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Recent News (most recent)
07-31: July update!
07-01: A (slightly late) June update
05-29: You want an update? Well... I suppose you May.
04-17: April Update
03-11: A February Update... In March
Recent Updates (view all)
02-05: The forum (and forum button) has been removed.
02-10: Registration and the Privacy Policy have been update...
08-18: By popular demand, the Screen Editor has been made l...
06-30: Added a Total Word Count in Screen Editor.

Hello, and welcome to Create Your Own Choose-Your-Own-Adventures!

Here, you may browse literally tens of exciting adventures, or register and create your very own!

← A (slightly late) June update   
Other News
   Another month already? →



July update!

Jul 31, 2014 at 18:11

Another month, another update.

This month has had me focusing on the most complex and difficult part of the site: the visual screen editor. The current version is written using SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which are great for drawing cool shapes and lines, but less effective at being responsive user interfaces, which unfortunately is the main thing I need it to be. I feel like the current implementation isn't bad at all, but every time I wanted to change something it was a huge headache.

To that end, I'm rewriting the whole thing (as I'm doing with most of the site). As I hinted last month, I started just by getting some boxes and lines on the screen.

Since then, the boxes have become draggable, the lines have become dynamic, I gained the ability to set a background, and I've implemented the color-coding feature that shows which screens connect to the one you're hovering over. Now that I have the foundations in place, I can start connecting it to the database to grab the current adventure structures and show them as we're more or less used to seeing them in the visual editor.

See it here!

In the meantime, I also took a couple days and set up the site to use hashtag navigation; that means that even though the site is a fluid experience that almost never requires reloading the page, as you traverse the different parts of it the URL will still change, so you can bookmark certain areas or use the back button. It's a bit technical, but maybe some of you will understand what i'm talking about; in any case, I hope all of you will appreciate it once you're using it!

- The Grasssmith


← You want an update? Well... I suppose you May.   
Other News
   July update! →



A (slightly late) June update

Jul 01, 2014 at 18:58

Hey y'all!

It's been a very busy month at the ol' "real job," and the work I've done on Choosology doesn't come across in a screenshot very well.

But I've added and polished the comments and rating for the adventure view, fixed several longstanding bugs, and now I'm taking on a new, scarier part of the site...

I will simply leave you with this:

the culmination of many hours of blood, sweat, and tears...

- The Grasssmith


← April Update   
Other News
   A (slightly late) June update →



You want an update? Well... I suppose you May.

May 29, 2014 at 18:47

Time for a monthly update!

The screenshot this time around is even full-sized!

I've been spending my time on the adventure-viewing experience. At this point, adventures are perfectly viewable, rateable, and commentable! I still want to make a few new improvements, but the drudgery of updating the old modules to fit into the new hotness that is Choosology is mostly complete (with the major exception of the picture management pages).

You may also notice the "Return to previous screen" button; this will let you traverse back through the path you took, so you can go back to an interesting fork in the path and take another one easily. I have another trick up my sleeve regarding this functionality, but that will have to be another month's update...

- The Grasssmith


← A February Update... In March   
Other News
   You want an update? Well... I suppose you May. →



April Update

Apr 17, 2014 at 19:37

Greetings, Adventurers!

Since the Search screen is fairly complete (in a phase 1 sort of way), today we have a screenshot of the adventure-viewing screen (work very much in progress) right here.

I'm using the existing Tutorial adventure just to test it out. As you can see, the existing picture and styling remains (except for the font... that didn't quite make it in yet). All of your adventures should survive the site upgrade with no problems.

I've also put the choices in their own box, and they're invisible until you hover your mouse over that area. This is also where the rating/commenting modules will be at the end of your adventure, but now it won't be so obvious that you're at the end of an adventure until you actually read the whole thing.

Finally, you can see that the viewing screen still has the logo and login widget at the top of the screen, but the background is black. This is because when you view an adventure, you go seamlessly into "theater mode" to read the adventure with minimal distractions. The site navigation is much more fluid now and it's always clear that you're on the site, even though each individual adventure has its own style.

Feel free to leave any thoughts or suggestions! And in the meantime, keep writing those adventures!

- The Grasssmith


← Monthly update!   
Other News
   April Update →



A February Update... In March

Mar 11, 2014 at 19:25

Well. I know I said I'd do these once a month, but man that month flew by! I blame the mere 28 days of February. Also I got involved in some important video game tournaments, and then I got sick. But everything is back on track! The screenshot (http://imgur.com/tymtFvS) I'd like to show today is the same page as before, but changes have been made.

The old chalkboard menu has been scrapped in favor of a cleaner-looking button system, I've added a search bar, and you can hide the Featured Adventures banner.

Anyway, this next month should be far more productive! Thanks for stickin' with me, and keep writing those adventures--you won't lose anything when the new site comes along, and everything you do now will count toward the new achievements as well!

- The Grasssmith


Site Updates

02-05-2017, 15:19: The forum (and forum button) has been removed.
02-10-2015, 11:36: Registration and the Privacy Policy have been updated to cover users under 13.
08-18-2013, 08:04: By popular demand, the Screen Editor has been made larger.
06-30-2013, 16:21: Added a Total Word Count in Screen Editor.
06-26-2013, 12:26: Updated Screen Editor to show which screens are empty or not.
05-29-2013, 18:13: Comments on non-public adventures are no longer shown in Recent Comments.
05-27-2013, 18:43: Noticed and sorta-fixed a bug which can make adventure editing impossible.
05-22-2013, 23:11: Added a little button linking to our Facebook page.
05-17-2013, 14:53: Added "Send Message" button to profiles, fixed a couple message bugs.
05-16-2013, 17:25: Added node counter and fixed issue with lingering node highlights.
05-16-2013, 16:28: Added loading overlay to prevent some bugs on adventure editor.
05-15-2013, 23:32: Tweaked adventure saving so large adventures are less likely to break.
04-27-2013, 00:07: Fixed minor issue with Beginning Screen choice with disproportionately major rewrite of the functionality.
04-27-2013, 00:06: Added some controls for publishing to help prevent accidental publishing.
04-24-2013, 23:24: A couple styling fixes, especially with how adventures are shown in Recent Adventures.
04-13-2013, 16:26: Allowed deletion of own comments, and fixed comment display on home page.
04-11-2013, 16:35: Made a few fixes to places that were showing HTML code instead of parsing it.
03-05-2013, 15:56: Made a couple of fixes to ratings and description box errors.
01-11-2013, 09:37: Fixed an issue with saving adventure options with a long adventure title.
11-06-2011, 18:15: The visual editor now has an indicator for when there are non-visible screens.
10-07-2011, 15:44: Fixed issue with universal images being used as adventure images.
06-09-2011, 20:30: Fixed some bugs on the Profile page.
06-06-2011, 18:43: You can now log in with your email OR username.
06-01-2011, 22:29: Fixed some bugs on the Account page.
05-31-2011, 23:32: Added semi-experimental video embedding!
05-31-2011, 19:51: Fixed some screen editor errors.
05-30-2011, 19:22: Made registration a little more helpful on success.
05-30-2011, 00:12: Added a "view full picture" option to Manage Pictures.
05-29-2011, 17:16: Made improvements to Screen Editor usability.
05-28-2011, 17:41: Added some browser detection so it's clearer what you need.
05-28-2011, 17:41: Started adding some helpful popup tooltips.
05-27-2011, 21:28: Added a search box on the Browse page.
05-26-2011, 19:17: Cleaned up AJAX saving so it's less choppy.
05-26-2011, 19:17: Fixed some issues related to Adventure availability.
05-25-2011, 23:53: Various updates to button styles and visual editor usability
05-24-2011, 23:31: Made some fixes and improvements to image-inserting, so that an image uploaded in another window will be available the next time you open an Edit Screen window.
05-23-2011, 19:14: Improved detection of background brightness so site buttons and text are visible.
05-23-2011, 19:02: Updated About page and Terms and Conditions.
05-23-2011, 19:01: Fixed bug with screen editing.
05-22-2011, 22:20: 2.0.1 updated! See news item.
05-20-2011, 14:11: Up. Dated. EVERYTHING.
04-16-2011, 16:38: Fixed an error in viewing adventures.
02-08-2011, 22:15: Added the ability to upload .zip files of images.
08-02-2009, 19:23: Added new image-choosing module in all relevant areas.
08-02-2009, 19:22: Added several helpful messages for creating new adventures.
08-02-2009, 19:22: Divided Adventure Editing page into Info and Style sections.
07-26-2009, 23:23: You can now add a profile picture on your Account page.
07-26-2009, 15:36: Updated Manage Pics page with option to change image names, and some styling changes.
07-25-2009, 01:40: Profile pages updated with fancy search box.
07-24-2009, 00:58: Added proto-profiles.
07-24-2009, 00:57: Cannot register with a name solely comprised of numbers.
07-20-2009, 21:36: Added "view all news" option to front page.
07-17-2009, 12:01: Fixed a bug where you'd be warned about not having written "[[pic]]" even if you had.
07-16-2009, 21:11: added some helpful text.
07-16-2009, 20:38: Added "Restricted Only" option to Browse page for people who have chosen to see such content.
07-16-2009, 20:37: Fixed bug when creating new adventure.
07-16-2009, 00:45: Added an option in the Accounts subsection to allow yourself to see Restricted adventures.
07-16-2009, 00:45: Moved Availability options to drop-down, added "Restricted" and implemented security to enforce it.
07-15-2009, 21:14: Allowed editing adventure details on Public adventures. Still can't change its screens though.
07-15-2009, 21:05: allowed Facebook to access images so you can share adventures there. It's still a little hit-or-miss though.
07-15-2009, 11:47: Update to Privacy Policy to reflect multiple cookies usage. Update to Terms relaxing requirements for Public adventures.
07-15-2009, 11:35: Updated "About" section.
07-15-2009, 10:31: more IE6-centric CSS fixes.
07-15-2009, 00:59: Added an option for persistent logins.
07-14-2009, 16:30: fixed layout issues for IE6. In general, I don't consider IE6 to be something i really support, but in this case it was ridiculous not to.
07-14-2009, 00:36: Made several visual and functional updates to the Browse page.
07-10-2009, 15:50: Prevented trying to preview a screen in progress which hadn't been created yet.
07-10-2009, 11:22: fixed a couple rating-related problems.
07-10-2009, 01:15: Can't rate your own adventures anymore.. also, some CSS fixes
07-10-2009, 00:41: Implemented 5-star rating system.
07-09-2009, 16:37: Fixed style problems on Recent Adventures listing.
07-09-2009, 10:41: Parent listing on screen editing page shows screen name instead of title.
07-09-2009, 01:13: Added a "Recent Adventures" listing on the front page
07-08-2009, 15:59: "forum.cyocyoa.com" now redirects to the forum.
07-07-2009, 23:33: Forum link added.
07-07-2009, 13:48: fixed a bug where an error message was shown when editing adventures.
07-07-2009, 00:20: Can now put hyperlinks in screens.
07-06-2009, 22:53: fixed a bug with displaying some icons on the Adventure editing page.
07-06-2009, 22:14: You can now reset your password if you forget it.
07-06-2009, 20:42: you can now change a picture's category from the Manage Pictures pages.
07-06-2009, 19:05: Picture sizes are now shown on the Manage Pictures page.
07-06-2009, 00:15: Fixed issue where adventures would try to show an icon even if none was set.
07-06-2009, 00:14: picture alignment and borders are now explicit options. This means the old way ("[[pic|center|2px solid black]]") does not work anymore
07-06-2009, 00:13: warn if picture chosen but "[[pic]]" not written
07-05-2009, 21:21: fixed screen display error with HTML entities
07-05-2009, 16:14: Made this cute little auto-magical update listing.
07-05-2009, 16:13: "Manage Pictures" section now has expandable categories.
07-05-2009, 16:13: prevented hotlinking pictures from this site, also prevented anyone trying to find more pictures by digging through directories