Hypercompendia

Another problem I foresee, with all versions, will be the ability to go back to a previous page, as the internet and Storyspace Reader would allow.

I suppose that while the back/forward buttons on the heading won’t work, a link perhaps based on an arrow on the page could be provided easily enough. I believe I used that somewhere on something a few years ago. All I have to do is figure out where.

I knew that finding a format for this to all work correctly in Windows was going to present the most problems, and it has.

It’s been a while since I played in the Windows file system so I had to look through the Windows Explorer first and figure out paths. At some point in the O/S progression, the Documents, Desktop, and a few other folders are not necessarily under the “C” drive as they used to be. I was aware of this, and that’s why I selected “Programs” as the best path off of the C drive, figuring that all Windows users are most likely to have that set up the same. So I kept it simple and tried it out.

First, in the “abobWin” folder on the thumbdrive, I changed some of the page code links to:

“C:/Program Files/abobWin/abottleofbeer.html”

Didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d forgotten that Windows uses a different form, which would be:

“C:\Program Files\abobWin\abottleofbeer.html”

But what part of the forward/backward slash system was needed for Windows and what for html?

Seems it works with the Windows method, “C:\Program Files\” and that’s a good thing.

What’s not so good is that the script for jQuery stretchtext isn’t working in the Windows environment. Though all the “hidden” text shows up, it doesn’t “not” show up.

Successfully changed coding for the drive to:

<a href=”file:///volumes/beer/abobDrive/abottleofbeer.html”>

Next, I recoded links in the “abobMac” folder (on just the first five pages) on the thumbdrive to:

<ah ref=”file:///applications/abobMac/abottleofbeer.html”>

and copied and pasted it into the Appllications folder on my Mac. It works, but I see one minor problem that can easily be fixed (and I’m glad I didn’t recode each of the 30 or so pages).

The problem is that once the folder “abobMac” is opened in the Applications file, the user is hit with a display of each and every file included in the work. Rather than list a starting spot (as “abottleofbeer.html”) in a “readme” file, I think I need to design a more obvious icon-like starting file with a more obvious name, i.e., “A Bottle of Beer.”

Problem fixed (I think):

Just a note on this process, where I don’t believe at this point that I need an “Install” feature, but am depending on “Drag and Drop” or “Copy and Paste” to move the work onto a user’s computer. I don’t believe it will be a problem, as it doesn’t really require other programs to work (except the browser, I guess).

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the problem-solving and working towards a goal of this project, even though maybe everyone else is giggling and snickering because they already know an easier way to do this.

April 15, 2012

Cleaned off a larger thumbdrive so that I can use the same drive for all explorative copies. Copied “abob2” onto the drive (abob2 has the file:///Users/smgct1/Desktop/abob2/abottleofbeer.html linkage. Copied it three more times into folders named:

abobDrive (for enabling the hypertext to work directly off a removable drive)
abobMac (for enabling the hypertext to be put into a file on the drive, such as     Applications)

abobWin (for enabling the hypertext to be put into a file on the drive, such as     Programs)

Then realized that before I did this, I probably should have run the copies through Tinderbox to change all the links automatically rather than manually.

Another note, am using “A Bottle of Beer” because it has only one link to a new page on each page, uses stretchtext, uses images, and besides, it’s still my favorite piece of hypertext work.

Checked the WinXP pc to find that the thumbdrive which was called “Volumes/BEER” (BEER being the name I assigned to the drive) won’t work on the PC, which I knew, but hoped that Windows called a drive a drive and not its designated Letter. In this case, what I found I would need for a link would be:

<a href=”F:/abob2/abottleofbeer.html”

So Windows puts the path as the letter-designated drive and unfortunately, everyone will have a different letter on their ISB drive.

Next, I’ll try the concept of placing two versions of the piece of work on the drive, one for Mac and one for Windows, and try to find a common Programs path in Windows where it could be installed. Likely, it’d be something simple like:

<a href=”C:/Programs/abob2/abottleofbeer.html”>

And, I suppose, try to do something similar for a Mac installation, or else not make the piece available for both on the same drive.

Thinking out loud here, working around the individual end user file names, and if the Mac or the PC programs call the CD, thumbdrive or whatever by different names:

Unless I find a universal path name for all end users, even if it’s one for Mac and one for PC, I might have to make the file installable instead. For example, instructions (on a Mac) would be something to the effect “drag the folder into your “Applications” file–

“file:///Applications/BEER/abob2/abottleofbeer.html”

That would bypass the need for a Users/–?–/Desktop etc. variable. For Windows, some other obvious item like “Programs” might be the way to go (I’m going to check this out on the PC, as well as try the thumbdrive as soon as I feel like getting up and going into the computer room).

What this would mean is that while the hypertext would not be playable on the removable drive itself, it would have to be installed onto the user’s computer. Probably fine, but this always bugged me with games, where you needed both on the PC installation and the CD to access all the features. And, the user would have to park the file ONLY in the one place specified.

The abob2 project:

Purpose: To transfer a working hypertext to a CD and have it work from there.

Started: April 13th, 2012

Using “A Bottle of Beer”, copied files from abob to abob2 folder on Desktop. Included Images folder, all jQuery files and folder, CSS sheet, html sheets and individual page htmls.

Changed links from their online version at Hypercompendia:

<a href=“http:susangibb.net/blog2/wp-content/uploads/abob/bottleofbeer.html”>

To link internally within the folder on the desktop:

<a href=”file:///Users/smgct1/Desktop/abob2/bottleofbeer.html”>

April 14th, 2012:

Everything is working, complete with images, stretchtext jQuery, and links.

Next step would be to see what code will be necessary to use on a CD drive.

Problems: Users might need instead to point to the CD drive (C?), and indeed, Users may be Mac only versus whatever PC (Windows) may use as file designation, and not Desktop.  And, will “file:///” work? Maybe as long as I can get a generic for the drive/name of CD/then folder name/then file name/

Got the #hypertext to work on a thumbdrive but I see what the glitch is going to be…the difference in what a drive is called on user computer.

As soon as a few files were copied and pasted onto the empty thumbdrive (had to name the thumbdrive “BEER” and put a folder called “abob2” and the files within that), when one is opened, you can see what that file is named. I then changed the code on each page to:

<a href=”file:///Volumes/BEER/abob2/bottleofbeer.html”>

Did not transfer the jquery and complete image file because the drive I’m using is low volume and couldn’t take the whole piece. But the one image on the opening page is fine.

NOTE: Obviously, it will be easier to create the html pages in Tinderbox with the appropriate links at the time the work is being done rather than the necessity of changing code with an existing piece geared for online use.

Just had a thought this morning after responding to a long-growing thread of commentary involving several friends on the Facebook site. Since it was a lively, interesting, and informative discussion, I was thinking of copying the whole thread to one of my websites, likely Spinning since it was more relative to literature, reading, and writing. Why? Because at a site such as Facebook, the main driver behind the purpose is being up-to-date, the latest statement or news, and the rest seems to roll off into oblivion after a few days. I didn’t want that to happen to this discussion. Damn technology, I thought, completely disregarding that weblogs have longer, searchable archives, true, but are as transient in nature as anything online, even as it is everlasting. For while it may be online for all eternity (we don’t know that yet), in anything that is geared towards regular updates or postings, the old news becomes the past and usually goes unread.

But there was another path to this theory of constants. Before the internet and its blooming crop of social networking sites, this conversation and all other online 1) would be unlikely, since the participants are globally located, and 2) even in a sit-down, face-to-face discussion, unless someone had thought to bring a recording device, everything said is instantly lost except to memory. Interesting.

With a few little glitches of memory and some software changes in Text Edit (Mac) that I wasn’t aware of, I still managed to complete a short little hypertext story and post it up on site here: Little Lives

The first four text boxes (pages) are directly taken from the Tunxis New Media class project called “Apartment 9”, run by Steve Ersinghaus and John Timmons. I believe this piece began in an earlier semester and when I visited a current class, the students were being asked to jump in at some point in the work and continue on with a separate trail from that point. I chose to start right from the beginning and focus on three characters already introduced (though I’ve assigned a name to one of the characters that was nameless and I’m not sure somewhere in the huge project she hasn’t been killed off).

Here’s the map, from the Tinderbox software which I use and which is being taught in the classroom.

It’s a really silly story that I’ve chosen to continue, but the important part was merely getting back into the style of writing a hypertext non-linear piece. It seemed natural to me to choose the two sisters and the husband of one as a good basis for story.

With the story unfolding, I knew that each sister served a purpose to the story and the husband of one was a necessary tie-in. Another was the theme of food and cooking. I had some fun with that. I threw in online gaming, and of course, a contest, and managed as well to come back to the concept of recipes which was also part of “Apartment 9.”

Then I ran into a problem with exporting from Tinderbox to html files for uploading to a website. What I found was that my simple little free text editor that comes with Mac suddenly didn’t look at all the same as I remembered it would and I needed to change colors and sizing and add some info to the text that wasn’t necessarily in the Tinderbox stage of the piece. It took a little bit of searching around and checking settings, until I found the “ignore rich text commands” on the text edit under “Preferences” and that got me back to the view I could work with, to change and add tags.

I didn’t do anything much new with this piece, instead followed the css and html I’d used on the 100 Days Projects, Blueberries, and a few other pieces. It was just that first step towards getting back into the game.