Author Topic: Player Guide Printer Friendly  (Read 878 times)

weckman

  • Wayfarer
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Player Guide Printer Friendly
« on: January 18, 2005, 12:45:56 pm »
Hello

I would like to know if there is printer friendly version of the player guide, if not is it possible to make one? It is not very convenient to play and look at the guide at the same time. And the online version is not very good for printing, it consumes to much ink and is not easy to follow.

thanks

leinir

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2005, 09:19:05 pm »
As I understand it, it was made using DocBook, and since it\'s supposedly simple to make a PDF out of docbook, as easy as it is to make the HTML that we already have, that ought to be a simple enough wish to grant :)

I should like to vote for this too, I would love a printed copy of the manual :)
.. Dan // Leinir ..
http://www.leinir.dk/

\"A Vast Swimmer Keeps No Pets\"
 - Seamus Z. Harper, Andromeda 1:14


Icefalcon

  • Veteran
  • *
  • Posts: 1610
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2005, 03:11:27 am »
You could just copy and paste into Word :rolleyes:

leinir

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2005, 03:52:42 am »
You could also type it out in hand, or print out each page and staple them together ;) Why do so much work, when a simple docbook2pdf planeshift.sgml does all the work for you ;)

Of course, the above requires you to have done the docbook in SGML, not XML. If so, then the process is slightly longer, but not much more difficult:

$ xsltproc file:///path/to/docbook-xsl/fo/docbook.xsl planeshift.xml > planeshift.fo
$ pdfxmltex planeshift.fo

and hey presto, PDF for the people! All printer friendly and stuff, too :)

(Above information, apart from docbook2pdf, found at http://supportweb.cs.bham.ac.uk/documentation/tutorials/docsystem/build/tutorials/docbooksys/segmentedhtml/)
.. Dan // Leinir ..
http://www.leinir.dk/

\"A Vast Swimmer Keeps No Pets\"
 - Seamus Z. Harper, Andromeda 1:14


AryHann

  • Veteran
  • *
  • Posts: 1244
  • WonderWoman
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2005, 10:41:24 am »
I think also that having a printable version of the guide could be really convenient. I guess that it could be distributed as well as the standard guide and then a little icon would say \"PRINT ME\"!!!

Ary
AryHann

http://www.reflex.lth.se/culture/annelov - Virtual Annelöv -
Engine Dep. - One of Talad's Angels - Aka ww & Ahrijani's Goddess

Jakob

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 263
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2005, 02:31:35 am »
Finally, I can post in something where I don\'t have to scramble for words.  Yes, a printable players guide would be nice for some referance, but would be just like haveing a map released outside of ingame cartographers...

I am Arew Silverwing, and one day I will rule the WORLD!:D
All y\'all stick yourselves onto the board.

leinir

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2005, 02:42:29 am »
How so, Jakob? The player\'s guide is what already exists as the PlaneShift Player Guide in the Windows client. So the difference here would simply be that you could print it out in a sane form, rather than printing out the sections one by one from Firefox or whatever browser you use. It would not be any type of help you couldn\'t get otherwise, it is simply more convenient.
.. Dan // Leinir ..
http://www.leinir.dk/

\"A Vast Swimmer Keeps No Pets\"
 - Seamus Z. Harper, Andromeda 1:14


Jakob

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 263
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2005, 03:45:55 am »
Be that as it may, the case exists that it is very difficult to use both at the same time, especially using a fullscreen mode.  I suppose the map is a bad example, but I suppose my comment isn\'t as based in PS as in the truly evil RS for which I have a personal animosity.  That was the second biggest thing I hated about that game, and IDK, little things like that bug me.  I\'ve been thinking though, it would prolly be easier to copy down just the little bits that you need from the players guide instead of printing the great huge document.  Some things for example just aren\'t useful after the first time you succesfully log in and play the game for awhile.  I\'m just a new old-fashioned teenager who looses focus every so often online...  I think some version of a portable players guide could be very useful...  lol, listen to me, i feel like I\'m arguing with myself...  I\'m gonna stop rambling now, so I\'m done.

I am Arew Silverwing, and one day I will rule the WORLD!:D
All y\'all stick yourselves onto the board.

weckman

  • Wayfarer
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2005, 05:58:42 pm »
That\'s exactly it jabob, having a printer friendly version of the guide can be good if you look for some information when you are online, if you don\'t want all the information, don\'t print everything but at least you can print everything if you want with a printer friendly manual. I don\'t know if PDF can be done with docbook, maybe it can be better with PS instead. Anyway if it is easy to do why not ? The actual version of the guide is not very easy to print and you have to cut and paste each page separately, that\'s tedious I think, for me who has just started a few days ago I need the manual a lot, and I think a lot of newbies also needs a paper manual in hand.

leinir

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2005, 01:25:09 pm »
Right, problems with pdfxmlpdf, so I went looking for something else. Apache Org to the rescue, the FOP project turns out to be the solution. http://xml.apache.org/fop/ describes the process much like I presented it above, only few changes:

$ xsltproc file:///path/to/docbook-xsl/fo/docbook.xsl manual.xml > manual.fo
$ fop manual.fo manual.pdf

And hey presto, clear, readable, beautiful even, and printable :) Very nice work there Apache Org, even if it\'s written in Java ;) (ducks to avoid flying blue-books and uml class diagrams)

Thanks to KL for the manual source, I shall do my best to help out as best I can :)
.. Dan // Leinir ..
http://www.leinir.dk/

\"A Vast Swimmer Keeps No Pets\"
 - Seamus Z. Harper, Andromeda 1:14


leinir

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
(No subject)
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2005, 11:43:54 am »
While I know it\'s looked down upon to reply to your own post, this time I would like to think it quallifies as reasonable, since this is the solution to the whole problem put foward here ;) I was talking with KL as my previous message would indicate, and the end product of all of that, to cut a relatively short story even shorter, is the following file:

http://www.leinir.dk/temp/manual.pdf.bz2

Yes, it is indeed the Planeshift manual in all it\'s PDFed glory :) The price for this has of course been my soul ;) I shall be helping KL and friends write the manual as best I can (hopefully that will be sufficient), but when the reward was the PDFed manual, I am happy bunny ;)

PS: To decompress on Windows, use 7-Zip or bunzip2 :)
.. Dan // Leinir ..
http://www.leinir.dk/

\"A Vast Swimmer Keeps No Pets\"
 - Seamus Z. Harper, Andromeda 1:14