Feature Request - Note to Self on dragons

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

It would be very useful to me to be able to add notes about each dragon on-site, since it takes days for them to grow or I have plans for different ones, maintaining a spreadsheet would me much more tedious than if there were simply a note I could add only visible to me, similar to description. Could be as simple as an additional item in the action list; not sure how difficult these things are to implement. I can elaborate further if persuasion is needed but I'll cut it there for now. Thank you for your consideration!

Edit:
Following user engagement, summary so far:

On 9/2/2020 at 10:34 AM, Kalon_Ordona_II said:

Cons:

Implementation concerns -- still need to hear from someone in the know

Existing workarounds -- forums, spreadsheets, groups

 

Pros:

Greatly increased versatility
Prevention of description queue spam

Potential uses:
Remembering planned/potential names of dragons before they hatch (Aerith/Bob Dorkface)
Alternative to including lineage details in the dragon's name (CB, PB, stair-step, etc.)
Including complicated lineage details (example: click on X code and Y code in lineage to find connection to Thuwed)
Remembering planned/potential breeding goals while growing or while on cooldown (example: intended mate for X dragon)
Keeping track of collaborations or planned trades with other breeders (example: RP collab with X user)
Avoiding mistakes (example: "don't abandon or trade this one!" in a nest of similar-looking eggs)
Delineating specific types of umbrella breeds (example: "Wrapping-Wing" since the site only says "Holiday")

Additional features/perks:
Ability to filter by "Has Notes"
Con: additional implementation. Pro: greatly increased organization and note processing
.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Kalon_Ordona_II
update

[HeatherMarie]

I'm curious what exactly you personally would use this for, what type of notes? I feel like some 'note' type things could be accomplished with what we already have, ie groups and naming. That said, I'd actually love a feature like this. I think a few years ago I probably wouldn't have seen the need, but when there are multiple projects and random 'oh this might be nice to breed with that' thoughts and such, yeah I definitely think I'd use something like this.

[Fuzzbucket]

NOT so sure. I actually have some "notes to self" within my spreadsheet. (Which is actually very easy to maintain once it's set up.) Quite often I simply forget to look at them anyway.But if they were on the dragon, you would have to open up each dragon's page to find the note - more tedious than a quick scroll.

 

For what you seem to need, would a group for "Plans" be easier ?

[Jazeki]

I don't know how tedious this would be if implemented as Fuzz says. That's a lot of reading/clicking going on to find individual notes--especially for people with thousands of dragons. Many people keep notes on their profile here on the forum. Perhaps that would be helpful to you. I know there used to be an actual notes section, but I don't know if it still exists on this version of the forum. 

 

Either way, this isn't an outright no. Just a concern about implementation. 

[Ruby Eyes]

@Jazeki It's still there.

 

Top left corner, click the arrow next to your name. Click "Account Settings". Click "Edit Profile". Scroll down to "Private" - those are your personal notes, only you and the moderators can see them (so don't store passwords there).

 

Maybe a feature like this could come with a search function for your notes, or at least a scroll filter by "Has notes".

Edited August 31, 2020 by Ruby Eyes

[Fuzzbucket]

2 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Maybe a feature like this could come with a search function for your notes, or at least a scroll filter by "Has notes".

 

Can we REALLY not manage to put those with notes in a GROUP our very own selves... ? Just asking....

[Ruby Eyes]

@Fuzzbucket

Non-obvious things like this are easy to forget. And I'm still not sure if I managed to collect ALL of my described creatures in my Stories group or if I missed some ... no way to tell, except by going through 11627 creatures manually. Wouldn't be much different with notes.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Ruby Eyes

[Fuzzbucket]

If you just add them when you make the note....

[Lyncerta]

I could use notes to, for example, tell myself what should I pair certain dragon with when it grows up / is not on cooldown / I have scroll space or when it was paired with wrong mate and I want to fix that.

But that is only if the notes were easy to use and access, and reduced the amount of clicking I need to do. So if they were buried in the dragon's action page, I don't think I would use them. But having them visible on scroll page (like after hovering over dragon which has a note), or at least marking the dragons with notes in a certain way so it is visible from scroll page, could be really useful.

[ShorahNagi]

On the one hand - this could be useful to people who only breed one or two types of dragons/lineages (ex. A note on a hatchlings page that says "breed with *dragon name*" or "related to X, don't breed"). Or for those who dont mind taking the time to sift through their dragons to make/find the notes they need.

 

On the other hand - one can just make a group for project dragons (ex. I have a group for my Caligene x Monarch and Candelabra x Starsinger breeding projects - to avoid inbreeding, I remove dragons already used and just leave the offspring/CBs I need for the next generation(s))

 

I've also seen people name dragons to keep track of projects (ex. Offspring named G4DragonM from parents 3DragonM x G3DragonF)

 

There's also the option of having a word document, notebook, your forum profile (if you want to share your projects) or the notes section as Ruby_Eyes pointed out where you can keep this information.

 

TL/DR: There are plenty of ways to keep notes on dragons, but having one more option wouldn't hurt anything.

[Tiira]

Well, to me an option to keep notes on-site seems like a very handy tool and a tempting idea, in theory, but I can't really come up with an actual implementation that would also be practical, at least not without making it too complicated.

[Paintra]

I really don't see any issue with what's being described- and this feature would also have the advantage of getting some of the spam out of the descriptions queue

[Confused Cat]

2 hours ago, ShorahNagi said:

TL/DR: There are plenty of ways to keep notes on dragons, but having one more option wouldn't hurt anything.

 

Agreed.

 

I use a spreadsheet. It's good for lots of things, such as writing down "Guardian x White" next to a dragon's code so I can find the dragon if I ever need something with that specific lineage.

I also use a Firefox addon called "StickyNotes" that can add sticky notes to web pages. (I asked before using it for DC - it's not considered breaking of the "no addons that change the appearance of the site" rule.) This is especially useful for putting notes on the breeding page of a dragon, e.g. "dragon X is the correct mate! dragon Y was a misclick, do not breed this to dragon Y!", or "I need a Mint from this pair as a mate for dragon XYZ". Or for writing on my /dragons page "dragon XYZ will be off cooldown on (day, time)" or "breed pair A x B for person X as soon as possible".

 

If the addon stops working (and that might actually be more a "when" than an "if"), I'll have... problems.

If I ever lose the spreadsheet (and all the backups), I'll have even bigger problems.

 

These are tools that a "note to self" feature on the page could not completely replace, but I would still like an on-site notes feature so I could at least put as much as possible into those notes that could never be lost as long as DC exists.

 

(And if DC ever stops existing, ... nope, can't imagine that.)

[Ruby Eyes]

I'm using groups. I'm using freezies as descriptors. I'm using spreadsheets.

 

Too many groups become unwieldy.

Naming freezies allows only 32 characters, and not even all of them (Umlaut, punctuation? Nope.)

Spreadsheets are actually offsite, which does worry me - what if they get lost? Wouldn't be the first time that websites stop their services ...

 

And every now and then, there is that single egg for which I do not want to create a new group, rename another freezie or make yet another spreadsheet, so ... where do I keep a note to myself e.g. to "gift this to player XY once hatched"?

 

I do think this would be a useful, and used, feature. (But it doesn't hurt to plan this feature properly before implementation. Hence, the "filter by" idea.)

[purplehaze]

I could see me using this.

For one thing, I sometimes have a really good idea for naming a dragon, but can't name it as an egg. Will I forget the great idea before it hatches? Probably. A group or a spreadsheet are not much good for something like that and I find using the notes section of the profile really awkward, but a note on the page of the dragon itself would be great.

7 hours ago, ShorahNagi said:

TL/DR: There are plenty of ways to keep notes on dragons, but having one more option wouldn't hurt anything.

Yep. That's what I'm thinking, too.

Edited September 1, 2020 by purplehaze

[HeatherMarie]

8 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I'm using groups. I'm using freezies as descriptors. I'm using spreadsheets.

 

Too many groups become unwieldy.

Naming freezies allows only 32 characters, and not even all of them (Umlaut, punctuation? Nope.)

Spreadsheets are actually offsite, which does worry me - what if they get lost? Wouldn't be the first time that websites stop their services ...

 

And every now and then, there is that single egg for which I do not want to create a new group, rename another freezie or make yet another spreadsheet, so ... where do I keep a note to myself e.g. to "gift this to player XY once hatched"?

 

I do think this would be a useful, and used, feature. (But it doesn't hurt to plan this feature properly before implementation. Hence, the "filter by" idea.)

 

Agree with it all. I have a 'sticky notes' app on my desktop and 90% of my notes are DC-related. I also keep two spreadsheets (well, one is a bit out of date). I also use groups extensively. 

 

What I, personally, could see myself using this feature for: A note on an egg 'don't abandon this one!' when I have 5+ of the same eggs at once. Or 'name this one (blank)', again on an egg, since we can't name eggs. I actually have a group for dragons with 'placeholder' names, names to transfer to a specific dragon once it hatches, but I don't always remember that I added a new name to that group. Or 'keep for breeding to (blank)', because I don't actually breed often and I'll surely forget that I actually had an idea to breed a growing dragon! 

 

There are a ton of small note-type thoughts that just don't really work well with groups/names/spreadsheets/etc. A simple notes feature would be great for those things.

[Tiira]

19 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I do think this would be a useful, and used, feature. (But it doesn't hurt to plan this feature properly before implementation. Hence, the "filter by" idea.)

 

I love the idea of filtering because that would make this feature so much more useful and practical, at least to me. I already forget all kinds of things and keeping on-site notes wouldn't really help so much if the only way to find and read them was to manually go through over 4600 dragons (and many have way more than that)... or remember which ones had notes but that, in my opinion, would spoil the whole suggestion.

 

That's what I meant with my doubts about the practicality of this feature. I tried to come up with other solutions in my head but they got a bit too complicated. I forgot to add, though, on my previous post, that the option to filter would do a lot. Perhaps when filtered by "Has notes" you could even see what you've wrote by hovering those dragons? Or at least the first line if you had added a longer note, however I'm not sure if that would work well or if there's something I didn't consider but in case it would, the filtering would be even more helpful.

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

 

I'm pleased to see so many people engaging with this idea and bringing up insightful pros and cons.

 

On 8/30/2020 at 4:37 PM, HeatherMarie said:

I'm curious what exactly you personally would use this for, what type of notes?

Personally I would use it for remembering breeding plans, describing a dragon's breed / lineage without putting CB / PB etc right in the name, making notes on whether to abandon or how to name an egg or hatchling, and being exact on umbrella breeds like zyumorphs and holidays that have many types but aren't spelled out in the description.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 2:20 AM, Fuzzbucket said:

For what you seem to need, would a group for "Plans" be easier ?

Maybe in the beginning, but what happens when someone has hundreds, thousands of dragons? Names of groups can only be so long; how much information can you really fit in there? Spreadsheet, sure, but wouldn't it be more desirable to have better solutions without turning to third-party tools? I mean, part of the point is to make dragons viewable on other sites, but what if you lost your spreadsheet? Losing notes on the dragcave site would only happen if the site itself were gone, *makes sign of warding*.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 6:26 AM, Jazeki said:

I don't know how tedious this would be if implemented as Fuzz says. That's a lot of reading/clicking going on to find individual notes--especially for people with thousands of dragons. Many people keep notes on their profile here on the forum. Perhaps that would be helpful to you. I know there used to be an actual notes section, but I don't know if it still exists on this version of the forum. 

 

Either way, this isn't an outright no. Just a concern about implementation. 

This is a helpful idea, yes. There are breeding sections on the forums, and it wouldn't be all that difficult, but I could still see a bunch of uses in having something on-site. I'm concerned about implementation, too; it sounds simple, but often these things are harder than they seem. Then again, sometimes things do turn out to be easy. We'll have to hear from someone who knows.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 6:36 AM, Ruby Eyes said:

@Jazeki It's still there. Top left corner, click the arrow next to your name. Click "Account Settings". Click "Edit Profile". Scroll down to "Private" - those are your personal notes, only you and the moderators can see them (so don't store passwords there).

 

Maybe a feature like this could come with a search function for your notes, or at least a scroll filter by "Has notes".

That's very helpful advice for forum notes. Thank you for the step-by-step! Scroll filter is something I didn't think of and would be a neat additional perk.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 6:51 AM, Lyncerta said:

I could use notes to, for example, tell myself what should I pair certain dragon with when it grows up / is not on cooldown / I have scroll space or when it was paired with wrong mate and I want to fix that.

But that is only if the notes were easy to use and access, and reduced the amount of clicking I need to do. So if they were buried in the dragon's action page, I don't think I would use them. But having them visible on scroll page (like after hovering over dragon which has a note), or at least marking the dragons with notes in a certain way so it is visible from scroll page, could be really useful.

I didn't think of putting them right on the scroll! That sounds much more convenient, but perhaps harder to implement? If this idea is liked enough, maybe it'll justify the effort to go all the way. I just looked for the easiest implementation I could think of -- just adding an action. But now that you describe it this way, it would be even better; imagine the notes popping up without even clicking on them, like a spreadsheet comment.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 9:19 AM, ShorahNagi said:

On the one hand - this could be useful to people who only breed one or two types of dragons/lineages (ex. A note on a hatchlings page that says "breed with *dragon name*" or "related to X, don't breed"). Or for those who dont mind taking the time to sift through their dragons to make/find the notes they need.

 

On the other hand - one can just make a group for project dragons (ex. I have a group for my Caligene x Monarch and Candelabra x Starsinger breeding projects - to avoid inbreeding, I remove dragons already used and just leave the offspring/CBs I need for the next generation(s))

 

I've also seen people name dragons to keep track of projects (ex. Offspring named G4DragonM from parents 3DragonM x G3DragonF)

 

There's also the option of having a word document, notebook, your forum profile (if you want to share your projects) or the notes section as Ruby_Eyes pointed out where you can keep this information.

 

TL/DR: There are plenty of ways to keep notes on dragons, but having one more option wouldn't hurt anything.

Exactly. I'm hoping there can be an easy way; the harder it is, the more pros we'll have to come up with, but I can definitely think of very many, just as you've listed.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 11:02 AM, Paintra said:

I really don't see any issue with what's being described- and this feature would also have the advantage of getting some of the spam out of the descriptions queue

To be honest, that one thing was what pushed me to actually ask for this as a feature, instead of just remaining an idle thought. I've looked through lots of user description spam that nevertheless is coming from a legitimate purpose: they're leaving notes to themselves that they can't fit into the dragon name.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 11:47 AM, Confused Cat said:

 

Agreed.

 

I use a spreadsheet. It's good for lots of things, such as writing down "Guardian x White" next to a dragon's code so I can find the dragon if I ever need something with that specific lineage.

I also use a Firefox addon called "StickyNotes" that can add sticky notes to web pages. (I asked before using it for DC - it's not considered breaking of the "no addons that change the appearance of the site" rule.) This is especially useful for putting notes on the breeding page of a dragon, e.g. "dragon X is the correct mate! dragon Y was a misclick, do not breed this to dragon Y!", or "I need a Mint from this pair as a mate for dragon XYZ". Or for writing on my /dragons page "dragon XYZ will be off cooldown on (day, time)" or "breed pair A x B for person X as soon as possible".

 

If the addon stops working (and that might actually be more a "when" than an "if"), I'll have... problems.

If I ever lose the spreadsheet (and all the backups), I'll have even bigger problems.

 

These are tools that a "note to self" feature on the page could not completely replace, but I would still like an on-site notes feature so I could at least put as much as possible into those notes that could never be lost as long as DC exists.

 

(And if DC ever stops existing, ... nope, can't imagine that.)

Very good points. I could use an online spreadsheet if I'm worried about losing files, but still, you bring up many good reasons to have it on-site.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 12:10 PM, Ruby Eyes said:

I'm using groups. I'm using freezies as descriptors. I'm using spreadsheets.

 

Too many groups become unwieldy.

Naming freezies allows only 32 characters, and not even all of them (Umlaut, punctuation? Nope.)

Spreadsheets are actually offsite, which does worry me - what if they get lost? Wouldn't be the first time that websites stop their services ...

 

And every now and then, there is that single egg for which I do not want to create a new group, rename another freezie or make yet another spreadsheet, so ... where do I keep a note to myself e.g. to "gift this to player XY once hatched"?

 

I do think this would be a useful, and used, feature. (But it doesn't hurt to plan this feature properly before implementation. Hence, the "filter by" idea.)

I haven't used freezing much, but that's an excellent point. Agreed, coming up with many angles and ironing out wrinkles for implementation as much as possible beforehand is the least we non-implementors can do!
 

On 8/31/2020 at 5:03 PM, purplehaze said:

I could see me using this.

For one thing, I sometimes have a really good idea for naming a dragon, but can't name it as an egg. Will I forget the great idea before it hatches? Probably. A group or a spreadsheet are not much good for something like that and I find using the notes section of the profile really awkward, but a note on the page of the dragon itself would be great.

Yep. That's what I'm thinking, too.

I've definitely forgotten planned names before, since naming isn't possible before they hatch. It makes sense not to name them early, but I still want to remember my plans. A little note right on or near the dragon would be wonderful.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 8:55 PM, HeatherMarie said:

 

Agree with it all. I have a 'sticky notes' app on my desktop and 90% of my notes are DC-related. I also keep two spreadsheets (well, one is a bit out of date). I also use groups extensively. 

 

What I, personally, could see myself using this feature for: A note on an egg 'don't abandon this one!' when I have 5+ of the same eggs at once. Or 'name this one (blank)', again on an egg, since we can't name eggs. I actually have a group for dragons with 'placeholder' names, names to transfer to a specific dragon once it hatches, but I don't always remember that I added a new name to that group. Or 'keep for breeding to (blank)', because I don't actually breed often and I'll surely forget that I actually had an idea to breed a growing dragon! 

 

There are a ton of small note-type thoughts that just don't really work well with groups/names/spreadsheets/etc. A simple notes feature would be great for those things.

Not much for me to add here. Good points!
 

On 9/1/2020 at 7:36 AM, Varislapsi said:

 

I love the idea of filtering because that would make this feature so much more useful and practical, at least to me. I already forget all kinds of things and keeping on-site notes wouldn't really help so much if the only way to find and read them was to manually go through over 4600 dragons (and many have way more than that)... or remember which ones had notes but that, in my opinion, would spoil the whole suggestion.

 

That's what I meant with my doubts about the practicality of this feature. I tried to come up with other solutions in my head but they got a bit too complicated. I forgot to add, though, on my previous post, that the option to filter would do a lot. Perhaps when filtered by "Has notes" you could even see what you've wrote by hovering those dragons? Or at least the first line if you had added a longer note, however I'm not sure if that would work well or if there's something I didn't consider but in case it would, the filtering would be even more helpful.

Indeed, thank you for bringing up Jazeki's filtering idea. I can only imagine when you have hundreds/thousands of dragons you'd need to do a lot of filtering, and having notes that you could then bring to the top and sort through? Heaven.

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Kalon_Ordona_II
credit to ideas

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

Cons:

Implementation concerns -- still need to hear from someone in the know

Existing workarounds -- forums, spreadsheets, groups

 

Pros:

Greatly increased versatility
Prevention of description queue spam

Potential uses:
Remembering planned/potential names of dragons before they hatch (Aerith/Bob Dorkface)
Alternative to including lineage details in the dragon's name (CB, PB, stair-step, etc.)
Including complicated lineage details (example: click on X code and Y code in lineage to find connection to Thuwed)
Remembering planned/potential breeding goals while growing or while on cooldown (example: intended mate for X dragon)
Avoiding mistakes (example: "don't abandon or trade this one!" in a nest of similar-looking eggs)
Delineating specific types of umbrella breeds (example: "Wrapping-Wing" since the site only says "Holiday")
 

Additional features/perks:
Ability to filter by "Has Notes"
Con: additional implementation. Pro: greatly increased organization and note processing

[Pilauli]

Looks useful.

I find notes and stuff much easier to keep track of if they're more closely linked to their topic.  So, ideal format (for me) for dragon notes would be a "notes" field on each dragon's page.  (Only visible to the dragon's owner, of course.)  Ideally, notes could be edited right from the dragon's page.  Maybe something like this:

Spoiler

That corner would be a convenient place for notes on my scroll, but those who don't use notes would probably prefer it somewhere like the very bottom of the page.  The ability to change the note position however you like (by dragging it around the page) would be neat, but probably difficult to code in a user-friendly manner.

 

One solution might be to make an unobtrusive button that says "Notes" somewhere on the dragon's page, and then you can click on the button to expand it into something like I drew.  And click again to hide the box away, of course.  That could probably go anywhere on the page that is convenient for notes-users, and be ignored by those who don't want to use them.  I think.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

 

Sure, some people like to scroll through a spreadsheet, but I think I would find that too hard to keep track of.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Pilauli

[Ruby Eyes]

@Kalon_Ordona_II Another potential use: Remembering whom to send a hatchling (after hatching)

 

 

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

On 9/3/2020 at 11:17 AM, Pilauli said:

Looks useful.

I find notes and stuff much easier to keep track of if they're more closely linked to their topic.  So, ideal format (for me) for dragon notes would be a "notes" field on each dragon's page.  (Only visible to the dragon's owner, of course.)  Ideally, notes could be edited right from the dragon's page.  Maybe something like this:

  Reveal hidden contents

That corner would be a convenient place for notes on my scroll, but those who don't use notes would probably prefer it somewhere like the very bottom of the page.  The ability to change the note position however you like (by dragging it around the page) would be neat, but probably difficult to code in a user-friendly manner.

 

One solution might be to make an unobtrusive button that says "Notes" somewhere on the dragon's page, and then you can click on the button to expand it into something like I drew.  And click again to hide the box away, of course.  That could probably go anywhere on the page that is convenient for notes-users, and be ignored by those who don't want to use them.  I think.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

 

Sure, some people like to scroll through a spreadsheet, but I think I would find that too hard to keep track of.

Great mock-up example! Very helpful to visualize.

 

On 9/4/2020 at 1:21 AM, Ruby Eyes said:

@Kalon_Ordona_II Another potential use: Remembering whom to send a hatchling (after hatching)

 

 

Thank you! Added to the top post.

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

So, what comes next? I'm not sure we've yet heard from anyone who knows whether this is feasible. Should I be trying to contact particular people, or is it best to just wait and they'll eventually check us out?

[purplehaze]

TJ09 is the only person who is able to do anything about it. He does follow this forum and watches the suggestions. He may or may not comment on them. If it is something that he absolutely won't consider ever doing he will sometimes close the suggestion thread. Other threads stay open for years without comment from him and without any action, even things that we have repeatedly asked for. He sometimes adds a feature without ever commenting on the thread where it was suggested.

 

In other words, there is really nothing more to be done than hope that he likes the idea and decides to add it.

[Kalon_Ordona_II]

Hmm, ok, good to know. I don't suppose it would be good manners to try on Discord, either, then. Well, we shall begin hoping, then.  Cheers!