Wapsi Square Forum

I will be honest, Louis - I haven't quite got the hang of your site completely. I think I need to poke around a bit and see what questions I have.

2013 - The Year Wapsi Changed Forever.

OK, I did a look-see at it on a "real" computer (iPad doesn't quite like JS, just sayin').

A few things:

• The top part seems a bit too "info overload", where it's not quite intuitive as to how the Index/Pages sections work. The third paragraph should have some sort of header, like this:

  How To Use This Index
  The Index column - This is the list of tags (the boxes highlighted in orange), with number of occurrences in [ ] and a short explanatory text about the tag, if needed. Click on a tag to show only pages with that tag. You can either scroll down the page to see the tag list or use the Text Search box or alphabetic selection filters to find a tag you want. Clicking on multiple tags will bring up all occurrences of these tags in the same comic.
  The Pages column - This is the complete listing of each page of the comic, linked to by the page description. Each comic has some descriptive text and is tagged with the characters appearing or significantly referenced and other major points of interest – locations, kisses, shower scenes, etc. As with the Index column, click on a tag to show only comics with that tag/tags.

• I'm really not sure how to incorporate the Character List/Place List with the Index you have set up. I had, at one point, made the Character List into a HTML file (yeah, yeah, sue me, I'm an old-skool coder), but that was quite some time ago.
• You are likely to have FUN with 2013. So many characters were added (and trying to keep locations straight) that it got confusing at times.
• Oh, and it's "Άτσαλη" and "Βιβλιοθιήκη".

Adobe has some limited link abilities into PDFs, but the URL on the Google drive does not support them.

I've parked a copy of the Omnibus at http://371taxi.com/wapsi/omnibus.pdf to give us a linkable test target.

Let's say we are looking for a certain diminutive Aztec god. "Tepoz" appears 143 times, but it's the 10th iteration that is his cast listing on page 18. http://371taxi.com/wapsi/omnibus.pdf#page=18 takes you to the top of that page (Sullivan, Aaron). Setup: hardcode a link for each character, which would need to be revised on the Index each time the Omnibus is updated.

The other method involves heavy internal linking in the PDF itself.

Adobe Support wrote:Open a PDF file to a set destination

A destination is the end point of a link represented by text in the Destinations tab. Destinations enable you to set navigation paths across a collection of Adobe PDF documents. Linking to a destination is recommended when linking across documents because, unlike a link to a page, a link to a destination is not affected by the addition or deletion of pages within the target document.

To set a Destination in Acrobat 7.0 (Professional or Standard):

1. Set the Zoom and page location to the way you want it on the screen.

2. Select View > Navigation Tabs > Destinations to open the Destinations tab.

3. Select Options > New Destination from the Destinations tab.

4. Give the Destination a name.

5. Create an HTML link that points to this destination by adding #[destination name] to the end of the links URL.

For example, this HTML tag opens a destination named "glossary" in a PDF file named myfile.pdf:

Code: Select all

<A HREF="http://www.example.com/myfile.pdf#glossary">

Bottom line: possible, but gonna take some work.

Also, may I suggest that in the token list, color-code for people, place, thing, action, concept.

e.g.: p. penny-drops [Atsali] [Blush] [Gay] [KatherineHome] [Nadette]

The problem is, the PDF will be changing constantly as it's updated. I don't do coding very well.

Exactly! The second method would be the most efficient, but the work would be the coordination of Louis defining a token and getting the PDF linked to that destination.

I don't have Acrobat (just Reader), so I can't set a destination into my test file. From their destructions, no coding per se is needed on the Omnibus side... Louis would code the destination links into his index. Once the destination is set, the PDF should retain the info... but not being able to test it, I don't know if the destination would move with text additions/deletions or if the destination is "page 18 line 30" and would take you to the old page view location.

On top of that, the actual Omnibus is typed up as a Word Document.

Yeah, I use Open Office Writer for my WP needs and print to a utility called Cute PDF Writer (also freeware) when I generate PDFs.

Word has no way to save definitions.

AmriloJim wrote:Word has no way to save definitions.

What about Macros? I don't really know anything about them, but someone described them to me as programs within the program. Maybe there's something you could use there? *shrug*

Macros have limited use in Word, but are quite handy in Excel. Plug your value into a certain cell on the first sheet, hit your macro (e.g.: [Ctrl+0]), and Excel copies the value into the proper place in the other sheets. They are not embeddable into end-user Word documents. Good thought, tho.

jwhouk wrote:OK, I did a look-see at it on a "real" computer (iPad doesn't quite like JS, just sayin').

[]A few things:

• The top part seems a bit too "info overload", where it's not quite intuitive as to how the Index/Pages sections work. The third paragraph should have some sort of header, like this:

  How To Use This Index
  The Index column - This is the list of tags (the boxes highlighted in orange), with number of occurrences in [ ] and a short explanatory text about the tag, if needed. Click on a tag to show only pages with that tag. You can either scroll down the page to see the tag list or use the Text Search box or alphabetic selection filters to find a tag you want. Clicking on multiple tags will bring up all occurrences of these tags in the same comic.
  The Pages column - This is the complete listing of each page of the comic, linked to by the page description. Each comic has some descriptive text and is tagged with the characters appearing or significantly referened and other major points of interest – locations, kisses, shower scenes, etc. As with the Index column, click on a tag to show only comics with that tag/tags.

• I'm really not sure how to incorporate the Character List/Place List with the Index you have set up. I had, at one point, made the Character List into a HTML file (yeah, yeah, sue me, I'm an old-skool coder), but that was quite some time ago.
• You are likely to have FUN with 2013. So many characters were added (and trying to keep locations straight) that it got confusing at times.
• Oh, and it's "Άτσαλη" and "Βιβλιοθιήκη". ;)

Odd, the index page and JavaScript works fine on this iPad, what problems are you seeing? iPad model?

Agree the top page needs slimmed down and clarified. It is on the ToDo list.

I'm all in favour of html - the index pages are just html with a bit of js to do the show/hide selection.

Corrections noted "it's all Greek to me" etc.

AmriloJim wrote:Also, may I suggest that in the token list, color-code for people, place, thing, action, concept.

e.g.: p. penny-drops [Atsali] [Blush] [Gay] [KatherineHome] [Nadette]

Yep. Categorising tags is on the ToDo list for when I get a round tuit.

Needs some work on the underlying tags file, the generator script, probably the css and perhaps js, so non-trivial.

AmriloJim wrote:Macros have limited use in Word

Disagree. I have a Word template in development with several macros - including some that auto-execute whenever a document based on that template is created, or gains focus, or loses focus - relating to the creation of a specific sort of document for a specific environment.

Word has provisions for custom dictionaries, but *changing* the active list of custom dictionaries is a pain. In this template, with those auto-executing functions, I've rigged it so that a list of custom dictionaries can be part of a document's properties, and be automatically activated when the document is opened or gets focus - and deactivated when the document is closed or loses focus.

, but are quite handy in Excel. Plug your value into a certain cell on the first sheet, hit your macro (e.g.: [Ctrl+0]), and Excel copies the value into the proper place in the other sheets.

I agree that macros are quite useful in Excel, but I wouldn't bother with them in that case. I'd just have the cells that I want the value copied to, contain a formula that refers to the cell where I enter the data. Then I don't even have to manually invoke the macro.

I use macros to add functions that I can embed in cells. Often variants or improved versions of built-in functions.

For example, Excel 2007 has a SumIfs function which does some pretty decent database-like evaluation. However there are no other functions that do similar evaluation. So I've written a bunch of them. My stock-tracking spreadsheet in particular uses LastIfs a lot, to find the last previous row about the same stock as the current row so that cumulative values can be calculated.

They are not embeddable into end-user Word documents.

This is incorrect, at least in Word 2007. However, there's not much use for Word-document-specific macros. Putting the macros in a template (or, occasionally, add-in) generally is a much better idea.

In Excel there's somewhat more use for document-specific macros, but quite often putting the macros in an add-in (or, occasionally, template) is best.

What I meant was to come up with a single thread and format to lay out; right now, everything's spread across two threads.

As for the format _off_ of the forum, I would strongly advise against PDF files. I absolutely detest them, because every company out there lists their manuals, howtos, documentation, and so forth as PDF files - even (or especially) those that were written in a text format and could have easily been HTML. Even if you download the PDF, they will _not_ load the entire PDF into memory, so you can do a quick scroll through. Every page has to be re-rendered as you try to go down, and searching is iffy, at best.

If I could, I'd ban PDF files for anything other than scanning physical documents.

Just so you know - the locations that are mentioned in the KG&TLDOTA arc are:

• Mapimi (The Mapimi Silent Zone)
• The Library Annex
• Grass Canyon
• Mines of Moria
• Dead Sea
• Parc Nacional Palenque
• Mesa Verde
• Yaxchilan
• Puerta de Hayu Marca
• Tayos Caves
• Giza
• White Sands
• The Orphanage
• Supernatural Zoo
• Shelly's Apartment
• Stella's Fish Cafe & Oyster Bar

jwhouk wrote:Just so you know - the locations that are mentioned in the KG&TLDOTA arc are:
…snip…

Thanks for that. I'll need to check all those.

Bookworm wrote:What I meant was to come up with a single thread and format to lay out; right now, everything's spread across two threads.

As for the format _off_ of the forum, I would strongly advise against PDF files. I absolutely detest them, because every company out there lists their manuals, howtos, documentation, and so forth as PDF files - even (or especially) those that were written in a text format and could have easily been HTML. Even if you download the PDF, they will _not_ load the entire PDF into memory, so you can do a quick scroll through. Every page has to be re-rendered as you try to go down, and searching is iffy, at best.

If I could, I'd ban PDF files for anything other than scanning physical documents.

PDF format is great for situations where you want everyone to see exactly the same thing, which necessitates that everyone be looking at a device at least as large is the document was designed for. In fact, the format is designed with the intent that the device be a sheet of paper, and includes specification of the size of that piece of paper.

I look at amazingly few pieces of paper nowadays, in comparison to before I retired - and I was a computer programmer.

So if I want to read a document, what size device am I going to be looking at? There is no correct answer. I routinely use three devices, no two of them even close to the same size. The smallest is a smartphone. This is rather common nowadays.

There are plenty of well-known alternate formats that expect the display device to adapt the document layout to the device's actual screen size. Which is best varies. If it's going to be a web page I'd recommend HTML (obviously). For documents that are still under development, if all the people intended to view it in that state use the same word processor I'd recommend that program's native format; otherwise, .doc or .rtf. For final documents I'd recommend HTML for web pages and epub for all other non-paper publication.

Now if the document really is intended to be printed on a certain size of paper, once the *content* is finalized I'd recommend PDF for both the final document and the review of *layout*. But since many such documents are also viewed online by some people, it might be better to produce the document in two or more formats. Calibre is really good at conversion among a large number of formats (and by the way while the program will *try* to convert from PDF to other formats, it's strongly recommended that you start with some other format).

The Index is complete, listing 3204 pages, 1143 tags – nothing outstanding.
Until tomorrow, of course.

I'll do an error-checking and tag rationalisation pass later in a week or two – any reports gratefully received.

The final spurt was brought to you courtesy of the Scottish Spring and 11 hours of rain when I was supposed to be leafleting for the UK General Election on Thursday. Which rain is now abating so out I go.

louisxiv wrote:The Index is complete, listing 3204 pages, 1143 tags – nothing outstanding.
Until tomorrow, of course.

I'll do an error-checking and tag rationalisation pass later in a week or two – any reports gratefully received.

The final spurt was brought to you courtesy of the Scottish Spring and 11 hours of rain when I was supposed to be leafleting for the UK General Election on Thursday. Which rain is now abating so out I go.

WOOHOOOOO!!!!!

jwhouk wrote:WOOHOOOOO!!!!!

+1