change_instructions_navigator

At first, I did some experimentation with <a href="https://gitlab.com/homebrew-browsergames">browsergame programming</a> (not casual games, but with server-side persistence) attempting to build/generate “worlds” while avoiding the need to hand-design everything in a time-consuming process. One result was a <a href="https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=_BR7jj7EGnL">world editor</a> that served as an image composer (using GDLib for PHP) and primitive image map manipulator at a time where HTML5 canvas wasn’t there yet. It constantly keeps me thinking about <a href="https://skreutzer.de/2018/07/11/hypercard/">HyperCard</a>. Inspired by Jason Scott’s “Get Lamp”, I completed a small example project of <a href="https://www.we-teve.com/watch/lO6ibXlj2JjIk">individual PHP pages for a text-based browsergame using HTML forms</a> and later another one with a <a href="https://gitlab.com/homebrew-browsergames/technologietutorials/tree/master/tutorial_text_browsergames_mit_ajax_und_php">simple command parser with PHP and AJAX</a>. Later, I wanted to improve my note-taking in printed German Bible translations, in particular I wanted to produce my own interleaved editions. Soon I learned that digital Public Domain German Bible texts are usually not true to their printed originals, so I had to start a <a href="http://www.freie-bibel.de/official/projekt/bibeldigitalisierung.html">digitalization and proofread effort</a> (<a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/TiIIClt2XnkT/">more</a>) first. From a semantically annotated XML source, it was easy to generate a modern XHTML reproduction of the text and then PDF layouts via XSL:FO and LaTeX. I was looking into SILE and recently PoDoFo as PDF generator backends (former accepts XML as input, latter is an C++ API that still needs a XML frontend) but didn’t invest too much into supporting them yet. Finally I achieved the original goal of generating <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/mEyD20YdOw5u/">interleaved PDFs</a> for printing, and thanks to the advent of print-on-demand, I’m now able to order <a href="https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=GkNrv_mWA8i">hardcover thread-stitched books</a> in a quantity as low as a single copy (not even to mention the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/BnlTqsYnxNTD/">magazine variant</a> or the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/ykUuZcvpCzHg/">DIN A6</a> or <a href="http://skreutzer.de/glaube/druckerzeugnisse.html">DIN A4</a> variants out of my DIN A3 monochrome duplex laser printer). One proofreader introduced me to EPUB, which of course made sense to add as an output format and eventually got me interested in e-publications, e-ink based devices and the publishing industry in general. Somehow I discovered a Wiki for creating a new libre-freely licensed German Bible translation collaboratively by using a parser that extracts OSIS from the online Wikitext of the MediaWiki software, and for a church congress event we hacked together a semi-automatic workflow that generated the PDF of the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/gU4qQOQZynEs/">study version of the Gospel according to Mark</a>. As I didn’t want to change my existing tools to OSIS as input format and most of the time I didn’t even need the advanced OSIS features, I just internally converted OSIS to my Zefania-XML-based Haggai XML format and made a few adjustments for being able to produce the usual output formats <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/zVMGJ8v4qOog/">XHTML</a>, <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/phqTAzL9WFf5/">PDF</a> and <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/WsPL4WC9OlZl/">EPUB</a>. Another project was the conversion from the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/l7aitDZ96GDR/">“verse-per-line” format to Haggai XML</a>, not too different from another similar <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/KcnDtsY0cjbc/">CSV to XHTML to EPUB project</a>. In the e-book hype of those days, I failed to see why other publications should be produced in a different way than my Bible reproductions (based on concepts like workflow automatization, digital-first, XML-first, single-source publishing, multi-channel publishing, etc) as generating <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/ITlk7jjexgva/">EPUB</a>s and <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/EFz4Gk146s15/">PDF</a>s could easily be generalized and later the entire <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/lvZ3D5Fs1enl/">workflow</a> (shorter, silent <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/wXdpphXuqRjv/">video</a>). I added a converter from ODT to XHTML, so OpenOffice/LibreOffice can be used as a writing tool as long as predefined styles are used to introduce WYSIWYM to the document in lack of a better editor. For being able to offer it as a service to self-publishers, I wrote a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/VrAwB92QqUOk/">frontend</a> in PHP that invoked the very same Java code via system calls on a vServer, only adding administrative functionality like user or publication project management (the latter should have become part of the Java package eventually). I even went to some book fairs and more obscure events of the e-book avantgarde, so I know a few people from those worlds and their mentality. From such occations, I picked up two of my major projects in that space, one is uploading <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/CTwgzo6Wax1y/">EPUBs via XHTML to WordPress by using the XML-RPC API</a> (again, there’s an <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/Z4BiakmEyBz0/">online version</a> of it using the same Java code behind a PHP wrapper), which then wasn’t used in production as the guy who needed it produced EPUBs the WYSIWYG way and naturally wanted this manual typesetting to be preserved in the blog post, while I cared about WYSIWYM instead. With that workflow already available, I got into contact with one of the guys who are behind several amazing projects, and as they went into the business of running an online e-book store, they got a lot of e-books from publishers along with ONIX metadata file(s), so the job was to import all of the ONIX metadata to WordPress and even update existing records. My attempt was never finished because the shop was shut down after some time, probably in part due to my lack of supporting them well/soon enough as I encountered several problems with the testing environment, WordPress and my not-so-hacky, not-so-smart, not-so-agile workflows. But even without completing this mechanism, I went beyond this particular use case and did some general ONIX work. Smaller projects include the subversion of placebo non-digital whishful thinking by a self-publishing site that <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/LzvvFWeOqMX7/">disabled the download button</a> without any technical effect, a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/VqKazvriDFdj/">GUI frontend for epubcheck</a>, a <a href="https://skreutzer.de/2016/10/15/goodbye-mobileread-com/">failed attempt</a> to enlist “e-book enthusiasts” for building a digital library, an importer in PHP (SAX) from <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/GOJd7lE4qpQw/">Twine to Dembelo</a> (was later rewritten by the Dembelo lead developer in more modern PHP), a parser for a Markdown-like <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/aB9K3IYmREzG/">note taking language to XHTML and LaTeX</a> (interest for learning about writing parsers for domain-specific languages came from the Wikitext to OSIS parser I still didn’t find the time to revisit), a <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ccyfi">Twitch Video Uploader</a> using their API (but I guess it’s broken now because of their “Premiere” nonsense) and a <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/clients/tree/master/org.wiktionary/wiktionary_dump_to_xml_1">Wiktionary Wikitext parser</a> that generates a XML of German nouns with their respective articles plus the Arabic translations from the big monthly backup dump (to be turned into several <a href="https://refugee-it.de/downloads.php">word lists</a> for learning). As I grew more frustrated about traditional publishers, self-publishers, e-book “pirates”, the average reader and the big enterprises who use digital to exploit those who don’t understand it properly, the arrival of refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Africa in Europe forced me to focus on way more serious things than our digital future. Only a tiny fraction of time investment went into software development. All other civic tech programmers lost interest after only 1/2 years, and I joined the game late where the momentum was already gone. Most of my attempts to build software for helping out with solving some of the issues are targeted towards volunteers, for instance the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZcD03t6eOJ6a/">ticket system</a>, the <a href="https://gitlab.com/refugee-it/petition_system">petition system</a>, the <a href="https://gitlab.com/refugee-it/AutoMailer">AutoMailer</a> for mass mailings via PHPMailer, the <a href="https://gitlab.com/refugee-it/asylum_event_system">asylum event system</a> or the <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/il4KSccowCyG/">case management system</a> as it turned out to be incredibly difficult to get refugees themselves involved with anything that’s not the Facebook app or WhatsApp, be it the one-way <a href="https://gitlab.com/refugee-it/message_system">message system</a> or the <a href="https://gitlab.com/refugee-it/clients/tree/master/com.dw/langsam_gesprochene_nachrichten_downloader_1">downloader for the “Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten” by Deutsche Welle</a> via their RSS feed. Even those for the German volunteers were only sporadically used, except the AutoMailer, which was a success; it did its job according to plan. One project remains incomplete due to lack of time, it’s an attempt to build an <a href="https://gitlab.com/VoterFlow/voterflow">online voting system</a> that ended up as a good exercise for learning ReST concepts as a fully functional system would require a lot more conceptual planning. Entering the Hypertext space, I did experimentation by developing a variant of Ted Nelson’s <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/d7K40EEWsk1F/">span selector in Java</a>, a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/UQGtn2JYrIjY/">text editor that tracks all changes</a> in <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/digital_publishing_workflow_tools/tree/master/htx/gui/change_tracking_text_editor/change_tracking_text_editor_1">Java</a> (<a href="http://hypertext-systems.org/downloads.php">download</a>) coming with a way to <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/DDoB92U4pD4g/">visualize the changes</a> as well as still disfunctional editors in <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/tracking_text_editor_1/tree/master/cpp-qt4/1">C++/Qt4</a> and JavaFX, a converter from Ted’s <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/T401PtUsV78E/">EDL format to XML</a>, a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/UZmca59a20Ez/">downloader/retriever</a> for EDLs in XML form and a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/bbz7Lv83NLS9/">workflow</a> that glues together the retrieval of such EDLs in XML form and the concatenation of text portions from the obtained resources in order to construct the base text of the document. Originally started for the XML frontend for PoDoFo, I completed an early first version of a <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/CppStAX">StAX parser in C++</a> (and later a <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/CppRStAX">StAX parser to read XML in backwards/reverse direction</a>), but then was able to quickly port it to <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/JsStAX">JavaScript</a>, which was handy to handle the embedded XHTML WordPress blog post content as provided via the JSON API as I didn’t want to use DOM, contributing to an <a href="https://gitlab.com/publishing-systems/Journal">independent read-only client for the Doug@50 Journal and HyperGlossary</a> (<a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/Nu2Cv9fc8cvT">video</a>). After abandoning the browser due to its CORS nonsense and lack of proper local file access, I finally added a <a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/agkvwxYtL6YD/">WordPress blog post retriever</a> to be combined with the automatic converters to HTML, EPUB and PDF (<a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/5hOPSTRLs7S4">video</a>). I briefly worked on the side on a project to introduce semantic annotation (“linked data”) and tooling for it to Bible texts, using the specific example of marking people and places in the Public Domain German Luther 1912 Bible translation as there was renewed interest as a result of the 500 year anniversary of the reformation. As it turned out to the surprise for some (not me), <a href="http://www.freie-bibel.de/official/bibel/luther/luther_1912/information/archivierte_diskussion_luther_1912.html">no digital version of the Luther 1912 text is authentic</a> according to any printed original to our knowledge, so another <a href="http://www.freie-bibel.de/official/bibel/luther/luther_1912/">analysis and proofread effort</a> was necessary. An existing source <a href="http://www.freie-bibel.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=74">became usable</a> after a format transformation from flat CSV to hierarchical XML plus wrapping Strong numbers in XML tags instead of XML markers/milestones, plus converting that arbitrary, custom XML format as derived from the CSV to Haggai XML, plus textual correction. Unable to find somebody who would collaborate on building a decent hypertext system, I started <a href="https://gitlab.com/skreutzer/sos-experimental">experimentation/prototyping</a> “groupware” for <a href="https://worldie.com/media/viewvideo/199">modeling the causes and effects</a> in complex situations/systems, to then identify issues and eventually make proposals of how to address them, along the lines of applied systems theory and practical cybernetics. Still, the goal remains to build new and better hypertext systems based on ideas by the <a href="https://archive.org/details/ComputerNetworks_TheHeraldsOfResourceSharing">early Internet pioneers</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5PgQS3ZBWA&list=PLCGFadV4FqU3flMPLg36d8RFQW65bWsnP">Douglas Engelbart</a> (see <a href="https://archive.org/details/000127EngelbartColloquiumPart1">Engelbart Colloquium Session 4A</a> from 38:00 on and <a href="https://archive.org/details/000127EngelbartColloquiumPart2">Engelbart Colloquium Session 4B</a> from 44:00 on, but especially from 49:19), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3I54QXQPLA">Ted Nelson</a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2GylLq59rI">web pioneers</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrhM6uXMLZg&list=PLZQMfWBUelIge46VFOd53V1IhW-UzHScK">David Gelernter</a> and <a href="https://skreutzer.de/2018/06/27/federated-wiki/">Ward Cunningham</a>, as in part wonderfully presented by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4">Bret Victor</a>. Precondition is <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html">libre-free licensing</a> for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASJ6V4AbW1I">software</a> as well as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eginMQBWII4">text/media</a> in order to advance the formation of the libre-free, digital and always printable <a href="https://archive.org/details/GoogleAndTheWorldBrain_201611">universal library</a> augmented for the user with the help of curatable semantic encoding and powerful, combinable software capabilities. The website of this effort is <a href="http://hypertext-systems.org">hypertext-systems.org</a>. There’s also a <a href="https://skreutzer.de/htx/de_skreutzer_20181116T194237Z_short_description_of_the_htx_system.txt">short introduction to the system design approach</a>. This text is licensed under the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html">GNU Affero General Public License 3 + any later version</a> and/or under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International</a>.