeping your readers happy. This is a good example. The site works great IF you know all these tricks, like what 'P' and 'R' mean. If we write a "How To Navigate SOL" guide, can we put it somewhere everyone can find it?
(I'm here trying to see if anyone else has already reported my issue, which is that I don't see the "You are on page 12" box for My Library > Active Serials.)
(I'm here trying to see if anyone else has already reported my issue, which is that I don't see the "You are on page 12" box for My Library > Active Serials.)
I don't know what you means exactly, but under the header 'Active Serials' you should see something like 'Page 1 of 12'.
P and R were always there before, I simply reduced them to the first letter to shrink the width of the table as they took too much horizontal space. P is for 'progress' and R is for Rating.
Yes, you are right. There is a fixed line of text that says what page and how many. There used to be a box you could type into to skip X number of stories. That let me skip to the end where new stories with no updates collect. Now it's more awkward, especially on a slow satellite link. Wait for first page to load, click on the last page you can see, wait for it to load, click on the last one you see, wait for it to load...
For "active serials" it's even more awkward since the only page selector is on the bottom. It's wait for it to load, scroll to the bottom, click the last page you see, wait for it to load...
The current page number is editable. Load the page, click the '1' page number and change it to the page number you want and hit enter or click outside of it.
Ah. On this phone the Samsung browser only shows "storiesonline.net" on the URL line, but if I stick my fat finger up there the browser changes to show the whole URL which ends with 'p=4'. That works.
For P and R I apologize for being unclear. Everyone reading this thread now knows what they mean. I am asking if this is written anywhere besides this thread which will soon be buried under newer threads. Is there a "Using SOL 101" document anywhere? I looked a couple of times when trying to figure out how to do something when posting a story.
Thank you. That seems to be a lot more complete than the last time I checked. I clicked on a couple and they seemed helpful but they didn't have creation or update timestamps that I could see so they could all be new.
The announcement banners at the top of the page don't have enough contrast. They're dark blue text on yellowish-gray, and while it is readable, it is appreciably harder to read than the rest of the text on the page.
This may be a stupid question but when I hopped over to SciFi Stories, the Random Story was the second entry on the home page. Is that new or has it always been that way? I thought that was the 'not logged in' order.
ETA That now seems to be 'fixed' as the random story is now top on SciFi Stories..
Using iPad 17 with IOS 18.16.2. When I go into library, the entire selection set is grey. The blue and white alternating backgrounds around the choices in the library are harder to read.
On the forum, the buttons under posts are white on white, thus invisible. (Just about visible on greyed-out posts.) Also the background for quoted text is too dark a grey, making the text difficult to read.
1 Win 10 Pro
2 Edge & Firefox.
3 Classic (Light)
4 https://storiesonline.net/n/27344/the-library-of-ibados/39
5 Reader Comments at the end of a story, there are no lines or change in colour to break up the comments.
It's just one white background with bits of text on it, actually makes it somewhat difficult to read the comments.
And the comments section is now the same width as the story text, before it was more like the forum width.
Neither good, nor bad IMHO. Just different.
The notification banners (Contest, Test, Changes made) are behaving oddly.
Click on the home page, they appear. Hide them and click on the blog link, they are back. Hide them and click on the forum link, they are back. Hide them and every thread you clock on, they are back again.
sounds good to me! the yellow ad/announcement banners started to flash and disappear quickly for me today and I never changed a thing...still using classic them lol
sounds good to me! the yellow ad/announcement banners started to flash and disappear quickly for me today and I never changed a thing...still using classic them lol
3. "My Library"
4 In column of links at left,
- all links below "Show Tag" box, current date/time is visible
- all links above "Show Tag" box, no sign of current date'time/time
The links below the tag box are all pages external to the library, the links above it are to parts of the library itself.
The library's pages never had time stamps before now, so it's not missing, it's just different. The library doesn't really need a timestamp because its contents are controlled by the user.
Are the time stamps in the library really important to you?
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Mozilla Firefox 115.27.0esr (64-bit)
Modern Dark
New change I just noticed. The comments of the story I just caught up on, is all white background with black letters, with no separation lines, unlike the forums being black background with white letters and separation lines. So Modern Dark is very not dark when viewing the comments to the story. The story in question is;
A Variation On A Theme Story (6) by Grey Wolf
Other stories also exhibit the same issue when I checked, though previously had been normal dark theme.
The story display system has its own independent formatting and display mechanism as it allows infinite modifications and it's hard to predict what the user is using in relation to the comments, whether their system is using dark mode too or not.
Android phone, Galaxy S23, Samsung Internet browser, not sure of the theme, Seeing it in the list of new stories and story updates and anywhere there is a list.
Story titles for me are showing up in the same font and size as the author field. Is this part of the changes?
All quoted text in the forum is still blacked-out, but visible if you mouse-over in the box, as if to copy text. All links inside a post (reply, send message) are invisible until mouse-over.
edit - when a post is grayed-out (read) the links appear as white against the gray.
Android phone, Firefox, Mobile w/Auto-Dark-Mode. When reading stories, the theme is white letters on a black background. After the recent change, the comments are now black letters on a white background, unlike the story above the comments. Many comments also do not display the comment author's name, but might display the name of who they are replying to. Everything other than the comments section seems fine.
On the My Library Page, the < and > buttons for prev/next pages gets separated from the page numbers on wide screens. < is far left, > is far right and the numbers are centered. maybe a CSS thing. On pages like Historical Story Access, the numbers and prev/next buttons are constrained within the box. Maybe have the library follow that design...
The only change that I would make to the new look is to simply return the date/time to the My Library and Active Serials page; I often used that as confirmation that a balky mouse is actually taking the click and the page is simply refreshing faster than I'm seeing a reaction on the screen - if the time doesn't change, the mouse needs to be debalked; if it does, the referesh worked and the fact that I'm seeing no changes means that none of my stories has updated.
Not sure if this is related, but https://storiesonline.net/n/51058/a-man-named-mike shows up as having been posted on Posted: 19/09/2025, 13:14:39 (all three chapters the same second) and being Incomplete/inactive.
While it would be great if Gina was back writing and posting here, I doubt that's the case.
BTFH was a favorite of mine at one time, but for whatever reason I hadn't been on for a couple years. Glad that you're bringing over what you can. Sad that she isn't producing new stories. Frustrated that I can't get in touch or leave a comment to express my thanks for some 25 years of great writing. Still remember how pumped I was at her blog post announcing that her Tangent series in the Lord Kalvin universe would be published by John Carr. That apparently fell through, which was a real pity since I considered them as faithful to Piper as Carr's works. If you're still in contact, please ask her to consider allowing some form of communication from her myriad fans.
The good authors are not gone. Their old stories are still on the site and new ones are being added but not to the same extent as in the past. At the moment the site is being flooded with poorly written & extreme porn but these trends are cyclical and hopefully the garbage writers will drop off when they realise that no-one is reading their rubbish.
While some authors that were on my list of 'Best SOL authors' are gone, their stories have not been removed.
Several on my list have posted new chapters within the past two weeks, while others are in between stories but are active in the forums like Michael Loucks.
Between 2023 and 2024 there have been 15 finalists for the 'Author of the Year' clitorides award. One of those died in 2023. Of the 14 remaining, most have posted something in the past six months.
Windows, edge browser, classic
Serials updated table shows gray columns for each column except the downloads and score which show as yellow. I expected to see columns as mostly white (like it was before). I rather prefer the old classic settings, and not this new classic style. It certainly doesn't match the sample offered in the configuration/settings page.
Serials updated table shows gray columns for each column except the downloads and score which show as yellow.
What you're seeing is actually a feature. The greyed out stories in the Updated serials list and the new stories list are stories you've seen displayed for you. If the new stories list is not exhibiting the same 'problem', then go all the way to the end of the pages, and after that, new stories that haven't been viewed yet will have the classic view, and the one viewed will have the greyed out look.
I guess I should fix the stylesheet so that the yellow columns get greyed too.
Samsung, auto dark, Google Chrome.
Just noticed today. Story comments are no longer separated from one comment to another. Just one long batch of white with black text.
I too miss the dividing line between comments. The only thing separating comments is the hooked arrow for "reply" and other icons. The line exists in the Forum.
Suddenly I am being asked to confirm my age every time I open the site, the having to provide my username and password. Also the titles of stories I am reading are not changing to a different color to indicate I have opened them. This is not an improvement.
Have you made any changes to your browser lately? Or your AV software?
The issues you are describing are browser related- not the web site. If you clear your cookies and history every time you close your browser, then you will have to log in every time you come to the site & read stories colours won't change.
If your AV programme is set to clean up cookies, you'll have to log in every time.
If you're using In private/incognito or whatever private mode your browser calls it, you'll have to log in each time, etc.
It's an issue with your system software and it's settings, not the web site.
You may have a stale cookie or a bad cache for SOL. Use your browser's feature to clear data for SOL, then restart your browser. That has solved this for me when it has happened.
That would still require individual websites implement age verification. They might have a really hard time enforcing that for sites where the servers and the operator are both outside the US (and in different countries)
Suddenly I am being asked to confirm my age every time I open the site, the having to provide my username and password. Also the titles of stories I am reading are not changing to a different color to indicate I have opened them. This is not an improvement.
You're using the site in a private tab/window.
Switch to a normal window/tab and the cookie will be preserved (you stay logged in) and your history will be used (the color of the links).
Android Pixel 9p
Firefox Beta
Mobile Light (dark mode)
Add bookmark
Available tags are shown black on green, ok
Assigned tags are shown black on dark green, very hard to read, but X is white, please change text to white as well
Classic Theme formating doesn't always apply to 1st page of updates. If I cascade through the pages on Updates and New Stories I can finally get the theme to apply. It's not a deal breaker but it is annoying.
Is it supposed to be a dark theme? It doesn't show that way (for me) until I select it. I do prefer this background over the Olive drab from the modern dark theme. Most, if not all of the old links seem to come off the 'Read' or 'Authors/Editors' tabs now. Seems to work fine for me (Linux, Firefox 143.0.3).
The setting does not seem to survive a logout. When I log back in I have to select it again, if I want to continue using it. Maybe because it's still alpha?
Sorry, we were discussing the new 2025 theme. It just did it again, setting the 2025 theme does not hold, for me. Log out, then back in, and I'm back to classic theme. That's twice.
EDIT - None of the themes will hold a setting, for me. When logging back in, it always seems to revert to classic theme. I selected the modern dark theme, re-loaded the page to see the theme change, then closed the browser, refreshed, logged in again, and back to classic.
You don't delete cookies when you log out, do you?
No, only when I close the browser, but as Laz said, that shouldn't affect site settings.
As of this mornings login, the theme was retained. No idea why.
I did notice one other oddity. When selecting an option from the 'Read' drop-down, the drop-down itself stays down instead of retracting, until you click somewhere else on the page. No big deal.
I did notice one other oddity. When selecting an option from the 'Read' drop-down, the drop-down itself stays down instead of retracting, until you click somewhere else on the page. No big deal.
That's the intended behavior, not an oddity or bug.
1 To be sure the library menu is always on top of the read menu, add a z-index there:
.hmb-drp-cont li:hover > ul {
display: block;
z-index: 1;
}
2 It's a rather long menu those without a scroll wheel and with a text zoom may not be able to reach the end as it is allowed to develop bellow the viewport.
There are solution to that the simplest being multiple columns menu.
2 It's a rather long menu those without a scroll wheel and with a text zoom may not be able to reach the end as it is allowed to develop bellow the viewport.
In all my tests, including on tiny windows, the major browsers expanded the view port to show the full menu, so scrolling becomes possible.
There are solution to that the simplest being multiple columns menu.
I tried multiple columns briefly, but discarded the idea. Due to the multiple nested menus support, in the author's menu for authors with multiple pen names, it becomes very unmanageable, very quickly.
Today I published a new alpha version of the new 2025 theme for desktop layouts.
It features radically different navigation system.
I like the look and feel - feels very modern, which is good. I like some aspects of the new nav system and others, not so much.
For example, I like that I can get to the story stats from the homepage. Big win. BUT, it now takes two clicks to get to the forums instead of one. Might it be better if the menus appeared on 'hover' rather than on click?
(This might just be me, but I have a real bug bear for things being redesigned and it ending up taking more clicks to do something. For example, in Acrobt, I used to be able to attach an open file to an email with one click. Then they moved this behind a 'share' button and it became two clicks. Then they gave me the option of attaching the file or sending a link, so now it takes three clicks - it's bloody annoying)
Today I published a new alpha version of the new 2025 theme for desktop layouts.
A slight annoyance when activating a button link, the whole story box got bigger, you shouldn't increase the font size or make sure the button doesn't get bigger when the font size increase from 86% to 102%.
From the Author Resources Page, click Post & Repost while there is at least one story waiting to be posted or reposted -- so at https://storiesonline.net/author/wizard.php when there's a table of what's in the queue with Make a New Submission above it. Below the table, there's a
n
on a line on its own. In the code, it's after the and the following .
Android phone, dark theme. I don't have any issues with the changes but for one page and I think even before the changes. When I add a bookmark, the screen is mostly unreadable with the white background and text that is an off white.
Otherwise very happy with the site.
Is it the case that I'll still be able to see some cover images where the author has uploaded their own cover in jpeg format?
The old covers will remain. It's new covers that will be in WEBP. And no, even custom new covers will be in WEBP.
At the end of the day, as long as I can still read and write stories and contribute to the forums, that's what's important to me.
I know you've said it before, but please remind me, why are you still on XP?
It's hard moving forward when we get anchored to the past by a minority. Out of over 400,000 accounts in the database, only 84 are on firefox 52, and only 30 have logged in within the last 2 years.
I need to run 32-bit legacy software for my research. If this computer dies, I'll be up shit creek :-(
I've had to run 32-bit office on the PCs at work since 2008, since the Outlook "add-in" for our database only works with 32-bit. The database software itself is 32-bit, too. And every PC we currently have came with at least Windows 10, and most are now on Windows 11 (the remaining Win10 PC are being replaced this month).
Never had an issue running 32-bit software on Win 11.
Any reason to not use a physical to virtual migration for the old 32 bit system to get it to run under a more up to date system hosting the old version as a virtual machine?
Being able to use snapshots of the old system to restore it if it has an issue would seem to make sense to me.
There are multiple options to host virtual machines for every device that is in common use.
I'm sure I saw a video of someone trying this not long ago. Damn thing was so infected within seconds of being exposed to the internet, it crashed spectacularly.
Classic theme shows the date and time of the most recent update for each story when looking through the recent updates page, but the 2025 theme only shows when the story was originally posted.
edit - it does show under 'More info', if you ever look there.
I've noticed a glitch in the system once in awhile, when i finish a new chapter and follow the link to library and then try to go to the next updated serial/artist it doesn't work it just sits there I have to hit the library link at the top then click on the new chapter then it goes to the chapter. It did the same thing today when I tried to go to the History link on the left side.
I've tried restarting my computer, clearing the history cache for google history it comes back the next day.
Both Chrome and Safari support webp, so that shouldn't happen normally.
It's not all the stories - I've seen a few covers that work. But not all of the older ones work either. For example, https://anonsol.net/s/46291/greenies shows up as broken. Actually, all of the top 10 stories in the "Top Long Classics" list show as broken covers to me.
Just sent 7 titles to my kindle account and all four of them with a standard generic cover show as blank white until I open the title and then it goes to a failed image tiny icon.
Covers are not displayed in my kindle content manager website so can't see if they are viable elsewhere. I can display the generated cover on my iPad in Firefox.
I'm running iPad os 18.5 with up to date Firefox and kindle apps. Well, current as of yesterday, Firefox has a new version pending update, but that side of the split screen is working properly. I've pulled a screenshot showing the cover displaying on Firefox and error icon in kindle app if you want it.
The recent 7 were updated by author Thomas Spencer. 3 have custom cover artwork, the other four are generic generated covers. Presumably the update rebuilds the generated cover as part of the update.
Send-to-Kindle doesn't support all the specs of EPUB 3.3 (released in early 2023) yet.
I switched back to jpg for the covers.
The few stories with custom covers uploaded in the last few days will keep the .webp format, the generic and template based covers will revert to .jpg.
Some of the scores have disappeared from my stories; until recently it was just from the story stats list, but we're available when opening the page for each individual story. I now get a circle with a star motif in both instances, so have no idea of the rating.
Well, one would expect that major software would support the latest specs of a format within a couple of years, but no, Send-to-Kindle still doesn't support EPUB 3.3.
So, I switched the system back to the retarded .jpg format from .webp. Good thing I designed it as a simple switch.
I guess I'll try again in another couple of years and see what happens.
I think you might have broken something else in that area. Send to kindle now initiates a local download for any titles.
I access from my iPad and don't directly download titles but send them to my kindle account via email. Allowing me to access them as needed later regardless of what bandwidth I have locally.
I'm used to very large files not being able to send via email, but now everything is that way.
I access from my iPad and don't directly download titles but send them to my kindle account via email. Allowing me to access them as needed later regardless of what bandwidth I have locally.
As I added some options to the download preferences page, you may need to redo your preference to mail files to your kindle.
If the goal was to limit the bandwidth, I would suggest using a blank src and on client side, use feature detection for support of webp (and heic?) set the image src to the smallest supported.
However, for epub, your stuck with jpg for the next 10 years (at least).
I was doing a category search for rags to riches, sorted by score, omitting incomplete and in progress stories, and on page 2, the story "Spyder's Web Carter Davis Book Three" by Rottweiler, is showing as "Absence of Living Book #1".
If it click into the series, it does show it as the third book there.
Some stories in to be continued do not have the bookmark next function at the bottom, the option is completely missing. Some stories have it.
Noticed with books by A Well Traveled Man
Both are absent
If i go to the more info section i can choose the bookmark button to bookmark the story thru the bookmark dialog page, then bookmark next option shows up.
I just posted a story comment and as I reread it, I noticed a typo. However, there was no edit option to allow me to fix it. I seem to remember being able to edit my comments previously.
Some issues with the dark themes.
2025 - various page titles have the words on top of each other
Classic Dark - some words are unreadable because text font is too dark
Modern w/ auto dark mode - Forum section titles are barely readable (black text font might not be the best choice)
Issues with the classical dark theme home page.
1 Blue background for in progress and modifications should be desaturated.
2 box-shadows should preferably be avoided in dark theme (or made darker than they are now)
Mouse over the link in the yellow site notification and the link appears white on yellow (unreadable).
a:hover{backround-color:teal} isn't applied to the text in a div.
I have a question that is sort of related to this discussion.
Have you checked the site on the Mac Tahoe 26.0.1 OS?
Tahoe has only been out for about a week so I normally wouldn't upgrade to an OS so new, but I recently updated to Sequoia 15.7.1 which changed the way bookmarks are displayed on the left of the Safari screen. The change is awful and takes many more clicks to get to a bookmark than in the past. Apple told me with Tahoe, I can change it back to the way it was. But, like I said, I'm hesitant to upgrade to such a new (untested) OS.
I'm not sure of the issue that you had in sequoia with bookmarks
I use bookmarks constantly to navigate around the web. They appear on the left side of the Safari screen. They used to be:
Group1
bookmark 1
bookmark 2
etc.
Group2
bookmark 3
bookmark 4
etc.
With the old way, if I click on bookmark 1 in Group1, I go to that URL (let's say Google). When done, if I want to go to bookmark 3 in Group2 (say SOL), it's showing so I click on it. Easy.
But now they are displayed as:
Group1
Group2
I have to click on Group1 which gets expanded to:
Bookmark 1
Bookmark 2
I click on Bookmark 1 to go to Google. But when I want to go to SOL, that bookmark is not showing on the list of bookmarks. All I see are the bookmarks in Group1. I have to go to the top and hit the < by Group1. That brings it back to listing the groups. Then I have to click on Group2 which then shows the bookmarks for Group2. I click on bookmark 3 and go to the SOL page. Then if I want to go to a bookmark that's not in Group2, I have to go back to the top, hit the "back" symbol, get the list of groups, and, well, start over.
ADDED:
Right now I read all the posts that had green dots so I want to go to Fidelity.com to see how the stock market is doing. That bookmark isn't showing because I'm in the wrong group. It used to be one click to get to Fidelity. Now I have to back out of the group I'm in, expand the group Fidelity is in, and click on the Fidelity bookmark. After checking the stock market, I may want to come back here to see if there are any new unread posts. That used to be one click. Not it will take me several clicks.
With the old way, if I click on bookmark 1 in Group1, I go to that URL (let's say Google). When done, if I want to go to bookmark 3 in Group2 (say SOL), it's showing so I click on it. Easy.
Oh, Workspaces!
Yeah, it's a conceptual change that you would need to understand in order to take full advantage of it. It's very powerful, but can be confusing and frustrating.
In Sequoia, those groups are not groups of bookmarks; Those are workspaces.
Think of a work space as a completely different browser. They can hold their own cookies separate from each other. So if you're in Workspace 1 (group1) and you're logged into SOL, then if you switch to workspace 2 (or group 2) then you may or may not be logged into SOL if you hadn't logged into SOL when in Workspace 2.
I never used the sidebar, so I'm not sure how it worked in sequoia, but in Tahoe, at the bottom of the side bar, there is 'Bookmarks' which mirror the 'Bookmarks' menu and those are actually just bookmarks or links to sites and they're independent from Workspaces.
So for example, you could have a workspace dedicated to your reading and writing activities and you would call it let's say 'SwitchBlayde' and you open as many tabs as you need like one for SOL, one for Bookapy, one for Grammarian, one for Google for research, etc...
Then you create a new workspace for your banking and investments sites and you open whatever tabs you need like fidelity, your bank, etc... From the top, you can easily switch between workspaces and all the tabs would change to show what's open in that workspace.
Workspaces are very powerful that way, especially when combined with pinned tabs.
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I sometimes have multiple browser windows open. In fact, I always have two: 1) my ZBookStore sales stats page and 2) my active window (like what I'm typing on now). I may do a cmd/N to temporarily open a new window (like to go to Google to check on something), but then close that temporary window. I don't like clutter. And sometimes I have multiple tabs open on a browser page, but not often. Usually it's when I click on a link and the app opens it in a new tab. If you're talking about that, it's not what I see on the sidebar.
When I click on Bookmarks at the very top, after things like "Hide Bookmarks" and "Edit Bookmarks," at the bottom is a list of all the bookmark "groups" I see on the sidebar. There's a greater-than-sign (afraid to type the symbol here) to the right of each. If I hover the mouse over it, it shows the bookmarks within that group. So it's under Bookmarks, not workspaces.
The good news is, I think you indirectly solved my problem. Instead of using the sidebar, all I have to do is click on Bookmarks at the top and then hover the mouse over the greater-than-sign to show the bookmarks in that group and then click on the bookmark in that group.
The good news is, I think you indirectly solved my problem. Instead of using the sidebar, all I have to do is click on Bookmarks at the top and then hover the mouse over the greater-than-sign to show the bookmarks in that group and then click on the bookmark in that group.
If using the bookmarks menu fixes the behavior for you, that means you were switching workspaces without noticing what's going on, hence the issues.
You don't have to use workspaces, as long as you don't inadvertently switch between them, then Safari behaves as expected.
If using the bookmarks menu fixes the behavior for you, that means you were switching workspaces
Except I didn't create a workspace. I created bookmark folders (from Add Bookmark Folder) and then put the new bookmark in a specific folder. What I called Groups I guess Safari calls Folders.
I still don't know what a workspace is, but the Apple site says you create it in Mission Control. I never did that. I don't even know what Mission Control is.
Oops! I was now checking and I was using the wrong name. In Safari's settings under Tahoe, they're called 'Profiles'. And double-checking things, it turned out that I was doubly confused. Heh, not only you!
In Sequoia, Safari is preconfigured with three profiles: Personal, Work, and Private/Anon; you can create more profiles. And on top of it, there are tab groups.
Next to the Sidebar icon in the top of the window, there is a drop-down that allows you to create tab groups and open windows under specific profiles.
Yes, it obviously can be very confusing. It's very powerful, but as usual, power in software can bring too much complexity, which leads to confusion.
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
Mozilla Firefox 115.27.0esr (64-bit)
Modern Dark
Just so you are aware, for me, when I checked Classic Dark, and then Classic, both are exactly the same as Modern Dark and Modern, except for a few color tweaks. There is NO columns separating any of the information such as used to be able to be had, as in nothing in your display sample is there, it is modern and that is it for me. A shame, because I prefer Classic, but need dark, so I deal with Modern Dark.
You are right, I didn't check the author's pages. They are different. The only issue I see is Sage Green highlighting behind Apple Green letters on the story titles that are linked to the story in the Description panels. The same background highlight color as used behind In Progress listing for stories in the Description panels. They pop when hovered over with a mouse, but the green on green is almost impossible for me to read, but that could be my having a slight color blindness issue, or not. The highlight color of Modern Dark is more to my liking, but I can deal with the colors of Classic Dark. Thank you for putting in the work. Even if I am a pain in the ass using an out of date operating system, windows 7, on an out of use life browser, Firefox, since I detest all newer versions of data rape windows.
Iit would be nice if there were a button somewhere that let me copy all my current visual settings to all other WLC sites. (I could then tune as needed if I wanted some subtle difference between the various sites. I could also 'restore' from another site if I messed things up when experimenting.)
