This week Braden and Justin made tons of progress on our big UX overhaul while Adam died repeatedly playing Elden Ring. Let's dive into it!
Unified UX progress
In case you missed the last Weekly, some big changes are coming to LegendKeeper to address its shortcomings:
- New (and even experienced users) don't understand that you can have more than one map, that you can nest maps, and that they have a 1 to 1 association with wiki pages.
- Boards seem to live in their own disconnected universe. There are too many differences in how they feel versus maps.
- You often need to refer to a map or board while in a wiki page, and you can only navigate to the attached map.
- Once you're on a map, you can only get to another map via a pin.
- The navigational paradigm of the Atlas is very different than the wiki.
Plus, arbitrary organization rules ultimately don't fit with our philosophy. We want to offer creative freedom to every worldbuilder, with optional guidance in the form of templates and example projects.
Grand Unification Theory
So, here's our solution! Pages, Maps, and Boards are being unified under a single browsing interface, and the left-side navbar is going away. Maps will no longer be required to be attached to pages, and the entire Boards tree will be merged into this new unified tree.
You'll be able to organize, link, and nest Pages, Maps, and Boards however you like. As you can see in the GIF below, I'm navigating seamlessly between a map and pages. (Keep in mind, a lot of this is a work in progress and may not represent the end result.)
Non-stop Block Party
To further empower this new flexibility, we're adding new property types, henceforth called "Blocks", for the right sidebar. These will allow you to interconnect and enrich your world in new and interesting ways. In the image below, you can see a few new blocks at work:
- An interactive map block.
- A link embed block.
- A text field block, that will support rich text and @-mentions.
As you can see, I used these blocks to list nearby points of interest, and list out what amenities are available. You can change block titles, or even choose to hide the title entirely. You'll be able to drag and drop to change their order.
We plan on implementing a number of useful blocks, such as image blocks, infoboxes, YouTube Embeds, Spotify Embeds, Image Grids, etc. You'll no longer be limited to one "preview image" for each page in your world either; blocks will unlock the ability to have as many as you want.
New Year, New UI
You may have noticed that the UI is getting a design overhaul as well. This includes some accessibility-focused changes, such as a more readable font and color scheme. It also lays the groundwork for Mobile Web UI, which is something we'll be working on soon. If you're a long-time LK fan, you'll be surprised to find we're adding rounded edges to most things. 😅 Edgelords no more!
D&D (Drag and Drop)
This re-imagining of LegendKeeper's UX also opens up new drag & drop interactions. Our goal is for dragging to do something meaningful in almost every situation possible. Check out just a few cool ways you can use this:
Braden and Justin have made tons of progress here just this week. There are still a few problems to sort out, but nothing insurmountable. We'll be making this change in the least disruptive way we possibly can. Some of the changes might feel a little strange for long-time users, but overall this version of LK feels both simpler and more magical.
YOU DIED: Team LK plays Elden Ring
For our latest newsletter, Adam asked the team to play Elden Ring and leave notes for each other in a shared LK project. Many deaths and ridiculous floor messages were had.
D&D Compendium now features LegendKeeper
We are actively exploring paid marketing opportunities for LegendKeeper and found a real gem in D&D Compendium. It's an awesome site we actually use all the time to find resources for games.
There is now an ad for LegendKeeper on the site, which should really help spread the word.
If you know of any other good independent RPG sites that have ad slots, please let us know.
That's all for now! Send us your feedback via email or on Discord!
TEAM LK