Hypercompendia

Before I go any further, I need to time the reading of each page approximately, since some have several stretchtext links that will hold the reader to the page longer.

Downloaded a free program called “Alarm Clock” for the Mac, needing really only the stopwatch capability it had and the fact I can keep it on the Desktop–the fastest way to stop and start it while at the same time opening a page and clicking links. Works pretty well–”Yolanda”, the first page of text, clocks in at 41 seconds.

I likely won’t have the music playing throughout, and really, what I want to do is open some pages silently while having the background audio start up maybe during a stretchtext link. So far, I haven’t been able to figure this one out but it’s not as important as these preliminary timing of the pages and the planning to clip out sections of the 9 minute audio file. Some can obviously be used over again.

The biggest test for me, if all this works well, is to avoid overindulging and madly adding in sound effect clips. Like for the squeaking of her rocking chair on the porch. Or when she rolls her husband down the cellar stairs.

So with much flourish and ado (a.k.a. screwups and duplications), I have separated out the first few notes of the song in Audacity and converted it into a separate .wav file and can embed it on a separate page. Actually, I tried embedding it before a link of stretchtext but it opens immediate upon opening the page. That’s okay, I can live with that for now.

What I was not able to do is to turn it into an MP3 directly from Audacity because it claims that it can not find the MP3 encoder library, which I thought I also downloaded from some LAME site. I’ll work out that problem later, but will use the .wav files for now. Because they’ll play with me.

Also have to learn to be quicker on the Selector button.

Downloaded the latest version of Audacity since my installed program was so out of date it was unworkable.

Downloaded some basic instructions from the manual and hope to teach myself how to break the 8.52 minutes of the tune into segments spread throughout the piece.

First step, I suppose, is to estimate reading time for each page. An approximate will do; there is stretchtext involved whereby what I might try is to stick the audio file snippet into the link that opens that up, rather than have the audio begin at the opening of each page.

That is, if I can cut this up and make new itty-bitty files from it.

Okay, placed the same code on the second page, hoping against hope it would play continuous (that’s the good thing about doing things on your own, you always have hope that something will work). Of course, all it does is start over from the beginning.

One thing that bothers me about some of the new media presentations are the repetitious sounds or music. I would love to have this thing play throughout the piece, to completion. Then again, each reader will have to promise to read the entire piece in exactly 8.52 minutes.

I suppose it’s possible to break the piece down into segments and embed each page with a segment–the music certainly would allow for that, the way it is, a guitar solo.

Now all I have to do is figure which program on the Mac might be willing to do that and then figure out how to use it.

Whoo-hoo! Found the perfect Spanish guitar audio, embedded it and it works! Until you click onto the next page.

Downloaded a free mp3 nine-minute solo guitar that has the perfect mood for Beer. Made a copy of the file and threw it into my abob file on the Desktop, then made a duplicate of the opening page of abob and simply used the embed tag to place it last in the head section of the code, just under the </title> tag like this:

<EMBED src=”10 Improviso 2 (a Anouar Brahem) copy.mp3″ autostart=true hidden=true>

Works perfectly; goes on automatically, plays until…

…you click the link to the next page.

Have found that the back/forward arrows DO work on the files, at least in the Mac/Applications file and the Drive file. I’ve yet to check it on the Windows platform but I’m sure it’ll work. Also want to change to maybe Chrome as the default browser there.

Have yet to put the correctly linked program into the Win PC. Had to take it off the thumbdrive, stick it on the Mac, change the links there, and somehow get it back onto the thumbdrive. There seems to be a problem where it wouldn’t even save changes on files there due to lack of space, and it isn’t noticing that I pulled off megabytes of stuff to make room. May clean off the whole drive again and replace the three file formats fresh.

If that all works, my next thing may be to burn it to a CD, with the proper adjustment in path (at least for the Drive folder). Then, something exciting: finding audio files to stick in!

Just when I was about to change all the Windows code to “files:///C:/Program%20Files/abobWin/etc.” because at some point, clicking on the jQuery links for stretchtext seemed to switch me to that address, I had a hunch and confirmed that on the PC, I’m using Internet Explorer and it was stopping the jQuery scripts from happening. Yes, it gave me a warning but it took the second time I saw it to figure out that that was the problem. In keeping IE from preventing the script, it works jes’ fine.

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):