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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Feature request: Category search - Location

solreader50 ๐Ÿšซ

I'm a big fan and user of the category search. Just a few minutes ago I felt like searching for stories set in the UK. But hey-ho there is no location category. Would other people find such a category useful? Can the admins actually implement this? Would authors use it?

Off the top of my head, but drawing on my vast experience of reading SOL over the years, I could suggest:

USA (generic); USA (East); USA (West); Europe; UK; South Asia; East Asia; Australia; Middle-East; South America; Africa;

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@solreader50

Would be very difficult to implement and not reliable at all.

Replies:   solreader50
solreader50 ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

An idea was floated, found to be impracticable and dropped and forgotten.

That is an acceptable end of the discussion for me.

Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@solreader50

It would have to be manually coded by the authors and as with existing categories would be subject to misuse/error. And who goes back and codes the old stories.

Also, your suggested location codes don't cover High Fantasy and Science Fiction stories that don't take place on Earth.

Replies:   solreader50
solreader50 ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

Also, your suggested location codes don't cover High Fantasy and Science Fiction stories that don't take place on Earth.

Like other categories and category types, there would be no compulsion to use them. In any case it looks like the idea died before gaining its first breath of life.

joyR ๐Ÿšซ

@solreader50

Perhaps instead Lazeez might consider adding a text search box below the categories. That would allow a user to select the desired categories but add a word(s) to further refine a search.

Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@joyR

Perhaps instead Lazeez might consider adding a text search box below the categories. That would allow a user to select the desired categories but add a word(s) to further refine a search.

That would be useful and could be included as one of the extra options for premier members.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@joyR

On the to do list is a move to a newer (still under active development) text search engine. The one currently in use 'SphinxSearch' is dead.

The replacement (sphinx's fork manticore) may enable more search options. We'll see.

Replies:   joyR
joyR ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

the to do list

I presume your 'to do' list would be considered cruel by Zeus, even for Sisyphus..??

:)

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)
Updated:

@joyR

Part of the To-do list. Big items:

1 - Finish the new payment system. (the current one is crap and costing money) [Done]

2 - Finish Subspot. (Half way there, needs new payment system)

3 - Redo Bookapy's front page (Soon too many books to have just a chronological list)

4 - Add top lists to Bookapy

5 - Integrate bookapy with new payment system (will enable one click purchasing) [Done]

6 - Enable recurring subscription with new payment system

7 - Redo the Text search server

8 - Finish the text storage server

Replies:   joyR  Mat Twassel
joyR ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Part of the To-do list. Big items:

Eight items, eight hours in the average work day, so what are you doing tomorrow?

:)

Your problem is self created. You've done so much with SoL et al for so long, and deal with issues so quickly that you are now expected to do everything almost instantaneously.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@joyR

so what are you doing tomorrow?

You're right. I'll get right on it.

Replies:   Ernest Bywater
Ernest Bywater ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

You're right. I'll get right on it.

You can finish your watermelon first.

Apologies to those who don't get the distinctive US joke.

richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ

@joyR

To-do

"Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages ยท Learn more
Search for a word
to-do
/tษ™ หˆdoอžo/
nounINFORMAL
a commotion or fuss.
"he ignored the to-do in the hall"
Similar:
commotion
fuss
fuss and bother
bother
trouble
ado
disturbance"

Mat Twassel ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

The biggest item on my SoL wish list is to have illustrations available on epub (and I suppose Kindle).

Pixy ๐Ÿšซ

@Mat Twassel

Oh god no....That's basically wanting to turn SoL into a comic.... Some content posted at the moment is borderline spam. At the very least the posts could be collected (collated?) into one post, a bit like the joke post.

Replies:   Keet  joyR
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Pixy

Oh god no....That's basically wanting to turn SoL into a comic....

What's wrong with (heavily) illustrated stories? Even 'real' comics or picture books can offer a nice read. It's just not popular on SOL, or I should say, not many authors here are into illustrating their books. Comics have huge audiences on several very popular sites. The thing is, almost all are in their own rather specific genre. SOL could offer a separate section for a greater variety of comics... if there were authors to post them.

Some content posted at the moment is borderline spam. At the very least the posts could be collected (collated?) into one post, a bit like the joke post.

That's an opinion apparently not shared by too many other readers otherwise Lazeez would have been buried under complaints. Since there are several illustrated stories that have not been banned just for their illustrations shows that they are not considered spam.

Replies:   Pixy
Pixy ๐Ÿšซ

@Keet

True, and not only do they score fairly highly, they also gain a lot of views.

I have nothing against heavily illustrated stories, on the other hand, a submission consisting of one picture and two or three lines of brief text is neither a story nor a comic, in fact, I would call it more a captioned image. But that is my opinion and I do not run/pay the site bills, hence why I said 'borderline' spam.

I also don't see why they shouldn't/couldn't all be posted in the one 'story' like Jack Spratt does with his jokes.

joyR ๐Ÿšซ

@Pixy

Well said..!!

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Mat Twassel

The biggest item on my SoL wish list is to have illustrations available on epub

When was the last time you tried one of your EPUBs?

Replies:   Keet  Mat Twassel
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

When was the last time you tried one of your EPUBs?

More important ;) When are the covers/illustrations also included in the zip's?

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Keet

The zip archives are html files and the image tags are left in them. If you open the file in a browser as it's intended for, then the browser should load the images off the internet.

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

The zip archives are html files and the image tags are left in them. If you open the file in a browser as it's intended for, then the browser should load the images off the internet.

Yep, I know, but that doesn't do any good if you are reading off-line. I ALWAYS read off-line on my very old tablet that is permanently disconnected from the internet but otherwise works fine. So I have to download all images separately and change the image urls.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Keet

I ALWAYS read off-line on my very old tablet that is permanently disconnected from the internet but otherwise works fine.

That tablet can't handle EPUBs?

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

That tablet can't handle EPUBs?

It can, but I download the zips and have the conversion to my custom library fully automated, including rewriting the image urls. I find reading chapters in html much better than the continues 'page' of epubs and I can add features like tooltips (acronyms!), maps, images, floorplans, etc as I want. I even convert the epubs I buy from Bookapy to html, or rather, I copy the html from Bookapy after I bought the book and convert that to my custom library.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Keet

download the zips and have the conversion to my custom library fully automated

You can convert the EPUB to html with Calibre. And since calibre is useable through the command line, it should be easy to incorporate it into a pre-existing work flow.

Replies:   Keet
Keet ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

You can convert the EPUB to html with Calibre. And since calibre is useable through the command line, it should be easy to incorporate it into a pre-existing work flow.

Nope, the resulting html is a huge mess and more than twice as big as the clean html and css my custom conversion produces. It works fine but having the images in the zip would eliminate the step to download the images separately. It just feels like the zip downloads are not complete without the cover images. If the epubs from now on contain all illustrations I'm thinking about downloading both the zip and epub and than extract the images from the epub. That shouldn't be too difficult.

Mat Twassel ๐Ÿšซ

@Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

Wow! I tried one just now and was amazed and pleased to see the illustrations. When did that happen? I think I tried one a couple of weeks ago and don't recall seeing images then.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Mat Twassel

When did that happen?

Today ;)

Actually the code had been ready for a while, needing some extra testing. So when I saw your entry, I did some more testing and when everything worked well, including the file for six times a day, I pushed the code to the server.

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