Linking to relative html files in chapbook to create a 'game hub'

Authoring Twine
1

Please specify version and format if asking for help, or apply optional tags above:
Twine Version: 2.3.13
Story Format: Chapbook

I’ve made a bunch of small Twine games for local church families for their kids to play on Sundays. I’m making them into a big compilation on Itch.

I’d like to display them by putting them all in one folder with a ‘hub’ game, which is just a single page with links to each game.

However, in chapbook, I can only figure out how to link to external absolute html files or to passages. If I have a file called nephigame.html, for instance, this doesn’t work:

[[Nephi’s Journey|nephigame.html]]

and this doesn’t work:

[[Nephi’s Journy]https://nephigame.html]]

I’m testing by publishing my ‘hub’ to a file then running it in the folder with nephigame.html.

I’ve also tried:

{link to: ‘nephigame.html’, label: ‘Nephi’s Journey’}

which just doesn’t process at all (it displays the raw code).

I’d be happy to just create a regular html page that looks like chapbook and uses a href, but I don’t know how to extract just the css out of chapbook.

2

Can you not just put the standard HTML anchor link right in your chapbook hub page? It’s not as slick as a markdown link but it should still work, I would think.

3

I tried opening the html file up and editing it, but all the in-passage stuff seems to go through some pre-processing that alters it.

I’m basically really dumb when it comes to this. Could you give me an example? I may just be wildly misunderstanding or overlooking something.

4

I just tried it using the online editor and it seems to work.

My code was this:

Link testing.

<a href="http://www.google.com">link</a>
5

Oh, I see. My problem is I’m trying to link to a relative link in the same folder

So my directory will look like:

index.html
nephigame.html
etc.

And I want the url to go to that relative link.

Edit: wait, I think it might be working…hold on

Edit: It worked! I’m so glad you were able to talk me through it. I wish it were easier for me, but since it’s not, thanks for being so helpful @tayruh ! I just used ‘nephigame.html’ as the href

1 Like
6

Ah. It’s the same deal then. Just don’t put in the “HTTP”. Even if you host the files online, if you leave out the “http://” part, the browser will assume the files are in the current directory.

Edit:
This also works for folders, so you can do “games/nephigame.html” and keep your directory more organized.

1 Like
7

Just a follow up to avoid possible issues in the future:

If you do decide to have a structure with multiple directories, you may want to get back to the original hub page with a link. It’s easiest if you imagine it’s like navigating the DOS or Linux command line.

So, say you have a structure like this:

main.html
games/
    game1.html
    game2.html

To get to game1 from main, it’d be games/game1.html. To go back a directory, you’d use the command line-esque .. notation. So to get back to main from inside games1, you’d use a link of ../main.html

I hope that makes sense.

1 Like