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Finding the best combination of twine versions, and story formats.
This one is pretty open ended.
My main issue is that I'm running Twine 2 (offline app) and Sugarcube 2 (also offine).
I figure, ok I'll try to use the latest releases of everything, and Sugarcube 2 seems to only work on twine 2 offline.
I don't want to be use formats or apps that aren't really maintained or supported anymore.
That's cool.
But Twine 2 offline doesn't seem to have a zoom function. Which makes creating a larger format, or branching story really hard. Not to mention simple reorganization of passages.
Unfortunately, this leaves me with several questions, not easily condensed into a single one to ask in a question post. So I'm making a discussion ^_^
-Should I use Twine 2 online, and use sugarcube 1 (packaged with Twine 2 online)? - and isn't it an issue of SC1 isn't supported any longer?
-Should I use Twine 2 online and change my format entirely, is there an ideal format for online usage?
-Is there a means of enabling zoom in the offine app, either through a setting, or by adding a function that I'm not aware of?
-I was using at an offline version of Twine 2, that was basically a web page, and not a desktop app, could I use that and use sugarCube 2? I can't find a place to download that though.
Does anyone have a nice setup that they use that they would be willing to share? It seems as if I keep changing formats/versions in order to grab at certain features, I would really like to stop doing this, as I don't want to inadvertently break my story.
In terms of my exp, I'm very comfortable with front-end code, if a format requires that knowledge I'm ok with it.
My main issue is that I'm running Twine 2 (offline app) and Sugarcube 2 (also offine).
I figure, ok I'll try to use the latest releases of everything, and Sugarcube 2 seems to only work on twine 2 offline.
I don't want to be use formats or apps that aren't really maintained or supported anymore.
That's cool.
But Twine 2 offline doesn't seem to have a zoom function. Which makes creating a larger format, or branching story really hard. Not to mention simple reorganization of passages.
Unfortunately, this leaves me with several questions, not easily condensed into a single one to ask in a question post. So I'm making a discussion ^_^
-Should I use Twine 2 online, and use sugarcube 1 (packaged with Twine 2 online)? - and isn't it an issue of SC1 isn't supported any longer?
-Should I use Twine 2 online and change my format entirely, is there an ideal format for online usage?
-Is there a means of enabling zoom in the offine app, either through a setting, or by adding a function that I'm not aware of?
-I was using at an offline version of Twine 2, that was basically a web page, and not a desktop app, could I use that and use sugarCube 2? I can't find a place to download that though.
Does anyone have a nice setup that they use that they would be willing to share? It seems as if I keep changing formats/versions in order to grab at certain features, I would really like to stop doing this, as I don't want to inadvertently break my story.
In terms of my exp, I'm very comfortable with front-end code, if a format requires that knowledge I'm ok with it.
Comments
SC1 is still supported. I think most updates are bug fixes, but TheMadExile does backport features from SC2 if there's some demand
There isn't an ideal format for online use, any more than there is one for offline. It depends on which features you need and your preferences regarding syntax.
There was some discussion of adding the ability to zoom using the mousewheel, but that hasn't been added yet. https://bitbucket.org/klembot/twinejs/pull-requests/41/add-ability-to-change-zoom-levels-with-alt/diff
I'm not sure if that would add finer grained zooming.
The offline web version can be downloaded from the Twine wiki
As to my setup, I just use Harlowe with the desktop version.
Because I need to run at least four different local versions of Twine (currently Twine 1.4.2, Twine 2.0.8 app, Twine 2.0.10 app, Twine 2.0.10 web) to emulate the environments that people with questions may have, I have developed a couple of different techniques to make my life easier.
note: a couple of the solutions require the use of a symbolic link, these can be created using the mklink command (MS Vista and later), the junction command (MS XP and later, may require download), the symlink command (linux based). Some operating systems also support creating the within their File Explorer/Manager applications.
1. Having a single location for all Twine 2 story projects:
On Windows some versions of Twine 2 store their Story Projects in different locations depending on if a HOME environment variable was defined or not, which is a pain if you need to run more than a single version and you also use programming utilities. To get around this issue I use a symbolic link to redirect each version of Twine 2 to look in a single folder of my choosing.
eg.
Twine 2.0.8 (with HOME) C:\home\Documents\Twine\Stories
Twine 2.0.10 C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\Twine\Stories
I replaced each of the Storiess folder in each of those locations with a Stories symbolic link to the folder I store my projects in. This technique can also be used by someone that wants to store Twine 2 project in a different location than the Users\xxxxx\Documents folder, like on a different hard-drive, a network drive, or a external device.
2. Having a single location for all Twine 2 external Story Formats:
This means that all the different versions of Twine 2 has access to the same versions of each external Story Format. Upgrading a Story Format is as simple as replacing the files in the relevant folder.
greyelf- I'll def keep this in mind should I need to mess around with multiple versions.
prof_yaffle - I have heard of the limited zoom, but I dunno how to use it
The command to make a symbolic link under linux is
ln -s /path/to/target /path/to/link
symlink is the system call that ln uses to make the link.
According to this bug report, Twine doesn't follow aliases made from within Finder on OSX
https://bitbucket.org/klembot/twinejs/issues/222/osx-does-not-follow-aliases-symlinks
Using the ln -s command should work though.