I've gone back and forth over the years on the sidebar, I'm sure you can pull up forum threads where I've declared it DEAD and BURIED and never coming back. Well, I've come around!

I'm now working on the sidebar on kumos.subeta.net (did you notice that you can collapse it 👀!) and have begun to build the pieces needed to power ✨ widgets ✨

NOTE Screenshots are all very early, pls do not judge!

Preferences

The first step of the process was to build a method of saving your preferences around the site easily, for the sidebar and any other feature.

Here they're introduced as the number of items shown in the inventory widget, and the on/off display of widgets in the sidebar.

Soon: In that modal you'll be able to move them up/down and reorder them as well.

✅ complete, and easy for me to utilize in other areas of the site to save preferences that we'd usually clear away when you refresh e.g. how pages are sorted when you first load them. This will make the site feel more dynamic, and like it remembers your choices significantly better.

example of how easy it is to get & set these new preferences

Auto Updating

One of the major improvements to our new widget system is the ability to listen for changes on the site, and automatically update the sidebar when they come through. For example, if you spend sP or CSC around the site that number will go down without needing a page refresh. Seems small, but it's huge for us!

Widget Requests

Once I finalize the underpinnings for the widgets, I'll move on to implementing the most popular ones of the site, and maybe some new ones 😉. So - what are the widgets you need on your sidebar, and if you could create a new one, what would be in it?

I've got a few more Qs!

Almost everyone has listed the notepad - what are you writing in it, what are you keeping track of, how are you organizing that information? Is there a way a new widget could be more beneficial / automated than you taking notes?

buwhahahha you're getting it! since as we're moving these features over, they're getting added to the same timer system, it'll hopefully be as easy as having checkboxes for all of the timer options and you choosing which ones you want to show up 🙏

omg i love how many of you use the sidebar widget, and how in depth you use it.

i'm going to actually write up a blog post (externally) about this -- i'm fascinated and wonder how many other sites could benefit from just giving users a blank box to write whatever they want in, that persists to the sidebar/layout in some way.

Anyway -- this is all incredibly helpful. I'm 🤞 hoping to have a preview URL up today or tomorrow with a preview of the sidebar and the changes. Thank you all for your help!

Making progress! Moving a little slower than I anticipated, because I thought of a place this could be useful outside of the sidebar, and worked to make the code a little more general. User / pet profiles could extend the same widget system, for example ;)

Still hope to have a preview link up today for folks to start giving more serious feedback.

The systems themselves are done:

• ✅ Ability to add / remove widgets from your sidebar
• ✅ Ability to update content in sidebar based on actions from other parts of the site (e.g. you do something that gives sP)
• ✅ Ability to customize widgets
• ✅ Staff ability to add new widgets easily

Now I've got a long list of widgets to implement 🫡

Sidebar

Manage Sidebar

You'll be able to see the available widgets, and

Manage Widget Some widgets will have settings - for example how many of something is shown, or how you want your avatar displayed.