Anecdotally, I’ve certainly seen folks mention it in the forum as well, and dunno whether you’re in chat but it comes up there pretty regularly too, so I think it’s the case that folks are using it. Personally I’d probably be able to kick a few bucks into a Kickstarter since I think it’s a helpful resource for the community, though I’m not sure I’d buy a print copy absent that help-get-it-funded impetus (mostly just because I’m pretty firmly in the try-stuff-and-muddle-through phase of the Inform 7 learning curve these days).
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I think the value of the thing is in making it freely available. A print edition wouldn’t sell a lot of copies to the people who need it most.
Therefore, the crowdfunded model makes more sense to me. Pre-fund the work, release it when it’s done.
(You could also make a print version available, but again, it’s not going to be a big seller. The print version of the DM4 makes five, maybe ten bucks a month.)
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I agree that the Handbook is still very relevant. Once a newcomer has gone through one or two basic introductory tutorials, I think it’s the best thing we have to point them toward.
While a print version would be a nice option, I think a web version would be much more useful overall: it would let you link straight to the docs or other resources or to runnable/modifiable examples of code on snippets.borogove.app. (Of course, having put a lot of effort into webifying I7 docs, I would say that, wouldn’t I.)
I’d sign on to crowdfund a revision.
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Who would host the html file(s) of the Handbook? I don’t really have a server, though I use my musicwords.net account to make things available.
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Thanks for the thoughts. I suspect you’re right about the print version being very marginal as a seller. On the other hand, my impression is that a lot of people feel nostalgic about Aaron’s book.
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It would be great if you were to update your book.
My young daughter and I used it when were were starting out with Inform.
We printed it out via Lulu, for ourselves, and you kindly gave permission to share the link on this forum. It quickly sold 8 copies, and a further 3 since then (all at cost price). But you might get more interest in the context of a Kickstarter project. I’d pay for an updated print version.
I also have Aaron Reed’s Inform book, in print and PDF formats, but haven’t read it yet. I like the idea behind his book, but haven’t had the energy to work through the example game. Also, the consequences of out-of-date code in your book’s snippets seemed easier to deal with.
His Kickstarter pages for the 50 Years book were very persuasive so perhaps he could offer some advice. I agree that it would be best overall for the book to be available free as a website – but for me, PDF format is just as good as HTML, as it’s easier to feel lost on a website. Maybe you could do multiple formats.
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Could it just go on the IF Archive somewhere?
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That would be one solution, yes. I don’t think it would be the only solution. There may be some other possibilities.
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Sure. Or we could have a separate ifarchive subdomain just for this.
(The online DM4 is on the IF Archive machine, although we’re still using the old inform-fiction.org domain for it.)
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Github Pages are a solid option too. You can write in Markdown, and you get free web hosting. Or you can just upload HTML files.
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To provide my own anecdotal data for this, I just read through version 2.0 of the Handbook a couple of weeks ago, as part of my journey to continue to build on my Inform 7 knowledge. As I’ve been diving into some of my own coding, I’ve found myself frequently referring back to sections in the Handbook.
So, the answer-- for me in any case-- is yes, and also recently so. It’s also been highly relevant and useful in my pursuits even though it was written for 6L38. Adjusting for version 10 has not been a huge issue in my experience.
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I do. When I wrote my game for EctoComp last year, I had two references at hand: your Inform 7 Handbook and Aaron Reeds Creating with Inform 7. They both got me through. I would have been unable to complete the game otherwise.
PS. I purchased the hard copy from Hulu. It is very nice. I would definitely be interested in a crowd funded project.
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When asked, I recommend the Handbook to new authors. I didn’t get a lot out of Inform’s documentation until I had a little experience. I’d personally only be interested in a digital version, since I would refer to it while coding. In any case, I would support a crowdfunding effort out of gratitude for the help I’ve gotten from the Handbook.
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Ditto Drew’s comment, It (the handbook) is really how I got started and I’d kick in something as well to see it updated. I also keep it open when I’m coding:)
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I use it all the time. When I can’t get the right search term to find something in the docs, I can often find direction in the handbook.
Oh, and I’d absolutely pitch in to see it updated.
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Zed and I are having a conversation about how to make a revised edition available in various formats. We’ve hit a bottleneck. I’m hoping somebody (maybe somebody named Zarf) will have a suggestion. So here’s the situation, in a nutshell:
Zed has ported the existing version of the Handbook into markdown format (.md files) as preparation for converting the chapters into html web pages. Meanwhile, I’ve started doing revisions in LibreOffice, a word processor.
It would be way too much trouble for Zed to take my revised version (after I finish it) and convert it all to markdown again, starting from scratch. But if I do my revisions in markdown, there’s no way for me to convert it back into .rtf or even into a good-looking PDF.
I have a plugin to my text editor (Notepad++ for Windows) that will convert .md to PDF, but it doesn’t look the way I’d like it to. In order to edit the PDF I’d have to pay Adobe $20 a month for Acrobat Pro. That would also allow me to convert the PDF back to .rtf – but that could easily be as much work as Zed would put into converting my revised .rtf into .md again, because the conversions are likely to be filled with little problems.
Going the other direction, LibreOffice will export in XHTML, but it does a really crappy job of it.
There are other snarfles to do with working in a text editor, such as the absence of curly quotes, but in a pinch I could deal with that. The real issue is that it appears markdown is pretty much a one-way street. I don’t care for the idea of doing a revised version and not being able to get it back into word processor form. But I know some people would love to have an HTML version, and if I do the revisions in my word processor, the HTML ain’t gonna happen.
I hope I’ve described the conundrum adequately. Suggestions would be very welcome.
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Pandoc can convert (both directions) between markdown and .docx, .odt and HTML. (As well as epub and many others.)
It also supported reStructuredText, which is a less simple alternative to markdown but also supports footnotes and other things.
The conversions won’t be perfect, but it would be worth giving a try.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I’m trying it, but not getting anything but gibberish or failure. I’ve used command line programs in the past, so I know the basics, but if there’s a trick to it, I’m not finding the trick in the documentation.
Markdown isn’t actually relevant if the canonical source is going to be an OpenDocument file. The real target is HTML. Markdown was for ease of editing and source control. The toughest requirements is that I need something that can retain indication of the beginnings and ends of game output examples and code samples and maintain the exact whitespace, down to hard tab characters, of the latter.
I’d probably have to write something to traverse the XML to get all that right.
LibreOffice saves perfectly to .odt. That’s an OpenDocument file. Is it something you could use?