I know this has probably been asked a few times, but will we ever see HTML format for stories? I'm not looking for anything complicated, but just something that allows the browser to wrap the text and center the bits that need to be centered. Unwrapping the text by hand for ebook conversion is a real pain in the neck, especially with the assumption that at some point in the recent past the text existed with soft wrap.

Gryphon has said that he writes in Emacs, which means no, there never was a version with soft wrap.

I do not have sufficient brain right now to code it, but I assure you that a Perl script to convert everything except the two-column ending credits would be quite easy to write.

Also, don't bother offering to share the wealth and host HTML versions of his stuff. While he may appreciate the thought and all, he certainly does not want to be bothered by some rabid crack weasels moaning about somebody's site being down and not having access to the HTML versions. He's made this abundantly clear elsewhere in the forums - I'm just to lazy to go and figure out exactly where. =p

Touchy? Maybe, but I'd be a bit miffed if I were in his position as well.

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

nah. I'm not going to do anything like that. I've just spent way too many hours re-terminating lines and unwrapping lines and fixing formatting over the years. To do so in order to move a short story on to my 1150 is time consuming and I pick up enough of the original text whilst doing so that it spoils the story for me.

I can't say for sure about emacs, since I'm not an emacs user, but I know most variations of vi support soft wrap in editing. It would be kind of ridiculous to edit prose without soft wrap anyway. Every time you had to change a word or two you'd have to re-terminate every line for the rest of the paragraph. You'd never get anything done.

>Every time
>you had to change a word or two you'd have to re-terminate every line
>for the rest of the paragraph. You'd never get anything done.

Pfft. M-q, baby. :-)

Slarti

>>You'd never get anything done.
>
>Pfft. M-q, baby. :-)

Yup. One keystroke.

Recent Emacs even has a minor mode where it acts like the text is softwrapped while you're typing, but the file on disk still has hard carriage returns. Which is as it should be.

As noted, G's editor of choice is Emacs because a) it works the way he wants it to work and b) it works just about anywhere he wants to work. The text never had flowed text of any sort, or if it did it was unwrapped by G for inclusion in the published text.

There have been several attempts at more modern (read: more modern than flat text) markup. My Paperback conversions of NXE is one, and conversion was a royal pain. Truss did some tests with early Symphony pieces but again the results were not worth the effort.

There is, however, something you can do for yourself. There is a text to HTML conversion module for Perl on CPAN. I use it to convert things like GameFAQs' FAQs to HTML before feeding into Plucker. There is also an on-line version of the module available out there (ask Google; I don't have it bookmarked). The resulting HTML usually still needs to be massaged by hand but it's usually a good start.

>There is, however, something you can do for yourself. There is a text
>to HTML conversion module for Perl on CPAN. I use it to convert
>things like GameFAQs' FAQs to HTML before feeding into Plucker. There
>is also an on-line version of the module available out there (ask
>Google; I don't have it bookmarked). The resulting HTML usually still
>needs to be massaged by hand but it's usually a good start.

The text is also more or less in the correct form for directly processing with latex - it only takes a few minutes to add the relevant markup for a more or less faithful rendition.

But aside from printing better (and at a more readable 65 columns), there's no particular advantage to doing so. Plain text is perfectly adequate to this task.

I have latex versions of all the Symphony, and while you _could_ just add begin{document} and end{document} and the like, it takes a while to fix little things like the credits and centered text.

I used regexps in vim (I have a 74-line file named Symphony.vim I !source) to fix things like ``quotes'' and \emph{anything with _underscore_ emphasis}. I then center and
\verb|THE DATELINES|\\
and format the end credits by hand.

Then I do a complete proofread. My original goal was to have a set of cafepress books, but really, I just like having the PDFs around. They look much better printed, but when I'm reading at a computer screen, I usually stick with text, at 80x25, in my standard console font, just like I did ten years ago. :)

If anyone wants the files, PM me, or some such. Ben has said he doesn't mind me making them, or even making them available (though there was no real interest when I first mentioned it), but he did _NOT_ want to hear about it. If one has a spelling error that was fixed in a later version of the text, if I manage to set your computer on fire with a malformed PDF, whatever; don't bug Gryphon. ;)

--Maeglin

>I used regexps in vim (I have a 74-line file named Symphony.vim I
>!source) to fix things like ``quotes'' and \emph{anything with
>_underscore_ emphasis}. I then center and
>\verb|THE DATELINES|\\
>and format the end credits by hand.

Centring can be more or less automated by throwing a center environment around any line that begins with a space and does not begin with eight spaces or a tab, and around any /* ... */.

Centred credits are handled by that. Two-column credits are wrapped with a table environment, with column 39 changed from a space to an & and \\ added to the end of every line.

That should more or less automate the whole thing, with only a little nudge needed on the column credits. Then you just have to clean up while proofreading.

Gryphon's text is so regular that it's very easy to typeset automatically. I'd script the process if I thought anybody cared.

Actually, if anyone could make it foolproof for the unix impaired, I, for one, would appreciate it. It'd be nice to be able to print some of EPU's stuff out the way I'd like to.

That being on nice, 8x11.5" paper, prepunched for three-ring binders, and bound in clear-cover portfolios so as to have a nice cover sheet on top. (Because with some of these stories, the titles would not always be on the first page. ;)

I wouldn't do this with everything. Just some of the major works like Twilight, SotS, etc.

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

If you happened to have a script that'd be great. (just to pile my 2p on one side of the balance).

I may or may not address this when I am not suffering from what is probably either benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or vestibular neuritis, and when I am not being treated for same with diazepam. (Look up anything you don't recognize in the previous sentence.)

While the above persist, though, it took me twenty tries just to write this sentence, so don't hold your breath.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

O_o;;

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

>While the above persist, though, it took me twenty tries just to write
>this sentence, so don't hold your breath.
>
>--G.

Hell, it took me at least that many to *read* it. :)

To address the original poster: as someone who's stepped on that particular landmine in the past, all I can say is Gryphon has his reasons (and for what it's worth, I think they're good ones), at least one of which you can find preserved for history under the CSRANTronix portion of this site. (Rant 08, 4/26/2001, here).

--sofaspud
--

Ear rocks or viral dizziness = sucky August.

Hope you're better,
t.

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST