Hey everyone,

So, funny story (well, not so funny at the time), but I thought I’d share my recent epic battle against the relentless spam bots that decided to invade StyleForger.com.

The Invasion

Picture this: I’m casually sipping my coffee, checking on the website, when suddenly I notice hundreds—yes, hundreds—of new account registrations pouring in within mere hours. At first, I thought, “Wow, I’m popular!” But then reality smacked me in the face—spam bots were on the attack!

The Cleanup Operation

I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the digital trenches. All fake accounts? Deleted. Suspicious domains? Blocked. It was like playing whack-a-mole, but with bots, and I was determined to come out on top.

Fortifying the Defenses

To keep these pesky bots at bay, I’ve integrated not one, but several CAPTCHAs into the registration process. I know, I know—CAPTCHAs can be a bit of a nuisance. Trust me, I wish they weren’t necessary. But think of them as the bouncers at the club door, making sure only the cool (human) kids get in.

An Apology (and a Bit of Embarrassment)

I want to sincerely apologize to anyone who might have received a random account verification email from StyleForger.com and thought, “Wait, did I sign up for this in my sleep?” That was the work of the spam bots, not me trying to spam your inbox. I’m really sorry about that mix-up!

Moving Forward

The battle against spam bots is like a never-ending game of cat and mouse, but for now, the fortress is secure. If you encounter any issues or have ideas on how to make the site even better (or more bot-proof), I’m all ears—or eyes, since I’ll be reading your messages.

Thanks for sticking with me through this little adventure. Together, we’ll keep StyleForger.com a spam-free, creative haven!

Stay stylish!

Sometimes, you just have to roll up your sleeves and make some changes under the hood. When I first created this page, I hastily dumped everything into the root directory and hoped for the best. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out quite as planned. Shocking, I know. But with the help of a shiny new maintenance mode, I finally took the time to sort everything into neat, organised sections—exactly how I should have done it from the start. 🥳

Here at StyleForger, we’re in a perpetual state of fine-tuning, constantly working to create an even more immersive experience for our users. Recently, we introduced a refined layout to our curated lists that showcases a sleek thumbnail preview feature, enhancing the browsing flow, making it more intuitive and visually engaging. Additionally, we’ve rolled out stylish card stacks for the ordered lists, adding a touch of depth and organization to the grid. These subtle yet powerful tweaks are part of our ongoing mission to deliver a beautifully curated style repository. We might not sleep, but every update brings us closer to the ultimate platform for creativity.

In an attempt to combat the ever-growing flood of spam accounts, we implemented some mechanisms to battle the spam zombies… or should I say, “spambies”. Armed with virtual pitchforks and flaming torches (a.k.a. IP blocking and registration limits), we’re storming the castle of unwanted registrations. Now, when a spambie tries to sneak into our user base, we gently remind them that their kind isn’t welcome here—it’s like having a digital bouncer who checks IDs and says, “Sorry buddy, you’re not on the list.” So here’s to fewer spambies and more genuine humans joining our ranks. 

...Because Not Everyone Lives in the Shadows

We’re thrilled to announce that you can now choose between basking in our new super-bright Light Mode or sticking with the classic Dark Mode you know and love. Once logged in, you can browse, collect, and archive styles in the mode that suits your vibe. Whether you’re a night owl or a daylight enthusiast, the power is in your hands!

Stay stylish (and appropriately illuminated),

The StyleForger Team

We’re excited to announce a new feature for our users: the Community Gallery! Now, you can share your creations with the community, see what others are working on, and gain inspiration from a vast array of unique styles.

How the Community Gallery Works

The Community Gallery lets you share the visual result of your creative prompts without revealing the actual text prompt itself. That means your creative process remains private, while your final image and selected styles are shared with the community.

Here’s what you can expect with this new feature:

    1.    Images Only, Privacy First
When you share a piece, only the final image and the styles used are displayed. Your text prompt stays hidden, ensuring that your creativity and originality remain uniquely yours. You control what you share and how it’s displayed.
    2.    Explore Styles with Ease
Each shared image includes thumbnails of the styles used, allowing others to see and explore the combinations that inspired your artwork. Whether it’s an intricate fantasy realm or a minimalist masterpiece, the style references give a visual hint of what’s behind each creation, fostering learning and inspiration within the community.
    3.    Full-Screen Viewing
Each shared image can be expanded to full screen in a clean, distraction-free modal view. And we’ve added a new function: simply click on the expanded image to close the modal and return to the gallery seamlessly.

How to Share Your Work in the Gallery

It’s easy to share an image with the community! Simply select the option to make your prompt public. This adds your image to the Community Gallery, where other users can view your work and discover the styles you used, but without the actual text prompt. With just a few clicks, you’re part of the growing StyleForger gallery community!

Our goal with the Community Gallery is to build a space that’s safe, inspiring, and easy to use. We’re excited to see what you create – and how you inspire others in the process!

We're excited to announce the implementation of email verification for all new accounts on StyleForger! This update is designed to improve site security and prevent spam by ensuring that only verified users gain access to the platform. 

When registering, you will receive an email with a verification link. Upon confirming your email, your account will be activated, and you can explore all the features of StyleForger, from creating personal style collections to browsing curated galleries. This step ensures that our community stays authentic and engaged. 

Thank you for your support as we continue to enhance the platform!

Exciting news, StyleForgers! 🎉 We've just rolled out Milestone Badges, a brand-new way to celebrate your achievements on the platform. Whether you're collecting styles, creating collections, storing prompts, or just logging in on special dates like Halloween or Christmas, you'll now earn unique, beautifully designed badges. Ready to show off your milestones? Start collecting badges now and see what you've unlocked! 🏆✨

We’re excited to share a fresh update with you—sample images have been added! 🎉 Now, when you're logged in and browsing, keep an eye out for any image with a “+” in the top right corner. When you hover over it, you'll unlock a sample image gallery that lets you explore the style in even more detail.

It’s a small but powerful addition that makes discovering new styles even more engaging. Dive in, explore, and see these styles in action!

We’re thrilled to introduce our brand-new voting system! Now, you can easily vote for your favorite styles and show them some love. And of course, don’t forget to add those favorites to your personal collection!

Speaking of collections, we’ve also resolved the issue with community collections—now, every style can be added seamlessly to your personal collections. Happy curating!

Soon you will be able to share styles with the StyleForger community. You can change your private collections to public and your collections will be shown for everyone on the Shared Style page.
It's a work in progress...

Prompts can now be stored with NIJI. Add the style number and click NIJI and the images are taken from the NIJI database. If the style doesn't exist, the image will be substituted from the regular style db. NIJI styles are marked as --niji

Yes, you heard that right—NIJI has arrived at StyleForger! 🎉 We’re thrilled to announce the addition of a brand-new NIJI gallery. It’s a bit of a process, as we’re recreating all the style images from scratch, but we’re diving in full force because we know you’re going to love it!

For now, while we’re still figuring out whether NIJI styles should have their own collections or be added to existing ones, you won’t be able to create NIJI collections just yet. But don’t worry—you can still view and download all the amazing NIJI styles as we roll them out!

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to expand this feature!

Today, we reached an exciting milestone: 5,000 Midjourney styles uploaded! To celebrate, we’re opening the StyleForger Portal to the public for a test run.

This is an important step as we need more than just a few internal accounts to ensure everything works smoothly. So, feel free to register, take a look around, and explore what we’ve been working on. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, especially if you come across any bugs.

We hope you enjoy what we’ve built so far!

You might have noticed some inconsistencies in our earlier style, and, well... yeah, you’re not imagining things! Some of those styles don’t quite give the desired result, and here’s why: we were using an overly complicated prompt like this beauty:

"beauty portrait, young Asian woman with long charcoal and pink hair, loose locks --sref xxx." 

Yep, that little gem was used for about 2,000 styles. Oh dear!

But don’t worry, we’ve since adjusted the prompt for far better results:

"Asian woman --sref xxx." 

Much cleaner, right? And don’t worry—the person responsible has been “fired”… obviously! 😉 

We are going to update the inconsistent styles as we go along. They won't be showing as new styles though, all will be updated in the background. Just so you know, we are aware.

We’re excited to bring you a small but meaningful "quality of life" update! Over on our About page, you’ll now notice a little enhancement—the image displayed there now shows the exact styles we used to create it, neatly presented in thumbnail form. You can even click on each thumbnail to enlarge it for a closer look! Stay tuned for more updates like this as we continue to improve the site!

We had a bit of a debate about whether to add keywords to all the styles, which would have meant spending countless hours tagging each one and building out a more complex search function. In the end, though, curated lists won the battle. Instead of general keywords, we’ll be introducing "curations"—they work similarly to keywords but are more specific and much less work to manage. While adding styles to these curated lists still takes time, it's a far more efficient approach and keeps everything organized without overwhelming the process.

We’re excited to share that we’re working on a new feature that’ll let you store your image prompts for easy reference! You’ll be able to see a neat little list of the styles you’ve used, complete with handy thumbnails. It’s a great way to keep track of what style created what, and who knows—you might just want to revisit a favorite and use it again!

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Today, we added this blog, and let me tell you, it turned out to be way more work than we expected. When you’re not using a CMS like WordPress (or any of the other countless options out there) and choose to build everything from scratch, it’s definitely a lot of headaches and hard work. But the upside? You’re fully in control of the design and functionality, which makes it worth it in the end.

Though we’re not quite at the finish line yet—there are still plenty of coding hours ahead—it’s already starting to pay off. So, we thought this achievement deserved a little celebration. And what better way is there than to celebrate a working blog with a blog post!

As the Champagne corks  were popping we noticed we can not style text inside the blog. Darn! We think we have done it now.

Slow but steady. Progress has been made on the 'Personal Style Collections' feature. Create Style Folders on your Dashboard and add styles from the main image feed or from the added today feed.

We're excited to let you know we've started working on a user area. Some of our site's features, like creating collections or saving prompts, will soon need user accounts. If we only stored everything in your browser, you'd lose it all whenever you clear your cache—not ideal, right? Don't worry, though-you can still browse all the styles without an account. But if you'd like to use some of these extra features, creating an account will be totally free.rnIt's up to you!

Due to some issues on the server, style image are temporarily unavailable.

We have officially launched StyleForger.com, an AI art style reference database! 4k+ styles already added, with many more on the way.