Is there a way to self host Twine on my own server?

Question

I would like to add to Twine, customise it for my own set of stories and host on my own server while letting a friend use the additions for making his own stories in a similar format from a website that I will set up. Is this something that is possible versus downloading an app, I ask because Twine is available to use online and is web technology with 2.0.

Of course giving credit to Twine where it is due, but I am a fan of self-hosting things and I am interested in this aspect. Is there any information out there that I can be linked to about this?

I have looked but could not find very much... I also looked for questions asked, I am either getting weird results or not typing in the right thing to find the information if it exists.

Answer 1

The web-browser based release of the Twine 2 application** can be downloaded from the Twine 2 project's repository's Downloads page. As there is currently no 'server' component/functionality included in the web-application there is on real need to 'host' it as such, it is current done so mostly for the easy of those using a mobile device that that doesn't allow the storage and running of local web-apps.

Only the developers can answer if they are OK with others hosting a copy of their (or a derived) product, but from a purely technical point of view there is no real issue with doing so although as I stated above there is also no real need to 'host' either the original or you're own 'version' unless you are accessing it via a limited mobile device.

** which is what the 'online' copy accessed via the link on the twine.org is a copy of.

Comments

I get that you can use Twine locally and such but that wasn't my question, I am interested in hosting it on my own server, the reasons for asking are not to host a clone of Twine as is, I am intending on building atop it and using Twine as a base instead of reinventing the wheel so to speak.

Only the developers can answer if they are OK with others hosting a copy of their (or a derived) product

They are OK with it based in the license that Twine is released under, but I am unsure of a few specifics and technical details, which is why I posted the question, I was going to ask on the forum but the website told me that this is the better place for technical discussions and questions... I was hoping a developer would come across this.

I appreciate the response, but while I agree there is no need to host Twine as is on my own server that is not the intent behind the question, it is to gauge whether or not it would be possible so that I can grasp whether Twine is the right project to adapt and build off of for the project at hand.

I suppose I could have given more information about that above, my apologies.

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It is possible, that's what @greyelf was talking about. You can grab the online copy of Twine from the repository and host it yourself essentially anywhere.

If you want to make major edits to twine, you'd probably want to clone the repository and build your own web based release and upload that, but it's definitely possible. The repo linked by greyelf includes some instructions on how to build a copy of twine from its source code.

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Perhaps I simply misunderstood when I first read the answer. I'll just dig around for a while and see what I can achieve, I was hoping a dev would respond.

Thank you guys,

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Just FYI, @klembot is a dev, so your hopes have become reality already.

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The main point of my original comment was that the web-browser based release you can download from the repository is the same release that is hosted on/accessed from the Twine.org site.

That download is a web-app which can either be run locally or hosted as-is on a web-server.

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Right, that is part of what I was looking for, whether it was ready as is to host and add to or whether I'd have to do something special first.

Now the hard part of tucking in and building some custom stuff to it.

Thank you.

Answer 2

I'll just add that Twine is released under the GPL v3, so you can do anything you like with it so long as you comply with the terms of the license.

Comments

Thanks for adding that, so others can see, the licensing is why I was asking about the above. I don't believe in reinventing the wheel, and so long as I can host Twine I have a real use for it to build off of it into something a little more custom.