With a small team, it is never certain what direction developments are going to take - you may encounter a new opportunity or run into an unresolvable problem. However, we still try to plan ahead to have an indication of where we are, where we want to go, and to see whether we are on the right path.
For 2019 our main goal is the maturation of the RPGpad platform, based on our own insights and the feedback we receive from users like yourself! (Yes, that’s a shameless plug for our community forum.)
Important Features The first step in maturing the platform will be to add some important basic features that aren’t implemented yet. Forums will receive sticky topics, the wiki pages (or rather, everything with versions) will gain the ability to see what has changed between different versions, and the messaging system will get a much needed overhaul to be much easier and more convenient to use.
Community The next step will be to improve user control over the community. A moderation queue will be added to aid in moderating forum posts, wiki pages, etc. We will also add various features like semi-protected pages, forums accessible only to GMs or Moderators, and the ability to lock topics to help moderators. This step will also include a major overhaul of the player menu.
Images Another important maturation step will be to improve the management of images. The first feature here will be the addition of a gallery, which you can already see in action this week. And we will be looking at uploading images for posts and wiki pages so you don’t have to hot link them from elsewhere.
Beyond maturing existing features, we will also be expanding the basic functions of the site:
Theming To help you personalize your campaign pages we will be adding theming. Gone will be the mandate to use the squicky clean white and gray layout, as you will be able to choose a style for your campaign pages including various options to make it truly your own. We’ve been setting up for this for a while now and the time to make it a reality is nigh, so keep an eye out for this in the coming months as we release more details.
Campaign Data Finally, we’ve planned some significant improvements to data management, allowing users to make their own schema’s (like person, location and faction), as well as offering new ways to use and access the data encoded in those schema’s — like listing all members of a group on the page describing that group. Part of this improvement will include a developer API which will allow us to make some unique tools to use in campaigns — such as FWURG — and which other developers will be able to use as well to create custom tools for their campaigns. We’ll need a lot of feedback on all aspects this, technical and user facing, so be sure to let us know what you think!
Do you have idea’s for features we should add? Let us know right now, and you may see it sooner than you think! As always, this week’s changelog is available.