Now online: A new version of the Jane Austen FanFiction Index … JAFFIndex 2.0 in a manner of speaking …

All the features of the old version are still there, in the same places as before, but with a number of cosmetic improvements to make the look of the site cleaner. The site links and all logins and passwords are exactly as they were before. Plus, the following new features have been added:

Placeholder entries of titles, author names, and a non-linked indication of what sites they may be found on, are now displayed for stories that do not yet have author consent. (In attempts to best respect author privacy or wishes, this includes only stories on regular posting boards, and excludes those found on personal, journal or blog sites.) Such entries are displayed with a light blue background. We hope that authors who do not wish to have these displayed will contact us in confidence so as to have them removed.

Story lists also include indications, via color-coded borders in the set of links, of whether stories are located on sites requiring login, authors’ personal sites, or published book ordering pages. A button at the top of story list pages shows a pop-up legend of what the list indications mean.

The Quick Searches page has been made a little more intuitive, with a submenu of the seven quick search types, each leading to a selection page for that type alone.

Keyword search has been added. This search feature lets you enter one or more keywords in a list, and will search story titles and blurbs for matches, resulting in your choice of a list of stories that match all the words, or stories that match any of the words. (Stories without consent will have their blurbs searched, but the blurb will not be displayed in the resulting list.)

Author alias cross references in author searches have been enabled, with more added on an ongoing basis. You can now pick an author’s alternate name in the Quick Searches, and it will result in a list of stories by that author’s primary or most well-known name, same as if you had picked the primary name in the first place.

Fanfiction Therapy lists now offer the choice of a list of short therapy stories only, those under 15,000 words in length that might be read in a short time, in addition to the original list, which can offer stories of any length. The randomization has been improved to offer better mixing of story choices on each page refresh.

A List of the Week feature has been added, in which is suggested a different thematic category each week, for those among you who enjoy list-making of this sort. It shows what’s already tagged in the Index as belonging to the current category, and invites you to add more to the list, with which to further enhance the thematic category searches for everyone.

Improved navigation buttons to return you directly to the menu page have been added in the upper right corner of all pages (except for story detail pages in some instances, which requiring closing of browser tab or page).

AUTHORS: If your story is highlighted in pale blue, please let us know whether we can officially list it, with categories, blurbs, links displayed. Our long authors’ checklist is still in place, still as daunting as ever, but it does include all the possible categories. However, if you’d rather not use it, a simple e-mail or suggestion box message is fine too. Blanket permission, to include all your past and future stories, is a real time-saver and especially welcome!

One caveat for users of older browsers: the new site code has been checked out on PC and Mac using Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer 8, and seems to work properly on all recent browser versions. Older browsers, which are less CSS compliant, may have trouble displaying some of the pages properly, in particular the Quick Searches, and some of the lists may show gaps between the header portion and the lists. Since our site stats show the usage of older browsers to be a small percentage only and falling, we have allowed this situation to stand, and urge users to upgrade to newer browsers if possible. We particularly recommend Firefox, as all site development has been done with it as the primary checkbed.

Thanks for the update, Victoria. I've posted this link and the one to the index on Mrs Darcy's Facebook group I've only started yesterday.