STORYSPACE: Still a’workin’
Still looking for that perfect html template that will give me the ability to reproduce any Storyspace (or Tinderbox) work I do here at the ranch. I found the way to export it here easy enough, but of course want something more exciting than the white full page background with black verdana font and blue links. After checking out both Steve’s place and the Eastgate Reading Room I know the capability is there and that it is merely my own ability and skill that is lacking. I have copied at least twenty five different methods into the Storyspace html template to either easily change those two features (elements and attributes?) or drag in a css, but even though my template and stylesheet pass the test with this very valuable online tool call a validator, there’s something very simple (and stupid on my part) that I’m missing. It is fun to track down solutions to problems; it’s something my analytical mind was formed in convolutions to do. The only problem is that I forsake all else to stay on the trail. It would probably be a lot faster if I just took a class or read a book to understand the whole picture of hypertext rather than my own manner of plunging in and learning only by tracking down the problems. Not as much fun and frustration, perhaps; just faster.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
February 18th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I’m not sure I understand what you’re working on here — trying to get Storyspace/Tinderbox to output to a particular HTML template?
February 18th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Hi Chris, I’ve got your site marked to congratulate you on your win but as you can see, I’ve immersed myself in this one thing for days.
If you click on the sidebar page here called “Work” and go to the end of the list, you’ll see A Bottle of Beer successfully exported here with the basic Storyspace template. But the test piece “What Was That?” is a mess, using the same template but with the obvious changes.
Can you see what I’m doing wrong?
February 19th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
The difference seems to be that What Was That is outputting an entire HTML header _inside_ the body content, including the doctype declaration etc. The source code tags for this are getting treated as text you typed in, so is getting translated to <html>, which is obviously not what you want.
My first guess would have been you were using two different templates, but you say they’re the same… pretty strange. I’m not sure what transformations WordPress does on uploaded HTML, but it might be worth looking at that.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I think I finally got it. You’re right about different templates being merged; I took the basic one offered in Storyspace and tried various ways of making simple color changes either by embedded css or by external and the external finally worked. Thanks for your help; it’s been a tough coupla days.