It would be really useful to have a directory of persons in the Foreigner books. Thus:
1. [name]–[book in which person first appeared] [book in which person suffered some major change, like moving, dying, getting married: ] [Ongoing Job description] [household: eg: Bren’s domestic staff; or in the case of humans, what job] also note changes of household, like Bindanda, who has moved around a bit.
Any one who’d care to do it, I’m setting up a new pagelet entitled: ONGOING PROJECT, and you can put it there, name by name. Ultimately we’ll collate it, alphabetize it, and shift it into a pagelet called REFERENCE.
@JCSalomon, Hawke and Ragi-at-heart: the present demo-wiki which jcsalomon made seems to have all (both) entries on the same page. Editing an existing entry was easy enough, but I couldn’t quite discover how to make a new entry, perhaps someone could explain? I tried the Need help editing? button, and that explained some things, including how to make a new page, but the character-entries don’t seem to be separate pages.
And how do the entries on one page get sorted? Alphabetically? By hand or automatically? Putting the most important people at the top is useful, but once we get to the minor characters the list will become unworkable quickly if it’s not sorted in a recognisable way.
Would some kind of sub-pages be a useful way to sort these entries, once the list starts to grow? Perhaps along the lines Ragi-at-heart mentioned, Humans, Atevi, Places, Flora-Fauna; I agree that would be a useful distinction.
Or make a major wiki-page for each of these categories, and put the separate characters on separate sub-pages dependent on their parent-page.
Does wiki have an option of showing an alphabetical list of dependent sub-pages on a parent-page, that will update automatically when a sub-page is added?
And could these sub-pages have a fixed template, like the first example-entry on JCSolomon’s wiki, so that people wouldn’t forget what & how to add?
As an example: at Patricia Briggs’ Hurog Forum, they’ve made a quite elaborate system of ‘ID cards’ for all the major and minor characters (this is the one for the primary character: http://www.hurog.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=dh0mv00d8hh6h0uq2a092f09r1&topic=34.0 ), all gathered into what they call Child Boards for the Worldbuilding Canon ( http://www.hurog.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=dh0mv00d8hh6h0uq2a092f09r1&board=78.0 ).
This makes a very clearly structured resource for finding the information, both for the fans and for the author. Could something of that structure be built into the wiki?
I’m thinking something like that would probably be most useful in the long term, but it might be an enormous lot of work to set up and moderate.
I agree with Hawke, it would need just a few primary moderators / final editors to set up and keep in order. I’d like to help contribute once it’s up, but am way too ignorant of all the technical/internet-possibilities to help set it up.
What would be the best way to ensure continuity of editing/moderation? Volunteers from here? Or building it as part of Shejidan?
Hit the Edit button near the top of the page; that will bring up the whole page for editing rather than a single section, and you can add a new section.
I like the wiki idea.
One major addition – it is not enough to state where people are from – there also has to be an indication of where their Manchi lies. A most important item for the Atavi.
Second, third, whatever.
Y’all are going to make me get a book on editing Wikis, aren’t you? Like I need something else on the To Read Pile? LOL, what the heck, I’m intrigued. Famous Last Words: “What could be so hard about that?” :rotfl: — Really, I should find out about wikis and WordPress anyway.
I have some past experience admin’ing and moderating forums, and I do HTML and CSS, but haven’t done PHP and databases. I’ll get a book on wiki editing and see what’s involved. 🙂
Oh — And the book I’d ordered on EPUB3 arrived the other day! YAY! Planning to dive in this weekend.
What programs help in editing EPUB3? I’ve been playing with Sigil (link), and the recent beta of the pre-0.7 version starts to have some EPUB3 features, but what are you using?
Hi JCS. I haven’t gotten into actual production yet. What I’d read about EPUB2, a book by Elizabeth Castro, EPUB Straight to the Point, indicated you could go several ways:
* She didn’t cover Sigil, but that’s one route. I haven’t yet tried using Sigil.
* Word or other Office suites, such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice or WordPerfect to HTML, or recently, to EPUB, some via plugins.
* Adobe InDesign to EPUB. Liz Castro’s book was geared toward this primarily.
* If you know HTML5 and CSS3, then EPUB3 is based primarily on these, as EPUB2 is based on XHTML 1.1 and CSS 2.1. So really, you could take any valid HTML and CSS files as a starting point and modify their markup to get to EPUB2 or EPUB3 files, and an ebook from there.
* I’ve heard of Scribus, which is an open source page layout software. I haven’t tried it though, and I don’t know if it can output directly to EPUB or if it uses a plugin.
* C.J. and Jane and possibly Lynn use WordPerfect, output to EPUB from there, and cleanup and tweak it. They’ve said WordPerfect produces fairly clean output. I can vouch that Word, OO, and LibO produce horrid HTML and CSS. There’s an EPUB plugin for OO and LibO that I’ll try out.
* I wonder why someone hasn’t based a word processor on EPUB or HTML+CSS directly, as it seems like a good model there would be a worthwhile approach. — Hanneke or Busifer pointed me towards the “Atlantis” word processor, but I let that slide. I’ll need to look at it again.
— So I’m open to suggestions! I have not found a really nice solution yet that does not involve pulling out of hair and colorful verbal idioms. 😉
Also — I’d bought a couple of Patricia Brigg’s books last year but haven’t read ’em yet. And I’m finding myself in the mood for some werewolfery and such-like….
Word Press is a piece of cake if you choose a good template (the one I use is Atahualpa)—if you choose a cranky one, life is not as good.
Wiki, now, y’all are goin’ to make ME have to get the how-to on that thang, eh?
I’m still pushing for a spreadsheet. Maybe as a compromise, the data can be entered in a spreadsheet, sorted and collated, then copied to a wiki. (I had a long commentary, but a co-worker walked up and I was explaining to her and showed her the example from Patricia Briggs and lost everything.) You would only need the book with major change and the change in job description in a wiki, once you had their household, etc. We should be able to copy/paste that.
I would love to know how they gathered all of the info on Patricia Briggs site. This project will have people working on various novels out of order adding information. What happens if 3 people are trying to enter data on the same character at the same time in a wiki? In a spreadsheet, you just get multiple rows.
I have already volunteered to be one of the co-ordinators. I have more years of clerical experience than I do programmer/analyst. I can see this from both viewpoints. A row on a spreadsheet will enter quickly, because you do not have to search for the name, click edit, find the correct location for the data and save.
To repeat my questingin manchi that I lost… Who does Saibin have manchi towards? The Assassin’s Guild? Uncle Tati? The apartment like the gentlemen in Malguri? It is never revealed and is not mentioned for most of the minor characters. How many of Bren’s servants have multiplle manchi? How many are spies for other households? I say leave it off. Relationships are useful, this could help in the tracking of families.
Since no solution seems to be on the horizon, here’s another proposal.
I can create a small custom online database using MySQL and PHP. It will be professional quality and very easy for anyone to use. You will be able to print the list of characters to your printer or download it as a CSV file.
It will be quick for me to do, and I need to test a new version of a database application generator anyway, so even if you decide not to use it, it won’t be time wasted for me.
I can put it on my own server, or it can go on Shejidan’s or wherever. If it’s somewhere where I don’t have access, then someone with basic MySQL knowledge would need to set it up.
It will be Monday or Tuesday before I will get a chance to do it. If you can wait that long, I think it will be a good, practical and elegant solution – and very easy and intuitive for anyone to add, modify, or browse records.
And if you don’t like it, that’s no problem. Some other solution can be found.
I won’t be a PHP & MySQL expert by Tuesday. 😆 But that sounds like a good alternative. It’ll push me to learn.
A database might work—but it’s one more piece of tech to learn. Unless the web interface is really clean? I’ll reserve my opinion until I’ve seen GreenWyvern’s idea in practice. If the interface is good this may well be the best idea proposed.
Regarding mmberry’s concern about hosting a spreadsheet on Google Docs: If Google gets hacked so badly that backup data is lost, we’ll have got worse problems than the loss of these data. The quick version I put up at this link is publicly-accessible, but finer-grained access controls are possible as well.
I agree that the spreadsheet on Google Drive is a good solution. Google Drive is compatible with the two most recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. It looks like you’ve set up the spreadsheet so that you don’t even have to sign into a Google account to edit it.
But a small database will have text areas for more extensive notes and descriptions, and drop-down lists of the books. The interface will be very clean and simple. It can later be moved elsewhere if necessary, and become a permanent online reference.
Anyway, let me do it and then you can see. I’m busy setting up a new website, and once that is live, either today or tomorrow, I’ll set up the database.
Okay, I’ve created a database for the characters:
http://trackmysoftware.com/cj
You can view it without signing in. Click on the orange square to start.
To add or edit records, sign in with:
User name: bren
Password: paidhi
(So much for security!)
Click on a record to edit it, Click on ‘Add New’ to add a new one. I hope everything else is obvious.
Extra info:
You can sort the table by clicking on the column headers. Previous and Next will only do something when there is more than one page of records.
I’ve disabled deleting records for this log in, to avoid records being deleted by mistake.
@GreenWyvern: It looks fairly clear, but how would you handle people like Bren, who has major changes in a lot of books?
Add a new Bren Cameron line? That would keep the information about this major change together, but means some character occur multiple times, and the general data gets repeated a lot or has to be looked up on another line.
Adding it within the line might make it very hard to keep the information regarding a specific change together on one visual line.
Drat, I posted it halfway through instead of previewing.
To continue the questions: Would it be possible to split the humans, atevi, places, and flora/fauna to separate listings, as suggested somewhere on page 1 of the comments? Otherwise it would be useful to mention that in the comments or as a separate column.
How do the lines get sorted? Alphabetically or in order of addition? Can you ‘pin’ the most important ones to the top?
By now there are 3 workable solutions offered. Perhaps CJ could decide what method she’d prefer, and the ones who suggested that specific solution could set up the basics for the rest of us to start filling it up, whether it turns out to be a GreenWyvern-database, a MMBerry/JCSalomon-spreadsheet, or a JCSalomon-wiki.
Even a forum-solution like Patricia Briggs’forum might be possible, if CJ prefers that, if someone knows how to set that one up (as I don’t, even though I mentioned it) – maybe Patty’s forum-webmaster would be willing to explain to someone who can get things organised on Shejidan?
Hanneke, I thought about making sub-records to handle more than one major event, but I decided against it because I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible. It can be handled by adding more than one line for a character. I think that CJ is probably more interested in info about minor characters than major ones, anyway.
Sorting: Click on the column heading to sort by that column. Click again to sort in reverse order.
This means that if there are several lines for a character, you can sort by name and they will be together. You can also sort by book, which may be useful, or by the descriptions.
I can add more columns if that will be useful.
Feel free to add and edit lines, by the way. Experiment and see how it works.
I’ve been busy and avoiding this discussion for a few days. (Cleaning, shopping and failing at Rice Krispy Treats, yes it is possible kept me busy this weekend. Long story.)
A bit of information. A database is nothing but a group of associated tables linked together on keys. If you look at a spreadsheet and a table in a database, they appear identical.
Greenwyvrn thank you. This is what I could not post an example of that would make sense. I don’t use any of the photo sharing sites so I couldn’t post a screenprint. this is so easy to enter. I’m ready to tear into book 5 any time. I have two copies and can put my hands on either one qu8ickly. This site allows saving as a .csv which means the file can be converted within 15 min. to a .pdf. No, you can’t sort a .pdf, but you can search it.
I am inevitably astounded by the knowledge base and talents of my readers.
Okay, I feel the need for one last bit of organising before I start a re-read with sticky notes (I’m trying to be helpful here, not bossy; so if this isn’t something you agree with just ignore it).
The spreadsheet-votes seem to have moved to the database, and Herself hasn’t cast the deciding vote yet, so we’ve got two options left: GreenWyvern’s database and JCSalomon’s wiki; each with their adherents here.
If CJ wants to await developments, see which works better and gets filled most usefully before deciding, we can just start filling up both.
@CJ, could you/would you put a link (to either or both) in one of the side-columns, to make it easier for everyone to find them?
@GreenWyvern, I’d like an extra column in the database for ‘kind’ (probably best between the two book-title columns, in the 3rd position), where we can put what the name is for: human, atevi, mecheiti, animal (for species names), place: island, place: castle, place: town, and people or clan (for names like the Gan, Ragi).
I see you’ve already started the booktitles with a number, which I was going to suggest, and put them in a drop-down list.
I think it might be an idea to number the short stories with decimals, at the point where they chronologically fit, instead of with the round numbers in the order of writing, where they mess up the list of the books. Thus, my idea would be to number Deliberations as 0.5 instead of 16. Also, 01. Foreigner might usefully be split into 01. Foreigner book 1, 01. Foreigner book 2, and 01. Foreigner book 3, so we don’t confuse people from the 2 pre-stories with the ongoing sequence.
And maybe a column for when (approximate age or time) might be handy, though this can also be noted among the general notes, and there are a lot of people for whom no indication is given except that they’re adults. Perhaps putting this into the Notes is a better idea.
The problem with a wiki is that it’s more difficult to enter information, even if there’s a standard template, and also very difficult to get out a quick and comprehensive list of all the contents.
I can add an extra column for group or kind, and improve the book numbering. Perhaps 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c, etc. with Deliberations as 0a at the end of the list.
CJ asked for characters, so perhaps it would be best to concentrate on those first, and then later things like places, clans, animals, etc.
The new column can have a dropdown list with the most needed items in it. What should be in the list?
New sidebars on the right.
Thanks, CJ!
GreenWyvern, these are the categories I’ve thought of, just off the top of my head:
human,
atevi,
mecheiti,
animal (for species names), (do we need an extra category for ‘pets’ or can Boji go under ‘animal’?);
people or clan (for names like the Gan, Ragi),
place or location (including geographical features).
I must say I’m not too aware of the separate arcs of three as separate entities within the series, so I wouldn’t go for 1a, 1b, 1c; just number the books chronologically.
And did you notice thet 16. Deliberations is 2 characters too long for it’s column?
I choose 0.5 for Deliberations because CJ has said that she wants to write more short stories, including ones set earlier, or between deliberations and Foreigner (a story about Ilisidi coming West to marry Tabini’s grandfather has been suggested, as well as one about Bren’s first day on the job, or his first meeting with Banichi and Jago). If we want the numbering to reflect the internal chronological order we need to leave room for numbers to come before Deliberations, and between deliberations and Foreigner. If fractions are impossible, we could certainly go with 0f or something like that, or use 0a and renumber when an earlier short story comes out. That would work equally well for short stories set between the main books, they could get numbers like 5a.
I just entered the first two short prequel-parts of Foreigner in your database. Is this the way you meant it to be done?
Hanneke Fantastic! I’ve started on book 5, because it was handy. I’ve got a notebook that I’m handwriting. It’s just easier for me. Whatever works for everyone! From memory, we have only 2 animals and one Atevi plant ever mentioned by name. Foreigner is also the only one with multiple “books” or parts. I do agree with the numbering of the short stories with a decimal and Deliberations being less than 1.
Rah some more! Do we have volunteers for the other books? I’m just hoping this database will let me copy and paste “Returned from Reunion Station on Phoenix” for the major life experience, buecause that’s what happens for so many of Bren’s staff. Just write me off as being silly at the moment.
Many thanks for your input, Hanneke – both in terms of how the database should look, and the actual input of records. 🙂
I’ve made some changes to the database:
1. Added a new column for ‘Group’.
2. Widened the columns a bit.
3. I’ve left the numbering of the books as 1 to 15, with Deliberations being unnumbered at the end. So other prequels or short stories can easy be added in their place later without specific numbering.
It’s starting to look good now that there is some data in it. The ‘Quick Search’ at the top right also works very well – it selects the relevant records and highlights the search term in any column in appears. To cancel the search just clear the box again and press enter.