Introduction
The application is divided into two areas called Main and Variables
and they are used to either edit the story or edit the variables respectively. Presently it is assumed that
most of the editing will concern itself with the body of a text for a given story page and any button link
names or locations to ensure that the narrative is as intended.
MAIN window
This window is divided into three distinct areas, from the left is the Entry, Simulator and then
Preferences areas. The Entry area should be familiar in that it has a similar layout to the previous
Author website with sections for the subpage name (ie. B2_a), meta description, story text and the two
possible buttons for the reader to use to advance to the next page.
At the bottom of that Entry section are two button under the heading Linear Page Navigtion and these allow
you to load either the next or previous subpage, or page if you have reached the last one. In other words
starting at B1_a and clicking 'next' will load up B1_b and so on. If you are on the last subpage (B1_d
in this example) then the next page to load will be in alphnumeric order, ie B2_a.
At the bottom of this section is the save button that will check the form for any changes and save them to file
if there are any. At the moment this is the only fail-safe if you accidently press the save button. Upon saving
you will be taken to a process page that will give some feedback on what is occurring, ie if any changes have been
made and what files are saved. You can then navigate back to the Main page and you will be presented with the subpage
you were last at, so any changes made will be visible. This should work a bit more gracefully than the last version.
The Simulator section should also be familiar in that there is an ipod with story text, working buttons
and debug information at the bottom. The story text is presented to resemble how it would appear on an actual
device, however it is not in 1:1 scale. The button(s) work as they will on the iphone app and here they allow
you to navigate through the story as a reader would. Every page advance has the story text loaded into the
Entry section as well so it is possible to read-through, make edits as you go and see those changes in
real-time (well, close enough to real-time).
The Preferences section is similar to the previous version too in that it is simply a display of the currently
set variables divided into types. Each variable is made up of a name (the '$green' part) and a value (the 'Glenn' part).
The player prefs and npc names also have a new part called 'description' and this can now be saved along with the variable
so that it can be easier to remember exactly who or what the variable refers to.
VARIABLES window
This is a new window that enables you to see all the variable names, their values and any descriptions associated.
You are free to change these but you will notice that the variable names are not accessible, this is because we don't need
to change these at such a late stage in the writing as any change to these names would need to be reflected throughout the
entire story text.
The gender types shouldn't need changing either but they are left accessible in case test reading requires it. They will
change for the story and display on the Main window if you change either the player's gender or their genderOp.
Current release is: 3.2, Editing Version
It has functions limited to the editing and changing of various story
text and variables necessary to get the Finally Friday iphone app to a
launch state. This version is considered beta in that it does not have
robust error or format checking, nor does it check for invalid datatypes.
The Mapping function is the next major function to be implemented. Currently it allows
the author to navigate to a chosen page or subpage from within the map so that it will be
displayed in the Main window ready for editing. Version 3.2 will see the map formatting
cleaned up as well as the addition of a create/delete page/subpage function.
This software is released as the ifDev Author Application
and is expected to be developed to a release version written in php that
is secure enough for install on a public web server.
1. General form sanity checks...
1. Mapping function - Better layout and clearer colouring scheme. Add visible links for subpage to subpage and page to page.
Function to highlight current page/subpage on map when navigating to mapping from main
2. Lock site with passwd access