0.______ << numbered steps reflect the naming of the movie scripts
RAW ENTRY PROCESSING
<manual>
Take MSWord4 files, scan and clean up anomalies.
Import into Quark Express 3.3, do further cleanup.
Export as Quark Tags format, do further cleanup.
See Steve Taylor's instruction sheets for all the amazing details.
QuarkDecoder (custom application)
Opens QuarkTag files and generates two files:
Entry name list, and our custom OmniTag formatted entry files.
<manual>
Import chunks of the OmniTag entry text files into a reserved area of the Director cast . Check for integrity. A typical name for such a castmember is "EPISTXT_Z" but these are entirely arbitrary.
1.___________________CREATING THE ENTRY INDEXES
hBuildAttribs (names starting with "h" are manually called Lingo methods)
The on-screen indexes are automatically built by this method. It creates phase one of the master Attribute index, which is an Entry Name (as displayed on screen) paired with pointers to its entry text as it now resides within Director. At this phase other media pointers are left blank.
<manual>
The resulting Attributes indexes for each of the three databases are inspected for syntax, and divided into individual sub-indexes by letter of the alphabet (except the CHRONOLOGY, which is by year groupings).The naming format for such a field in the cast resembles "ATTRIB_Y_EPIS".
SPECIAL EPSIODE MASSAGES_______________________("Epis Fixups")
hAddCodeToEpisAttribs
The Episode entries probably dont have the series code in the entry name. "Long Goodbye, The (TNG)" If they dont, this handler is supposed to fix that.
hChangeTheA
The Episode entries probably start with "the" or "a", but a godd index has those articles at the end. This handler fixes that.
-=-= There may be some confusion about the series code thing. =-=-
hAssembleScrollLists
The engine needs to know how to piece-together the alphabetical segments of the Attributes index when it displays the scrolling index on screen. This method scans the Attributes indexes and creates a short table of the break-points between these segments. "EPIS_ScrollPoints" is one such castmember.
hSimplyVerify
There's a chance the indexes you just made are bogus. Run this to make sure they're OK.
2.__________________CREATING THE LOOKUP TABLES
(formerly called: hBuildShortName)
Every entry needs a unique 6-character code, so that Picons and FullText indexes can be linked to the entry. This routine builds the "short-to-long" lookup tables. Typical member name: "LU_S_ENCY". These all say "ENCY" at the end but contain every entry regarrdless of being Epis, Ency, or Chronology.
Related utilities are used with existing products to UPDATE the existing indexes.
hMakeLongtoShort
hCompareNewToOld
hSortMe
hMakeNewShorts
It is important to run hCheckLUforFinalDups after this is done before moving on. Having duplicate shortnames is a true pain.
Then again, you may have skipped something. Run hTestAttForShortNames to make sure every entry actually HAS a shortname. Or use hMatchOldShorts or hHeyGetShorts.
3.__________________MEDIA LINKING
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Import the Picons (small versions of all the chosen photographs and videos) into a reserved area of the Director Cast. Each file will have a unique Short Name representing the entry it is shown with.
Sort the Picons in the cast.
hUpdateAttributesList
This automatically matches the picon references to their corresponding entries in the Attributes index, adding pointer(s) to each entryÕs Attributes list. After you have done this, the Picons should not be moved, as the attribute pointers are the member NUMBERS. You can also cross-check picons to entry names by running hGetEntryNames, but there are thousands of picons!
hInsertVideoTags
Scans the Media folder for available video clips (which also use the Short Names) and adds pointers to the appropriate entryÕs Attribute list. This video utility list should also be added (byhand?) to the collection of indexes in the cast as an index accessible from Found Entries Mode. (big Ency only)
Paranoia, part 17: Be sure the shortnames that get inserted into the Attrib indexes for the videos really do match the intended ("long") entry name. Run hInspectVid.
4.__________________THE "EPISSUB" INDEXES
More correctly called the "chronological", rather than alphabetical, Episode entry indexes. Exist in both the big Encyclopedia and the Episode guides. These Attrib indexes have to be built by hand unless someone writes a tool to automate this. Entries in Epissubs start with the program number, eg, "078 The Long Goddbye (TNG)" rather than "Long Goodbye, The (TNG)"
Then, these siblings of the regular "Epis" indexes have to be updated for the Text, Picon, and Video links. Use hAddAttToEpissub. This method synchronizes the media pointers between the Epis and Epissub Attribute indexes.
5.__________________FULL TEXT INDEXES
hBuildWordLists
Given an exclusion list, this method scans all the text files one Mode at a time, and builds a list of pointers to the occurence of words within the entries. The resulting Fulltext indexes are loaded and scanned as needed at run-time when a user requests a search on a given word.
There are a bunch of helpful utility handlers to cope with this process. The big one is the mixing of plurals and singulars together, so a search on either form of a word returns both.
OTHER MANUAL CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
Chronology Pop-up Buttons
Each of these two buttons cause a jump to specific points in the Chronology index. These points are ascertained by eye and typed into a small linear list, one for each button. [the nature and function of these buttons is very content-specific]
Episode Series Buttons
Each of these five buttons cause a jump to a subset of the alphabetical Episode index, which is a particular Episode series sorted by airing order.
Caption List
The 40-character description of each photo is manually writted and linked with the photoÕs Short Name. This data is manually added to the caption index in the Director Cast.
Help System
Approximately 40 text fields contain specific hints regarding the use of the controls and features of the product.
Stardate-to-Chronology Lookup Table
This is a manually generated list which links one data type (Stardates) in ENCYLOPEDIA and EPISODE entries with another data type (Years) as used in entry names of CHRONOLOGY entries.
Attributes Lists for RESOURCES and TOPICS Modes
Manually created, as these are small and very specific.
ALL DONE?
Run hUpdateCastTable to make a permanent index of cast member locations. Program uses this during authoring to make sure nothing accidentally gets moved in the cast. OK to run anytime, actually.
¥ Episode entries for the Ency include SEE: lists of (supposedly accurate) entry names of topics realted to the episode. BUT during revisions, the entry names in either existing or new episode entries may have been altered from what is already in the short-long lookups (or whatever we use to link to the entries), ie, sometimes the SEE entries dont link.
