Exchange Apps

[karanguni]

I code apps for fandom exchanges because the AO3 interface is atrocious.

Automagic App Generator

Exchanges can generate their own apps automatically via https://autoao3app.fandom.tools.

If you want to search for requests across all exchanges, use https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/everything.

Fun stats from the aggregated database: overall numbers and top 100 fandoms by requests

Bugs?

Please leave a comment here, stating which app/exchange, what the bug is, and steps I can take to reproduce it. It helps if you leave me your browser type, but I don't necessarily need it. Thanks! :)

Requests

If your exchange operates in a way that needs more features in the app, please leave a request here detailing what that might mean!

Caveats

Apologies in advance if I am slow in responding: I generally am not fandom active except around the Yuletide season. Thanks for understanding!

Known Issues

Nothing major at the moment. General caveat that due to AO3 rate limiting changes as of 24 Feb 2025, scraping might be unsuccessful more often, but should still work eventually.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Thank you SO MUCH for doing this. It makes treats a million times easier.

[karanguni]

I'm glad! :D

[primeideal]

First of all, thanks again for all your work on these, past present and future. Treaters are grateful for your labors. :)

Not an urgent bug, but:

On the Chocolate Box 2020 app in Chrome, I am seeing a link to prompt's "letter" in the app even when the spreadsheet doesn't have anything in the letters field. Clicking the link just redirects to the app homepage.

[karanguni]

Thanks for reporting! That should be fixed now.

[(Anonymous)]

You are brilliant and awesome! Happy new year!

That's it!

<3

[karanguni]

Danke, nonny!

[(Anonymous)]

On the chocobox app, I have Dance Academy fandom bookmarked and in the bookmarks, it's showing prompts for Da Vinci's Demons.

[(Anonymous)]

And Leverage in bookmarks is showing prompts for Les Misérables (TV 2018)

[eglantiere]

i don't have an exchange to offer up, but DAMN your apps are amazing, and make the whole thing so much smoother.

[schneefink]

Your app is very convenient, thanks :)

[lannamichaels]

Thank you for doing these, they are awesome :D

[chicago_ruth]

Hey! This is a minor thing and there's no rush, but I wonder if there's some way to have the app ignore diacritics in fandom names? Right now it's hard to find the cnovel fandoms (this is an issue on AO3 as well). I'm thinking of cases like:

魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
or
二哈和他的白猫师尊 - 肉包不吃肉 | Èr Hā Hé Tā De Bái Māo Shī Zūn - Ròu Bāo Bù Chī Ròu

In order to find the fandom on the app, I have to type a set of letters that show up in order, and for both of these fandoms, that includes diacritics. It'd be nice if typing "Modao Zushi" also pulled up "Módào Zǔshī."

If this isn't possible, I absolutely understand! I don't know how easy it would be to implement, and if it's non-trivial that don't worry about it.

[karanguni]

Yeah, that is super annoying. I'll look into it tonight! Didn't have the capacity to fix it during Yuletide, but now's the time!

[rebecca2525]

Hi hi, sorry to bother you about this.

Older sign-ups for Chocolate Box seem to be gone again. :( For example, there are two early birds requesting Poirot but no prompts currently showing up.

Cheers! ♥

[karanguni]

Yup, my server fell over from lack of memory. I'll be home in around 5 hours but am working my day job right now and am banned from accessing outside resources. Thanks for understanding!

[shadaras]

This is super awesome, thank you!

I'm noticing that some requests that I marked early in chocobox signup haven't been updated in my Favorites, though if I search by username or fandom they have been. I don't know if that's something you can fix? But it's interesting to know.

Here is an image (made of screenshots) showing what I mean:
(shrunk to avoid making screens die, open in new tab to read in full if you need to)

[karanguni]

I took down the note that was on the banner of the app that mentions this now that signups are finalised, but it's a quirk of how loading prompt bookmarks work - for exchanges where people can update their prompts, you have to check at the end of signups and toggle your prompt bookmark. Sorry! It's on the list to fix long term, but for now it snapshots prompts in time in order to load them quickly enough.

[(Anonymous)]

These apps are wonderful and I love how much easier it's become to find prompts!

Not so much a bug as a bwuh? - the Yuletide 2019 app works for me in any browser I use, but the Chocolate Box 2020 app gives me endless (5 minutes, after which I gave up) loading when I look for a specific fandom using IE (11). However, it works fine for me in Chrome and Firefox.

[karanguni]

Thanks for reporting! I'll look into it tonight.

[nonconamod]

Hi! I reached out on discord as well, but here are the exact details for nonconathon

Collection URL: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/nonconathon2020
Tagset URL: we're using two. Freeform/Additional Tags tagset (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/3070) and the Fandom & Ships tagset (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/4069)
Date signups open and close: Sign ups open May 9, morning EST; close May 17 10:00pm EST.

What signup details need to be reflected in the app: fandom, ships, "character" (art or fic), warnings, additional tags, optional details & letter.
Requests are visible throughout sign-ups.

Thank you either way! We super appreciate all your hard work with this.

[karanguni]

Hey sorry, haven't been logged into my Discord in ages, so I didn't get your message. I'll take a look this weekend and get back to you!

Trick or Treat

[(Anonymous)]

Hello!

Do you think you might do an app for Trick or Treat 2020, especially one that updates as signups continue?

I'd love to help out if that's a thing that's possible, I'm sure it's a lot of work and I definitely appreciate the work you put into these - it's invaluable what with AO3 being how it is.

Thank you!

Re: Trick or Treat

[karanguni]

Hi! Work is unfortunately swamped for me right now, but I'll be doing apps in bulk once I start work on the Yuletide one for 2020. It might be a bit delayed, but if you could fill out the requested items from the post that will help a lot. Thanks!

---

If you have an exchange that you'd like an application for, please drop me a comment here with the following information:

Collection URL
Tagset URL
Date signups open and close
What signup details need to be reflected in the app
Whether requests are visible throughout signups, i.e. whether you would like the app to update continuously as signups go on or only once once signups are finalised

[(Anonymous)]

chocobox 2021 not seeing prompts on mobile firefox when I click the button under OW and crossovers. Regular fandoms are fine.

[(Anonymous)]

this is better now, thanks

Chocobox 2021

[azurrys]

Hello! It looks like the first batch of 21 participants are missing in the app. Their requests aren't showing up in the regular interface or in the user lookup.



I haven't checked everyone on the list (just the first, last, and a few random ones in between), but this is the list of participants that are probably affected by sign-up order (the users after this all seem to be in the app, so I removed those usernames).



I'm on the latest Firefox version (PC) if that helps!

Thank you!

Re: Chocobox 2021

[karanguni]

This should be fixed! AO3's rate limited kicked in and the scraper was too stupid not to upload a half-baked scrape of the requests page; this shouldn't (fingers crossed) happen again.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, this is not a bug report, I'm really sorry for bothering you with this. I've been trying to get in touch with the chocolate exchange mods, but I'm not sure if the email I've found on the community is up to date (it's from a post dated February 2020) and my comment on the community got screened, or maybe lost. Do you know where could I reach the mods?

[karanguni]

Hello! I'm not a modly type but based on the profile page it's chocolateboxmod[at]gmail.com - they might be a bit busy at the moment but that is the correct address, I believe!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, it's looking like some prompts got duplicated on the Chocolate Box app - I've noticed it in Original Work, Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek TOS, and there might be more.

[karanguni]

Thanks! Taking a look; the scraper last ran really close to the close of signups, and I imagine some requests were getting shifted around at the same time. Re-running it now...

[surskitty]

Is it possible to filter by fic/art on the chocolate box app?

Thank you for all you do!

[karanguni]

Not currently! I'll see what I can do over the next few days.

[smut4smutmod]

Hey there! If you have the time, I’d love to get another app for Smut 4 Smut this year. All the details are the same, but I think our conversation last year was via slack and therefore has been deleted /o\

last year’s app: https://sm4sm2020.firebaseapp.com/#/

2021 collection:
https://archiveofourown.org/collections/smut4smut2021/profile

tag set:
https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/5637

Signups are currently open and close Feb 25, but we would want the app to just have the information current after Feb. 27 in case we need to delete unmatchables after signups close. (no auto-updating needed, just the final version!)

app details needed:
Username
Fandom
Archive warnings
Media (listed under characters)
Relationships
Freeform tags (including optional tags)
Letter Link
Optional Details

Let me know if you need anything else!

[karanguni]

Thanks for the deets! I'll get to it after signups close then! :D

[nonconamod]

Hi! I was wondering if it would be possible to get an app for nonconathon this year. It can be just a single push after sign-ups close, but it would be super helpful to have.

Collection URL: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/nonconathon2021/

Tagset URL: Freeforms (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/3070) and Fandoms (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/6401)

Date signups open and close: Sign-ups are currently open, they close May 16 at 10pm EDT.

What signup details need to be reflected in the app: fandom, ships, "character" (art or fic), warnings, additional tags, optional details & letter. (This should be the same as last year.)
Requests are visible throughout sign-ups.

If it's not possible, I understand. Thank you for all your hard work!

[karanguni]

Hiya! I'll hop on this next week - I'll probably do one before signups close and then refresh it when signups finish.

Prompt Meme

[janebuz_jane]

Hi there! I saw on your app generation page (https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/) that it doesn't work for prompt memes (understandable)! Would you be interested in - or, I suppose, do you have the time + would you even consider - taking a commission for a similar tool that functions for prompt memes?

Let me know - thanks! :D

Re: Prompt Meme

[karanguni]

Hello, sorry! Busy season :) I will take a poke at prompt memes this week and see what I can do. If you could link me to some existing challenges and maybe highlight if there's any particular special way prompt challenges use/abuse the standard AO3 signup forms (single fandom versus multi fandom signups, for example), that would be super helpful!

Bug Report - Crossworks 2021

[prixmium]

I am Prix and I found that when clicking on one of the fandoms I requested, my prompts were not listed. So, as a test, I searched my name in the user lookup tab, and only about half my prompts were pulled up.

I was asked on FFA to report this bug here, so here I am.

Re: Bug Report - Crossworks 2021

[karanguni]

Thanks for reporting! Could you tell me which fandoms are missing from your user page and which fandoms are missing your prompts? It'll be helpful for debugging, thank!

[mod63]

Hi! I tried to give the auto-app-creator a shot for rule63exchange, but it doesn't seem willing to re-scrape it and isn't picking up any prompts.

https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/Rule63_2021

Is something in the exchange set up wrong? Thanks!

[karanguni]

I'm out at the moment but I'll check when I get back!

[laireshi]

Hi! I'm modding 10 Year Promise, a ship exchange (ao3 collection). I tried to use the auto app creator, but I think it's treating my exchange as if it's open to sign up with no sign-ups at the moment, but the sign ups are already closed. (It didn't show any prompts at first, but had the option to re-run the scraper, which I did to no change--I'm sorry if that was a bad move).

I'm not sure if the way I set up the exchange is compatible with the app, though--all sign-ups only had one request, with the option to choose multiple fandoms.

Thanks!

[karanguni]

Let me look into this!

[keita52]

Hi, I'm trying to set up one for Black Emporium and it doesn't seem to be scraping the collection at all :( I set it up before requests were open so we could have a consistent URL on our promo posts; did that mess it up?

https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/BlackEmporium2021

[karanguni]

Lemme take a look after work