I see some small changes to the right sidebar and right navigation for the Chyoa Web UI as of June 2026. They look like good and useful ways to bring links closer (example: Edit Story) and to make the sidebar less busy (example: fold-down containers for story tags, conspicuous in a story like Slut World which has many many tags). Thanks to the site maintainers for a little freshening up.
(Feel free to transfer to Site Feedback if that's a happier home for this discussion thread; I only noticed after posting; "needs to read to the end of the list" is a problem of mine)
Thank you! I’m really happy you noticed. I updated the game system last week, and I’m now working on a few other features and UI improvements around the site. Thanks for taking the time to say something!
It means a lot to me as a longtime contributor that UI usability is getting better. I'll pay more attention to the site updates here as well! As a writer of many many chapters, I have my own pet feature ideas about new chapter list views, but mostly I can't complain! Overall, I am pleased with the site being solid, and with the continuity in the writing community. The forums have their own special strengths, like the RPG sections. Appreciations to the Appreciable, Worth to the Worthy, Endurance to the Enduring. Thanks again.
I was looking for a thread on this. All the random minor improvements in the last month or so, especially allowing the dark theme on the home page and the enhancements to author page view, have been really appreciated. Thank you!
Big fan of the changes too! Especially dark mode everywhere on mobile. One thing I’ve noticed is that selecting a tag while inside a story now brings me to a “chapters tagged (tag) in this story” page. If there was some way to also navigate from there to “all stories tagged with (tag)” that would be amazing; I used to use in-story tags like that all the time.
One functionality I would love to have, but am not sure how to implement, is the option to split a chapter in the middle to add a branch. Sometimes you have a spot where you want to branch but it's right in the middle of an existing chapter, so you have to either not do it or ask to copy half the chapter from another author. It would be great if there were a way to ask the author or story owner if you could add a branch point in the middle of their existing chapter. It also would have to ask the author to provide a split name and title for the second half of what was once one chapter and move everything down one level. Should probably not send people a new post notice for the split (only for the new branch).
Suggestion: likes on comments should be put in the same bucket as likes on chapters. (Right now, as far as I can tell, they are not listed on your profile at all).
I didn’t do that because it would essentially treat a chapter and a comment as being on the same level. Writing a chapter takes much more effort than writing a comment. Not sure though what's best.
Agreed the site update is quite nice. If you were looking at something to work on, I would say that viewing the Story Tree needs to be improved. Quite a few of the larger and longer stories practically crash the webpage when using it. Also if there was a way to quickly sort the branches within the story tree by most recently updated linked chapter or by branch with chapter depth, it would be nice. I realize that both of those might actually be quite tricky to implement on the back end.
I would say in the profile pages limiting the number of followers/followed you can see is a bit clunky. Especially as it takes you to another page (and potentially multiple pages) I often use that list to remember which commenters I like to follow to find mutually enjoyable stories.
While we are on the topic of updates, stories need to be ordered ignoring "the" in the title. A good 1/3rd of stories are subsorted under "the" and it makes everything bunch up on the later pages.
I like the new views on the Chyoa Profile. Seeing a list of stories I've contributed enables me to go back and find chapters I've written without having to specifically bookmark a story. Paging through 85 stories is much easier than paging 3395 chapters. A real gift to a prolific author, thank you.
I am not liking the new formatting just implemented. On the front page, the Recently Updated Stories, New Stories and Notable Stories list are more awkward to use now. It no longer automatically fits columns in view (instead of 3 clean columns viewable, it's two and a quarter) and the removal of the arrow buttons in favor of just a horizontal scroll is more awkward to use (hold and drag instead of quick press to go over one column). Also, Story of the week and top stories are now well below the initial view, and the disconnect between the sidebar scrolling and the main area feels worse with how much further you need to scroll the main area. It also feels like there is a lot of empty space to either side. I am not sure if this was actually changed, but it hits different now that the columns are being cut off by the empty space instead of bracketed, which feels like wasting my screen (approximately 1.25 in of empty space on either side of the main area). Also in chapters, there is just less on screen. The font size increase is nice, but there is MASSIVE vertical padding between paragraphs and I am getting almost 2in margins, which combined is just radically reducing the amount on screen at once (I measure the chapter text as ~1/2 my screen width, the sidebar about 1/6th, so that means ~1/3rd of the width of my screen is empty space). Sidebar is also being effected; where view story map used to be comfortably visible, now it's almost off the bottom of the initially visible sidebar, and write comment is nearly off the bottom.
The colors (green and blue) used on the new Story Map are way too pale. The old ones were better, much easier to see.
I like the latest set of changes. The new black skin is a lot better (I got to throw out my userstyle for it), and generally the site feels more coherent. I do agree with the Murakami about oversized space between paragraphs. I also have some other small suggestions and bug reports: - Give next chapter buttons a visible background even on non-hover. I'd suggest #1c1c1c without hover and #242424 on hover/focus for the black skin. - Give the editor pane a slightly different background color. Same #1c1c1c seems reasonable. - Idem for story buttons on the story browse pages. A slightly different background would help set the buttons apart. - Reduce whitespace between this chapter (likes, comments, report) and next chapter buttons, as well as next chapter buttons and the start of the comment section. I've got mine set to 32px. - The horizontal scroll back on the story map page is gone. The only way to see deep chapters is by autoscrolling (click middle-mouse then move pointer down/up). - You can no longer autoscroll vertically on the story map page, though - The horizontal element scroll bar way at the bottom of the story map page is pretty inconvenient to reach. Why not just let the whole page scroll, in either direction? - Tags are no longer visible in the story list. I base my decision of whether to read a story a lot on the kinks it features, and now that requires a click through. The old solution (show the first few, expand the rest with a button) worked great without overburdening the UI, and I'd love to have it back.
I didn't even look at the story map! Yeah, there are major issues with scrolling now. Horizontal scrollbar only appear all the way at the bottom, which in the case of longer stories means after all the delayed loading steps. Vertical scroll responds to wheel turn or visible scrollbar, but not middle press. I think the unread and edited color contrast is a bit too low now. I still think there needs to be some level of auto-collapse for longer stories/branches, but not sure what the best way to do that is. The gradual loading can get really awkward on longer stories (like Sexual Privilege), especially if you go into a chapter after a delayed loading step, then back to the story map. Maybe default to all collapsed instead of expanded, but we would need a button to fully expand a branch or level in one click (also the last chapter in a branch needs to not have a +- button). Even this doesn't solve all of it, as collapse behavior and the gradual loading mess up if they both come into play at once (again, Sexual Privilege is a good example). Recently updated list is good, but it would be nice to have an option to sort branches by recently updated so you can read down from root to the new stuff (like the branch order view, but with the branches organized by which has new stuff at the end).
