Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies


Note: All the below is old stuff, no longer viable. This site will close down in the fall of 2015 due to lack of use/participation. I will save the content if anyone else wants to do the site later, but don't see the point in keeping it around when goons who have used it have moved on. It was a good run!


Check out our Facebook and Twitter.

Separate but semi-goon related is a nature writing and arts community at Google+ Read the FAQs, ma'am.

http://www.goonreads.com: A site for all SA authors!

What the heck is Goonreads?

Goonreads is a website that promotes goon-authored books and other writings. It's a place where you can list and promote your a) published books, b) other writings online, and c) personal author blog. While the site cannot replace the value of book/writing discussion here at SA, it does organize goon writings into a place that makes it easy to find your book or other works by title, author, genre, category, etc. So far we have about 140 books posted and many more registered users who are working on books. If you are new to this thread, you might want to skip the first few pages because they are mostly about development stuff, before the site went live. We went live in late 2012.

We have also had a successful first writing contest, with Random Stranger winning the Amazon gift card jackpot.

How does this thread differ from the self-publishing thread?

While there is a little overlap, the self-publishing thread (a great resource!) is for book self-publishers only and gives goons a chance to post about their new books and receive writing, book cover, and general self-publishing tips.

The Goonreads thread is for anyone who is being published, whether by self or via a publisher. And we're getting into contests and other non-book writings at the site. This thread covers the Goonreads site and includes suggestions and feedback, books posted at the site, features such as the review exchange and writing contests, questions, and so on.

All writer CC goons are welcome.

Site features

Note that our forms (surveys, contest votes, etc.) show up only to registered, logged-in users who are contributors.

  • Goons can become contributors to goonreads.com simply by registering. Our registration process has changed. Just email hume@goonreads.com, with your site username and SA name. Then post in this thread so that we can verify you. After that, check your email (possibly your spam folder) for what to do next. After registering, you can begin posting your own books. It costs nothing but a few minutes of your time. We have an easy-to-use book form for submitting your title.
  • Non-book writers can also submit essays, short stories, poems, and other writings to be showcased online. Just contact me (hume@goonreads.com). I'm currently working on a submit form for this type of posting. Note that because we really haven't had much interest in this so far, I have not developed the form to submit other writings--but it is possible with enough interest.
  • You can submit your book for promotion, which is also free to do.
  • There are a few reference guides to help you get started in understanding how to write, promote, and publish your work. There's even a beginner's guide to book-binding.
  • If you have professional editing, illustration, or book cover design experience, you can offer your services as well. Any contracts made with other goons are just between you and the other person. SA Mart rules apply.
  • Once you submit your book or other writing, and after it's approved by a mod, your name, SA name (optional), title, link, and SA icon (if you upload it to your profile) will automatically appear in an author/book listing. Note that we might not include non-book postings on this list.
  • Book authors and other SA authors may have their own book-related blogs hosted on our multi-site: goonreads.com/authors.
  • We have a private messaging system on site so that you can communicate with others to participate in a review exchange.

Site FAQs (questions asked in the thread)

Alright, so why should I participate in goonreads?

We built the site so we could promote our own writings and yours, for free. We utilize SEO and other social media, though right now our Twitter feeds and Facebook are pretty dead. I just don't have time to keep it up, and those who offered to help are not around anymore. There are also several ways to freely promote your book on the front page.
  • Slider at the top: requires a 960x200 book banner emailed to me (contact info at site).
  • Reviewed: Books with no image on front page but with honorable mentions in the media (review blurb).
  • Features: Books submitted to be advertised without a banner (updated 12/28). This section is not always visible, depending on interest.
  • Bottom slider: Recently added books by default.

*Note that your book should appear in only one of the top sliders or areas at a time. All inquiries to be promoted should be emailed to hume at goonreads dot com. If a lot are submitted, we'll rotate weekly except for campaign books, which we can rotate daily. Campaign book info should be emailed a couple weeks in advance if possible.

Outside of the promotional value of the site, Goonreads is an expansion of the creative goon community. It wouldn't replace the value of threads for book discussion, but adds the value of organizing books, writings, and authors so that you can quickly find what you're looking for. We also hope to build participation with writing contests.

Because this is a community site, if you want it to get bigger, please participate. The site is administered by me, but other than building it and running contests, I do not have the time to keep it active. That's your job. You can help by doing the following:

  • Helping to keep this thread updated
  • Posting books and other writings
  • Taking part in reviewing others' books, submitting books for the promotional sliders, and in general just keeping active on the site
  • Joining FB and following us on Twitter
  • In general trying to attract others to the site
  • Volunteering to become a site mod and help with any of the following: marketing, editing, writing reference articles, Facebook and/or Twitter updates, IT help

Sounds good, but paying 10 bucks to SA does not make one a good author.

While you can freely list books at Goonreads, your writing shouldn’t have too many grammatical and other mistakes. If your Amazon book samples show abundant typos, terrible writing, or awful cover design, we will ask you to fix your book before submitting it again. Every book is linked to their Amazon page so that readers can look at reviews there too. We recognize that the goon community is varied. Some are inclined to be great writers, and others have awesome stories to tell but just need some help getting those tales into writing. Don't forget that the site will offer plenty of resources to help your writing skills. A few of us are still struggling with our work, and others have received some pretty nice accolades in the media.

Readers should expect a pretty wide variety of stories and writing styles/experience at Goonreads. What else would you expect from Something Awful? If you're really not sure about buying a book, go read its sample or reviews on Amazon. Goonreads doesn't guarantee anything about books posted here other than the authors, or their publishers, are from SA.

Banned author books are generally kept up unless I'm notified about it. I don't really know usually who gets banned, who re-regs at SA. I have removed some books by request by authors who have been banned here at SA.

I don't have any books but love to write. Can I participate?

Of course! We welcome all types of writings, though so far everything posted here are books. We need more interest in other types of writings being posted at the site before implementing that. In the meantime, we do have author blogs you can use to post your writings.

Credits

Thanks to Icon-Cat for the banners, favicon, and site moderation; to Squibbles for coding the database table, child theme, and book submission form; to IC and Vitka for helping with Facebook; and to Anais Nun for getting our Twitter up and running.

NWS

In accordance with CC rules, it's fair to warn that some books listed at Goonreads are in the erotica category and might be considered NWS. However, the books themselves do not appear on our site, just the listings and descriptions. No NWS images are allowed at Goonreads, but some of the book covers might come a little close, so fair warning. Ever since the erotica thread was closed, there really haven't been too many submissions in that genre.

Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jun 12, 2015

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
To throw in my two cents for "why should I participate in Goonreads?"

For the same reason that you might shop or sell in SA-Mart, or hire someone whose work you've liked from SA. We all need products and services and (in Goonreads' case) entertainment/literature. If you're interested in trying something new, rather than browsing the great morass of material in this world, you might as well start out by looking through things made by people who, like you, found SA the kind of place worth spending :10bux: on.

Speaking as an author, I know that people have bought my book (both on SA-Mart, when I've run sales there, and just in general) because they knew me or it through SA. And speaking as a consumer, I know I've bought things written or made by the community.

This is simply a one-stop shop to that end, and I hope you'll consider joining our little adventure, either to promote your own material or to discover goon authors.



As the man said, things are a little rough / in-progress right now. Bear with us. It's come together far more quickly than I imagined it ever could, thanks to our fine programmers (not my field, ha).

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
I'm having trouble inserting images into my posts. It doesn't pop up the "Insert Photo" button during posts and I see nothing aside from adding links.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Azure_Horizon posted:

I'm having trouble inserting images into my posts. It doesn't pop up the "Insert Photo" button during posts and I see nothing aside from adding links.

There is an Upload/Insert button above the icons. Just click that button, and it will allow you to upload an image from your computer.

Oops, the image didn't attach. Here:



Hey Azure, thanks for pointing that out. I have added a bit of code to function.php to allow contributors to upload images. I tested it out, and it works fine now.

Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Oct 1, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Desmond posted:

There is an Upload/Insert button above the icons. Just click that button, and it will allow you to upload an image from your computer.

Oops, the image didn't attach. Here:



I know that that is there as I have a Wordpress blog of my own; only problem, it isn't there. It seems like my account doesn't have permission to upload photos.

Mecca-Benghazi
Mar 31, 2012


quote:

Cannot redeclare allow_contributor_uploads() (previously declared in /home/lanvnkxc/public_html/wp-content/themes/pitch/functions.php:453) in /home/lanvnkxc/public_html/wp-content/themes/pitch/functions.php on line 463
You declared the function twice. :colbert: I can't access goonreads.com.

Seems cool though.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Autumncomet posted:

You declared the function twice. :colbert: I can't access goonreads.com.

Seems cool though.

Try again. I hit the paste button twice but fixed it right away, so that error was there for about a minute. Contributors can now upload images.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
Since you updated the template, you should allow contributors to edit their posts. I can only View" at the moment.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
I've added the capability for now, but contributor editing does not have a pending review option, so there is a potential loss of editorial quality. It's not a big deal at the moment, and I think you should be able to edit your own posts. Ill look at Revisionary too.

Adraeus
Jan 25, 2008

by Y Kant Ozma Post

quote:

Hi Adraeus,

Thanks for registering for Goonreads! Your registration is currently being reviewed. You will not be able to login until it has been approved. You will receive an email at that time. Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

Goonreads
I haven't received an approval e-mail yet.

WarrenH
Feb 19, 2010

derelict
Thanks for all the work, Desmond. I'm definitely going to nose around the site when I have time this weekend!

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Adraeus posted:

I haven't received an approval e-mail yet.

You are definitely registered already. As stated in the OP, there is a delay or lack of confirmation emails. Or maybe they are going to your spam folder. Just go to goonreads.com and log in.

Everyone who has signed up has been approved so far. If you all need any help with uploading book info, or anything, just email me at hume at goonreads dot com.

Adraeus
Jan 25, 2008

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Can you change the owner of Gamers at Work to me, so I can update the post?

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Adraeus posted:

Can you change the owner of Gamers at Work to me, so I can update the post?

Done!

Adraeus
Jan 25, 2008

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Also, I highly recommend installing the Enable Media Replace plugin. This allows you to easily replace images without having to upload new files, delete old files, or update old links.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
I have also installed that plugin.

Incidentally, the site went down last night for about half an hour and tonight too. We're on Lithium Hosting, which is goon-run as well, and they normally are pretty stable. I've been hosting on Lithium for years. Sorry about the downtime, and hopefully it's just a temporary server problem. It will give me a chance to get off the computer and get a good night's sleep :ohdear:

Oh, and about banners for the top slider: What I was doing when the server went down was changing the banner template from 960x360 to 960x200, but I didn't get a chance to upload it and change the specs on the site. If you've started working on a book banner for the top slider, please take note of the new size. I think 360 is just too high and we lose a little content before having to scroll.

Anyway, doing graphics is not my strong point, so if you want your book to be promoted on the top slider, please make a 960x200 banner and email it.

Edit: Just a note. The support ticket from last night was answered, and I requested to be moved to a more stable server. This is happening around 8:20 PST Tuesday morning, so it may take a while for the DNS to propagate the change. In the meantime, the site will be inaccessible until the server change takes place. I have also submitted a ticket about Lithium's message that pops up, which makes it seem like the account was suspended. The account was not suspended. The only thing happening at the moment is a server switch.

Thanks for all your patience. As of about 9:00 Tuesday morning, the server switch is complete and all is back up.

Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Oct 2, 2012

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
New today is the book/author listing with SA icons. If you don't want your author and SA name being associated, just let me know. I know a few people like the anonymity.

There are now 20 books listed by you all. Not bad for just a few days of the site being tested. There's room for lots more. Please spread the word among your SA author friends :cool:

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!
We updated the book entry template and the way it's displayed last night.

Now lots of the book info is captured in separate custom fields (Author, Publisher, Price, etc) so now we have a lot more control to make the books all display in a uniform way without people having to follow big block of template description text.

Hopefully that makes it a little easier to enter books into the site.

One day I guess it would be nice to be able to centralize author profiles and such so they wouldn't have to be copy/pasted when people have multiple books and they could be updated from a central location.

On the plus side, editing wordpress themes is easier than I feared it might be. At least a basic thing like this :)

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
Thanks to Squibbles for doing the coding for the book template form. It really standardizes how people enter book data, and we also can pull a csv or xml file from that data, which might come in handy down the road.

So far there are 34 goons registered, and almost that many books up (though not all are listed in the author/book list yet because I need to continue to match authors with books).

I also just added a "goon services" area, where adapting from SA Mart type of rules, SA members can offer editorial, illustration, cover design, book-binding, and other book-related services, hopefully for a discount rate. And I've got some fun contest ideas, but we'll wait until we have a bigger population to start those. ALL SA writers are welcome to participate in this site. You don't have to be a book author to join contests or read other goons' books. You can also pimp your written work (essays, short stories, articles) in the media, though we need to see how many are interested in doing that and then roll that section out. It is goonREADS after all, so this site goes beyond books, though we're starting with goon books since there are quite a few, and there was interest in that.

In other news, we're switching servers due to some strange downtime lately on our current hosting package. The migration should probably be complete sometime next week.

I can see this site going live before the end of the year, but we need a little more coding help and want to get more books up too :cool:
Anyway, we're going away for Canadian Thanksgiving, so internet access will be hit and miss the next few days. The two other mods should feel free to approve any pending posts and new users. If you don't get registered right away, don't worry, we'll be checking in the evening at least and will be back on Monday.

Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Oct 6, 2012

Mandragora
Sep 14, 2006

Resembles a Pirate Captain
Thanks again for this site, you guys. I thought it looked good when I got the invite last week and it looks even better now that I had some time to sit down and take a serious rummage through it. Just getting ready to submit my work now and I'm loving how easy the new template form is.

Do you have any kind of guidelines on including reviews (either suggestions or hard rules)? I was thinking about including some of the better non-F&F Amazon reviews our anthology has gotten but I gave a skim through a handful of other submissions and saw that the only reviews so far come from actual SA posters or from professional review sites/blogs, so I wanted to double check.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Mandragora posted:

Thanks again for this site, you guys. I thought it looked good when I got the invite last week and it looks even better now that I had some time to sit down and take a serious rummage through it. Just getting ready to submit my work now and I'm loving how easy the new template form is.

Do you have any kind of guidelines on including reviews (either suggestions or hard rules)? I was thinking about including some of the better non-F&F Amazon reviews our anthology has gotten but I gave a skim through a handful of other submissions and saw that the only reviews so far come from actual SA posters or from professional review sites/blogs, so I wanted to double check.

Glad you like it so far.

The only reviews I've seen so far in book posts are just blurbs. I generally put the quote material in quote tags and the author of the blurb after a dash, and not in quotes.

For full reviews, I guess it's best to link to them since they might be copyrighted elsewhere. For SA poster reviews, we can post them on site as long as the poster gives their permission.

WarrenH
Feb 19, 2010

derelict
Finally had a chance to sit down and plug in my book info, only to find you guys had already populated most of the fields! Thanks so much - great site, and I'm really looking forward to it going live!

Magnus Gallant
Mar 9, 2010

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
Registered for the web-site, it seems snazzy. Are short works allowed too?

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Magnus Gallant posted:

Registered for the web-site, it seems snazzy. Are short works allowed too?

Yes, there's quite a few short stories and novellas posted as e-books.

Petry
Apr 6, 2009
Thanks for the site, guys; this is a great idea!

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!
Just a note:

We're moving the site to a new web host and the DNS servers are currently updating.

If you see the maintenance message I put up or if goonreads.com resolves to 50.22.144.26 then you are seeing the old server. If you make any changes to that server they will probably get lost or we'll have to figure out a way to copy them over to the new server later if it turns out people are able to make changes (not sure about the maintenance mode plugin I installed).

The new server is at 173.199.157.77 so make sure goonreads.com resolves to that (e.g. ping it from a command prompt) if you are submitting anything to the site.

Sorry of the inconvenience but we had a bunch of down time last week so hopefully this new host will be more stable :)

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
I'm pretty sure that the DNS servers are done updating for everyone, so all is good and we're now on our virtual host. You should be able to continue registering and posting books at this point. If you do see a maintenance mode note, please don't update, but it has been 48 hours and I doubt there's any lingering stuff.

Some questions:

1. Do you want to allow comments on your books?
2. Do you think we're almost ready to go live? I want to finish fleshing out the reference articles, but outside of that the only thing needing fixed is that the images are being slightly truncated on the bottom sliders.
3. Any other suggestions?

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
I think the question with comments is, do we see ourselves as getting big enough to attract negative attention, or drive-by spammers peddling Cialis. I wouldn't mind comments as a method of leaving respectful reviews (even respectful negative reviews), but all we need is an influx of silliness, trolling or petty tribalism from other forums.

Also, I wonder if a forum to leave positive goon comments might dissuade people / cause them to forget the importance of leaving positive reviews on places like Amazon or Goodreads, where the general public will benefit from them.

SaviourX
Sep 30, 2003

The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, or Eartha Kitt.

Site's lookin pretty sharp, or getting there anyways!
Still prepping some stuff and anxious about actually putting it up for sale; that and being busy with other things, but I'll contribute more directly. (also, that idea about hawking other skills sounds like a cool thing)


As for reviews, I'm not sure if it shouldn't just link to amazon et al instead, to encourage either posting reviews or checking out the other reviews. Comments could just be moderated to non-review questions or short thoughts or anything equally non-trolly.

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!

SaviourX posted:

Site's lookin pretty sharp, or getting there anyways!
Still prepping some stuff and anxious about actually putting it up for sale; that and being busy with other things, but I'll contribute more directly. (also, that idea about hawking other skills sounds like a cool thing)


As for reviews, I'm not sure if it shouldn't just link to amazon et al instead, to encourage either posting reviews or checking out the other reviews. Comments could just be moderated to non-review questions or short thoughts or anything equally non-trolly.

Yeah I would say comments should definitely be moderated. I wonder if there's a way for the post author to be the one who moderates comments for their own books. Or at the very least for them to be notified when someone comments on a post they made. I'm not sure if that stuff is built into wordpress already or not.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
I was just wondering about comments because someone got a nice one on their book.

I've written into our policy page that comments are moderated and that book reviews should be put into a bigger site where they'll get more publicity, like Amazon. But short blurbs would be cool here, I guess.

I've also added capability for contributors to edit comments just on their posts (they can edit, spam, trash, or approve). They can also edit their own comments.

There's now also a checkbox below the comments so users can subscribe and get notified if there are new comments on their posts. I'd suggest that authors just decide on their own books' comments. I figure the contributors will want to have control over stuff like that.

zxqv8
Oct 21, 2010

Did somebody call about a Ravager problem?
I like this idea. I may even one day try to participate (but likely not, because I suck).

I'm not really the type to do this kind of thing, but I felt the question is probably good one for you to cover for anyone else who may actually think it's a good idea:

I have a family member that writes books. Do the site rules explicitly or implicitly state that the content must be something you've made yourself? Suppose for a moment that I wanted to share said family member's published works through Goonreads. What would be your stance on this particular question?

Again, I don't think I'd really ever do such a thing, because they're quite capable of sharing/promoting their own work without my assistance. However, I do imagine that you're going to run into some people wanting to do this, so I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are. I find SA to be a very worthwhile community, so the only time I would ever consider this is if I felt there was a real audience that would want to see their books. I don't imagine many people have a problem with someone sharing something they didn't make, so long as that something doesn't suck, but this is a Goonsite so it's always best to find out for sure.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
Our policy so far is that only goon authors/publishers can post books at the site. I'm not sure how lenient others want to be on this. It's really up to the people who are using the site. Maybe we can poll at some point?

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
My personal take is that if it's the kind of book goons would enjoy, the author might well enjoy being a goon him/herself, and perhaps should come round and pay :10bux: and have fun in our fine forum for a bit.

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies
I agree with the above.

I finally fixed the image truncation on the bottom two sliders and it looks pretty nice. There's just a few other things I'd like to fix if anyone can help:

-I don't like the space between the bottom menu and top slider
-The captions in the bottom two sliders would look better left or center
-Having an expandable/collapsible row option in the book/author table would be nice to have.

Other than that, and just continued content, I think we're ready to go live. Any thoughts on that?

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
I finally got round to adding one of my titles with the new form. It doesn't seem to have vomited all over itself, so that's good.

It did not, however, add my new title ("Kaylee and Breck and the Very Worst Songs of the '90s") to the author/book table automatically—was that supposed to happen? I forget where we were with the editing of that table. Is it manual or is it supposed to be reading from the database?

Other'n that, I'm ready to take this sucker live.

Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Oct 15, 2012

Jenny of Oldstones
Jul 24, 2002

Queen of dragonflies

Icon-Cat posted:

It did not, however, add my new title ("Kaylee and Breck and the Very Worst Songs of the '90s") to the author/book table automatically—was that supposed to happen? I forget where we were with the editing of that table. Is it manual or is it supposed to be reading from the database?

Other'n that, I'm ready to take this sucker live.

Adding the book to the table of authors is still manual, but I don't mind doing it. Eventually we might get some more css developer type help to automate that kind of thing. So far, Squibbles and I have figured everything out as far as the tweaks we've done. He's a programmer (I'm not!).

I'm ready to go live too and will work toward that goal today. I think it would be nice to do this now in time for the holidays. I know that there's a few of the books I added that will go on sale by November 1, so the timing would be perfect. Anyone else having campaigns, reviews/accolades, or just wanting to promote your book on the top slider (it is all free to do so), just see the Submit a Book's promotional section. You don't have to really do much. The directions are all onsite.

Edit: Oh, one thing I was thinking would be nice is for authors to be able to have their own blogs on-site (optional). Anything to give people more incentive to get involved. We have a virtual host now so have quite a bit of room and growth if needed.

Jenny of Oldstones fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Oct 15, 2012

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!

Desmond posted:

Adding the book to the table of authors is still manual, but I don't mind doing it.

Well. The table is the table, it can be figured out how to make the table read from the database. As long as the database is performing its functions properly and storing the information the way it needs to. THAT'S the only thing that was holding me back from endorsing going live, the question of, are we sure that all this new data that might come in will be sorted/automated/properly-stored-and-linked from here on out.

Not that I expect an influx of ten thousand new authors on go-live day, but, you know.

Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!
Hacked and slashed my way through and made a table that pulls live books out of the database.

http://goonreads.com/reference/author-list/

Good
- Displays Author, SA Name, Title and Profile Picture as specified in the database.
- Sort-able by clicking on the column headers.
- Styled to be semi-pretty.

Bad
- No special little sort arrows/custom cursors when you hover over the header bars (not sure how to do this).
- No paging, everything is displayed on the same page no matter how many books we get (this might be ok I guess?).


Also it's currently sorted by date by default, newest books at the top. Let me know if a different default sort would be preferable.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
Wow! I think new-books-first works well — it gives the viewer an instant "what's new" overview.

And I like that it's one constant list, not pages. My initials both come early and I'm prolific, so I felt a little bad about dominating the "front page". I don't foresee us getting _so_ many books in that it becomes unwieldy, at least not this early in proceedings.

Could you include an image of the up/down "sort by" buttons (or whatever the visual indicator of choice is) in your table? If that image is within the clickable table cell, is it just clickable as the rest of the table cell? Maybe the picture could be the background of the cell? I don't know, I'm babbling.

  • Locked thread