Change log

[mark]

Change log

(09-24-2024)
-- Fixed issue where Notes were sometimes not automatically loading on page load.

(08-16-2024)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(09-03-2023)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(06-24-2023)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(12-26-2022)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(11-13-2022)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

6.01 (05/17/2022)
-- Notes area is now a full, rich text editor similar to the editor used in the forum.
-- Click the "View Source" button on the toolbar to get the BBCode to paste into the forum (there are some compatibility issues with the BBCode because the forum uses an older version).
-- Use the settings icon in the upper left corner of the play screen to hide the Notes toolbar.
-- Drag and drop text from the Log into your Notes (how cool is that?).
-- Fixed a display issue with buttons in Chrome browser.
-- Also some performance and optimization stuff.

6.00 (05/09/2022)
-- Swap Log and Notes to different sides.  In the upper right corner of the play screen is the note icon. It toggles three states:

• Log full width and Notes hidden (default).
  
• Log on left and Notes displayed on right.
  
• Notes displayed on left and Log on right.
  

(03-19-2022)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(01-01-2022)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(08-29-2021)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

(12-29-2020)
-- Added at the bottom of each forum post is a Like button.

5.12 (12-26-2020)
-- Click on the section labels Genre, Mythic, Generic or Custom to collapse that section.

(09-06-2020)
-- Forum update. Bug fixes and security patches.

5.11 (07-04-2020)
-- Ctrl+Enter adds your text to the log area.

5.10 (03-07-2020)
-- Custom buttons display better.  Changed some layout logic.  Fixed a lot of layout issues with FireFox on Linux.
-- Added tool-tips to buttons that use acronyms.

(02-02-2020)
-- Forum update.  Bug fixes and security patches.

(07-13-2019)
-- Forum update.  Bug fixes and security patches.

5.09 (06-02-2019)
-- Change to the "Get Answer" buttons' algorithms.  I have increased the odds when going up or down the possibility scale of the "Get Answer" buttons.  Or another way of saying it is that I added more weight to the scales.  However, "Somewhat Likely" and Somewhat Unlikely" have not changed.  So please note that you may see a change in game-play as you move further away from 50/50.  Also please keep in mind that if you enable the display of the roll button which allows you to see the resulting value, for example, 7[d10], depending on the button you pressed this may not be a straight roll of a d10 dice.  You may be rolling a manipulated d10 that will not roll as a pure natural dice.  My hope is that this adds more precision to the alignment of one's expectation of a button's outcome.  And, as always, feedback is welcome.

5.08 (04-27-2019)
-- Fixed issue where, for some users, the Genre drop-down would not populate.
-- New Edit area and Note area sizes are now remembered.
-- Added loading indicator when loading story for slow connections.
-- Sped up opening and closing the Settings control box.  Mucho faster.
-- Optimized some code and reduced size.

5.07 (04-20-2019)
-- Due to popular demand, the number of custom lists you can create has been doubled from 4 to 8 for the low price of $20.00.  I'm kidding.  It's free.

5.06 (04-09-2019)
-- Notes column now has three modes: Hidden, Wide, and Thin.

5.05 (04-08-2019)
-- Larger edit area.  In the upper left corner of the Play screen is the settings gear.  If you click on the button "Toggle Add Text Area" it will now display the edit box in three modes: Hidden, Small, and Large.
-- Your queued up text in the edit box is now saved with your story.  If you have a lot of text in the edit box but are not ready to submit it, clicking save will now save that text for you.  Then when you come back you can pick up where you left off.  It's also good to save occasionally just in case you accidentally close the tab or the browser.
-- Fixed intermittent issue where Genre drop-down box was not displaying.
-- Some other misc tweaks.

(04-07-2019)
-- Forum update.  Bug fixes and security patches.

5.04 (12-27-2018)
-- The Clear Log button now asks for confirmation so that you don't accidentally delete your story.

5.03 (8-21-2018)
-- The Roll Fudge button will now read values from the Modifier field.

5.02 (5-27-2018)
-- Performance Improvements: Revamped the code to take advantage of the PHP 7 speed boost.
-- Updated the conjunctive words and phrases button's output to proper sentence case.

5.01 (4-15-2018)
-- New setting: Add Text On Button.

5.00 (2-10-2018)
-- Multiple Save Slots now available.
-- Updated UNE (Universal NPC Emulator).  It was too verbose.  It is now more concise and useful.

4.11 (3-12-2017)
-- Got "Friendly URLs" working again for the forum so some broken links should work again.
-- Tweak to an environment setting that might provide a little speed boost.
-- Tweak to the "Get Started" button on the Play screen.  It was a little too verbose for my liking so I trimmed it down.
-- Added a new button at the bottom of forum posts named Thank you. So take a moment to say thank you to those who take the time to post their adventures!
-- User Garyr65 graciously shared with us a PDF he create of the site's documentation.  It's available in the documentation section or you can downloaded it here.

4.10 (8-13-2016)
-- Updated Mark's Adventure Dice (MAD) by adding a 0 button to number of dice so you can do things like 106d8.
-- Updated layout for Firefox users so buttons line up a little better.

4.09 (5-7-2016)
-- New Feature: Mark's Adventure Dice (MAD).  A quicker way to roll dice. 

4.08 (2-6-2016)
-- Removed ads! To make the site faster!
-- Removed Piwik analytics platform! To make the site faster!
-- Updated the forum software! To make the site more secure and faster!
-- I you all. Thank you for your support.

4.07 (9-3-2015)
-- Added new card Joker to possible cards for Savage Worlders as requested by samuelcollins1 here.

   

4.06 (8-12-2014)
-- New feature: Game Master Prompts.
-- Moved the setting to toggle the "Add Text" area to the settings panel.

4.05 (8-12-2014)
-- New forum formatting option: Blockquote without citation.

4.04 (8-11-2014)
-- Full SSL security encryption available! Read SSL, Security, and You!

4.03 (8-8-2014)
-- Added new feature: Mark's Adventure Conjunctions.

4.02 (7-2-2014)
-- When I optimized the "Encode for Forum" code, a bug was introduced that removed too many line breaks.  The correct number of line breaks are now applied.
-- When the "Encode for Forum" window was displayed, the window height was not calculated correctly if the Text Input window was hidden.  The window height is now calculated correctly depending on the Text Input window's state.

4.01 (4-17-2014)
-- Custom lists is back online.

4.00 (4-15-2014)
-- All the database code was rewritten to be faster and more secure.
-- The site is now on a Global CDN (Content Deliver Network)! This means a faster, more reliable, and more secure site!
-- Another layer of security was added.
-- Moved the site to a web host provided with more state-of-the-art hardware and more robust software. (This cost a bit of money but it's worth it!)
-- Just to the left of the "Add Text" button is a new button: "Horizontal Text Input Toggle".

3.03 (1-26-2014)
-- There is now a mobile version of Mark's Adventure Glyphs.  Point your mobile device to http://www.rpgsolo.com/mag/.  Take THAT Rory's Story Cubes!  (pwned!)
-- The amazing slaad11 has given us a new genre with three separate locations available.  We now have Star Wars Clone Wars with locations of Indoor, Outdoor, and Space.  How cool is that?

3.02 (5-21-2013)
-- Added new glyphs to Mark's Adventure Glyphs.  The possible number of combinations is now 2,276,499,710,888,011,759,150 (figured using the Combinations and Permutations formula for non-repeating entities) which is about 2,276,499,710,888,001,759,150 more combinations than Rory's Story Cubes :-)

3.01 (5-6-2013)
-- Added button to pick a card, any card.

3.00 (5-3-2013)
-- Added "Custom Lists".  Read more about this new feature in Custom lists.

2.11 (5-02-2013)
-- Added Modern Action/Suspense genre.

2.10 (5-01-2013)
-- Added Superheroes genre.

2.09 (4-29-2013)
-- Fixed "Get Started" button where the text for "Trying to stop you..." was not a complete sentence.

2.08 (4-25-2013)
-- Update to the Anachronistic genre.  Whereas before, the Anachronistic genre used its own word lists, now for each word a random genre is selected to determine which word list is used.

2.07 (4-23-2013)
-- Lots up updates to words and phrases in the genres.
-- The genre previously known as "Medieval Fantasy" is now known as "Classic Fantasy".
-- Updated "Get Thing" button so that the chance of an item being average is higher.
-- When you get an average item it will no longer say average.  Just assume it is.
-- Updated "Get NPC" button so that there is a 20% chance that gender is female.  Real test result: Cautious female Half-giant barmaid.
-- Updated "Get NPC" button so that there is a 20% chance of the description including a race.
-- Added undo button.  To the left of the "Clear Last" button is a bent arrow graphic.  Clicking this will undo each "Clear Last".

2.06 (4-22-2013)
-- Updated "Get Damage" button.  See details here: Using the Get Damage button.
-- Updated "Get Quest" button.  Quests are more better.

2.05 (04-21-2013)
-- New feature Mark's Adventure Questions.

2.04 (04-19-2013)
-- New feature: Mark's Adventure Glyphs.
-- "Get Thing" button is now activated for all genres.
-- "Get Quest" button's quests and grammar updated.
-- Medieval Fantasy genre refined.

2.03
-- Tweaked the "Get Answer" button odds.  Read more about the tweak here.  Read more about the odds here: Using the Get Answer buttons.

2.02
-- Lots of tweaking of words; deletions, additions, and edits.  However, there is still more I need to do.
-- Lots of tweaking of the language AI.  Sentences are a little more natural.  Still more work to do here, too.
-- The "Get Started" and "Get Setting" buttons are now influenced by your selected genre.

2.01
-- Selected genre now displays in the Genre button section.
-- "Get NPC" now only applies personality and not place description to NPC.
-- "Get NPC" now generated from race and class.
-- "Get Quest" now focused on place with possible thing at place.
-- Improved language for "Get Quest" button for Anachronistic genre.
-- Added "Get Thing" button but not yet implemented.
-- Removed "Get Race" and "Get Class" buttons to merge with "Get NPC".

2.00 <-- Sweet!
-- New feature: Genres!
-- Added "Get Race" button.
-- Added "Get Class" button.
-- Added "Opposition" button.

1.14
-- Fixed some button alignment issues.
-- Fixed button spacing issues in Chrome.
-- Fixed some button text alignment issues in IE.

1.13
-- Added "C.D." (Complex Description) button.
-- Renamed "Complex Q." button to "C.Q." for space reasons.

1.12
-- Added "Roll Fudge" button (not a cooking skill).
-- Added "Add Text" button that will move your text to the log section but you don't have to ask a question.
-- Added "Get UNE" (Universal NPC Emulator).

1.11
-- Moved site updates from homepage to forum. 
-- Fixed issue with buttons sometimes hanging on wifi connectivity issue.  Your answer may get lost in the wifi ether so just ask again. 
-- Fixed an "Encode for forum" issue where some css wasn't getting encoded right.
-- Added a new encoding so dice type subscripts now gets translated for the forum.
-- Fixed dice roll type not showing when only rolling 1 dice.

1.10
-- You can now log in and save/load your story! Yay!

1.09
-- You can now print out your story to read to your family over dinner.
-- Added an "Encode" link so you can share your adventure on a forum.
-- "Get Damage" dice rolls, if you set to display, are now broken out to individual dice.

1.08
-- Added forum!

1.07
-- Added a Notes box with animated coolness! Just click the note icon.
-- Created a page that shows the answer odds, in case you're interested in such things.

1.06
-- Added "Get Started" button (fun to play with -- check it out.)

1.05
-- Moved settings to display only when needed.
-- Framework for login almost done.

1.04
-- Added "Get Skill", Mechanical Damage, and updated Mythic buttons.

1.03
-- Added "Get Place", "Clear Last", and doubled the number of NPC adjectives.

1.02
-- Added "Get Quest", "Get NPC", and "Get Damage".

1.01
-- Added "Get Theme". (Removed).

1.00
-- Initial release.

[mark]

(From last week.) Spent most of the weekend programming. I would say I'm about 50% done with the next feature. It would be done if I did it the easy way. But the easy way doesn't scale well and this feature will continue to expand possibilities.

Did a lot of work yesterday but also undid a lot of it. The database design was getting too complicated so I started over. I like things to be fast so I am going to sacrifice disk space for speed.

I have also trimmed down some of the features for this next update. At this point I just want to get this new thing out there so it can be used and I'll worry about the fancy stuff later.

[mark]

Good programming session last night. In fact I stayed up a little later than usual since I was on a roll.

The database is done and populated with all the data for the initial release. And it's fast.

I have the option to enable the new feature integrated into the settings interface. (Just on my programming computer, not live.)

Next is to get it to remember your selection by saving it in the database, unlike the other settings options which are remembered by saving a cookie on your computer.

Once that is done comes the next big step of updating the engine to work a completely different way. I don't know how long this will take, but it will lay the groundwork for a more expandable system.

[mark]

Have you ever gotten really deep into a project where you have taken something apart and at some point you looked around and got that feeling where you wonder if you can get it back together again? Have you ever have that moment where you looked at all the disembodied pieces and asked yourself, "have I gone to far?"

That's kind of what I felt like last night. I am past the point of no return. I have ripped so much apart and changed so much that I can't go back.

But there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that I was able to get the interface to use the new feature. And I did some benchmarking on it and the performance is great; in fact, even better than I expected.

The bad news is that I hit a crazy programming problem. If I try to use the new code I wrote twice in a row it crashes. Is that crazy or what?

Perhaps it has something to do with something called variable scope in PHP, or perhaps it is the way I designed the function. I spoke with someone who also knows PHP and he gave me some ideas so I will be trying them tonight.

So even though this slowed me down a bit, I am still making progress.

[mark]

My hunch was right, the problem was variable scope. Why it worked at all I'm not sure but almost everything is working as it should now. So last night was a big step forward.

Next are the hundreds of little tweaks and clean-up things and I have to make one more big functionality decision. I think when I was falling asleep last night the answer came to me but I can't remember what that answer was. Maybe I can coax it back out of my subconscious.

[mark]

After 40K man hours and a trillion dollars in cost overruns, I present to you the new feature: Genres. Ta-daaaa!

I only broke the Play screen for about 15 minutes when I added the new feature. I had some back slashes when they should have been forward slashes. Ooops.

The next thing I need to do is finish my genre administration screen so it's easier for me to create and edit lists. I started working on one but it was taking so long that I stopped working on it and opted for just getting the genre feature working for you guys. Now I need to get back to it.

I hope you all enjoy it.

[mark]

Still have some work to do on the genre feature. Still tweaking the word lists and adding the "Get Thing" button which will be cool. I'll soon be announcing the next feature I'll be working on after the genres are ironed out.

[mark]

Just a note that while the word lists are in flux, the "Get Started" and "Get Setting" buttons will produce text that is a little difficult to read.

Once the word lists are updated with the correct vocabulary, and the code is changed to pull from the new and updated lists, then the buttons will produce text that flows better.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

[mark]

The "Get Thing" button will now return a thing and also the quality of the thing.

However, I left it grayed out because the word list may be anachronistic across genres. So it is there if you want to use it but be warned that if you are doing a medieval fantasy genre you may not like the results.

[mark]

Just a note that while the word lists are in flux, the "Get Started" and "Get Setting" buttons will produce text that is a little difficult to read.

Once the word lists are updated with the correct vocabulary, and the code is changed to pull from the new and updated lists, then the buttons will produce text that flows better.

Lots of tweaking done on this. I am much happier now with the way the sentences flow. There is still a bit more I want to do but I feel it is a good improvement over the way it was.