Nyx - The FlashTease Editor - Public Preview Release

[seraph0x]

Gotta ask though ..... the "Coming Soon" button is still grayed out. Is it possible you have something even greater planned? How can you top this? Parting the Red Seas?

We have a project (sometimes called "The Secret Project") which is based on a concept I wrote in 2004 and have been changing and improving ever since. FlashTeases are just an early spin-off of this project, one piece of the puzzle so to speak. There will be several other spin-offs that will all be launched as separate features before we finally put it all together.

as much as i appreciate authers want theyre teases to be viewed a certain way - its the user that should be able to have control i feel

thats why i tend to get bored of pcmistress type programs but have stayed here at milovana since it started

And that's precisely why I kept FlashTeases and regular teases as two separate things.

FlashTeases put it on the author to take care of pacing, to anticipate the viewer's every move, every situation that could possibly arise must be considered. On the other hand, this power in the right hands can lead to mindblowing results.

Regular teases are more like reading a book, you get to take breaks, skip ahead etc. at your own time. You can follow the suggestions or ignore them. Authors can concentrate on the writing, the scenario, the characters and selecting the right images. No distracting features to think about. You can read regular teases on your PDA and you can even enjoy them through a speechreader if you're visually impaired.

So you see both of these have their place and that's why we'll keep them alive as distinct art forms.

How about a SAVE option, to restore session?

Hmm, interesting suggestion. Ok, so let's consider this. Technically it's pretty complex but not impossible of course. So the question is: Is it worth the effort? I've always seen a tease as one session, but now I see our authors starting to write teases with over a hundred pages and I'm not so sure anymore. Another question: Should the author be allowed to control when you can save? For FlashTeases it's important that the author has some idea of where you're at. Did you just start the session or have you been at it for two hours? Saving and loading could screw that up pretty thoroughly. I'm interested to hear your opinions. But since this thread is already more than long enough, I've started one specifically for this topic here, so please post your opinions on the saving/loading suggestion there.

I'm trying to use range() and it kind of works except it always says all actions are set.

Range takes three parameters: The first two are the actual range (in numbers) and the last one is a prefix. So instead of "range(page2,page3)" try this:

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range(2,3,'page')

Also please note that range has PCM2-style behavior by default and every page/action that has been shown once is considered set and won't be considered for range() again. (Unless you unset it.)

The final version of the FlashTease system will have a much better option for random pages/randomness in general. We just didn't have the time to work on that yet.

I also wanna announce that I'll try to work on the FlashTease help system a bit more. I'd like to release it before the end of 2007.

[Xenophobe]

but then the horny peaple trying to follow the teases just gte frustrated (not in a good way ) and give up - thats whats happened to me with the new flash teases that have recently been put up - i just dont have the time to wait till the tease thinks im ready to continue, ive read the sentence of the tease now i want to continue - making me stare at that just makes me bored...

I think what you're saying is reasonable but I think the way to resolve it is simply to give those teases that are boring (because of bad timing, for lack of a better phrase) a lower rating. (once flash teases can be rated of course). Then, if tease authors are at all motivated at making highly-rated teases (and, I think they are), their timing will improve naturally.

And like Seraph0x is saying, it's not like the non-flash teases are going away.

[sexualreflex]

ah sorry for the fuss - i was worried that the nyx editor was going to replace the current set up - its good to know there should still be some static teases every so often

[kneeforu]

I tried the new style of range code that seraph0x described and I still can't get it to function properly.

I tried:

go(range(2,5,'page'))

Anyone else have any luck with this?

[seraph0x]

I tried the new style of range code that seraph0x described and I still can't get it to function properly.

I tried:

go(range(2,5,'page'))

Anyone else have any luck with this?

Just tried it myself and didn't have any luck either. Apparently I didn't implement the prefix feature yet. (D'oh.)

So for now you have to name your actions #1, #2, #3, #4, etc. and then just use range(2,4).

Sorry for the confusion and the inconvenience that you now have to rename all "page3#" to "3#". It's beta software and there is so much to do, I barely know where to start.

[kneeforu]

You da man!!!! That code works by changing the page name to 2#, 3# etc....

Now that opens up some good possibilities!

Thanks!

[Qwert]

Hello i have a big problem with upload image. When i click upload then shows up 2 errors:

[IOErrorEvent type="ioError" bubbles=false cancelable=false eventPhase=2 text="Error #2038"]

[HTTPStatusEvent type="httpStatus" bubbles=false cancelable=false eventPhase=2 status=404

Title of this picture is 1.jpg

I use Mozilla Firefox

Anybody know something.

[seraph0x]

Thanks Qwert for the report. There is no obvious reason for this bug. Maybe it's related to the Mac-Upload-Bug. I'll put it on the todo list.

In three days I'll fly back to London which means in a week or so I'll start to tick off that list.

[Evals]

Man, I've just realized how invaluable the goto and reset buttons in the preview when you need them.

Something that would help a lot in this tease I'm working on would be if, when you have a list of buttons to click to change the page, that list would be vertically centered. The top button of the list and then everythings falls below it to end up in the second half of the viewer.

I've got a large list of nine buttons and it barely fits. I'm at 1024x768 with a micro skin on Firefox. I'm worried that people with bulkier browser toolbars won't be able to see all the buttons when they need to!

[submatt]

Well, now that I've done some testing of the Nyx, here are some notes:

1) Maybe you could make this thread a permanent link - took me forever to look it up when I was trying to re-find the instructions.

2) Hitting Publish twice. Apparently, not a problem. I hit it several times to make changes after I'd published, and it was fine. Sorry - hadn't read the note about not doing it yet.

3) Picture quality obviously sucks. I would suggest that people resize their pictures to postcard size before importing them - rather, cut out the portion of the picture you most want to show up. Then they'll show up on the screen more the way you intended, and they'll load easier for the tease.

4) The editor overall is driving me crazy by not saving my work. I had a page in a tease that wasn't working, and I couldn't figure out why. So, I decided to delete the page and rewrite it. I hit save and ran a preview. It was still there the original way. I backed out of Nyx and went back in again. It was still there. I cleared my cache and restarted my computer. It was still there. Finally, when I deleted it and the page following it, cleared my cache, restarted my computer and went back, those two pages were gone. Then I was able to rewrite it.

5) Often when I restart Nyx, the Visual Editor elements will not show up. This kept happening on a tease with only 10 pages. Which meant I had to clear my cache and reload Nyx to get it to show up. And when you're trying to change one little thing to see if it works (see #4), that means every time you want to see a change, you have to clear your cache and reload Nyx. Driving. Me. Nuts.

6) The number of pages you can do is limited to around 72. After that, if you save your work and come back, they won't all show up in the Visual Editor. The workaround I've come up with is that you can do more if it's all in one sitting, but doing that many pages in one sitting is a lot to ask.

7) Ratings would be nice. May I suggest a flash tease of the year contest?

8) An end page. Maybe the ability to call any given page an end page, so you can have multiple endings.

9) I love that I can upload all of the pictures at once, but there needs to be some way to keep them in order - alphanumerical, folders, whatever.

10) Is there a way to do random pics, but have it only choose from a subset of pics?

Don't mean to bash it. I'm still having fun with it. Overall, I enjoy the flexibility Nyx gives me, and I've enjoyed playing with different ways of doing teases. But I'm getting very frustrated with it's flakiness. Once you work out the bugs, I'll be a lot happier.

[foofoof]

10) Is there a way to do random pics, but have it only choose from a subset of pics?

I think folder management will make it easier, however, at the moment you can use the asterisk with suitable filenames:

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a_*.jpg
b_*.jpg

The first one will only choose filenames beginning with "a_", and the second one only filenames beginning with "b_". So, call all images in one subset a_*, and so on.

[mae0314]

I didn't test it, but this should work too:

pic("*set01*.jpg")
and
pic("*set02*.jpg")

With pictures named:

set01_cool.jpg
set02_hot.jpg
set01_set02_medium.jpg

This way you could include the same picture in different sets.

[submatt]

Well, I've tried those suggestions, by all I get is a big pink question mark in the preview pane.

[foofoof]

I tested my version with this code, It worked perfectly:

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start#page(
'<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"><P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT FACE="FontSans" SIZE="22" COLOR="#FFFFFF" LETTERSPACING="0" KERNING="0">Test!</FONT></P></TEXTFORMAT>',
pic("image1*.jpg"),
go(start#)
);

[submatt]

Can you be more specific? Do you have more than one pic with 'image1' in the description? Do you have pics that do not have 'image1' in the description, and do they or do they not show up? Because if you just have 1 pic called 'image1', then of course that would work.