StoryPortal Fiction Network

I’ve been working quite hard on ePubVersion! The latest version is currently installed and running @ TG Fiction dot NET (TGFiction.Net). We are currently running Version 1.2 which uses HTML Pruifier, TIDY, and a pre-processing routine that I wrote, that helps produce quality ePub eBooks!

For those of you that love to read your stories offline on your .ePub compatible eBook reader (iPad, iPhone, Android, B&N Nook, Sony eReader, etc) you can now download .ePub versions of any of the stories currently posted @ TGFiction.Net thanks to a new modules we installed called ePubVersion. ePubVersion is a great little module that creates an .ePub book from either a single chapter, or all available chapters of a story and gives you a file named “Story_Title_[x"].epub” (for single chapters, x=the chapter number, for multiple chapters, x = the range of chapters available. This initial v0.7 release of the module does not currently support images, but the next version should support an option of downloading with or without images!

To use this new feature, just visit any available story, and click on “Story” or “Chapter” next to the “ePub” icon right under the “DisplayWord” icon in the top left corner of the page.

Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about this module, and let us know of any other features you would like us to add!

-HuGgLeS-
-P/KAF/PT

We’ve added tags before postings to the Twitterfeed to help you find out where the updates are from.

Postings from LG Tales will be prefaced “LGT-”

Postings from TGFiction.Net will be prefaced “TGF-”

And postings from this blog, will be prefaced “SPFN-”

Also we’ve added a few more story attributes @ LG Tales including “Seasonal Attributes” so stop by and take a look!

Well, before we get down to the updates at other sites, I thought I’d let everyone know, that LG Tales is OPEN!

Well, it’s BETA Open.

What this means is that we are allowing user sign ups, and story posting, and have begun importing our list of stories and authors that we already have permission to post.

What this also means is that what you see now, may not be what you see in a month, or even a week, or even a few days.

Things change fast. We find issues, or figure out how to make something better, and we fix it/change it.

It’s a lot of work to build a new fiction community, and we are trying to use our experiances from other sites to build tight knit niche community for those that only want to read the more innocent, mostly G rated stories as opposed to the X rated fiction that seems to have started dominating many fiction sites.

We have nothing against the more adult fiction sites, in fact, we applaud them for everything they do, heck, we even run one! But we decided there was a need for a different kind of place for people that didn’t have to worry about a story being correctly tagged with the right rating.

Now, this is not to say that there will never be stories with some more adult situations on LGT. We are mostly trying to weed out the one-handed-kink that to many of us, is like SPAM.

Now for the more mundane updates…

Due to the fact that one of the authors @ TGF seemed to be gathering a fair amount of spam comments on one of his stories, we took a day or so out of LGT development, and integrated an automagic spam filter into the comment system @ TGF. This new system shouldn’t look ANY different to normal users, and what it does is this. Every time you submit a review, TGF sends a copy of the review, along with your IP address and browser information to AKISMET. AKISMET then takes the information, compares it to their database of known spam, and does it’s best to tag it as SPAM or not. If it comes back as spam, the poster is notified, and the comment is stored but NOT shown. The next step in the process is for an Administrator to check the postings marked as “SPAM” and verify their status.

This system was implemented using AKISMET and the AKISMET PHP 5 class by Alex. The next revision of our system will allow Authors to tag reviews as spam, just in case the AKISMET system misses one, but we are still working on a system to make sure that an author can’t exploit the system by marking all comments they don’t like as spam.

As of right now, this system is only implemented on TGF but it will be moved to LGT as soon as it’s fully finished. We will also be releasing this mod back to the eFiction community.

Now just so you know I haven’t forgotten, HUGGLEBUGS is on our list of things to do. It IS important to us, we just seem to be really busy lately.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, you can now follow The StoryPortal Fiction Network ( SPFN ) on Twitter ( http://twitter.com/spfn ). Not only will you get news updates from this site, but you will get STORY UPDATES from LG Tales and TGFiction.Net and even HuggleBugs.Net when it’s back online!

Work on the LGT site has stalled once again.

Partially due to waiting for new software for a bit, but also because I had to do a lot of server work lately.

Firstly there was the rocky upgrade that caused us to move from Amanda, to Amanda2, to Amanda3 (server names).

Then there was the OS and Software upgrade of another server I manage for someone else. Which actually helps me pay for our primary server.

So I’ve had a lot of good excuses.

I have done some good work in my opinion on skinning a “Joomla” version of the LGT site should in fact we choose to go with the Joomla/eFiction bridge, so the fact that PHP-Fusion/eFiction bridge is already themed no longer makes a big difference. I was able to mostly duplicate the style of the PHP-Fusion theme in the Joomla theme for those that have seen one or the other, or both…

Once the j!fiction (Joomla/eFiction bridge) is installed and running I will let a larger group of “alpha testers” in to view the sites to see what others think of each offering.

N-E-Ways, that’s the news for now.

Oh, for those that haven’t noticed I installed new submission/advanced search forms @ TGFiction.Net that were a work product of code I wrote for LGTales, so the new site is definitely helping the old sites TOO!

-Piper/Kirstyn Amanda Fox/PiggilyTails

Well things are progressing @ LGTales…

You might not notice anything, as that big “firewall” of sorts is still up, but we are quite possibly going to SoftOpen or do a Technical Preview in the next week or so.

There are still a few small bugs, and a few quite large ones too, but we have started working on gathering approval to post some lovely stories, and have for the time being settled on a site format.

-HuGgLeS- and check back often!

-P/KAF/PT

LG Tales Cast of Charcters - The Girls

P.S. The HuggleBugs MySQL database got corrupted during all the server moves a couple weeks back, and I hope have it restored, and the site working again shortly.

Still slow moving @ LG Tales… I’m waiting on something I’m afraid will never come…

I’ve been doing a bit of work on the graphic portions of the site, since I can’t do any of the “structural” work…

AND

Other than that… Not much….

I need to get some work done on TGF, but I’ve been mostly useless the last week or so…

I need to get HuggleBugs Updated…

Hey, FictionMania is back.. YaY! (not really yay, but oh well)

-P/KAF