GarrettQ: This software looks great but there are a few things that I find looking through the comments that concern me...
I have a team with an editor, VA's, and writers and we currently work almost exclusively with Wordpress.
Concerns:
1. Lots of code is added for lots of different tracking - It would be nice to be able to toggle this tracking on and off. If I don't need the analytics through here but I still want to use StoryChief as the content creation hub and allow writers to update articles from here I should be able to only have the code that links StoryChief to my WP site. It would be nice if I could use this as a central hub for all of the sites that we make content for with little extra code added to make it work, atleast the option.
2. Editor is lacking - It seems like the minimum requirement here would be able to do the same as we can do in WP. I see comments mentioning that you can not justify an image so text will wrap around it... That seems ridiculous...
3. Images are not on our server and names and alt tags are changed around - This could be a big deal for SEO, all SEO plugins will catch the lack of good alt tags on images. In regards to the images on our site many of us here have purchased shortpixel which has been fantastic for crunching down the size of images automatically. Even if we get the ability to side load images will using shortpixel break the connection?
4. No way to have special codes that only go to WP - Going back to the whole editor issue, there is a whole market of page builders and shortcode plugins to make your WordPress site pop, we also have the affiliate code issue. I want to get this to help with sending stuff multichannel but then I have to choose to use shortcodes or not overall... The custom fields integration is nice but that will only work if there is a template you are following not for a product review for just a simple inline shortcode with a link to a product you use. Placing a comparison chart whereever you want would also be impossible.
5. Authors, Tags, Categories do not populate from Wordpress - Not too big of a deal but just makes it easy to mess up.
6. No ability to resize images - I usually have my VA's make images the size I need them anyways but this would be nice in a pinch...
I Like
1. It all works together smoothly
2. Roadmap
3. Centralized place for content creation
4. Social media ready to go on publish, and in the future the ability to have multiple posts over the year.
Would Like To See
1. Concerns above addressed.
2. Some sort of todo/checklist that can be made so multiple people can have their todo's to check off.
3. Maybe a kanban board view to see progression for articles.
I would like to jump all in and have this as a core part of my team workflow for my sites but if I made this choice I would be restricting my sites to just very simple blog style posts or not use the multichannel that seems to be one of the bigger selling points here.
valeri
May 15, 2024A: 6. We have our own image resizer built in, copywriters don't need to think about tech stuff and resizing.
Great feat request though, to do list is in our feature request board already.
If you want to spend more time on creative process, writing or research then StoryChief is the tool for you, if you want to tweak everything to the smallest details for Wordpress and spending time customizing technical stuff, I'd suggest sticking there.
Hey there, thanks for your comment. I’m happy that there are valid points that you like. And that one of them is: “It all works together smoothly”
Exactly. To be able to do that we have indeed lot’s of ‘pseudo limitations’ in the Editor. But first things first. Let’s go step by step here:
1. There will be one line of code instead of a bunch, very soon. But it'll still do the same and load the same scripts. It's just a visual thing. No toggle though.
2. StoryChief is not made for hardcore Wordpress users. It's made for Writers and Creative people who hate technical part of their publishing processes. We want to make their life easier. Our editor will always be easy-to-use with features that needed for STORYTELLING and for humans that want to read quality content.
The editor is made for multichannel publishing. It means that your article can appear on your website (any cms), Medium.com, Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP, Blogger.com, etc etc.
This means the Editor must be Universal. Wordpress is just one of the many systems you can link to Storychief. There are tons of users here on Drupal, Sitecore or Shopify.
We have to make sure that content will look good and mobile friendly on all the channels people post their content too.
We will never add 1 channel specific options there. All the things a blogger needs is in there, and we are adding new stuff on weekly basis. But it must undergo a test for other channels, if something is not working on AMP or Medium.com for example, we'll never add it to our Editor.
You talk about image or text to wrap around. This kind of layout is really hard to read on mobile. We'll never support it.
3. About the images and side loading: Our WordPress (or any other plugin from us) has hooks available for you to tweak how much you want.
You could use our hooks to side-load all the images. It's always custom made and different for each WP installation.
Unfortunately, we can not custom develop that ourselves for each client. It's up to them to hire a developer for this.
The images are hosted by us for the ease-of-use purposes only. In that way we can ensure your content will work on Facebook Instant Articles, Google AMP and other channels we support. In other words, this is the only way to make our tool easy-to-use so you can go multi-channel with articles without technical installations. So it's in your benefit!
If we disable that, AMP channels won't work properly, Medium.com won't work properly, Email marketing won't work properly, Ambassadors channels won't work properly.
If you discontinue working with Story Chief, your images will still be available or you can choose to download them from our servers and move it to yours. So don't worry about that.
4. Wordpress Page builders is not our market. StoryChief is made for copywriters who actually hate complex setups and cms backends. They just want to hit 1 button and start writing.
5. You can use our webhook for that. It's easy.
Verified purchaser
Hey Valeri,
In regards to your response:
"3. About the images and side loading: Our WordPress (or any other plugin from us) has hooks available for you to tweak how much you want.
You could use our hooks to side-load all the images. It's always custom made and different for each WP installation."
If you've already got the hooks/filters in place in your plugin then please include it as a option to turn on/off when we have the plugin installed/activated. That's the ideal solution. :)
Verified purchaser
Hey Sumo-ling,
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