How to use the Character Tracker

[shauny]

Character Tracker Documentation in Progress

Note: This feature is currently only available to Verified Users and Patrons. After a testing period it will be available to everyone

Note: This documentation is still in progress, and I’ll add images as I go.

The Character Tracker helps you find stories featuring your favourite characters and track your progress in completing them all!

You can now easily share your Character Tracker page with others so they can see your progress.

Here’s how it works:

Accessing the New Character Tracker

Note: While this is in transition, and the old Character Tracker is still available, you need to access it via your profile. This will change eventually.

To access your Character Tracker, click on your avatar where it says “My TARDIS” and choose Character Tracker.

Note: When you first load the page, it may take a minute or two before you can see characters. Please be patient while it works in the background!

By default, there will be a pre-chosen selection of Doctors, Companions, Villains, and Other Characters. However, the list is now completely customisable!

Note: This page is now part of your profile and can be shared! Once you’ve got it how you like it, send a link to a friend to show off your progress!

By default, stats for “All Stories” are visible, which you can tell at a glance by the TARDIS icon in the top-left of each card. You can use the filter to switch between All, TV, Audio, Books, and Comics.

Note: Several media types are not counted for the Character Tracker or character-related badges, including Live Experiences, Video Games, Sketches & Parodies.

You can reorder the list by clicking the “sort” dropdown. By default, it groups the media, but you can sort by Name, First Appearance, or Percentage Completed.

Filter and Sort options are saved in your browser, so refreshing or hitting “back” will remember your last selection.

For each character, click the image to jump to a pre-filtered list of their stories that contribute to the percentage you’ve seen. For instance, if you’re on “Audio,” clicking the character will show all their Audio Drama and Audiobook stories that count towards the goal. On the resulting filter page, “My Personal Filters” (available to Patrons only) are a great way to quickly see which stories you haven’t completed.

If you click the gear icon in the top-right of a character card, you’ll flip it over and see more stats and options.

You’ll see the character’s name, species, affiliation, and sometimes a small quote. Then, there are buttons:

• Track / Ignore: Only characters with “Track” highlighted will show on your main Character Tracker page. You can still show them on other pages after ignoring them using the buttons below.

• Show on Homepage: This option is only available to Patrons. It shows the character on your homepage, regardless of whether you’re tracking them here. This is useful for quick access to your most interested characters. There’s a setting to hide completed characters from the homepage automatically. Read more about that below.

(The Character Tracker is an optional section on your homepage that needs to be added and arranged under My Account Settings → Customisation.)

• Show on Profile: This option is only available to Patrons. You can show off your favourite characters or achievements on your profile Overview page by selecting this option.

Favourite - mark a character as a favourite. This currently just highlights them with a heart icon, but will do more in future updates.

After those buttons you’ll see your full stats breakdown by media type. Hover / tap a bar to see the numbers in a popup.

How to track more characters

You’re not limited to just these defaults. You can track any character that is currently on the site!

There is an “Add Character” button on the Tracker page, which allows you to search for a character’s name and add or remove it straight from there.

You can also track characters from their Character page - you can search the site by their name, visit the main Characters page to search and filter, or find them via a story.

From the character page you have all the same options to track and display the character.

Skipped stories

You can skip stories featuring a character and it will still count for your percentage, but the progress bar will show a slight different colour for those stories to indicate they have been skipped. Characters with skipped stories will never go “gold”.

100% a character to get a shiny gold card

When you reach 100% on every single story featuring a character, with no skips, the card goes shiny and gold! These are great to feature on your profile page.

Track your 100% characters for new stories

One really useful feature of tracking a character on the homepage is that you can automatically hide the 100% characters, which means as soon as a story is released that dips you below 100%, it will appear again. Use this to keep on top of your favourite characters!

This is an optional setting (some people may want to see those shiny gold cards all the time) found in My Account Settings → Customisation.

[Smallsey]

This sounds wonderful. When I saw the ‘My Characters’ feature on my homepage, I hoped it would be something like this. So thank you Shauny for creating it.

As a non-Patron I’d love to know when this feature might be available for all users. But, I know enough to realise that the answer is that it will be available when it’s ready. I’m sure you have an idea for when that is, but need to test it first before you can commit to a concrete timeline. I’m just hopeful that’s soonish because this sounds wonderful.

In any case, thank you for creating this incredible site, and the work you continue to do in improving it. I eagerly await the day this new feature becomes available to me, however long that may take.

[shauny]

Thanks for your kinds words!

I’m going to be busy and unable to use my laptop for the next few days so I can’t release it yet in case there are any bugs we have not yet spotted.

I’m aiming to release it late next week maybe. But don’t hold me on that!

Note that there are a couple of features above that only work for Patrons, even when it’s launched, but the basic functionality will be there for everyone. This is so we can get enough patrons to help pay the running costs of the site.

[Smallsey]

I understand.

I used to work in I.T. and I know that no matter how close you think you are to launching something, testing it almost always demonstrates issues you weren’t always aware of. If you’re lucky they’re small issues that don’t take too much effort to fix. But every once in a while testing shows a major flaw that requires serious reworking.

All of that is to say that I don’t expect you to be able to give me a definitive date for when this feature will be available for me. If all goes smoothly then it may well be next week. But I understand that you can’t guarantee a date yet.

I also understand that not all features will be available to me as a non-Patron. Sadly I’m not financially in a position where I can become a patron currently. Hopefully some day I will be. But, it makes total sense that some features of this site are paywalled.

This is clearly a passion project. I doubt you would be able to put all of the effort you’re currently putting into this site without any sort of payment in return. So I’m thankful for both your work and the money that your patrons put into keeping this site such a wonderful resource for people like me.

So I’ll be happy to receive any and all improvements I can get for free. If I really want the Patreon exclusive content I know how I can get it. One of these days I hope to pay for those priveleges. Until that day arrives I for one certainly shan’t be complaining. The free version is pretty damn good on it’s own. So thanks again, and I look forward to making good use of the new feature as soon as I’m able.

[Molly]

Will this still allow you to skip other variations of a story you’ve completed (e.g. the audiobook version of a book you read)?

[shauny]

How I intend it to be: you shouldn’t “skip” it, if you read a book then the audiobook automatically gets the status “Read as a variation” which should also count on the tracker.

However not sure that is exactly how it’s working. I need to run more tests.

[DarthGallifrey]

@shauny

visit the main Characters page

How do you do this? It’s not easy to find (unless I’m just not looking in the right place). Nevermind, I found it.

[shauny]

Characters

[shauny]

The Character Tracker has been updated:

I’ve rewritten how it works so it no longer has too taxiing requirements on the server and made it available to everyone who is “Verified”! It will eventually be available to all, just rolling it out slowly.

(Paging @Smallsey - it’s here at last!)

I’ve also added an “Add Character” button on the Character Tracker page which lets you search for characters right there - easier than going off and finding them somewhere else.

Note that there are some limitations:

Non-Patrons get to track 100 characters. By default, there are 100 already being tracked - all the Doctors, all TV companions, and a selection of others (e.g Torchwood). Remove some to make space for adding more.

Patrons get different limits depending on their rank - Bronze Patrons can track 200, Silver 300, and Gold 500.

Also showing the characters on your homepage and on your profile is still Patrons-only.

Enjoy!

[Smallsey]

WooHoo!!!

[shauny]

Let me know how it goes and how it compares to the old one - which I’ll be removing soon, as it’s grown far too out of hand

(I never really intended all those characters to be there but when I opened up people to be able to suggest edits to characters they added a LOT more companions…)