Archivos FAQs

Honestly… any way you want. 🙂

But among the development and content teams, we call it ARK-eh-vōs.

Well, that depends on who you are. But here’s the thing…

ARCHIVOS was designed to illuminate stories. And everything is a story.

• Writers can use it to document their story worlds, creating a story bible for their own use or to share with their readers.
• Role Playing Gamers can use it to chronicle the adventures in their games and map out the history and geography of their game world.
• Fans can celebrate the novels, games, and films they love by offering commentary on documented characters, places, and events
• Educators can use it to help their students appreciate classic literature or to chronicle a historic period.
• Genealogists can use it to document a family tree, incorporating generations of data into a single display.
• Corporations can use it to map out their organization or to share the history and legacy of the organization.
• Tour Companies can use it to showcase their tours, highlighting each stop and the landmarks to be enjoyed at each one.

ARCHIVOS is a whole new way to document and share the stories that mean the most to us, whatever those stories are.

Once you’ve signed up for an ARCHIVOS subscription, the first step is to create a new Story Setting:

When you first create your account, you have no settings, so you can either click the “Create Story” button in the upper left corner of the dashboard or click the prompt in the middle of the screen.

Either way, you’ll get a dialog box where you can enter your story’s title and a brief description. Click “Create”, and you’re ready to build a story!

Avatar and Cover Images

The Avatar Image of your Story Setting is what gets displayed in the Storyteller Menu Bar and in the title bar when you’re working in that setting. The Cover Image is displayed in the Storyteller Dashboard and in the Story Summary page for stories shared in the public catalog (Professional Subscribers only).

Display Story in Public Catalog

Professional Subscribers can share their story settings in the public Story Catalog. This listing is available to the general public, so make sure your setting is clean and complete and ready to showcase (see more about sharing your setting publicly below).

Genre

Defining the genre(s) of your setting will help visitors find your setting more easily.

You can select as many genres or sub-genres to apply to your setting as you like. Genres are divided into Top-Level Genres (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Thriller, and Mystery) with sub-genres for each listed underneath. Selecting a sub-genre automatically includes the setting in the Top-Level Genre selection. So designating a setting as “Space Opera” will allow the setting to show up in any “Science Fiction” filters.

There are also genres listed under “Other Types”.

If the Story Setting you’re developing requires a more unique identification than the choices provided, you can select the “Other” option and enter the genre label of your choice. Your entry will be added to the genre filter on the Story Catalog page.

Private Notes

Any reminders or guidelines you want to define for yourself can be entered here. This is only visible to you (and your collaborators, if you decide to invite other writers into the setting)… the public will never see what you enter here.

Delete Story Button

Sometimes, you just gotta scrap an idea and start over. We’ll confirm you REALLY want to delete your hard work, but if you say yes twice, the setting will be completely erased.

It’s inevitable that you’ll create a Story Setting that, for whatever reason, just isn’t working. It needs to go… so how do you delete it?

Click the “Gear” icon up in the title bar to load the Story Setting Configuration Screen, then click the red “Delete Story” button at the bottom of the screen.

This action will delete EVERYTHING in the Story Setting, so we’ll ask you to confirm your decision before all that work gets turned into pixelated ash.

(seriously, there’s no “undo” on this, so be sure.)

Once your Story Setting is created, it’s time to flesh it out with some Story Elements!

New Story Settings have no elements, and there are two ways to rectify that situation: Click the “Add Element Button” or click the prompt for adding an element for new Story Settings.

Story Element Type

You can choose from the following list to define the Type of Story Element you’re creating:

• Person* – from protagonists to the smallest walk-on role
• Region* – worlds, continents, countries, counties, mountain ranges, forests, etc.
• Location* – towns, buildings, landmarks, ruins, etc.
• Organization – governments, guilds, religions, cabals, corporations, etc.
• Item – relics, artifacts, unique tools, cars, ships, etc.
• Event* – battles, treaties, plagues, births, deaths, graduations, etc.
• Culture– ethnicity, as well as speculative cultures (elves, dwarves, giants, aliens, etc.)
• Discipline – magic, kung-fu, cloak fighting, psionics, etc.

*These Story Elements have additional unique properties:

• Person allows the Storyteller to assign an optional gender (Male, Female, Other)
• Regions and Locations allow Storytellers to assign map graphics to the Element and configure it for display in the Living Map (qv)
• Events allow Storytellers to assign a date, date range, and/or time to the Event Element

Note that, once you save a Story Element, you cannot change the Type designation. This is due to the dependency between the Story Element Type and the Relationships it can have. If you create a Story Element and realize you’ve assigned the wrong Type designation, your only recourse is to delete it and create it again with the correct Type.

Once you open a Story Setting in ARCHIVOS, all the Elements you’ve created in that Setting are available in the Element Roster on the left side of the display…

One thing we’ve discovered over the years… stories can get BIG!

Hundreds of characters, events, and locations are a lot to manage. So we created a way to target the elements you want quickly and make changes to those elements just as quickly.

Searching and Filtering the Element List

The search box at the top of the Element List will search the entire roster of Story Elements by title or description. So if you put a keyword in the Full Profile or Summary for a group of Story Elements, you can search for it here and only those elements will be displayed.

Similarly, you can filter the list by Element Type by clicking the “Filter” icon at the top of the list. Select the Element Type(s) you want to filter by and the list becomes much more manageable.

Make Mass Updates

So you’ve been creating new elements like a mad fiend for the last half-hour… and now you need to save them all?!? No worries… just click the “Manage Elements” button to open up a fast efficient way to do that and more…

Your element roster is displayed with additional details, all of it sortable and searchable. But the best part is the ability to select multiple elements and apply an update to all of them. Quickly save or hide or show dozens of elements with the click of a mouse.

Whether you’re uploading an Avatar for your main character or a map for your main location, images are a major part of your ARCHIVOS Story Setting.

We’ve upgraded our image upload features, so now you have a lot more control over the images you include in your settings.

You can even re-crop a previously uploaded image (so you don’t have to upload it again):

ARCHIVOS saves your work as you go… but it doesn’t log it into the display modes until you say so.

If an element is showing up red, it means you’ve made changes and haven’t saved the draft to the ARCHIVOS display.

Once you save the element (either by clicking the “Save Draft” button in the Element Edit Page or using the “Save Drafts feature in the “Manage Elements window), ARCHIVOS logs the changes and the displays update accordingly.

Use the “Manage Elements” feature to save multiple elements at once:

The Story element Media Gallery allows paid subscribers to attach images, text files, and audio files to the Story elements of their settings.

IMAGES – JPG, PNG, or GIF (file size limit: 10MB)
TEXT – PDF or TXT (file size limit: 50MB)
AUDIO – MP3 (file size limit: 50MB)

Load the element to which you want to attach a media item and select the “MEDIA” tab, then click the “Add Media” button.

Choose the Media Item you want to attach from your hard drive (or drag and drop the file as indicated). The file will be aploaded and appear in the Story Element’s Media Listing.

You can edit the title of the item by clicking its name in the listing and typing the title you prefer. You can also make the item appear in the element’s Summary Profile (along with the profile picture if there is one) by clicking the “Featured on Profile” box. Only one media item can be featured in this way.

The Story Element Media Gallery allows paid subscribers to link images, audio files, and video files hosted on other websites to their ARCHIVOS Story Elements.

Load the element to which you want to attach a media item and select the “MEDIA” tab, then click the “Add Media” button.

Enter the URL for the media item you are linking to. This could be the YouTube “Share” link or the URL for an MP3 file on Libsyn.

You can edit the title of the item by clicking its name in the listing and typing the title you prefer. You can also make the item appear in the element’s Summary Profile (along with the profile picture if there is one) by clicking the “Featured on Profile” box. Only one media item can be featured in this way.

[NOTE: Having your ARCHIVOS Story Setting listed in the public is a feature available to Professional Level subscribers]

1. Open the Story Setting you want to make public in the Storyteller dashboard
2. Click the Story Setting Configuration “gear” icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. In the “Details” tab, check the box next to “Show in public story catalog”

Please note that the content in all public in Story Settings (and the Story Elements they contain) should be no more explicit than what one would read in a Young Adult novel or see in a PG-13-rated film or tv program.

This means…

• Any nudity has to be non-sexual
• Any swear words have to be used sparingly, and, in the event of the specific obscenity we politely call the F-word, not used in a sexual context. (You can say “Oh, (BLANK) this!” in a PG-13 film, but not more than once, and never “I’d love to (BLANK) John…”)
• Violence in PG-13 films may be intense, but must also be bloodless – see Jurassic World or any Marvel Movie, for example

ARCHIVOS has the right to pull down any Story Setting. As per the Terms of Service you agreed to when you created your account:

“Archivos may edit, hide, make private or remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User’s access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.”

We don’t want to get in the way of you sharing your Story, but we also want to make sure the site is safe and supportive for kids 13 and up.

There may be times when you don’t want the whole world to see your story setting. Like…

• You want to use your ARCHIVOS setting as an incentive exclusive to people on your mailing list.
• You’re running a LARP or RPG and you only want your players to see the story world.
• You want your beta readers to review the setting before you release it to the public.

Regardless, ARCHIVOS has you covered…

Please note…

While this feature is only available to Professional Level Subscribers, the people you invite to view or edit your settings do NOT need to pay for a subscription! The will need to create a free basic account so ARCHIVOS can recognize them when they log in, but after that, they will be able to access your setting(s) as you define.

Just log in to the ARCHIVOS site, select the story setting you want to share, and click the Settings icon (the gear) in the upper right corner of the screen

This will load the Story Setting Page. Select the Private Sharing tab (to allow others to view your private setting) or the Collaboration tab (to invite other storytellers to develop the story setting with you).

Adding Members

1. Enter the email address of the person to whom you want to extend the invitation to view (or collaborate on) your setting.
2. Click the “Add Share…” button and an invitation will be sent with instructions on how to access your story setting (if they are not already subscribed, instructions will be included on how to sign up for a free subscription).

The email address will appear in the member list as “pending“. Once they accept the invitation, their status will be updated to “accepted“.

Removing Members

You can remove any individual’s access to your story setting by clicking the red delete button (the trash can) in their row of the member list. They will immediately be removed and no longer able to view or collaborate in this setting. This will not affect their membership in other story settings.

Collaboration is a feature available exclusively to Professional level Subscribers allowing multiple ARCHIVOS users to edit the same story setting.

The owner of the setting can send email invitations to any number of users to become collaborators on in a story setting.

1. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner to access the Story Setting Configuration dialog and select the “Collaboration” Tab
2. Enter the email addresses of the people you want to grant access to your setting and click the “Add Collaborator” button

The dialog lists all invited collaborators and the status of their invitations (Pending or Accepted). Invited collaborators will see the story setting in their story network listing (under the user menu accessed through the user avatar in the upper left corner of the screen) and can accept the invitation there.

Collaborators do not have to be Professional Level subscribers! As long as they have an ARCHIVOS account – even with a free Basic Subscription – they can be collaborators in your story setting.

Collaborators can add, delete, and edit any story elements in the setting and can modify the configurations for the Story Setting. They cannot change the public visibility of the setting or invite others to collaborate or privately view the setting.

You can remove collaborators by clicking the delete (trash can) icon next to their names in the collaboration list.