Hi Everyone,
Yes, I agree HTML is easy to use. It is wonderful if all I wish to present is text.
That is the reason you find very few images in the stories I post here (and very few stories).
When I write a book, I use a "LOT" of images, possibly one every three to four pages. In order to post anywhere using HTML, I must remove those images so I can cut and paste the text alone. This is very time consuming for me, ergo, I don't publish much if HTML is the path I must take. By the way, the format I use for my stories, and another reason why I must cut and paste the text, is 6 x 9 (inches). That is the "trade" paperback (semi-hardcover) size. I cut and paste text to the site so the multiple size and shape capability remains rather than force the 6 x 9 down everyone's throat. The publishers prefer the 6 x 9 (dead tree publishing).
The only time I resort to pdf ( sometimes doc ) is when the recipient cannot render wpd format.
Why do I use wpd? I have done so since the 1980's (I think) when we first began to use it for legal work. In the 1990's (94 I think) Microsoft Word began to follow the same path as WordPerfect and (possibly through some mutual agreement) the two began to add the ability to translate from doc and docx to wpd and back with relative impunity.
Yes, Piper, I do believe you are correct in your thoughts that a grad student came up with WordPerfect originally. I have heard that as well.
If any of you wonder about my "heavy" use of images, I did not place them into the text material Red MacDonald and I have been exchanging (for temporary simplicity during the writing of the stories) but he will be able to confirm I have inundated him with images pertinent to the story(s) we are writing.
Obtaining licenses for those images has been expensive (in some cases). Other images either I or one of three photographer/ computer graphics illustrators, with whom I work extensively, have been created for such use. ( I'm a photographer with access to some unusual sources of imagery - hence, the expense). In general, I probably have eight to twelve hundred Euros invested in a story in images alone. Images help me create a story so they are important to my creative process.
Well, thank you for listening (or reading, actually).
God Bless you all,
A.
Comments
Seems reasonable.
It's best to use the formats that can produce what you (as an artist or creator) want as the end result. Period.
Even if a format (such as HTML) can do the job, if it takes too long, or too much effort to do so, then you have to follow the law of diminishing returns. That's why all of the various companies have word processing "suites", for an obvious example. You can produce a flyer, certificate, or fancy invitation in Microsoft Word, but it's not made for it to be done quickly. If you use Publisher, on the other hand, you can produce a flyer in a few minutes, because that's what it's made for. Publisher, however, is lousy at producing good letters. You can do tables in Microsoft Word, but Excel is better at tabulation. HTML is a programming language, so if you're an expert with it, you can produce anything - but you have to be an expert.
The only exception to this is Emacs, where the only thing it's missing is a good text editor.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I agree...
forget Emacs, VI for the win.... :-)
Anne Margarete
I poke fun at Emacs (and
I poke fun at Emacs (and rightfully so, it's earned it), but I will say that if you're a heavy duty programmer, it has a fantastic suite of tools. Unfortunately, those people are also idiots and think that because THEY spent nine months learning those tools, it's PERFECT for everyone else.
I can teach someone how to use VI to do basic editing, search, replace, and backups within 20 minutes.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Using VI
"I can teach someone how to use VI to do basic editing, search, replace, and backups within 20 minutes." What confidence! Way back when, I had to use VI to edit Web pages (Apache on Solaris) so that pages would display the year as 2000 instead of as 19100! I was not the original author of those pages. That should tell you how long ago that was. Anyway, I found VI powerful, but so difficult to use that I always was referring to a cheat sheet of VI commands I kept handy. I never did get comfortable with it.
There's a half a dozen
There's a half a dozen commands I use irregularly enough that I have to reference them, but search, search and replace, undo, insert, append, etc are simple enough to take only about 20 minutes to learn.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I wrote
I wrote many thousands of lines of code using VI and probably hundreds more using VI's idiot uncle ED. When I moved over to using other means of editing and creating code, I did not look back nor suffer the slightest pangs of nostalgia. The last time I unlimbered my ED-based skills was in rescuing the BigCloset server after it had been hacked, back about nine years ago. ED was the only input that worked. This was when I hosted the servers in my apartment.
There's a reason I recruited first Bob and later Piper to do the server work; I will never have to touch ED or VI again.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I still use VI
If not daily then weekly. I even use GVIM on Windows to have a powerful reliable text editor / viewer there.... :-)
Anne Margarete
Nano/Pico
I prefer pico/nano :P
-Piper
Nano/Pico are fine - as long
Nano/Pico are fine - as long as you're only writing, deleting, or inserting text. Anything more complicated, and they're not made for it. Since most people that want it that simple are now using the GUI editors, they're probably superfluous in current Linux OSes.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Use what works for you.
You should use what works for you. I think it's more important that BC gets as many stories as it can, because it will hopefully attract more people who may end up supporting this site.
However, please remember that for some people- like me for instance- it works better when the author uses a format that allows the line lengths to reflow according to the space available.
Viewing plain text or HTML on BCTS I can just zoom the entire text space to full width on my iPad, making the font nicely readable to my eyes. More rigid formats like Word (doc/docx) or PDF have a fixed line length resulting in smaller font making it more difficult to read. Which in turn could mean I give up reading after a couple of pages because it gets too tiring.
But that is just me. To reiterate my first point, please publish your story here on BCTS. I would prefer HTML, but use whatever works for you the author.
Anne Margarete