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MIND
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WACKO
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README.TXT
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1996-01-17
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WORD WACKO, by Jim Knopf
------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
I. What is Word Wacko
II. Using (Reading) Wacko stories
III. Creating (Writing) Wacko stories
IV. The Wacko competition
V. Installing Word Wacko
I. What is Word Wacko
-----------------------
Word Wacko is a Free program. You can keep it, use it as much
as you like, pass it around with your friends, whatever. I
donate it to the public domain.
Word Wacko is an educational and entertaining word substitution
program. It's designed like the famous and popular "MadLibs"
booklets which you can buy in stores. But Word Wacko
computerizes the process. This allows us to write our own
stories, reuse them as often as we like, and share them
with others.
Word Wacko lets you enter words which will be substituted
(replaced) in a story. When it first starts up a story, it
finds all the words which will be substituted for. It then asks
you for the word substitutions. Lastly, it creates the final
story with your words substituted.
This is lots of fun, and great entertainment. It forsters creative
thinking, and it's educational in the process.
II. Using (Reading) Wacko stories
----------------------------------
To use Word Wacko, just start it up from within Windows.
Click on the Open button at the bottom left of the window.
Pick a story file to reac (they end in ".wak").
Then, provide a word eack time you are asked. The prompt shows
the type of word to provide.
After the last word has been provided, the story
will be displayed in a scrollable window. Read it, and enjoy
your wackiness.
When you receive or write new Wacko stories, place them in the
same subdirectory with the Word Wacko executable file. This
way they will be easier for you to find after you click on the
"Open" button.
III. Creating (Writing) Wacko stories
-------------------------------------
You can write your own Wacko stories.
1. Use a text editor program, or a word processor program that
can save to a "plain text" or ASCII text file output. Word can
do this, and so can most other word processing programs.
2. Now, just write a story. Here's a SHORT example:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater.
3. Go back into the story and locate the words that you would
like to replace when the reader uses your story. In the
example above, let's replace "Peter" and "pumpkin".
4. Replace the words with a prompt, surrounded by square
square brackets. Example:
[Boys name], [Boys name], [food] eater.
Save the story with a ".wak" suffix (like "peter.wak").
You're done. When Word Wacko runs your story, it will prompt
the reader to enter a "Boys name" and a "food". These words
will be replaced in the story with whatever the reader entered.
Just one technical note: If the word will be re-used, start
the prompt with a capital letter. In the example above,
"Boys name" starts with a capital letter. Therefore, Word
Wacko will only ask the Boys name one time, and will reuse
it whenever it comes across "Boys name." That's how we get it
to repeat the same word each time. If the prompt starts out
with a lower case letter, it will be used one time.
The prompt can be anything you like. Here are some sample
prompts:
[noun]
[noun-object]
[Male teacher's name]
[verb]
[verb past tense]
[expletive]
For your review, here's a short sample Wacko story.
[Adjective] Miss [Name-female]
sat on a [noun]
[verb]ing her [food] and [food].
Along came a [insect].
and [verb]ed down beside her
and [verb]ed Miss [Name-female] [adjective].
IV. The Wacko competition
--------------------------
Let's have some fun. I'll provide a spot on my worldwide
web page as a collection point for Wacko stories. Send me
your best Word Wacko stories and I'll put the best ones I
receive up on the internet for all to enjoy. Think of it.
You'll be famous!
Just email me your story. My email address is
knopf@halcyon.com
You can come to the web page to download stories at this
web address:
http://www.halcyon.com/knopf/free.htm
CAUTION: Please do not send me any copyrighted material.
All stories should be entirely your own creation, or should
be derived from text already in the public domain.
OK: Let's get those stories started.
V. Installing Word Wacko
--------------------------
To install, just put the WACKO.ZIP file into a subdirectory.
Unzip it there. Next, create an icon pointer to WACKO.EXE
in Windows, so that you can run it.
-Jim Knopf