01-20-2006, 11:45 AM
Leave it to El Dingo to discover my secret Reading Room.
It's a project I started a couple years back, but abandoned due to work.
Also, I didn't know how to fully code it. Now I know PHP, etc., and could really bring it to life.
Just need a bit of time.
The concept: A "reading room" that can be tailored to resemble a private study, a cafe, a park, whatever. You can read stories (just mine, at present) in this room. There would be a light switch and dimmer, and lots of other nifty and silly stuff, for adjusting the ambience. There's a somewhat functional menu at present:
Ambience
Solitude (default)
Cafe
Advanced Settings
Immersion
Normal
Vicarious
"Immersion" is an interesting concept -- not yet implemented. I was going to code it so if you click Vicarious, it let's you choose names for the characters. You can make yourself the good guy, someone you hate the bad guy, and so on. Then you read the story with a high degree of vicariosity (don't look that up). Wouldn't be hard to implement, now that I understand PHP. Just need a bit of time.
Ambience is partially coded. By default, you read in solitude. But if you are dumb enough to click Cafe, you will find your reading experience enhanced by periodic interruptions from the author, who just rattles on about various topics.
Try it. Click Ambience and select Cafe. Then wait maybe half a minute. The chatter should start.
If you want to adjust the speed of the chatter, and the intervals between episodes of chatter, you can click Ambience, then Advanced Settings. Choose a setting under Speech, another setting under Chattus Interruptus. Then click Gotcha (my version of an OK button). The chatter will adjust accordingly. Or you can click the button "I just want to be alone. --Garbo" to have solitude again.
I managed to keep this masterpiece under wraps for 2 years -- until El Dingo started sniffing around.
--cranefly
It's a project I started a couple years back, but abandoned due to work.
Also, I didn't know how to fully code it. Now I know PHP, etc., and could really bring it to life.
Just need a bit of time.
The concept: A "reading room" that can be tailored to resemble a private study, a cafe, a park, whatever. You can read stories (just mine, at present) in this room. There would be a light switch and dimmer, and lots of other nifty and silly stuff, for adjusting the ambience. There's a somewhat functional menu at present:
Ambience
Solitude (default)
Cafe
Advanced Settings
Immersion
Normal
Vicarious
"Immersion" is an interesting concept -- not yet implemented. I was going to code it so if you click Vicarious, it let's you choose names for the characters. You can make yourself the good guy, someone you hate the bad guy, and so on. Then you read the story with a high degree of vicariosity (don't look that up). Wouldn't be hard to implement, now that I understand PHP. Just need a bit of time.
Ambience is partially coded. By default, you read in solitude. But if you are dumb enough to click Cafe, you will find your reading experience enhanced by periodic interruptions from the author, who just rattles on about various topics.
Try it. Click Ambience and select Cafe. Then wait maybe half a minute. The chatter should start.
If you want to adjust the speed of the chatter, and the intervals between episodes of chatter, you can click Ambience, then Advanced Settings. Choose a setting under Speech, another setting under Chattus Interruptus. Then click Gotcha (my version of an OK button). The chatter will adjust accordingly. Or you can click the button "I just want to be alone. --Garbo" to have solitude again.
I managed to keep this masterpiece under wraps for 2 years -- until El Dingo started sniffing around.
--cranefly