Storyspace 1.2 for Windows

Storyspace is a complex and sophisticated program: anyone intending to work seriously with it is advised to consult the Getting Started with Storyspace manual which is available in the E-Text Center. The remainder of this help sheet will cover only basic Storyspace functions, and will frequently refer users to this manual for more detail.

I. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF STRUCTURE AND CONTENT:

Storyspace is a hypertext authoring environment published by Eastgate Systems; perhaps the best way to think of it is as a word processor oriented toward the production of non-linear documents. Storyspace allows you to have multiple text windows ("writing spaces" in the software's terminology) on-screen simultaneously, and lets you use the mouse to click and drag hypertext links between them. The software also contains a number of powerful tools for visualizing or mapping the structure of your document: the interface is thus specifically designed to facilitate spatial thinking, in a way not unlike laying out note cards on a tabletop. Although Storyspace can export its files as simple HTML, it is important not to confuse its function with that of an HTML editor. Storyspace is not a toolkit for building Web pages; rather, it is a writing tool for managing complex document structures that do not conform to standard linear arrangements.

The software can be used for anything from organizing notes and research to the authoring of major projects. Storyspace also has an impressive record of innovative applications in fiction and creative writing; for example, Michael Joyce's landmark hypertext novel Afternoon was written in Storyspace. The software lends itself especially well to collaborative writing, with different authors contributing to different regions of the document. Finally, Storyspace has much potential for a variety of different classroom uses.

II. STARTING UP STORYSPACE:

To start Storyspace on the Dell PC, click on the Start button in the lower left hand corner of the screen, select Programs from the menu tray, select Hypertexts from the program menu, and select Storyspace from the Hypertexts menu. Click the mouse once on the Storyspace selection, and the program will load after a brief pause.

III. USING STORYSPACE:

What You See: The Storyspace Interface

The interface that is visible when the program loads may not be immediately intuitive. It has three distinct components. First, there is a lower-level window called Storyspace: Untitled, which contains a series of pull-down menus; some of these are familiar to Windows users, and some are unique to Storyspace. Second, on the left side of the screen is a small toolbar containing about a half-dozen different icons. Third, there is an upper-level window labeled Storyspace Map: Untitled. This window also contains a set of buttons and icons.

The Storyspace Map window is your basic working area. This is where you will construct and link writing spaces, and edit the text they contain. The Storyspace Map is the equivalent of a basic document in other word processing programs. When you use the Save function, for example, the current Map will be saved in its entirety, as a single "document"; in other words, you do not need to save the contents of individual writing spaces, and when you open any document, the software will open it with all the writing spaces it contains ready and available.

Creating Writing Spaces

Click on the top right icon in the toolbar at the left of the screen. When you move the mouse's pointer into the Map area, you will see a miniature window icon. Click once, and Storyspace will ask you to name the writing space (note that this is not the name of the document as a whole, but rather the name of an individual portion of the document). Once named, the writing space will appear within the Map window. There is no right or wrong way to create writing spaces: some users prefer to add them one at a time, as needed, while other users like creating many writing spaces at the outset and simply discarding those that go unused. As writing spaces begin to accumulate, you can re-arrange their position the screen by clicking and dragging with the mouse on the title bar.

Writing spaces can also be placed one inside the other, thus giving a document three-dimensional depth. To place a new writing space inside an existing writing space, simply position the creation icon within the space you want to subsume it. "Interior" writing spaces can be accessed by simply clicking on them like any other writing space. The up-arrow at the top left corner of the Map window will move you back up to your previous level. Once again, adding multiple levels to a document is a matter of personal taste; users will want to experiment to determine whether they find it helpful for their needs.

Adding Text to a Writing Space

Double-click on the title bar of the writing space (note that double-clicking within the writing space will move you down a document level; see above). You will see a basic text editor, with buttons at the top and bottom of the screen. Those on top should be fairly self-explanatory; those on the bottom are used for visualizing your document structure, and will be discussed in a later section. An individual writing space can store approximately 5000 words. Note that it is not necessary to "save" the contents of individual writing spaces; once again, Storyspace treats the Map as your basic document structure, and will preserve all text within all the writing spaces it contains when the Map is saved. Thus, individual writing spaces can be closed without your needing to save any of their contents.

Creating Links

Storyspace distinguishes between "basic links" (those which link two writing spaces) and "text links" (those which link text within two writings spaces). The latter most closely resembles the sort of hypertext link found on the World-Wide Web (for more on "basic links," see the Getting Started with Storyspace manual).

To create a "text link":

Use the mouse to highlight the word or words you want to be the origin of the link.
Click once on the link tool which is icon at the bottom of the right-hand column in the toolbar at the left of the screen (note that the link tool is not the large icon at the base of this toolbar).
You should see a radiating spoke extending from the original selected text; this is your link. At this point, you can either:
- Connect the link spoke to another writing space.
- Connect the link spoke to selected text within another writing space (to choose the destination text, simply highlight it with the mouse).
- Place the link in the "tunnel" (see below).
The tunnel is the large icon at the base of the toolbar on the left side of the screen. Its purpose is to hold an incomplete link while the user navigates the Map in order to find the link's destination. The tunnel becomes especially useful once there are more than a handful of writing spaces within the document; at that point, the complexity of the interface is such that use of the tunnel is almost mandatory.

To store an incomplete link in the tunnel, simply connect the link spoke to the tunnel icon. Having done so, you are free to navigate the Map until you've found the link's destination, at which point you can then simply click the tunnel icon once again to reactivate the link spoke and connect it to its desired destination. (Note that Storyspace also allows you to name links.)

Once the link is completed, you will see it appear on the Storyspace Map. Note that Storyspace, unlike HTML, does not change the color or appearance of the text that anchors a link. To view links you've within the text, hold down the control key; they will be highlighted. Note also that Storyspace supports more complex hypertext structures than those found on the WWW; for example, links can contain "guard fields" which will permit a reader to access them only if certain conditions, such as having followed an earlier link, are met. For more on guard fields and other Storyspace link features, see the Getting Started with Storyspace manual.

Text Notes

Storyspace allows you to easily add hypertext "notes" to your text. To create a note, highlight the word or words you want to be the origin of the note, and click the note icon, which is the * on the toolbar at the left side of the screen. Storyspace will automatically create a new writing space with the name of your selected text, and a hypertext link connecting it to your selected text. Notes are a part of the document just like any other writing space: they can be moved, they can be edited, and they will be displayed on the document Map.

Visualizing the Document Structure

This is one of Storyspace's most powerful and unique features; the software provides you with a number of different ways of visualizing your document structure and link hierarchies. The different views are activated by the buttons along the top of the Map window (or along the bottom of the text editing window). Different users prefer different views, and experimentation is the best way to determine which are helpful to you.

The Map View is the most powerful Storyspace view and the one used most frequently by writers. In the Storyspace view, writing spaces are drawn as boxes, and links are drawn as lines that connect the writing spaces. Spaces contained within other writing spaces are drawn in miniature and links to these spaces are not shown.
The Text Button opens a new text window showing the text space of the selected writing space. The text view contains three different control areas:
- The Control Strip: Located at the bottom of the window and is always visible
- The Edit Ruler: Located at the top of the window and is visible while editing the contents of the text space.
- The Path Browser: Located at the left edge of the window and is visible while browsing paths.
The Treemap View can view a large number of writing spaces very efficiently. It can display many levels of depth, but does not display link information. Click anywhere in the treemap to select a writing space. Double-click on a title bar to open a text view of that writing space; double-click inside a writing space to focus on that space.
The Outline View provides a view of the Storyspace hierarchy as an indented outline. Writing spaces appear as small bars; writing spaces contained within a space are indented beneath the space that contains them. Click on any item in the outline to select it, or double-click to open its text space.
The Chart View is similar to the Outline in that it displays the Storyspace hierarchy. Click on a writing space to select it, or double-click to open its text space.

See the Getting Started with Storyspace manual, Chapter 9, for a more detailed explanation of the different document views.

IV. SAVING AND/OR PRINTING YOUR WORK

Select Save or Save As from the File menu along the top of the screen. Storyspace saves documents (which consist of the contents of the Map window in their entirety) as its own proprietary .SSP format.

Note that you can use Storyspace as a "Reader" to browse other Storyspace authored documents, and you may also copy and distribute a limited version of the "Reader" to allow others to read your own Storyspace documents. N.B.: This is not carte blanche to copy the software! For more on these matters, see Getting Started with Storyspace.

Printing Storyspace Maps

Select a view or text window from the Windows menu.
Adjust the view options and scale to your liking.
Choose Page Setup. . .from the File menu to prepare your printer.
Choose Print. . .from the File menu.

For more information, see Getting Started with Storyspace, chapter 11.

N.B.: Storyspace is capable of importing text (.TXT) files.

Incorporating Images into Storyspace

Storyspace can accommodate bit-mapped (.BMP) images. For more information on incorporating images into a Storyspace document, see the Getting Started with Storyspace manual. If you plan to export your Storyspace document to the Web, I recommend waiting to add images until the files are in .HTM format; at that point, you can manually add the standard HTML image tags and point them at .GIFs or .JPGs.

Exporting Storyspace Documents to the World-Wide Web

Although it was not conceived for this purpose, and in fact pre-dates the Web by a number of years, later versions of Storyspace (including this one) will translate documents into simple HTML.

Remember that this conversion will create many HTML files. So before you start Storyspace you may want to make a new, empty, directory to receive these files.
If you want to export a specific space, or spaces on a path, use the arrow tool to select that space or a space on that path in a map view.
Open your Storyspace document, and edit it for use on the Web.
Choose Export. . .from the File menu. You will get the Export dialog box.
Select how much of the hypertext you want to export: the entire hypertext, the selected space, the selected space and the spaces it contains, or the spaces on the selected path. If you choose to export the writing spaces on a path, choose the desired path from the pop-up menu of links leading to and from the selected space.
Click the HTML format.
Press the Options button. You will see the HTML Export Options dialog box.
Press OK to dismiss the HTML Export Options dialog.
Press OK to dismiss the Export dialog.
You will get the standard Windows file dialog. Supply an appropriate directory and file name, and press OK to export the hypertext to HTML files in that directory.

Note that the translation process is somewhat complex, and users are advised to consult Chapter 12 of the Getting Started with Storyspace manual before exporting files to the Web. Note also that HTML does not accommodate all Storyspace features: guard fields, for example, have no HTML equivalent, and thus will not be translated. Each individual writing space will be exported as its own separate HTML file, and these .HTM files can then be tweaked and massaged using any text editor.