Website updates and collecting feedback

[ravenpotter333]

i wish that there was a dark mode option because this bright white background is very hard to look at for long periods of time and tires out my eyes. thank you!

[Azifri]

the lack of a banner which means lack of a personality for each individual comic

This

I mean, you can't tell me that this horrible block of color that looks like an unfinished website:

Looks better than this:

or

The last 2 are premium comics from webtoons that do have a banner. The banners are slightly different in web vs app versions so no excuse about compatibility there.

Imagine how nice it would look if we still had our banners in the new Tapas website design

[TAMAnnoying]

apparently theres a limit on likes XD But yes! I'm glad you pointed that out! its stuff like this that makes me worried if tapas is just gonna make a lot of the features that where really nice for us small creators and make them premium only later down the road when they bring them back.

[Cavechan]

I do want to say thank you for making the form where we are able to submit feedback and have our voices heard. This is honestly more than I was expecting so I am pleasantly surprised by that.

However, after reading the responses in this thread I do have to say this is about what I was expecting and am thoroughly disappointed by it. The responses can be summed up as "This is how it is now. We'll fix bugs. MAYBE we'll add some features in later." It also doesn't help with certain ahem rumors flying around already concerning Tapas's future.

There are reasons why people don't like Webtoon and it isn't just their incredible lack of features. It's also the lack of personality and customization. With Tapas before, we knew we were on Tapas. We knew we were on a different site. We knew Tapas is a smaller business that listens to its users.

And then this happens. Did you not learn from the Smack Jeeves disaster? Complete site overhauls like this should be taken extremely seriously and in cases of webcomics where people are spending their time, money, livelihoods here, we should be made aware and allowed to have a voice BEFORE these things happen. That is why I feel betrayed as a creator here on Tapas. The users were not taken into account at all when this happened. There are too many features missing that we desperately need back and from what I'm hearing now... it doesn't sound like we'll have endless scrolling again. It doesn't sound like we'll have banners - our ONLY method of customization - again.

I am just incredibly disappointed that these things were not considered. I have lost my trust in Tapas staff. I have defended you guys. I have lost face so many times with other people talking in your favor and propping you up as "Not nearly as bad as WT". I can't do that anymore with this.

I mean, really. How could you do this to us AFTER WHAT HAPPENED WITH SMACK JEEVES? What did you not learn? Just how? HOW?

[Ajhaynes420]

Just wondering. The new update has erased some of my sentences, and has messed up the Chapters, so will I have to rewrite everything, or will it be fixed on it's own?

[ratique]

Just wondering. The new update has erased some of my sentences, and has messed up the Chapters, so will I have to rewrite everything, or will it be fixed on it's own?

I recommend waiting for updates from the dev team as they may be able to fix this. It would suck if you would put in work that isn't necessary.

[Cavechan]

Nav bar dance - Watch Video

Come on............ was this even tested with different size comics? Or was it just some ploy to try and force people into more vertical formats? There's no way someone looked at this and thought "Perfect!"

EDIT: Hold on. And I just realized. Okay, first I clicked the notification in my alerts. Then it... brings me to the comic profile...... which alone makes me have an aneurysm. So then I click "Continue" (TOO MANY CLICKS)

And it brought me to the comic I already read............................

..............................................

I'm done.

EDIT x2: And another one brought me back TWO episodes. Fantastic.

[michaelson]

Hello everyone, One of the many challenges we face at Tapas is simultaneously developing the mobile web, web, and mobile app experiences for both readers and creators. We’ve been focusing a lot of our attention recently to the development of our mobile apps which caused a lack of parity between the reader functionality of the website and apps. Our goal was to address this along with other reader experience issues with the new update, but we also acknowledge this update missed the mark on a lo…

Updated parent post with list of hot fixes we'll be addressing immediately:

Confirmed hot fixes and changes below

Reintegration of Infinite Scroll for browsing
Update to server to address loading times
Novel text formatting bug
Dashboard button bug
Support Banner not appearing bug (episode + series view)
Episode view user-experience (support button)

[michaelson]

(included in the parent post)

Thank you every one for providing us feedback. We'll be diligently working on addressing the concerns expressed by the creator community and hope to implement changes both big and small in a timely fashion. We appreciate your patience and cooperation during this time. Again, I'd like to reiterate our appreciation for the passion, criticism, and support of the community. We are dedicated to making necessary changes to ensure more readers and creators have a fun, engaging, rewarding, and unique experience whenever reading and creating stories on Tapas.

We apologize for any hurt we have caused with today's update, again, it's never our intention and we completely acknowledge our need for improvement. I hope you understand that we are trying our best to be as accommodating as possible and want to create a relationship with you all that reinforces our willingness to engage in healthy discussions and enact positive changes. We will always do our best to answer questions that arise and be candid in what we can and cannot do.

Thank you again for your continued support, we'll be continuing active correspondence in this topic, updating this parent post with additional changes, and keep you as up to date as possible.

---

I'll be taking a break tonight but will be back to answer more questions and concerns tomorrow.

[Ajhaynes420]

Isn't that the truth, I was so hurt lol

[pkholcombe]

What rumors are swirling about Tapas's future? I'm a casual reader so I'm not as close to the business as creators might be.

It really looks like Tapas has become Smack Jeeves. The site looks almost exactly the same, just with a couple slight color changes. Its awful

[Cavechan]

Sorry but I don't want to spread rumors more since they are just that... rumors.

But something like this though...

What is preventing a rollback to the old design?

I can't comment on that currently.

Makes me concerned.

In the end, it's all about the money.

[PotatoJuice]

I'm gunna assume that the "hotfixes" haven't been implemented yet because, as far as I can tell, the infinite scrolling and the support button haven't been added yet.

Also a small bug I've noticed is that on the episode page it doesn't let you start scrolling until the page has fully loaded?

[sevenfivel]

My reaction was much the same. I read comics both here and on Webtoon. Used to be when the same comic was on both I would subscribe here because it was easier to use. In particular, when a comic updated, I could get to the latest page in a single click, instead of the three or four that Webtoon requires. Now? What's the difference? I plan to stick with Tapas, but I'm a little worried that the readers will start to do what so many authors have already done and move to Webtoon.

[OBC]

Yep, unfortunately it seems so. I literally cannot think of any reason to go the easy and preferred by just about everyone route of a rollback (which'll then developed upon for new features). Like, other than maybe somebody at Tapas HQ really dropped the ball and completely lost/deleted backups of the previous layout and all that made it work. But surely, that wouldn't be possible, right???

Well then again, this lemon of an redesign was clearly pushed out without any prior testing so...such failures aren't outside of the realm of possibility now, are they?

[Alrathi]

Thank you for your hard work!
I'm sure it's not easy to have to moderate a very upset forum.
You have earned an honorary NMS flavored Sean Murray stamp for facing the criticism head on lol.

Might I suggest an occasional voting poll when your team has new plans for the website?
I've seen these before from your team, but never very often, and not directly hosted on the site where it's a simple, one or two question, pop up poll that every reader and writer has a chance to answer. (Like Deviantart's site polls that pop up in your notifications)

Simple things like
- 'do you use this feature?' yes/no
- 'Would you use this planned new feature?' yes/no
- 'How would you rate your ability to navigate this version of the site/app?'
- 'Out of this feature list, which features would you like to see most on the site?'

Perhaps you could even have a link to a more specific survey about these features if people have time, with a small ink reward if people opt to take the longer survey!

And of course, beta testers!! More opinions on developing features is always useful, especially when they're free and volunteers. Whether they're chosen by you, or if there's just a site wide option to beta test, community beta testing is definitely something you guys should utilize.

[Dycantos]

This new interface is clumsy and awkward. There are quite a few comics that I read here just for the ease even though their available on other platforms, i guess I'll be reading those elsewhere till you fix it.

[CarltonIsaac]

Makes me concerned.

In the end, it's all about the money.

A possible shift in the majority of shareholders resulting in the push for this new direction, and will keep pushing for more changes in the future?

[FireCrossDraws]

how dare you take away our banners! I want my banner back T_T (I lost all my files on the labtop and now you deleted it xD its funny cause life sucks, but still, its sad cause I really liked that one). I like the changes but some are inconvenient, the next/previous arrows dont look cool where you put them.
the number of notifications or updates dont show.
when you click a comment that someone replied to, it doesn't automatically take you to the comment. (in the notification bell)
when you enter a comic it doesn't show what episodes you've seen so far and what episodes you didn't.
the continue thingy is cool but sometimes you just wanna see how many episodes you haven't seen or something.
also the continue button takes you to the last page, but sometimes it takes you to the last page that you already seen and not the new update that you haven't yet seen.
the comic front page is plastic has no soul and looks like a cut out cardboard of a 12 year old, professional and talented 12 year old, but not an artist.
I suggest the episode list becomes shorter with a slider and pages, and putting everything in one layout and not hiding the description and stuff under "details".
I can't stress how much I really truly like and want a banner image (it doesn't have to be visible on every page of the comic even on the comic page alone would be enough even though seeing it everywhere would be really nice, plz dont pull the webtoon crap where featured artists get to have banners and others dont, that's just mean) and even an other corner or square or something to put extras and pretty stuff to make the comic page more of the artist style to make it feel as if you're entering a different home (or house) each time and not just jumping from ditch to ditch. (sort of a mini gallery or slide show that'd be really cool)

[FireCrossDraws]

I tried putting a banner in webtoon, i think only contracted artists get to have one, which makes me think that webtoon bought tapas or something along with tons of other similarities, tapas is the new baby webtoon.