Offer my help to maintain Twee (Twine) project.

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alex babansky

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Oct 23, 2011, 10:25:23 AM10/23/11
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Hi, Chris!

I remember you said you were looking for someone to take up the job of further developing and maintaining Twee project. 
Well, I'm ready now to take full care of this wonderful little thing.
I got my friend here (a professional coder who's been helping me learning Lua and AC3 to write text adventures) who's agreed to help.
I'm also ready to use hired help to sort out the code.

If you'll be so kind to agree, then I can start a new dedicated website (or just use your existing one GimCrackd), which, in that case I'd like to keep in two languages - English and Russian (because of the growing community of Russian speaking text adventure writers).

I'm a writer, translator and educator, and I believe Twee can (and must) be further developed and promoted as a great tool for learning and writing. The kids love it! It's a great introductory tool to programming, too.

cheers,
Alex

Joe

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Oct 23, 2011, 10:34:43 AM10/23/11
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Dear Alex and Chris:
 
I just received this email from Alex, and it is interesting because I myself had been thinking of "rewriting" Twine, or rather, writing something based on it.  I really like the editor, but the rest of it seems to have problems (see my other post about the links) and no longer seems to be supported. I was thinking of using the Twine editor as a front end only.
 
The code that Twine (and Twee) generate seem to accomplish things in a very roundabout way - they convert everything to "TiddlyWiki" format.  I don't see the need for this. It is also difficult to modify the HTML file produced by this.  Most importantly, there are problems with this approach.
 
I was thinking of using standard HTML markup, and allowing the direct use of JavaScript. The Twine editor would be used as the editor only, then you would use "Export Source Code" which would give you a special text file which you would then run thru my compiler, running under Windows. This would produce an HTML/JavaScript file which you could further modify using your favorite HTML editor, adding a masthead banner, sidebars, whatever you wanted.
 
I think that using HTML as the source is a better approach than the non-standard Twine/Twee formats.  For example, you would just use standard markup to indicate italic and bold, headings, etc, instead of the strange notation of double slash // for italic, etc.  (OK, that notation is standard for TiddlyWiki, but how many people have even heard of that as compared to HTML?) More importantly, it could support HTML forms.  That way, a user could make a choice that would be registered immediately, but would not force going to another page.
 
If you want to give the user a choice of a list of things that are non-exclusive this is done very neatly with an HTML form.  For example, the user is starting an adventure, and can only bring 5 things in his backpack.  There is a list of 30 available items.  How would you do this in Twine/Twee now?  If you want the user to create a character, and need to select a list of attributes - gender, occupation, etc, and do it all on one page, you could do it easily with a form.
 
Most importantly you could implement your own code using the standard JavaScript format.  You could have direct access to the variables, and have the full power of JS at your disposal.  You do not have to learn any special language.
 
Alex, do you think that you might benefit from some of these suggestions?  Chris, how do you feel about this?
 
- Joe
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Γιάννης

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Oct 24, 2011, 2:01:47 PM10/24/11
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I've participated in many an open-source project as a translator (most
prominently Tor and MediaWiki) to Greek and I would like this project
to continue. I'm not a programmer but I can offer you some advice on
what I've seen around the web.

You'd need to define a clear roadmap. What you want to do and what
your vision is for the program. Pretty much every feature I could
think of for a gamebook creator has been put into Twee. This means
it's either time to move beyond the orthodox gamebook style, innovate
or change it radically. Personally, I think you should bring Twine up
to date, offer a Linux version (+1 for an openSUSE package)--fix all
the bugs of course and maybe develop a few more plugins for various
editors. A major issue to be sorted out is the ability to input non-
Latin text. I got all sorts of weird results with Twine, I posted
about it a while back in this group. I think it was about exporting to
a folder about Greek characters but oh well, I cannot remember at the
moment.

Finally, a problem with using HTML for stories is its lack of...
portability. I find it extremely annoying when I include images in my
stories that they have to be stored in a separate folder. Well, I've
only ever made stories which include images but this is a massive
bummer. Anyone who isn't very technically inclined would have no clue
as to how to begin the story. I can't think of any better cross-
platform alternative though.

By the way, ADRIFT (http://www.adrift.org.uk/) is similar to Twine but
for creating text adventures. I think you could borrow a few ideas
from it on the interface. The zenith of development for me would be a
fully interface-driven Twine. The Wikimedia Foundation announced
recently they will create a WYSIWYG tool for editing MediaWiki text.
It's not a brash idea to want such an interface to manipulate wiki
syntax!

Best regards,
Yannis A.

* If you're going to do please add support for vim. That would be
brilliant! But I'd still prefer a graphical tool for Linux, not
everyone likes the terminal and all that...
>   To view this discussion on the web visithttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/tweecode/-/IPyBZRr8w6oJ.

Joe

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Oct 24, 2011, 3:11:49 PM10/24/11
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I do not understand this part "a problem with using HTML for stories is its
lack of portability".
HTML is portable and is a standard. That's why I am suggesting it. HTML
will also support
the Greek and Cyrillic character sets that are missing in Twine.

I will look at ADRIFT - I never heard of it before.

- joe

Chris

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Oct 25, 2011, 7:07:15 PM10/25/11
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Adrift looks pretty awesome. As for Tiddlywiki...I've been rooting
around in the code a bit and had some observations:

From what I can see, Tiddlywiki *is* pretty close to Twine - TW has
support for all the formatting characters, which means that all you
have to do after you've written your markup is add some macros and
then you're free to create a new look by cooking up a template. It's
not a perfect fit, particularly in the sense that TiddlyWiki does a /
lot/ of other things and as a fork, it can be hard to keep the two in
sync. But if I were to make a story-building framework from scratch,
TiddlyWiki would be as good a choice as any.

As for the future, I've been thinking a lot about choice of language
for the story-building app I'm working on. It'll export/import in
Twine, because Twine's an easy-to-read format with an obvious way to
use it off the site. On the other hand, straight-up HTML is extremely
flexible, has support for CSS directly, and is a language many many
people are familiar with.

If you really wanted to, you could write a Twine story mostly in
<html> tags...I wonder if anyone's done that :)


Also, if I have time, I'd like to make some fixes to Twine...

Chris



*Technical footnote for people like me who like to nerd trip about
this:
If I were to do it from scratch...I might use a PHP-style language.
Not the prettiest of things, and programmers (like myself) might
groan. But gamebooks are full of separate pages that are mostly
content, so it makes more sense to do that then it does for most web
programming where you'd declare a separate gamebook controller, and
you'd declare your characters in a model...that'd be silly.
For now.

Joe

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Oct 25, 2011, 9:04:24 PM10/25/11
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The big strike against ADRIFT, in my opinion, is that it requires a special
"runner" to play back. My audience is not going to want to download this
program (whether it be a separate application or a browser plug-in) just to
try my story/game. If they can't play/read it right now on the Internet,
they're going to leave the site. And besides, installing the "runner" only
gives you a screen full of text. If they're going to bother to download
something, they would expect 3d graphics. There's no reason that I can see
to have a "runner" when any browser can run the powerful language
JavaScript. (By the way, I am not a fan of JavaScript, but it's a standard
and it works, so I use it. Also, you can do JavaScript "on the fly" from
instructions saved in a text file using the eval statement.)

I like the interface on Twine. Clean and straightforward. I just wish the
Yellow Submarine example worked on Twine, and that there was support for
multiple choices as in an HTML form. But the fact thatTwine uses HTML and
JavaScript (even though it's in a roundabout way) is a big selling point.
It will also run "offline" - another big selling point. It does not require
connection to a server running php or something like that.

- Joe

Chris

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alex babansky

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Oct 26, 2011, 2:00:31 AM10/26/11
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The roadmap is something like this:

First of all, the basic programming logic which the program allows you to use in your stories should be expanded with some basic routines.
Like, if there's an <<if>> condition implemented, there must surely be an <<else>> and <<elseif>>, at the very least, otherwise it's rather awkward.

Secondly, I think Sugarcane and Jonah must be enhanced with more possibilities of revealing passages, like implementing <<back>> in Jonah and expand limits of Sugarcane revealing only one passage at a time.

Next thing I believe should be implementing more colour schemes, fonts, layouts for stories.

Joe

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Oct 26, 2011, 9:46:54 AM10/26/11
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The color shemes, fonts, etc would be handled automatically if Twine was based on straight HTML instead of a mix of HTML and TiddlyWiki.  You could just set up an external style sheet, and refer to those styles in Twine.  (Twine would not have to show the actual styles in their actual colors; it would just have to allow the use of them by accepting the tags.)  Yes, you would have to know about CSS to do this, but CSS is a standard.  People know it or can learn it.  That's better than inventing a Twine-specific way of specifying styles that no one else knows and would only work on Twine.   I know that there is an <<html>> tag in Twine, and that may allow the use of different styles, but it would be awkward, like you're forcing something.
 
There already is <<else>> in Twine but I don't know about <<elseif>>.  That might just be handled with <<else>> followed by a new <<if>>.  More documentation would be helpful.
 
- joe
 
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Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 1:00 AM
Subject: [tweecode] Re: Offer my help to maintain Twee (Twine) project.

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Strangelander

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Oct 28, 2011, 12:10:39 PM10/28/11
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I definitely vote for <<elseif>>. Nesting several <<if>> and <<else>>
is asking for problems. Also, <<back>> needs fixed, of course.

I would like to see support across Mac, Windows, and Unix for the
editor.

HTML/Javascript is the way to go in my opinion. Great for those who
already know it, and more accessible for those just starting.

Full support for CSS would allow people who didn't know CSS to just
copy and paste others' code into their games as a template, or link to
them externally. Very cool.

@Yannis and the "portability" issue: I have included jpgs and gifs as
Base64 code inside Twine. It's not pretty, but it exports a single
self-contained HTML file that will display the images. Perhaps the
complier could automatically convert images and other files like this,
but Base64 is very inefficient, has size limitations, etc. On the
other hand, many games come in a compressed folder with their graphics
and sounds in subdirectories -- why not Twine stories as well? The
compiler could export a folder with the game.html, and supporting
files in a subfolder.

I would like to help with this project as well. I'm a graphic
designer, and know just enough programming to make me dangerous. I
couldn't help with Twine itself, but would get a kick out of
maintaining a site that helped people share templates, archive games
and review and rate them. I could also be a forum moderator, etc. I'm
impressed with the communities that have grown up around
chooseyourstory.com and choiceofgames.com, and would like to see the
same for Twine, which is easier to use than either of those.

Someone else whom we might contact would be Aaron Reed. He has cache
among the interactive fiction community (he wrote Blue Lacuna), and
recently taught a course at MIT on interactive-and-non-linear
narrative. He had his students use Twine for an assignment, and has
commented favorably on it (was disappointed it's not currently
supported).

Joe

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Oct 28, 2011, 1:12:16 PM10/28/11
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>>HTML/Javascript is the way to go in my opinion.<<
>>Full support for CSS <<

Right on!

Someone could set up some templates for HTML and CSS for use in Twine for
those folks who don't want to write their own. They could even sell the
templates if they wanted to.

I think that Twine should just show the "skeleton", as it does now. (In
other words, Twine does not have to display the font styles and colors and
images that the CSS specifies. It just has to show the "code", and the
connections between the boxes, as it does now.) Then, the user could paste
the output from Twine into his HTML/CSS template. Otherwise, he just uses
the default style.

- Joe


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From: "Strangelander" <taig...@gmail.com>
To: "Tweecode" <twee...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 11:10 AM
Subject: [tweecode] Re: Offer my help to maintain Twee (Twine) project.

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Strangelander

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Oct 28, 2011, 3:00:10 PM10/28/11
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Twine already has two means of customization:
1. Tag a passage "stylesheet" and put CSS code in it (to override the
defaults). It doesn't change anything in Twine itself, but when Twine
exports it, it uses your CSS overrides, and displays it that way in
your browser. Great for a quick change of font/background color, size,
etc. The only problem with that is, you can't change bigger things
like the two-column layout, or really add header graphics, etc.

2. Go into the Twine folder, then "targets," then the format you wish
to publish in (Jonah, Sugarcane, tw1, tw2). In each of those folders
is a doc called header.html, which contains all the HTML and
Javascript for that format. So, if you edit the header.html for a
certain format, anything you publish in that format afterwards will
reflect those changes. The problem is, because of Klimas' space-saving
code compression, plus the Tiddlywinks stuff, it's very hard to
understand what's going on in the header doc. Anyway, it wouldn't be
too hard to make header docs easier for people to edit, and then
people who knew HTML could edit them and release them as basically a
template, and people who didn't could just place others' premade
templates in a template folder, and then "reskin" their stories just
by selecting that "skin" from the menu in Twine (which allows you to
choose between Jonah, Sugarcane, etc.).

Both functionalities are already built into Twine. If we had a
repository of CSS snippets and templates, newbs could just copy and
paste for number one, and drag files into a folder then use a menu for
number two.

Joe

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Oct 28, 2011, 3:05:28 PM10/28/11
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Then maybe what Twine really needs is good documentation.

- Joe

----- Original Message -----
From: "Strangelander" <taig...@gmail.com>
To: "Tweecode" <twee...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 2:00 PM
Subject: [tweecode] Re: Offer my help to maintain Twee (Twine) project.

> Twine already has two means of customization:

> 1. Tag a passage "stylesheet" and put CSS code in it (to override the ...

Måns

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Oct 28, 2011, 8:57:49 PM10/28/11
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Hi Chris


> From what I can see, Tiddlywiki *is* pretty close to Twine - TW has
> support for all the formatting characters, which means that all you
> have to do after you've written your markup is add some macros and
> then you're free to create a new look by cooking up a template. It's
> not a perfect fit, particularly in the sense that TiddlyWiki does a /
> lot/ of other things and as a fork, it can be hard to keep the two in
> sync. But if I were to make a story-building framework from scratch,
> TiddlyWiki would be as good a choice as any.

+1

Have you followed the development of http://tiddlyspace.com ?
It's getting more and more mature - I believe it would be a perfect
fit for collaborative interactive stories.
TiddlySpace is updated constantly - and lets users create html
applications of all kinds (not just TWs - You can upload many file
typesand store them as binary tiddlers/files in bags)..
I'd love to see a Twine-like application which could be included in
any tiddlyspace, with macros designed to navigate interactive stories.
There are nice themes - which can be included and modified - without
any hassle -see http://themes.tiddlyspace.com
Everything you make - can be downloaded as a single htmlfile..

That would be awesome!!!

Cheers Måns Mårtensson

Oke_Doke

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Nov 18, 2011, 12:54:18 AM11/18/11
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As I'm getting more familiar with Twee, conceiving of a browser only
version of the Twee interpreter or even a Twine "compiler" seems
plausible and actually quite a fun idea to try too develop. This
would make both writing and reading of Twee IF somewhat platform
agnostic. From what I understand so far Tiddlywiki is only missing a
few twee specific macros and interpreter functions. The level of
abstraction between writing twee source and a running story can be
reduced considerably with a browser based twee editor. I myself need
to do more homework on this before attempting to develop one. Anyone
aware of anyone working on a similar idea?

Chris

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Nov 18, 2011, 11:31:55 AM11/18/11
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This is something I've been working on for a bit. The viewing and
compiling is not super tricky (though, with that being said,
TiddlyWiki syntax is sometimes ambiguous...start mixing styles and
multi line tags and you'll see what I mean).

I'm hoping things'll be ready before December. Anyone who's interested
in being involved let me know!

Joe

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Nov 18, 2011, 7:58:05 PM11/18/11
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Thanks for all your work. I still don't understand, however, why Tiddlywiki
is used instead of direct HTML with CSS.

- joe

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From: "Chris" <partyo...@gmail.com>
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Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 10:31 AM
Subject: [tweecode] Re: Offer my help to maintain Twee (Twine) project.

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Måns

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Nov 18, 2011, 8:32:04 PM11/18/11
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Hi Joe

>I still don't understand, however, why Tiddlywiki
> is used instead of direct HTML with CSS.

As Oke_Doke wrote:

>>Tiddlywiki is only missing a few twee specific macros and interpreter functions. The level of abstraction between writing twee source and a running story can be reduced considerably with a browser based twee editor.

TiddlySpace *does* offer plain HTML representation of tiddlers if
that's want you want...

If you want to find out what TiddlyWiki has to offer - please read
here (download a copy and start playing around with the macros
provided by the core): http://tiddlywiki.com
http://tiddlytools.com has a LOT of relevant plugins..
TiddlySpace stuff at:
http://tiddlyspace.com
http://docs.tiddlyspace.com
http://tiddlywiki.org
https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki
https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlyweb
https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywikidev

Cheers Måns Mårtensson

Chris

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Nov 20, 2011, 1:13:15 PM11/20/11
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I would guess that it was basically the most straightforward way to
make Twine work. You can almost make all of Twine in Tiddlywiki
without changing anything - it's just the last few changes needed that
get trickier.

Måns

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Nov 20, 2011, 1:35:57 PM11/20/11
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Hi Chris

> I would guess that it was basically the most straightforward way to
> make Twine work. You can almost make all of Twine in Tiddlywiki
> without changing anything - it's just the last few changes needed that
> get trickier.

Please contact Eric Shulman (author of http://tiddlytools.com) he is a
great programmer and I'm sure his advice could make the difference
between tricky and *solved* ;.)
Jeremy Ruston (creator of TiddlyWiki) is also aware of your project (I
know Eric Shulman is ...) and I'm sure he will be very glad to help
you get the most out of TiddlySpace as well..

Cheers Måns Mårtensson

Måns

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Nov 20, 2011, 2:05:41 PM11/20/11
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I started a thread at the devgroup:

http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywikidev/t/9a40501c97c0630d

Please post a description of your key problems there.
I'm sure someone can help you get on the right track if you are having
problems with macro development for TiddlyWiki...

Cheers Måns Mårtensson

On 20 Nov., 19:35, Måns <humam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Chris
>
> > I would guess that it was basically the most straightforward way to
> > make Twine work. You can almost make all of Twine in Tiddlywiki
> > without changing anything - it's just the last few changes needed that
> > get trickier.
>

> Please contact Eric Shulman (author ofhttp://tiddlytools.com) he is a

Måns

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Nov 21, 2011, 9:46:46 AM11/21/11
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Hi Chris

> I would guess that it was basically the most straightforward way to
> make Twine work. You can almost make all of Twine in Tiddlywiki
> without changing anything - it's just the last few changes needed that
> get trickier.

Sorry that I took you for Chris Klimas - however I will gladly offer
my help in trying to develop a TiddlyWiki version of Twine.
I'm no programmer, however I know where to find existing plugins for
all kinds of functions in TiddlyWiki - and have some experience in
setting up different themes in TiddlyWiki.

If you need some advice or help in setting things up - finding special
plugins etc - please ask - and let me have a look at your work in
progress.

Cheers Måns Mårtensson

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