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 |  Announcements pertaining to Writing.Com! |
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| Hello, all! Since our release of Covers a few weeks ago ("Introducing: Cover Images [Beta]"  ), we've been really pleased to see many of you implementing this new feature to your items! I heard from one of our members that she would absolutely love to add some to her portfolio, but didn't have the time or knowledge to deal with making her own covers. So we listened and came up with something for those Upgraded Members who are in the same boat!  :: Writing.Com Stock Covers :: Introducing Writing.Com Stock Covers , a dynamic catalog of our very own, original stock covers for you to use and liven up your portfolio items! I went back through six years of my own personal digital photography to find photographs that I felt were interesting enough for someone to consider using as a cover for an item. Each cover is tagged with main words, which will lead you on a journey through the database until you find one you might like. HOW TO USE: To apply a cover, visit the Create or Edit screen of any of your items and find Section 5: Cover toward the bottom. There you will find a direct link to the Writing.Com Stock Covers. Peruse the database and when you find one you want to use, just copy the C###### ID attached to it and paste it into the text box. Voila! You now have a cover! IMPORTANT: These are unique images, created by Writing.Com and copyrighted to Writing.Com. We provide free use of these images as cover images to our site members with an Upgraded membership or above. These are for covers ONLY; we do not permit members to download them to their portfolios, use them as personal sigs, etc. No rights of use for these images extend outside of Writing.Com's website. Currently, there are almost 700 covers in there for you to choose from, but we will be building on this database all the time! We won't be making specific covers for groups, events, etc. but eventually, we will set up a Cover Suggestion Box so you can drop your requests in there (again, generic, not for specific groups, items, names, etc.) I hope you enjoy these! We look forward to seeing them around the site, as you begin to fill up your ports with color and variety! Check "Site News & Announcements" for updates on new Writing.Com stock covers!Let's keep that creativity going! Happy New Year! The StoryMistress  |
| Happy New Year! Let's kick off the new year with a bang! We're giving away  CASH just for sending reviews, plus we've got a great motivational contest ready to jumpstart your 2013 resolutions!:: Good Deeds Get CASH! :: Our ongoing "Good Deeds Get CASH!" review contest has a big surprise for 2013: Cash Prizes!First Place: $250 cash Second Place: $100 cash Third Place: $ 50 cash Authors on Writing.Com are looking for good, useful feedback... and of course, exposure within Writing.Com. Do a good deed by reviewing any qualifying item on Writing.Com and you might win! No limit on the number of times you may enter. Enter as many times as you want to increase your odds of being selected as a prize winner! No purchase necessary; everyone may enter! For the complete details, rules and terms, please see:
:: Dear Me :: Do you have big plans for yourself this year? Will you finally finish that story that's been haunting you for so long? Will you try your hand at a brand new genre? Do you want to read and review a certain number of items by April? Will you take that first step toward self-publishing your latest masterpiece? Set your goals and resolutions (writing related or not!) for the new year and you could win big prizes! The rules are simple: write a letter to yourself and tell you what your goals are for 2013!
Thanks for your support and happy 2013! ~~ The StoryMistress andThe StoryMaster  |
The following winners for the November 2012 running of "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" were chosen from the 15 entries submitted. Each entry was judged based on the criteria provided in "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . Congratulations to the following three winners: First Place - "The Wayward Cataphiles" by Jeff   Second Place - "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor Third Place - "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor ~Diane |
| Greets, As I've gotten further into implementing Cover Images, I realized a key step was missed in the initial setup for them. (Technically speaking, I wasn't flagging items as having a cover image when storing it to the database and was instead re-checking for a cover image each time the item was referenced. Highly in-efficient!) I've fixed the problem, however, if you've already added any cover images, you need to edit and then re-save their item(s) to apply the fix.  To be sure this is clear: If your cover is NOT showing, you DO NOT have to re-upload the image to the item. Just open the item's edit screen, and immediately save it again. (Doing this re-save gets the system to see your existing cover image and automatically update the item's "cover image flag" in the database appropriately.)I apologize for this... I do try to make sure all the setup is done before releasing something into a public Beta testing phase. But it is this beta period that helps us make sure things are right. In this case, all was not perfect. Thanks to all you early-adopters for your help in figuring that out!  The good news is that with the update a new feature for Cover Images has been added. Credit to "Cover Images" , you can choose to use another item's cover image (or an image item) as the cover for an item. One example use might be a Group Item who's cover is used for a variety of Group related activities and items. A group owner can upload the cover image one time, into the group item. That cover image can be referenced in the activity items. If the Group's cover is updated, all of the items sharing that cover will be updated at the same time. Nifty! Best wishes, ~~SM |
| The following winners for the November 2012 running of "Good Deeds Go Noticed" were chosen from the 144 entries submitted. Thanks to all who reviewed and entered. First: Jeff Second: jonmark Third: ember_rain ~Diane Ready to work on character development? Check out "What a Character! : Official WDC Contest" , the official site contest for December. |
| Greetings and Happy Holidays! We're opening up a new feature for public beta testing. It's called a Cover Image and it's about to make Writing.Com portfolios a lot more interesting. Each item type on Writing.Com can now be given a Cover Image which will then be shown by the item's title... instead of the standard Itemicons, like  and  . They're are shown in your portfolio and at the top of the item where the title and other 'heading' information is. Cover Images are: uploaded using the normal item edit forms bound by the same 100K file size limits as Image Items bound by the same 400x400 pixel size limits as Image items square, so until we develop a thumbnail system, use square images for best results reserved for members with an Upgraded Membership or above, just like ImagesCovers are shown on c-item, b-item and other links automatically. In addition, the new WritingML tag {cov-item:} allows you to produce a link showing the cover image, for example: And, super handy is that covers can be shared and shown with the standard {image:} WritingML tag! Anyone clicking the image is automatically brought to the item itself. For example, {image:186338-40%} will show:  (I used the recently added image scaling to the WritingML above to use less page space with the example.)  We're releasing this to the site at this time as a Beta feature. That means we're still testing it, defining it, figuring up the documentation, etc -- but we'd still like to see you use it and hear your opinions on it. Have fun and thanks in advance for your feedback! ~~SM PS: Image Items can't have separate covers. The cover is the image itself. PPS: Again, please note that this is an Upgraded Membership and above feature only. |
| Greetings Folks! Many of you have noticed some updates around WDC. (If you follow my notebook updates, you've seen a few of them there.) Here's some info on the visible and not so visible "new stuff"! We updated the review area of items a few days ago to put more of a focus on the review side of things. It also needed a fresh look after having been essentially the same for over a decade. And after gathering a bunch of feedback, the new floating Review this item tab starts just below the item header area and then floats up to the top of the screen. Yesterday, we added to this is a new window icon (  ) which launches the review tool pop-up, all ready to review the current item.And, while we're working on some other bigger changes related to images, I tossed in a few other minor but excitingly useful updates. Least interesting is that the "Edit" screen for Image Items now shows you the image you're editing (and its dimensions) in the area where you can upload a new one. This is a big convenience factor update for those who work on images often. The addition of image scaling to the WritingML image tag is a useful update. You can now scale an image item like this: {image:######-NN%} where the NN is a scaling factor percentage, from 1 to 100. Here's a side by side example of an image and then two scaled counterparts... {image:1434340} {image:1434340-63%} {image:1434340-35%} It even works with animated images...  And, yes! The documentation on scaling has been added to the WritingML help system: WritingML Help That's all for now, but there's more to come!  ... Write on,~~SM |
| Hello Members! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We're doing a little special this weekend that we've done only once before, and it's something we think will help get everyone in the spirit of holiday gifting.  Buy yourself a membership, gift one to someone else for free! Purchase yourself an Upgraded Membership or above, use the special CyberSale Weekend -- Friday thru Monday -- coupon code (found below) and Writing.Com will gift a paid membership to a member of your choice, on your behalf! The length and type of membership gifted will be based on your purchase. We'll gift the same type of membership you purchase - Upgraded for Upgraded, Premium for Premium. When you purchase: 12 months, we'll gift 3 months... 6 months, we'll gift 2 months... 3 months, we'll gift 1 month. For example: Buy yourself a 12 month Premium, gift someone else a 3 month Premium for free. Buy yourself a 6 month Upgrade, gift someone else a 2 month Upgrade for free. When checking out, enter the coupon code: GIFT: username * Please make sure you replace "username" with the username of the member you'd like the bonus gift sent to. Don't have anyone in mind for the added gift? No problem! Use the coupon: GIFT: RAOK ... and we'll gift 20% of your paid membership order to "RAOK Upgrade Brigade Group" ! Spend $49.95 on a membership for yourself and RAOK gets 99,900 in Gift Points! Important Notes & Rules: * Applies to all purchases in "The Writing.Com Shop" for Upgraded Memberships or above and purchased for your own account. This offer does not apply to gifted memberships, our "Basic" level or memberships less than 3 months in length. You must enter the coupon code on the checkout page of the shop.* This offer is only valid on purchase made between Friday, November 23 through Monday, November 26th @ 11:59pm eastern. * Any payment method is accepted and valid for this offer! * Mailed payments must be postmarked by Tuesday November 27th for the coupon to be honored. * To keep things simple, if your giftee has a higher level than the gift, we'll send them the Gift Point equivalent of their 1, 2 or 3 month gifted membership instead. * Only one coupon per order -- you can not use the coupon to gift a membership and the coupon to gift GPs to RAOK on the same order. * I'm processing all the gifted memberships by hand, so it won't be instant. I'll take care of each one as soon as possible. Thanks in advance for your patience! I think that covers it. Any questions? Post a comment! Thanks for your support and happy gifting! ~~SM |
The following winners for the October 2012 running of "Short Shots: Official WDC Contest" were chosen from the 29 entries submitted. Each entry was judged based on the criteria provided in "Short Shots: Official WDC Contest" . Congratulations to the following three winners: First Place - "Free Fall" by fyn  Second Place - "Dead Run" by Indelible Ink  Third Place - "Nonna's Story" by Bikerider  ~Diane The contest for November is "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" |
The following winners for the October 2012 running of "Good Deeds Go Noticed" were chosen from the 204 entries submitted. Congratulations to these three excellent reviewers! First: Spawn of Sylvia Plath  Second: Jeff Third: hopelesslyoptm~Diane Need inspiration? Check out "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" ! |
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