The Spooky Update (alpha-0.8.0)

Hey everybody! Been a while, hasn't it? I suppose I have some explaining to do—

For the last several months, I haven't really been in the right headspace to do work on the site. On top of life getting busy, multiple different things needing my attention, and generally feeling so mentally out of it that working on Offprint became a chore rather than a joy, I took on certain tasks that proved to be both extensive and monumental in scope, that couldn't be implemented into Offprint in a reasonable time frame.

I would apologize if it didn't sound so worn and tired. Instead, I think actions are more worthy of discussion than empty promises.

My team—the absolute champs SigmasonicX and PingZing—and I have drawn up a monumental list of changes coming to Offprint today. It's a result of the hard work put in by all of us over these last few months, and I couldn't be prouder and more appreciative of the work they've put in while I wasn't mentally capable of working half the time.

I thank them with all my heart for their tremendous work. Offprint owes much to you guys.

In any case, I think it's high time we get to those patch notes, huh? Fair warning—this update may cause some minor bugs here and there, so please head on over to our GitHub repository and file any issues you have with us. I promise we'll try to make our bug reporting process a bit easier to access in the future.

Patch Notes

What's New?

• Say hello to profiles: Our entire account system has been revamped and restructured to allow for the creation of Profiles. Like Pseudonyms on other platforms, Profiles are effectively sub-divisions of your account, with their own works, blogs, stats, etc all tied together. Now if you wanna separate out your main from your NSFW account, you can do so without needing an alternate account. You can only have a max of 3 profiles for now, but depending on what you guys say, we can look into raising that limit.
• A fresh look at Offprint: Several pages across the site have seen complete or near-complete redesigns. The Settings page can now accommodate more toggles in a clean and organized way, your portfolio is now your Profile and features a redesign of profile banners to make it easier to pick out a favorite, and Content pages—like those for Prose and Poetry—have seen a rework to feel a lot less cramped, and to prevent loading of things like comments from the get-go, reducing your initial load times. We've also updated site navigation to better fit everything. Let us know what you think on the Discord!
• Say goodbye to My Stuff: My Stuff has been removed from Offprint. No, I don't mean all your content—relax! Instead of creating and editing blogs and works from a dedicated page, that stuff has instead been moved to your profile. Authors can now edit their works directly from the work page, or post blogs directly from their blog feed, reducing the disconnect between "content creation" and "content management".
• A brand new search experience: Courtesy of SigmasonicX, Offprint's search features have been drastically revamped! Search has been decoupled from the Browse page and now includes several, more advanced searching options. While these options aren't yet available for mobile, for desktop users you'll be able to get to what you want much faster and much easier than before!

Changes & Fixes

• Courtesy of SigmasonicX, the Browse page has been drastically improved for mobile users!
• We've temporarily disabled the ability to change your email or password. This is because we're going to be implementing our email features in order to alert you whenever someone—either you or a malicious actor—is attempting to change key account details.
• Several animations have been disabled because they were causing performance issues. Once we know why, we'll work on a fix to bring back a bit of flair to Offprint.
• The account and profile quick menu has been moved to the navigation bar rather than a permanent top bar. This was to reduce the amount of vertical space we're using, and to increase the amount of functions we can include on pages that still require a top bar.
• All sections now save the ID of the work they belong to, just in case we need to recover an accidentally-deleted section from something. It still won't cover sections prior to this update, but it should alleviate headaches going forward.
• Tags on a story page now have a new bubble button-like appearance to maximize space, make them easily clickable (though they don't do anything just yet), and provide a more modern, more clean look.
• Docs page links have been moved to the bottom of the home page, so as to not clutter the rest of the UX with more and more links.

Known Issues

• Publishing a section will cause the page to refresh. This is due to a bug not allowing us to update the word count of a work locally, so it has to fetch the newest work info instead.
• You might not be able to log into your account. This is caused by erroneous migration patterns which may have caused your password to be double-encrypted, which will only ever decrypt to the single-encrypted version. Let a staff member know if this has happened to you so we can update your password to the correct one.
• News posts will not update, nor will they be posted. This is due to a pending change to how news posts are even made, how they're fetched, and how they're displayed. In future, news posts will be effectively blog posts that contributors can differentiate via toggle. This change will be live soon.
• Plus all the currently known issues on our GitHub Issue Tracker.

Note: We've also got a lot of work in the pipeline for the full release of fandom tagging, but there's still a few kinks we need to iron out before then.

As a reminder for everyone, please refresh your browser in order to receive the latest changes. Since accounts have also been changed, it will also be wise to clear your cookies and local storage for Offprint, that way Offprint is using the latest, up to date state.

I’d also like to take this time to also give a shoutout to all the people who’ve decided to contribute financially to the development of this site. The contributions you guys have made go a loooong way to keeping the site up and running while we work on getting everything we need for a successful Beta launch ready to go!

A special thanks goes out to the following Patrons:

• .
• Admiral Biscuit
• Alara Rogers
• Alex Holm
• Andy Tyres
• Bicyclette
• David T Harland
• Dexanth
• Dream
• Eric Elliot
• Eris
• Gloaming Powder
• Jake Roberts
• James Wake
• Jetstream
• KittyhawkContrail
• Krazy
• Krickis
• Lofty Withers
• Nitro Indigo
• Noble Thought
• RoMS
• SigmasonicX
• Singularity Dream
• SockPuppet
• TCC56
• Thought Prism
• Typoglyphic
• Undome Tinwe
• wishcometrue

You can join the Patreon via https://patreon.com/offprintstudios. We also have a Ko-Fi for single-time donations, which you can check out via https://ko-fi.com/offprintstudios. Any and all contributions are greatly appreciated!

See you guys next time!

7581777
Thanks for posting the patch notes here, I totally forgot to do that! Also haven't gotten the chance to explore the new patch yet, should really do that soon.

7581777
Thanks for posting this