📘 A Book About Hype (2020 Print Edition)

A post was merged into an existing topic: Visual Studio Code Snippets, for rapid Hype API function lookups

Here’s a little preview of what I’m working on…

Did I miss a “frustrated with puzzle” button? :rofl:

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A post was split to a new topic: Photics-Physics Bridge – Name The Function

Not sure I’ll do anything significant with it though. What do you think?

    • You should totally put the template files on GitHub
    • I don’t understand what this means.

0 voters

I was surprised to see this…

Circles With Grandma was mentioned. I wasn’t planning on including it in the book, but I didn’t think it would help thousands of people either. It was just a little pencil game I played with my Grandma and my Aunts when I was little.

So, I suppose this is another opportunity for a poll.

Do you want tutorials on existing Hype games by Photics?

  • Yes! I would like a tutorial on Cabling and/or Circles With Grandma
  • No! I’d rather see other topics.

0 voters

Since this is to be a printed book, it’s not easily searchable like a PDF or eBook. So…

Do you want an Index?

    • Yes
    • No
    • I don’t know

0 voters

Why is this even a question - of course a printed technical book needs an index!

Let me guess it is a PITA - having done more than a few indexes for (printed) tech books in my time. :crazy_face:

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Ha ha. Good response!

It's not so much about the tedium, as creating an Index is a welcome change of pace. I could finally put my computer back in dark mode (it's been in light mode for better screenshots) and I could play my music — two things I can't do while writing actual content.

The reason it's a question is because an index can take up a large part of the book.

A typical index for an ordinary book takes up about 5% of the pages. That’s an index for a 100-page book that’s 5 pages long. But many books are not typical.

Since the goal is 500 pages, that could be 25 pages of just indexing. That's why the poll exists. Would you rather have more Hype coverage or should the book be easier to search?

The feedback is good. I'll wait to see if there are more votes.

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Here’s just a quick update.

With about 60 pages left, and a big chunk of that is just the index, you’d think I’d just wrap it up. But noooooooo… I had to go crazy. :crazy_face:

I noticed that a lot of people want to use Hype to build full websites. While that’s probably not a good idea, Hype can be very useful in certain situations. I started thinking about the advantages of Hype. That’s when I started liking the idea of building a website with Hype. Well… a landing page… and it would be for the book itself.

The last chapter in A Book About Hype is about building the landing page for A Book About Hype. It’s one of those Shakespearian “play within a play” kind of things. So, I started working at it… and I was hating it. I’m like, this doesn’t look very good. Am I sure I want to do this? That’s when I stumbled upon a nice effect…

a-book-about-hype-effect

It was created entirely in Hype — so nice! After making it, I hit the reload button a lot. (Ha ha, I was too amazed to simply put the animation on loop.) I don’t know if I’ll keep the effect, as it doesn’t work well on Firefox or Chromium browser, but it looks like the end is in sight. I think this is the right direction for the rest of the book.


UPDATE: HA HA… typical!

Looks like Lulu changed their book sizes when they updated their website. 8.25 x 10.75 doesn’t seem to be available. Looks like I’m going to have to reflow the whole book at 8.5 x 11. :man_facepalming:t2:

Performance or something else? Chrome can sometimes benefit by toggling the "Use WebKit Graphics acceleration" and all browsers can benefit from smaller sizes with filter effects.

Ouch :angry:.

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I think it's performance and maybe the way graphics are handled. On Firefox, it doesn't do anything. The letters just appear. It's a new project, so graphics acceleration is on by default.

Ah, that's pretty close to the target. With about 100 pages of indexing left to go, I'm estimating that the Index will be about 20 pages. I didn't even stretch it out either. I decreased the font size, lowered the leading, as compared to the regular body copy. I wasn't too redundant, but tried to make it easy for searching.

Apparently, I like to use the word "quick" a lot, but that's not in the index. The overwhelming majority of the list is just technical terms.

It's kinda mind-boggling, how it takes pages and pages to list what there is to cover about a topic. :exploding_head:

Anyway, it shouldn't be much longer now. The last chapter is about building a webpage in Hype.

I wasn't too keen on the idea when starting this book. I didn't think Hype would be very good for building a website. Yet, I tried it. I knew other people were doing it, so I wanted to help them at least minimize the damage.

That's a web.dev report. Heh, not bad. Hype was way better than I thought it would be.

If you want to receive a notification when the book is available, heart the second post in this thread.

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Creating the Index was fairly easy. Double-checking the Index — that sucked! :smile:

I'm waiting for the files to process, so I can order a proof copy.


Update...

Screen Shot 2020-05-16 at 9.38.52 PM

If the book looks good, then I can open it up for sale.

Note — Since the plan is to only offer the book through Lulu, there is no ISBN.


Another Update...

Now that the project is done, and there's not much to do but wait, I'm feeling kinda nervous. Heh, but then I saw this...

Screen Shot 2020-05-17 at 7.17.45 AM

...they're making the book! There really is something special about a physical book. I don't remember this sense of excitement and anticipation over a digital book. Although, I've made printed books before too... somehow... this feels different. The project was massive.


Yet Another Update...

Looks like Lulu is pulling a Darth Vader.

Screen Shot 2020-05-18 at 6.53.19 PM

I'm altering the date. Pray I don't alter it any further.


Angry Update...

(╯° °)╯︵ ┻━┻

I don't have to put up with this. If I wanted to be treated like this, I could make iOS apps :stuck_out_tongue:

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Congratulations on getting to the point where you can see the book finish line. Consider me virtually standing in line to purchase the book, when available. PM :smiley:

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The line is moving faster away than I can get to it. HA HA. Wait 24 hours and the date moves away 48 hours. Obviously the book is too big. They had to go kill some more trees.

You're on the list to be notified. For anyone else just wandering in, and you want to be notified, heart the second post... 📘 A Book About Hype (2020 Print Edition) - #2 by Photics


UPDATE...

If this keeps up, I might have to print the books myself...

...nah, I think I'll just wait. HA HA. :smile:

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I was getting dangerously close to becoming a bookmaker.

First I saw this…

…and this…

…and later this…

7

Between the last two, I started looking at this…

…hmm… I could actually make my own books. It was very tempting. Yet, I remembered that Lulu did a good job. Patience is needed during the pandemic, so I focused my attention back on the Widgets app…

I’ve been working on building a dictionary database for Widgets/Apparatuses.

So I go to sleep… I wake up… check my email… I see one email… Thunderbird needs a restart though… so I restart it… go to the inbox… ah… it’s an email from Lulu — Your Order Has Shipped.

That’s two days from now! It’s also the same day SpaceX is “Returning Human Space Flight to the United States”.

That really matches with the illustration on the homepage of Lulu.com.

Hopefully the SpaceX mission is successful…
…and hopefully I don’t need to print another proof copy. :rocket:

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It’s here!

…banana for scale. :smile:


https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/michael-garofalo/a-book-about-hype/hardcover/product-49qk9k.html


Lulu is having a sale right now. With the code “15OFF” you can save 15% off print products — which this is a print product. See the website for details. (The sale ends May 28 at 11:59 PM eastern time.)

Wow, the book feels good. It’s kinda heavy, but not too heavy. (Shipping notes said four pounds. That’s 1.8 kilograms.) The pages are thick. It’s 60# (90 GSM) white paper. It’s not absolute printing perfection, but it’s OK. There are minor flaws, but it feels like a real textbook. The text is big, so it’s easier on your eyes.

The book was written to help you to make the Internet a more wonderful place. I worked really hard on it, so hopefully you enjoy it. THANKS! :blush:

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Honking Horn right Congrats Michael! Honking Horn left

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Has the coupon code worked for anyone outside the United States?