Characters Not Adding To Sub-Categories

Shouldn't Characters show up the second I select TV Series > American Gothic > Lucas And Gail?  If I add the Characters under Sitewide, they show immediately in that submission form under the pane.  But I did as you suggested and selected Lucas And Gail and still no Characters appeared.

I'll be adding Characters to the listings.tpl, but it's no good if I can't even see the Characters that I added to the Submissions Form.

Thanks for the tip on changing the Genre to Tag. I did change it, but the field vanished then on the index.  Oh dear, I need to change that on the listings.tpl and storyindex.tpl, don't I?  Thanks, I wasn't thinking clearly about that one. 🙂

This is my listings.tpl  I'm not sure if I even added characters correctly, to be honest.

<!-- START BLOCK : listings -->
<div class='cleaner' style='clear:both;'>&nbsp;</div>
{seriesheader}
<!-- START BLOCK : seriesblock -->
<div class="listbox {oddeven} clearfix">
<div class="title">{title} by {author} {new} {score} [{reviews} - {numreviews}] </div>
<div class="storinfo"><span class="label">Summary: </span>{summary}<br />
<span class="label">Categories:</span> {category} <span class="label">Characters: </span>{characters}<br>
{classifications}
<span class="label">Challenges:</span> {challengelinks}<br /><span class="label">Open:</span> {open}
{comment}<br />{adminoptions}</div>
</div><br /><br />
<!-- END BLOCK : seriesblock -->
{stories}
<!-- START BLOCK : storyblock -->
<div class="listbox {oddeven} clearfix">
<div class="title">{title} by {author} {new} <span class="label">Rated:</span> {rating} {roundrobin} {score} [{reviews} - {numreviews}] </div>
<div class="storinfo"><span class="label">Summary: </span>{featuredstory}{summary}<br />
<span class="label">Characters:</span> {characters}
<span class="label">Categories:</span> {category} <span class="label">Characters: </span> {characters}<br />
{classifications}
<span class="label">Challenges:</span> {challengelinks}<br /> <span class="label">Series:</span> {serieslinks}<br />
<span class="label">Chapters: </span> {numchapters} <span class="label">Completed:</span> {completed}  
<span class="label">Word count:</span> {wordcount}
{comment}<br />{adminlinks}</div>
<div class="tail"><span class="label">{addtofaves} {reportthis} Published: </span>{published} <span class="label">Updated:</span> {updated} </div>
</div><br /><br />
<!-- END BLOCK : storyblock -->
{pagelinks}
<!-- END BLOCK : listings -->

And my storyindex.tpl  I can't see Genres under there either.

<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : header -->
<div id="pagetitle">{title} by {author} [{rating}]</div>
<div class="jumpmenu">{jumpmenu}</div>

<div class="block">
<div class="tl"><div class="tr"><div class="storytitle">
<div class="left">[{reviews} - {numreviews}] {score}</div><div class="right">{printicon}</div><div class="clear"></div>
</div></div></div>
<div class="content">{featuredstory}{summary}
<div class="small">
Categories: {category}; Characters: {characters}; {classifications}<br />
Challenges: {challengelinks}; Series: {serieslinks}<br />
Chapters:  {numchapters}; Completed: {completed}<br />  
Word count: {wordcount} Read: {count}</div>
</div>
 <div class="bottom"><div class="left">Published: {published} Updated: {updated}</div> 
<div class="right">{addtofaves}{adminlinks}</div><div class="clear"></div>
</div>
</div>

<!-- START BLOCK : storynotes -->
<div class='notes'><b>Story Notes:</span></b>{storynotes}</div>
<!-- END BLOCK : storynotes -->
<!-- START BLOCK : storyindexblock -->
      <p><b>{chapternumber}. {title} </b>by {author} [{reviews} - {numreviews}] {ratingpics} ({wordcount} words)<br />
{chapternotes}{adminoptions}</p>
<!-- END BLOCK : storyindexblock -->
<div id="pagelinks"><div class="jumpmenu">{jumpmenu2}</div></div>
<div class="respond">{roundrobin}</div>
{reviewform}
</div>
<!-- INCLUDE BLOCK : footer -->

I'd be really happy to make you an Admin on my site? I've had so many requests to add the characters and I finally have some time off of work to do so, but it's not working.

Thank you so much! I gave you Level 1 access.

Hi,

Thank you for taking a look. Yes, sitewide adds with no problem.  I unlocked the TV Series category and added a test character, but it still is not showing up in the Submission Form.

Sorry this may be a silly question, but when you select the fandom (in your case, American Gothic), do you click on the arrow in the middle to select it - making it appear on the list on the right-hand side? I couldn't tell from the screencaps you provided.

Once you do that, the characters list should update to include the characters from that particular fandom, not just the site-wide characters.

Hi,

Yes, I also clicked on the pairing and added it with the arrow. Characters field was still blank (See second reply for new screenshots).  I have no idea what's going on here, but it's definitely frustrating.

So did you add the characters under Lucas & Gail, or did you add them under American Gothic? (I just signed up as user "snitchbitch" on your site, BTW).

I've made you an admin, if you'd like to check it out?  Characters were added under American Gothic. I also tried one as a test under Lucas/Gail, but same result. Any added right under the sitewide is there immediately on the submissions form. I can't add hundreds of characters on the site wide though, or authors will have to wade through them all to find theirs.

Thanks for that.

I just added "Lucas Buck" and "Gail Emory" as characters under the "Lucas and Gail" sub-category. Now when you click on TV Series > American Gothic > Lucas and Gail (making sure to click the arrow and have it appear on the column on the right), you will see those two characters appear in the list.

You'll need to add these characters to each sub-category that you want them available to (such as "Lucas and Selena" etc). Putting them under the "American Gothic" sub-category won't work since that category itself is locked and people can't use it.

Does that make sense?

Thank you for taking a look!

That's...weird. It definitely did not allow me add the characters under Lucas/Gail last night. I wonder it it's because I unlocked the TV series category. Nadia also tried that.  Did you add them through Categories > TV Series > American Gothic or through Characters? 

I really, really appreciate you helping me, but I need these added under American Gothic. To have to add the character under each pairing would be a nightmare. I have hundreds of fandoms on the site. Sailor Moon alone has over 40 individual pairings and at say, 25 characters added for each of those, I'd be adding 1000 characters just for that fandom alone. And to have to do that for each new fandom that's requested to go onto the site...I'd be a massive undertaking.

There has to be a way to add them to a fandom and see them on the character pane to add, then to select the pairing. When you add characters to sitewide, you can see the characters without even selecting Lucas And Gail with the arrow first. It's always in the characters pane.

I added the characters through the "Characters" page (here).

I can definitely see how having to add them twice would cause that massive workload, so I have a few suggestions:

1) If you want the characters available under "American Gothic", then you'll need to enable members to post directly to the "American Gothic" sub-category. You do this by unlocking that category.

ADVANTAGE: You only have to enter one lot of characters on the "American Gothic" category.
DRAWBACK: Your users will need to select both "TV Series > American Gothic" and "TV Series > American Gothic > Lucas and Gail"

2) You remove the pairings sub-categories and move them to a classification-based system.

ADVANTAGE: Your users only have to select the "American Gothic" category, and then choose a pairing from the "Pairing" field
DRAWBACK: There is currently no way to set pairings/classifications based on categories, so ALL of your pairings will be viewable to everyone trying to add a story

3) You add pairings AND characters to the character lists (e.g., "Pairing: Lucas and Gail", and "Character: Lucas Buck", "Character: Gail Emory" etc)

ADVANTAGE: Your users only have to select the "American Gothic" category
DRAWBACK: There's no guarantee that your users will select both the characters AND the pairings

4) You wait for eFiction 5 to come out, which is going to be on a tag-based system. All of the above becomes moot, as the tags for pairings and characters will be easily searchable, addable and viewable.

ADVANTAGE: Every advantage in the world
DRAWBACK: There isn't a set release date yet, though the magnificent Sheepcontrol is working super-hard to get it done.

None of those options are really viable, I'm afraid, but thank you for the suggestions! I really appreciate you helping me out.

Efiction V5?  Are we skipping V4 entirely? Exciting news though, I can't wait.  :drool:

Just another question, while I have you?

How would I go about making a separate challenges page called Plot Bunny's? I have hundreds of plots for fandoms that I have come up with and am giving away to writers on the site to use (Giving me credit, of course) and I'd like to add them all under their own link, with a submission form like the challenges one. It's essentially the exact same form as the Challenges one, but it'll add plots, not challenges.

I have tried to make duplicates of the challenges.tpl pages, but I'm not just just how many of the script pages are involved. I made a custom page, a new link for the menu and copied the challenges.tpl and renamed it plots, but nothing worked.

Could you please advice what I need to do order to create another form?