Great work, Smacky!

Nov/Dec 2005 Update

o Maybe I've been reading too many W3C Recommendations, but I've just completed the Modularization of Smacky's Guides[/i]. Basically this is splitting Game Mechanics into several smaller, topic-specific guides. It should make information easier to find as well as making it easier for me to update/expand Smacky's Guides in the future. Plus it means a 400% increase in the number of guides available, from 2 to 8, so it looks as if I have done lots of work. :wink:

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I am more or less happy with the layout of Smacky's Guides now. As such, structurally they should be fairly stable for the foreseeable future and I can update the guides for B4 and think about adding new content (textual and graphical), probably in the new year.

I am, however, always happy to listen to suggestions.

Jan/Feb 2006 Update

This was just meant to be the addition of a new guide to cover the basics of the magic system, but as usual it turned into a major update. I then made the mistake of posting a "ready by" date which guaranteed it wouldn't be ready by then. My latest punishment for my optimism is a nasty cold. I know when I'm beaten so I've just released an incomplete update. I'll fill in the gaps as and when.

• Wrote Smacky's Guide To Magic.
  
  
• In doing this, had an idea to improve the structure of Smacky's Guides. Took bloody ages to make the changes throughout! (This probably won't be particularly exciting if you're already familiar with Smacky's Guides but should make them slightly easier to read and navigate for new readers and easier and quicker for me to amend/update.)
  
  
• Updated sundry other sections.
• Added eyecandy. :shock:
• Had breakfast.

[/size]

I need some input.

Currently Smacky's Guide are split into several (mostly) relatively short sections per guide. This is partly to help me organise things while I develop the guides.

However, it is not necessarily the best format from the reader's perspective.

It may make the guides more readable to combine certain sections or even to have one guide per page in the long run.

This would certainly make printing a hardcopy, if anyone does that, easier.

It would also mean I could streamline the guides somewhat as I wouldn't need to repeat certain information between sections to have those sections make sense on their own, if you follow.

OTOH, short sections (as now) may make it easier to go straight to the precise information you want (as there is no search facility).

They also mean slightly shorter download and rendering times which may be relevant to people on dialup (then again, Smacky's Guides are mainly only text with no fancy tables, etc.)..

So what, if anything, does anyone suggest?

Don't worry about the current lack of navigation links. I plan to address that but it will require some work on DaiDoc itself and I'd rather spend my time fiddling with the actual guidea right now.

That's actually punishment because I went over last month. But worry ye not, everything is under control. Expect something nice by next weekend.

Thanks Weimar.

The new organisation, although not wildly different from the old, should make it easier to use the guides for reference (that's what they're intended for). I've also made efforts to make them more approachable to new players (that is, you can take a guided path through the two or three pages dealing with char creation).

Printing  is (actually, will be before the weekend) also better supported. I haven't directly done a summary for printing, although such a thing does exist for Character (again, to help newbies). Reference sheets are a good idea. Give me some time to think about that.

EDIT: I forgot, I'm looking at options to make the guides searchable.

Cheers Skat, and grats on getting 1st and 2nd. I'm up to 10 ATM lol. BTW, if anyone writes a nice sentence or two about the guides, not me, it goes into Endorsements (hint hint).