News
2011
January
Nexus Biographies 2011
Well it begins again. Over the past few months a new version of Nexus Biographies has been in the works and it is now ready for release onto the world wide web. For those of you who hung around the testing site, you should already be familiar with the new site.
The motto for this latest redesign was to focus on the core idea behind Nexus Biographies. Which is? The stories of course. So a lot of the extra (and unnecessary) stuff on the site has been stripped away to maintain this focus.
One of the hidden features of the old Nexus Biographies, the archive, has been brought to the forefront of the site. Basically the archive allowed people to view all the stories on the site on one nice orderly page. If you'll notice that particular feature is duplicated by the new stories page. This page has also been made the main page of the site so when you go to nexusbio.org it'll bring you right to it. Stories from the scrolls of NexusTK have been given a similar treatment in the scrolls section.
Though I still love my fancy effects, you'll notice the new site is completely stripped of any dynamic fancyness. They are not gone forever though and will return along with a way to switch the site between dynamic and static modes. There are still some nice elegant features on the the site such as the navigation on the top of any story page that will allow you to quickly navigate between every story on the site.
The biggest new feature of the site is the Submission page. This will make it much easier for you to get stories to me and for me to add stories to the site.
So welcome to 2011 and welcome to the new version of Nexus Biographies.
Saturday, January 01, 2011 ~ 01:36:20 EST
Here we go
So I'm going to start uploading to the main site soon. The next news post on the testbed will appear as the first on the main site. After that the testbed'll be dead for awhile.
Saturday, January 01, 2011 ~ 01:34:48 EST
2010
December
Latest Stories Added to Stories Page
Looking for the latest and greatest stories added to Nexus Biographies? As I mentioned earlier you can find that information on the latest stories RSS feed. For those who don't use RSS you can now find the same stuff on the Stories page. If that wasn't enough places for it you can find full details on new stories here.
So that is about all I want to do with the site for now. So huzzah it's done (for now).
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 03:29:08 EST
News RSS Updated and Moved
The news RSS feed has been move here. The old feed will still work but this one has some prettier formatting.
Anyways the site is almost ready. As I said it'll be ready by New Years! However I think I'll release the site on New Years Day just because.
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 02:11:39 EST
News Page Moved
If you have the news page bookmarked for some reason it probably does not work any more. The page has been moved here.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 08:32:23 EST
Latest Stories RSS Feed
I've added an RSS feed for people to keep up to date on the latest stories added to the site. I know a lot of people don't use RSS for some strange reason so I'll also be adding a way to view this information a little more directly on the site.
I'm also going to be changing the news feed a bit to make it more useful.
These seem like the only changes I need to make to the site before release. I have more plans post release but I want to get the site out as soon as possible.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 06:48:30 EST
Style Update
Changed some fonts around to hopefully make the site more consistent across browsers.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 ~ 06:07:13 EST
Fonts
Before the big release of the site I'll probably be changing various fonts around the site to make them look a little nicer and consistent across platforms.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 08:22:26 EST
Story Submission Enabled
As the title suggests you should now be able to submit stories, give it a try. I'd like to test things out a bit before moving everything to the main site. If you find any problems n-mail PyroAce.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 07:53:14 EST
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Whatever
Almost forgot, Merry Christmas everyones. Or Happy Holidays if you prefer.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:15:54 EST
So Close, Yet So Far
Christmas isn't coming this year. Despite my best efforts, the site is not quite ready to go. I've managed to get everything working close to the way I want it to on my test server. However everything doesn't work quite that well on this server. It should be a fairly quick fix thankfully, but Christmas is upon us and thus it's time for a little break.
If you still trust me believe me when I say that the site will be ready by New Years. Probably.
And hey at least the news works now.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:01:37 EST
News Problems
Just noticed news looks a little funny. That'll be fixed when I update the rest of the site. It is actually already fixed but I can't really apply it without putting in the submission stuff at the same time. So patience!
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 05:04:30 EST
Upcoming Updates
I have recently completed a submission engine to let people quickly and easily submit stories to the site. However before releasing that little feature, I need to create something that will allow me to approve submitted stories. This'll help ensure it will be a quick turnaround between the time someone submits a story and the time it appears on the site.
With the completion of that initiative I plan on releasing the site shortly. Basically replacing the main site with this one. This process should hopefully be completed before Christmas and what better gift could one ask for?
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 04:37:54 EST
December
Latest Stories Added to Stories Page
Looking for the latest and greatest stories added to Nexus Biographies? As I mentioned earlier you can find that information on the latest stories RSS feed. For those who don't use RSS you can now find the same stuff on the Stories page. If that wasn't enough places for it you can find full details on new stories here.
So that is about all I want to do with the site for now. So huzzah it's done (for now).
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 03:29:08 EST
News RSS Updated and Moved
The news RSS feed has been move here. The old feed will still work but this one has some prettier formatting.
Anyways the site is almost ready. As I said it'll be ready by New Years! However I think I'll release the site on New Years Day just because.
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 02:11:39 EST
News Page Moved
If you have the news page bookmarked for some reason it probably does not work any more. The page has been moved here.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 08:32:23 EST
Latest Stories RSS Feed
I've added an RSS feed for people to keep up to date on the latest stories added to the site. I know a lot of people don't use RSS for some strange reason so I'll also be adding a way to view this information a little more directly on the site.
I'm also going to be changing the news feed a bit to make it more useful.
These seem like the only changes I need to make to the site before release. I have more plans post release but I want to get the site out as soon as possible.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 06:48:30 EST
Style Update
Changed some fonts around to hopefully make the site more consistent across browsers.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 ~ 06:07:13 EST
Fonts
Before the big release of the site I'll probably be changing various fonts around the site to make them look a little nicer and consistent across platforms.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 08:22:26 EST
Story Submission Enabled
As the title suggests you should now be able to submit stories, give it a try. I'd like to test things out a bit before moving everything to the main site. If you find any problems n-mail PyroAce.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 07:53:14 EST
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Whatever
Almost forgot, Merry Christmas everyones. Or Happy Holidays if you prefer.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:15:54 EST
So Close, Yet So Far
Christmas isn't coming this year. Despite my best efforts, the site is not quite ready to go. I've managed to get everything working close to the way I want it to on my test server. However everything doesn't work quite that well on this server. It should be a fairly quick fix thankfully, but Christmas is upon us and thus it's time for a little break.
If you still trust me believe me when I say that the site will be ready by New Years. Probably.
And hey at least the news works now.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:01:37 EST
News Problems
Just noticed news looks a little funny. That'll be fixed when I update the rest of the site. It is actually already fixed but I can't really apply it without putting in the submission stuff at the same time. So patience!
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 05:04:30 EST
Upcoming Updates
I have recently completed a submission engine to let people quickly and easily submit stories to the site. However before releasing that little feature, I need to create something that will allow me to approve submitted stories. This'll help ensure it will be a quick turnaround between the time someone submits a story and the time it appears on the site.
With the completion of that initiative I plan on releasing the site shortly. Basically replacing the main site with this one. This process should hopefully be completed before Christmas and what better gift could one ask for?
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 04:37:54 EST
December
Latest Stories Added to Stories Page
Looking for the latest and greatest stories added to Nexus Biographies? As I mentioned earlier you can find that information on the latest stories RSS feed. For those who don't use RSS you can now find the same stuff on the Stories page. If that wasn't enough places for it you can find full details on new stories here.
So that is about all I want to do with the site for now. So huzzah it's done (for now).
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 03:29:08 EST
News RSS Updated and Moved
The news RSS feed has been move here. The old feed will still work but this one has some prettier formatting.
Anyways the site is almost ready. As I said it'll be ready by New Years! However I think I'll release the site on New Years Day just because.
Friday, December 31, 2010 ~ 02:11:39 EST
News Page Moved
If you have the news page bookmarked for some reason it probably does not work any more. The page has been moved here.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 08:32:23 EST
Latest Stories RSS Feed
I've added an RSS feed for people to keep up to date on the latest stories added to the site. I know a lot of people don't use RSS for some strange reason so I'll also be adding a way to view this information a little more directly on the site.
I'm also going to be changing the news feed a bit to make it more useful.
These seem like the only changes I need to make to the site before release. I have more plans post release but I want to get the site out as soon as possible.
Thursday, December 30, 2010 ~ 06:48:30 EST
Style Update
Changed some fonts around to hopefully make the site more consistent across browsers.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 ~ 06:07:13 EST
Fonts
Before the big release of the site I'll probably be changing various fonts around the site to make them look a little nicer and consistent across platforms.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 08:22:26 EST
Story Submission Enabled
As the title suggests you should now be able to submit stories, give it a try. I'd like to test things out a bit before moving everything to the main site. If you find any problems n-mail PyroAce.
Monday, December 27, 2010 ~ 07:53:14 EST
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Whatever
Almost forgot, Merry Christmas everyones. Or Happy Holidays if you prefer.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:15:54 EST
So Close, Yet So Far
Christmas isn't coming this year. Despite my best efforts, the site is not quite ready to go. I've managed to get everything working close to the way I want it to on my test server. However everything doesn't work quite that well on this server. It should be a fairly quick fix thankfully, but Christmas is upon us and thus it's time for a little break.
If you still trust me believe me when I say that the site will be ready by New Years. Probably.
And hey at least the news works now.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 ~ 12:01:37 EST
News Problems
Just noticed news looks a little funny. That'll be fixed when I update the rest of the site. It is actually already fixed but I can't really apply it without putting in the submission stuff at the same time. So patience!
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 05:04:30 EST
Upcoming Updates
I have recently completed a submission engine to let people quickly and easily submit stories to the site. However before releasing that little feature, I need to create something that will allow me to approve submitted stories. This'll help ensure it will be a quick turnaround between the time someone submits a story and the time it appears on the site.
With the completion of that initiative I plan on releasing the site shortly. Basically replacing the main site with this one. This process should hopefully be completed before Christmas and what better gift could one ask for?
Thursday, December 09, 2010 ~ 04:37:54 EST
September
Update to News and RSS
Although it may not be important to you this is very important to me. The news page has been updated so that I can easily post to it. What this means for the future is that it will soon be easy to post stories as well.
The RSS feed which tracks news updates has also been updated. Now it will link to specific news articles. Find the RSS feed here. Please subscribe to the feed to keep up to date on changes made to the testbed. I like to have people coming around testing the site but I understand that visiting regularly can be futile since so few updates are being made lately. So subscribing to the feed will allow you to find out when the site changes without having to visit.
That's all for today.
Saturday, September 18, 2010 ~ 12:41:28 EST
August
Happy Birthday
Today is a very important day. No it is not just the day Skynet went online. It is the birthday of Nexus Biographies. I may not be able to remember what year the site started but for some reason August 4 always sticks out.
Every couple of years I seem to have a grand plan to have something special for this day. Any this year is no different. I had some great plans and no results. Things have been busy to say the least but I assure you I at least sometime think about maybe doing something involving the site.
Wednesday, August 04, 2010 ~ 13:20:00 EST
June
Welcome to the testbed
This is a bit of preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies for the curious out there. Take a look around and tell me what you think. Just send a PM to Dritz over at Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
Bug reports are welcome but just note that I do realize there is a funny looking ~ after the 2010 on this news page. I really wanted to launch the testbed and couldn't be bothered to figure out how to get that not to display when it was not needed. I'll get to it though, don't worry!
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:59:00 EST
So what is the testbed?
I read some great advice a few months back. When you are working on something do your best to get it released as soon as possible despite missing some functionality. However I am weary of completely overwriting the main site (http://www.nexusbio.org), so I figured the next best thing would be to set up an area for people to preview the next iteration of the site.
For those of you who have followed the development of Nexus Biographies closely you may recall that I have set up these testbeds before. However those past implementations were a bit buggy, everytime I did something on the design I uploaded it right away. What I want to do this time is have this area relatively bug free and just concentrate on delivering a good looking preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies.
So the testbed is not going to be constantly updated with new (half-working) features instead it will occassionally see big leaps from one iteration to the next.
As of this news post what I consider the core functionality of Nexus Biographies is available. You can read stories. I want to make sure that the most important part of the site is done flawlessly ASAP and I hope that everyone feels I have accomplished that. If not just PM Dritz on Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
For now I am going to concentrate on providing things for myself on the site. Meaning some tools for me to update this news page and add stories to the site. So don't be surprised if the site is not updated with new stuff that you can say for a couple of weeks.
After that is done I would like to start making the site a little more fancy. The main site has quite a few nice little features which at times have caused problems for the site. To be honest I was a little to occupied with trying to do neat things with the site rather than what the site looked like so things quickly got a little too bloated. Not only that those without javascript or modern browsers were left a little in the dust.
This version of Nexus Biographies will be designed from the ground up to degrade gracefully accross all platforms. That being said you are going to get more out of the site with a modern browser (and for security reasons you really should keep up to date).
Finally I am very interested in providing an API of sorts to other Nexus websites specifically subpath sites. For those who don't know Chongun Haven (http://www.nexusbio.org/chongun) actually uses Nexus Biographies for all it's story related content. So it has a story section that will display all stories created by Chonguns. Now this was fairly easy to accomplish since I have control over both sites. However I hope that in the future I can modify the system I use for Chongun Haven so that any site could tie into our archive.
Speaking of our archive for those who do not know, Nexus Biographies uses a completely open 'database'. There is one for stories (nexusbio.org/testbed/archive.xml) and for scrolls (nexusbio.org/testbed/scrolls.xml). If you know a bit of XML be sure to take a look at them, maybe you'll have some ideas I have not thought of.
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:40:00 EST
Nexus Biographies... Again? Why?
Nexus Biographies... a peculiar site. It never was the most popular Nexus site but it certainly was not relegated to the deep dark shadows of the internet. The site has enjoyed many incarnations and as I understand it actually has quite a few fans. Every few months I will be surprised when someone brings the site up to me.
So in gathering the energy to once again hack away at the site I felt I had to answer several questions for myself. Firstly is building this site actually worth it? Well as I said before there are fans out there. But why do they like the site? There are certainly creative people out there in the kingdoms but a catalogue of literary classics this site is not. I think a big appeal of the site is to just look at what people in your community are creating. Good, bad, it does not matter that much.
Another question I asked myself is why I created this site in the first place. The undeniable truth was that I wanted to, in some way, showcase my own works. It seems such a strange compulsion looking back on it now. None of my stories (for those interested they are listed under the authors Ace, PyroAce, and Dritz) were all that good.
Now I have certainly improved over the years. Progression can certainly be seen going from 'Story of PyroAce' to 'Story of Ace' to 'Life Before Dawn' and my final work from years ago 'Legends: Volume 4'. However none of those stories are exactly stellar. True, some people have gone all the way through Life Before Dawn and enjoyed it but you wouldn't pick it up from a library.
So although I may find within the recesses of my mind the creativity to craft some new tales, it will not be the thing to drive me to continue improving the site.
So what will drive the development of Nexus Biographies into the future? Honestly it all depends on the users of the site. I enjoy reading the stories and poems crafted by the many talented (and some not so talented) people of NexusTK. However in the past I have been less than succesful getting people to share their work with me and all the readers of Nexus Biographies.
And that is the final question: 'How can I get people interested in the site and to submit content'? Well hopefully I can provide an appealing site which will inspire creativity in people. I also need to make it painless and easy to submit content to the site (keep an eye out on this testbed for advances in that).
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 15:23:00 EST
June
Welcome to the testbed
This is a bit of preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies for the curious out there. Take a look around and tell me what you think. Just send a PM to Dritz over at Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
Bug reports are welcome but just note that I do realize there is a funny looking ~ after the 2010 on this news page. I really wanted to launch the testbed and couldn't be bothered to figure out how to get that not to display when it was not needed. I'll get to it though, don't worry!
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:59:00 EST
So what is the testbed?
I read some great advice a few months back. When you are working on something do your best to get it released as soon as possible despite missing some functionality. However I am weary of completely overwriting the main site (http://www.nexusbio.org), so I figured the next best thing would be to set up an area for people to preview the next iteration of the site.
For those of you who have followed the development of Nexus Biographies closely you may recall that I have set up these testbeds before. However those past implementations were a bit buggy, everytime I did something on the design I uploaded it right away. What I want to do this time is have this area relatively bug free and just concentrate on delivering a good looking preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies.
So the testbed is not going to be constantly updated with new (half-working) features instead it will occassionally see big leaps from one iteration to the next.
As of this news post what I consider the core functionality of Nexus Biographies is available. You can read stories. I want to make sure that the most important part of the site is done flawlessly ASAP and I hope that everyone feels I have accomplished that. If not just PM Dritz on Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
For now I am going to concentrate on providing things for myself on the site. Meaning some tools for me to update this news page and add stories to the site. So don't be surprised if the site is not updated with new stuff that you can say for a couple of weeks.
After that is done I would like to start making the site a little more fancy. The main site has quite a few nice little features which at times have caused problems for the site. To be honest I was a little to occupied with trying to do neat things with the site rather than what the site looked like so things quickly got a little too bloated. Not only that those without javascript or modern browsers were left a little in the dust.
This version of Nexus Biographies will be designed from the ground up to degrade gracefully accross all platforms. That being said you are going to get more out of the site with a modern browser (and for security reasons you really should keep up to date).
Finally I am very interested in providing an API of sorts to other Nexus websites specifically subpath sites. For those who don't know Chongun Haven (http://www.nexusbio.org/chongun) actually uses Nexus Biographies for all it's story related content. So it has a story section that will display all stories created by Chonguns. Now this was fairly easy to accomplish since I have control over both sites. However I hope that in the future I can modify the system I use for Chongun Haven so that any site could tie into our archive.
Speaking of our archive for those who do not know, Nexus Biographies uses a completely open 'database'. There is one for stories (nexusbio.org/testbed/archive.xml) and for scrolls (nexusbio.org/testbed/scrolls.xml). If you know a bit of XML be sure to take a look at them, maybe you'll have some ideas I have not thought of.
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:40:00 EST
Nexus Biographies... Again? Why?
Nexus Biographies... a peculiar site. It never was the most popular Nexus site but it certainly was not relegated to the deep dark shadows of the internet. The site has enjoyed many incarnations and as I understand it actually has quite a few fans. Every few months I will be surprised when someone brings the site up to me.
So in gathering the energy to once again hack away at the site I felt I had to answer several questions for myself. Firstly is building this site actually worth it? Well as I said before there are fans out there. But why do they like the site? There are certainly creative people out there in the kingdoms but a catalogue of literary classics this site is not. I think a big appeal of the site is to just look at what people in your community are creating. Good, bad, it does not matter that much.
Another question I asked myself is why I created this site in the first place. The undeniable truth was that I wanted to, in some way, showcase my own works. It seems such a strange compulsion looking back on it now. None of my stories (for those interested they are listed under the authors Ace, PyroAce, and Dritz) were all that good.
Now I have certainly improved over the years. Progression can certainly be seen going from 'Story of PyroAce' to 'Story of Ace' to 'Life Before Dawn' and my final work from years ago 'Legends: Volume 4'. However none of those stories are exactly stellar. True, some people have gone all the way through Life Before Dawn and enjoyed it but you wouldn't pick it up from a library.
So although I may find within the recesses of my mind the creativity to craft some new tales, it will not be the thing to drive me to continue improving the site.
So what will drive the development of Nexus Biographies into the future? Honestly it all depends on the users of the site. I enjoy reading the stories and poems crafted by the many talented (and some not so talented) people of NexusTK. However in the past I have been less than succesful getting people to share their work with me and all the readers of Nexus Biographies.
And that is the final question: 'How can I get people interested in the site and to submit content'? Well hopefully I can provide an appealing site which will inspire creativity in people. I also need to make it painless and easy to submit content to the site (keep an eye out on this testbed for advances in that).
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 15:23:00 EST
June
Welcome to the testbed
This is a bit of preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies for the curious out there. Take a look around and tell me what you think. Just send a PM to Dritz over at Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
Bug reports are welcome but just note that I do realize there is a funny looking ~ after the 2010 on this news page. I really wanted to launch the testbed and couldn't be bothered to figure out how to get that not to display when it was not needed. I'll get to it though, don't worry!
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:59:00 EST
So what is the testbed?
I read some great advice a few months back. When you are working on something do your best to get it released as soon as possible despite missing some functionality. However I am weary of completely overwriting the main site (http://www.nexusbio.org), so I figured the next best thing would be to set up an area for people to preview the next iteration of the site.
For those of you who have followed the development of Nexus Biographies closely you may recall that I have set up these testbeds before. However those past implementations were a bit buggy, everytime I did something on the design I uploaded it right away. What I want to do this time is have this area relatively bug free and just concentrate on delivering a good looking preview of the next version of Nexus Biographies.
So the testbed is not going to be constantly updated with new (half-working) features instead it will occassionally see big leaps from one iteration to the next.
As of this news post what I consider the core functionality of Nexus Biographies is available. You can read stories. I want to make sure that the most important part of the site is done flawlessly ASAP and I hope that everyone feels I have accomplished that. If not just PM Dritz on Nexus Forums, e-mail me at dritztk@gmail.com, or n-mail PyroAce.
For now I am going to concentrate on providing things for myself on the site. Meaning some tools for me to update this news page and add stories to the site. So don't be surprised if the site is not updated with new stuff that you can say for a couple of weeks.
After that is done I would like to start making the site a little more fancy. The main site has quite a few nice little features which at times have caused problems for the site. To be honest I was a little to occupied with trying to do neat things with the site rather than what the site looked like so things quickly got a little too bloated. Not only that those without javascript or modern browsers were left a little in the dust.
This version of Nexus Biographies will be designed from the ground up to degrade gracefully accross all platforms. That being said you are going to get more out of the site with a modern browser (and for security reasons you really should keep up to date).
Finally I am very interested in providing an API of sorts to other Nexus websites specifically subpath sites. For those who don't know Chongun Haven (http://www.nexusbio.org/chongun) actually uses Nexus Biographies for all it's story related content. So it has a story section that will display all stories created by Chonguns. Now this was fairly easy to accomplish since I have control over both sites. However I hope that in the future I can modify the system I use for Chongun Haven so that any site could tie into our archive.
Speaking of our archive for those who do not know, Nexus Biographies uses a completely open 'database'. There is one for stories (nexusbio.org/testbed/archive.xml) and for scrolls (nexusbio.org/testbed/scrolls.xml). If you know a bit of XML be sure to take a look at them, maybe you'll have some ideas I have not thought of.
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 19:40:00 EST
Nexus Biographies... Again? Why?
Nexus Biographies... a peculiar site. It never was the most popular Nexus site but it certainly was not relegated to the deep dark shadows of the internet. The site has enjoyed many incarnations and as I understand it actually has quite a few fans. Every few months I will be surprised when someone brings the site up to me.
So in gathering the energy to once again hack away at the site I felt I had to answer several questions for myself. Firstly is building this site actually worth it? Well as I said before there are fans out there. But why do they like the site? There are certainly creative people out there in the kingdoms but a catalogue of literary classics this site is not. I think a big appeal of the site is to just look at what people in your community are creating. Good, bad, it does not matter that much.
Another question I asked myself is why I created this site in the first place. The undeniable truth was that I wanted to, in some way, showcase my own works. It seems such a strange compulsion looking back on it now. None of my stories (for those interested they are listed under the authors Ace, PyroAce, and Dritz) were all that good.
Now I have certainly improved over the years. Progression can certainly be seen going from 'Story of PyroAce' to 'Story of Ace' to 'Life Before Dawn' and my final work from years ago 'Legends: Volume 4'. However none of those stories are exactly stellar. True, some people have gone all the way through Life Before Dawn and enjoyed it but you wouldn't pick it up from a library.
So although I may find within the recesses of my mind the creativity to craft some new tales, it will not be the thing to drive me to continue improving the site.
So what will drive the development of Nexus Biographies into the future? Honestly it all depends on the users of the site. I enjoy reading the stories and poems crafted by the many talented (and some not so talented) people of NexusTK. However in the past I have been less than succesful getting people to share their work with me and all the readers of Nexus Biographies.
And that is the final question: 'How can I get people interested in the site and to submit content'? Well hopefully I can provide an appealing site which will inspire creativity in people. I also need to make it painless and easy to submit content to the site (keep an eye out on this testbed for advances in that).
Monday, June 21, 2010 ~ 15:23:00 EST
April
Nexus Biographies Testbed
Once again life flows through Nexus Biographies. A new version of the site (the 13th to be exact!) is well underway and can be previewed on the testbed.
This new design will hopefully inspire more creative people to visit and contribute to the site. Other than aesthetic changes there are also improvements being made to the internals of the site. What this means for you, the end user is that content will be more easily added in the future. Thus giving me no excuse not to keep adding stories (in theory ;)).
The site will once again offer compatibility with many web browsers. With the change several years ago to using AJAX the site simply could could not be used by some people who had javascript disabled. The site will now be available in both dynamic and static flavors allowing those without javascript to experience the site.
For fans of the previous AJAX effects, do not worry there will still be plenty of razzle dazzle on the site. Quick seemless loading will still be available to those with javascript enabled. In addition some of the UI from my other project Chongun Haven will be ported over and improved upon.
Saturday, April 03, 2010 ~ 08:00:00 EST