[SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

12 posts ยท Apr 12 2002 to Apr 16 2002

From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:29:59 -0500

Subject: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

I'm putting the finishing touches on _Hardtack_, my American Civil War
rules
for _Stargrunt II_. I have a question.

I will be putting the document on my web site, probably in RTF, Word, and
Adobe Acrobat formats. Is there any desire for me to put these up as HTML
documents, too? I didn't think there would be, as anyone really interested in
it would simply pull down the whole file, but I thought I'd ask first.

From: Roger Burton West <roger@f...>

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 15:39:07 +0100

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

> On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 09:29:59AM -0500, Allan Goodall wrote:

Yes. HTML is much easier than any of those other formats to convert for
other uses - for example, as a document on a palmtop. Acrobat Reader
(for example) is a large, buggy piece of software which certainly isn't on
every system from which I access the net; HTML, in a pinch, can be read
manually.

(Also, I'm not sure about RTF, but MS-Word and Acrobat are proprietary
standards, subject to change at any time. Just ask anyone who's tried to load
old Word files...)

From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:45:36 -0500

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

On Fri, 12 Apr 2002 15:39:07 +0100, Roger Burton West
<roger@firedrake.org> wrote:

> Yes. HTML is much easier than any of those other formats to convert for

I was going to produce a Palm DOC format document, too. I did a whole lot of
the work on _Hardtack_ on my Palm using WordSmith. *grin*

> (Also, I'm not sure about RTF, but MS-Word and Acrobat are proprietary

RTF is non-proprietary. It's pretty much standard, which is why I wasn't
going to put it in HTML. It just doesn't handle certain formatting that Word
and Acrobat allow.

But you make a very good point about the portability of HTML.

From: Michael Llaneza <maserati@e...>

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:30:36 -0700

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

RTF is a fairly open standards, almost any system has a program (other than
Word) that will read it, possibly a free program (wordpad.exe for example)

> Roger Burton West wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 09:29:59AM -0500, Allan Goodall wrote:

From: Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@w...>

Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 08:53:23 +1000

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

From: "Roger Burton West" <roger@firedrake.org>

> >I will be putting the document on my web site, probably in RTF, Word,

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 20:26:44 +0100 (BST)

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

Quoting Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net>:

> On Fri, 12 Apr 2002 15:39:07 +0100, Roger Burton West

Acrobat isn't a format. Acrobat is the main reader for the format, the format
is PDF. Which is essentially PostScript with some extensions to the
interpreter to do all sorts of neat things, most of which never get used
(proper hypertexting, for example).

LaTeX - typeset it in LaTeX!! Everyone speaks LaTeX. Or something LaTeX
can be output to....

From: Indy Kochte <kochte@s...>

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 15:35:25 -0400

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

> Katie Lauren Lucas wrote:
[snip, snip, snip]
> > But you make a very good point about the portability of HTML.

I don't speak LaTeX. I've managed to successfully avoid that, thanks.
:-)
One day maybe, but for now...

From: Roger Books <books@m...>

Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 16:29:01 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

> On 14-Apr-02 at 15:27, Katie Lauren Lucas (katie@fysh.org) wrote:

> LaTeX - typeset it in LaTeX!! Everyone speaks LaTeX. Or something

I'll have to second that, if you really want to be compatible for minimal work
LaTex is tops.

I haven't massaged any of this for looks, however...

(I should really add a style sheet for the html)

The html version.
http://www.jumpspace.net/SAR/SAR+-/index.html

The PDF version.
http://www.jumpspace.net/SAR/SAR+-/SAR+-.pdf

There's also a postscript and PCL version which are useless for most peopl.

Here's the source everything was generated from:
http://www.jumpspace.net/SAR/SAR+-/SAR+-.tex

Note the Table of Contents page is generated automagically.

Oh, the makefile
http://www.jumpspace.net/SAR/SAR+-/Makefile

From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:34:28 -0500

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

On Sat, 13 Apr 2002 08:53:23 +1000, "Alan and Carmel Brain"
> <aebrain@webone.com.au> wrote:

> May I suggest it be put up in XML? With XSLT sheets to transform it

Well, that would be an option, except it would require me to actually know
XML...

From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@a...>

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:55:15 -0500

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 20:26:44 +0100 (BST), Katie Lauren Lucas
<katie@fysh.org> wrote:

> Acrobat isn't a format. Acrobat is the main reader for the format, the

Actually, Acrobat is the program you use to create PDF files. Acrobat reader
is the reader of the format. (This is already too off topic, so I won't go
into Distiller, etc.). So, I was strictly speaking still accurate in my
statement. :-) Or, I was as equally inaccurate when talking about Word
and Acrobat the same way.

> LaTeX - typeset it in LaTeX!! Everyone speaks LaTeX. Or something LaTeX

I'm afraid that most people wouldn't know how to import LaTeX into Word or
another program they have in order to get it printed.

From: Donald Hosford <hosford.donald@a...>

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 18:31:41 -0400

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

LaTeX? PDF? Word? XTF?  (no offence...but what are these?...wait - thats
an offtopic thing...never mind...)

These all sound like really great ways to make a simple tiny text file
huge...(and
adding all kinds of formating gizmos...)

Just MHO.

Donald Hosford

> Allan Goodall wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 20:26:44 +0100 (BST), Katie Lauren Lucas

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 08:49:49 +0100 (BST)

Subject: Re: [SG2] Question: Put Variant Rules in Web Pages?

Quoting Donald Hosford <Hosford.Donald@acd.net>:

> LaTeX? PDF? Word? XTF? (no offence...but what are these?...wait -

And actually true in most cases, although LaTeX has the advantage of being
more or less readable in the raw. Overhead on the files is a few percent. (And
100Mb
of disk space for the formatter to get it into anything else :-)

<blurry_nostalgia>
I can remember the days when having LaTeX installed on your linux box meant
you were rich enough to have bought it a second hard disk...
</blurry_nostalgia>

obWargaming: after the "throw everything in a crate and move" incident, I've
started sorting out the crates of figures. I've got several 30 litre capacity
crates full of unpainted figures. Some of them for games whose rules are still
in the shrink-wrap... Whups.