We will need a vastly simplified encounter system for writers. These people are NOT techies and they will NOT jump through techie hoops to use our technology. We must brutally simplify the technology. I believe that we can do so, but I realize that some members of our group will vigorously object to the simplifications I propose.
I begin with a mockup of the screen layout for the editor. This is a modification of the screen layout for the Encounter Editor I built in Java — but this will have to be built in Javascript.
I am not satisfied with this layout; it wastes a lot of screen space. It’s 1000h x 700v, which is good, but the text is a bit small. The pink section allows the user to specify additive changes to the three allowed global variables. The yellow section allows the user to specify an alternative successor to the current encounter, if the “alternative qualifier” exceeds zero. Note that the pink section specifies that the global variables be changed by simple additive increments, and that the yellow second specifies that the “alternative qualifier” is set by the simple equation
Alternative Qualifier = a * GlobalVariable A + b* GlobalVariable B + c * GlobalVariable C
The “Editor” menu will have menu items for saving the file and for relabeling the global variables.
The output of the editor will be an HTML file containing the Javascript code and the JSON data.
I’m not sure how to handle saving the file. Most likely we’d dump the file into a big window; the user selects the contents of the window, copies the text, and pastes it into a text file on the user’s computer. To begin a new session, the user would copy the text out of the file and paste it into an editing window. That is clumsy, but it’s the only way to make the software available without burdening my website with the need to store their data.
The user would have to upload the HTML file to his own website in order to publish it. I do not want to get into the business of publishing user’s storyworlds. It is easy enough these days to get space on a website.