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Preview: Campaign Logger vNext (beta access)

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Here's a video I made that shows some of the new stuff coming in vNext.

I also made this video to show beta testers the current state to help you navigate around.

I you choose to particpiate in the beta, the link is below and you can log into the beta using your normal Campaign Logger credentials.

We are looking for feedback. Please post your feedback in the thread below. Thanks!



Here's how to access the beta:
https://preview.campaign-logger.com/

Addendum
Some corrections and additional notes:
  • Install App: Offline work is prepared, but not live at the moment. Currently, you just install it to start it directly from your app menu instead of browsing to the web site.
  • The Refresh button is not updating the app but just reloading data from the server - in case you have old data still in your local cache. This will be removed in the future and be an automated background task associated with the above offline feature.
  • Download/Upload: Campaign Entries are currently not included yet but will be in the future
  • Images: there will be an upload function in the future
  • Character Limits: Log Entry 2,500; Campaign Entry: 250,000
Use the New Generator Service
There's a slick new tool for building your custom generators.

Use it as a standalone tool, or to feed dynamic generators into your Campaign Logger vNext account.

Details here: https://campaign-community.com/index.php?threads/preview-generator-service-beta.682/
 
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@Gary F thanks for the report!

Could you try hitting the refresh icon near the top right of the page?

That will reload all your data and ensures a good reset.
 
I started playing with vNext yesterday (hadn't actually touched CL since I bought it back in 2017! oops) because vNext has several features that seem... critical to how my brain works.

The Campaign Entry feature especially. I like to keep track of NPCs and stuff independent of a given session, and set up many of them before doing session prep, and this SEEMS like the best way to do it - it shows up no matter where I tag them, and has basic info always at-hand.

BUT, and I don't know if this is intentional or not - you can't SEE those "campaign entries" anywhere except when looking at the results for a given tag, or on the top-level navigation for vNext (that big cluster at the bottom of your Campaign page).

So say, for example, I make a new log entry I call House Rules. It's got a list of said house rules, and I tag each individual rule in the House Rules log. Now, if I haven't actually made logs for those rules yet, and I click on them from the House Rules log it takes me to... their campaign entry. Which I can edit. And which I can see, but ONLY if I search for it. Apparently just tagging something doesn't actually make a log entry (which makes sense, I guess).

To keep track of things like rules and charts for easy access, I made a Log in my Campaign called "Rules and Charts" so I could skim through them when I can't remember the actual names. BUT - if I create entries as described above, they don't show up there. Since they don't HAVE any actual log entries, only a Campaign Entry.

I suppose I COULD tag them all with another "house rule" tag or something, and then search for "house rule" when I want to browse them, but I really don't like the concept of adding tag clutter to every entry simply so I can do other searches later - sometimes you just want to click ONCE and skim, you know? I'd prefer my notes to be actual notes, and not a big mess of hashtags and symbols like you see on instagram posts.

So I've been making log entries for them manually, so I can browse them (since I can't always remember what to look for). But occasionally I miss one, or can't tell if it's a campaign entry or log entry (I've taken to giving every log entry a Title, since Campaign Entries don't have titles, just so I can tell them apart in case I double up).

Is this behavior part of their intentional design? Or an oversight?
 
So I used vNext for my last two session logs. Here's some thoughts

One tester wrote me by email saying the animations in the vNext slow the app down a lot. Is anyone experiencing any slowness during any operations?

Yeah I'd say the platform feels a bit sluggish in general compared to the live Campaign Logger. Personally I don't think the animations are doing you any favors here. They look nice, but I'd love to disable them and see if the platform is actually being responsive or not.

I feel like tags aren't being cleaned up properly. If you look at the attached screenshot snippet, you'll see that there are three tags, two of which are mistyped. I corrected those tags in the notes where they where mistyped, but they still show up on my tag list (and clicking them seems to bring me to the aggregate view of the correct tag, which is probably a bug but it's a nice bug to have if the tags are sticking around :D )

Curiously my tag listing by date ( % ) seems to not do anything? I don't see my url changing when I hit the % button (whereas I'd expect to see tags/%25 in the URL, which works if I type it manually)

I'm assuming the "Change Tag" feature from the current live release is not implemented in vNext? I'm hoping it's not a cut feature, it's very useful.

It also looks like the "Move Entry Up / Down" buttons where replaced by the ability to click and drop reorder. I just tried to click and drop reorder something and it seems like that feature has some usability issues.
  • I held the entry and moved it up and down, and just watched as my tab died and the little orange indicator jumped between entries at once a second. I've attached a video in the zip file.
  • You can no longer select text to copy because the interface wants to move the entry. This feels awful. It's the only strong criticism I have. I don't know if click / drop is worth not being able to select text (without first clicking to edit the entry). If anything, handles should be added to the entries to allow for click / drop support, while allowing text to be selected within the elements.

Anecdotally, I don't know if I love the aesthetics of vNext. The font choices for headers and whatnot on the current live Campaign Logger are very appealing to me, whereas the more "streamlined" fonts in vNext make me feel like I'm using more of a modern web app. The current live presentation seems to have more personality or character which seems missing in this new version (this is purely my opinion). Also, the wireless bar thing in the upper right corner? Does that do anything other than be a random out of place UI element?

I'll be sticking to the live release for the time being as the issues above make me really not want to switch over to vNext just yet.
 

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If I create a log in the beta environment will it remain when eventually it goes live or will you reset this and delete all the content?
 
If I create a log in the beta environment will it remain when eventually it goes live or will you reset this and delete all the content?

We are not planning to reset anything. I am using the beta for my own gaming productively.

BUT, this is a beta and there are no guarantees. So it would be best to back up your logs regularly.
 
the beta is great!
I just have some suggestions of improvement:

1) max width: typography rules state that for good legibility there should be no more than 75 characters per line of text

2) fixed search: could the search and filtering buttons stay fixed to the top of the window when you scroll down the content? (or could we have some floating button that takes us back to top?)

3) autocomplete tags 1: I miss the double quotes being filled in with the autocomplete of tags (I'm using a flexive language with lots of prefixes and suffixes, surrounding tags with other letters is a must for me)

4) autocomplete tags 2: I miss the old behavior that autocomplete suggests tags no matter where the written string is in the tag (now it autocompletes only as you type from the beginning of the tag)

5) changing tags: missing feature that works in classic logger, along with tags settings

6) campaign-log filtering/pinning: it would be cool to be able to filter campaign tags by their type, maybe with some expand/pin of one or several camp.tag entries in the campaign view
 
Hi,

Maybe someone already recommended it, but I think would be nice to be able to search all of the Campaign Logs. I set mine up with multiple Campaign logs. One for the session, another for planning, and another for ideas. Search only seems to return hits from the log that is being searched. I'd like to search all of the Campaign logs from one search box.

~eddy
 
No need for a video.

The current "reveal" of Campaign Entries is an early experiment. We will likely change it and are open to suggestions.
At the moment it looks like we will have a bubble/popup showing this (instead of the downslide). It will stay open until closed explicitly.
What do you think about that solution?

That sounds like a plan!
 
Another comment...

In v2, I am unable to highlight or select text from completed entries (without first opening the entry to edit). After using v2 for a few sessions now, I have realized how often I copy and paste text from previous entries to speed up my note taking on new entries. In v1 this was quick and easy; in v2 it is a bit more cumbersome.

On the plus side, I continue to adore the campaign entry dropdown feature. This is saving me TONS of time from searching around for background information and thus keeping gameplay flowing much better.
 
Actual "bugs" I found today:
I've got a link to Logger vNext on my iPhone (running iOS 13) Home Screen (you can do this by opening a website in Safari and "sending" it to the Home Screen - it works pretty well when there's no dedicated app).

It looks fine - exactly matches the Windows "app" in fact, but since the Logger interface replaces the default Safari one, there's no "back" option anywhere. If I make a sub-log, I can't get back to the previous Log. I have to go all the way up, select my Campaign, and retrace my steps. The "breadcrumbs" (...) in the top left doesn't work (also doesn't seem to work on a full fledged PC browser either, at least in Chrome).

Also, using double quotes in iOS doesn't work. I suspect the characters used on the iOS keyboard are different (they use the inverted quotes on the first use), so tagging things with more than 1 word also doesn't work on iOS. Hopefully that's fixable with some minor tweaks to which characters serve the "quote" function on Logger's end.
 
Actual "bugs" I found today:
I've got a link to Logger vNext on my iPhone (running iOS 13) Home Screen (you can do this by opening a website in Safari and "sending" it to the Home Screen - it works pretty well when there's no dedicated app).

It looks fine - exactly matches the Windows "app" in fact, but since the Logger interface replaces the default Safari one, there's no "back" option anywhere. If I make a sub-log, I can't get back to the previous Log. I have to go all the way up, select my Campaign, and retrace my steps. The "breadcrumbs" (...) in the top left doesn't work (also doesn't seem to work on a full fledged PC browser either, at least in Chrome).

Also, using double quotes in iOS doesn't work. I suspect the characters used on the iOS keyboard are different (they use the inverted quotes on the first use), so tagging things with more than 1 word also doesn't work on iOS. Hopefully that's fixable with some minor tweaks to which characters serve the "quote" function on Logger's end.
Thanks for reporting, I logged those errors for next week's sprint.
 
I can't seem to save anything - I made a log, but when I went to click on the save icon in the top right hand part, it wouldn't save. CL kept saying I had unsaved text when I tried to leave the page. Is there something I'm missing?
 
I can't seem to save anything - I made a log, but when I went to click on the save icon in the top right hand part, it wouldn't save. CL kept saying I had unsaved text when I tried to leave the page. Is there something I'm missing?
Can you try F5, logout and login again? Another user reported that this worked for them.
 
Can you try F5, logout and login again? Another user reported that this worked for them.
I had the same issue the other day - turned out that I'd been logged out but it hadn't updated that status on the particular page I was one. A refresh and login solved this for me as well.
 
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