Where are these zip archives I've heard so much about then eh?

Zipped up in a duffel bag in Slough.

shrinkwrapped:
>Where are these zip archives I've
>heard so much about then eh?

Coincidentally, I've started them today. It's a ghastly, complicated process - Digiworld wasn't designed for offline reading, what with all the little "special bits," so I'm having systematically to unknot them from the basic "here is page. Read page with face" version you're going to get.

(No working remote, for example; no fancy Javascript reveals (Hurrah! - People with out-of-date, bugged browsers who nevertheless blamed Digiworld for vanishing reveals, the clots); no display prefs (as this would involve manually compiling thousands of pages to reflect every possible combo); and drastically reduced ability to deflect bullets.)

No idea how long this will take. The site space is paid up for six months, so that's some kind of deadline, I suppose. Current thinking is to have my universally compatible display style (no surround, Courier Bold, blue background, flush left, Original Remote: just about fits on a 640x480 screen) and, provided it's the straightforward search-and-replace I anticipate, an alternative archive of the next most popular style (Snoy Widescreen, Courier, black background, centred, Black Remote, 1024x768). Any thoughts, etc, post here where I can pretend I hadn't seen them and carry on anyway.

JN.

Aha, well, good luck with that. As long as the site doesn't suddenly dissappear and all hope of the archives fanishes, I shall be content to wait. Not that I have much choice in the matter.

shrinkwrapped:
>Not that I have much choice in the matter

Here's a thing. So far I'm on ish 1 Wednesday - exactly halfway through the first week, in other words. The Digiworld SCIENCE was carefully arranged to minimise tedious back-breaking labour: a complete Fact Shovel, for example, is just some text and a pointer to the guest commentator's pic; the SCIENCE then works out the sub-page links, formats everything using your display prefs, automatically calcs reveals, etc.

For the archive version, I have to view and save each page individually, then adapt it to run offline. Tedious back-breaking labour. Discounting the pictures (as they don't need twiddling) the half of ish 1 so far converted comes to a colossal 88 separate pages. Temporarily ignoring the fact ish 1 was the shortest and simplest, that makes the archive at the moment 1,408 files requiring manual fixing. All for YOU, our lovely readers. And you didn't even have to pay for it, I am informed by ship-to-coast call from Popular and the Rev, though it was hard to make out over the background noise of nude pogoing in piles of banknotes.

JN.

yes yes, we're all very grateful.
now get back to work

Good Lord.

I'm not sure I want to put anyone through that. Could you not just do a screen grab of each page as a .gif (with the reveals showing)? You could let us fiddle with the display of the TV etc as usual, if it's just a border for the gifs. If it's an archive bandwidth wouldn't be such an issue, nor would download speed.

Although I'm sure you've already considered the alternatives to your monkey work, (including getting an actual monkey to do it?) there must be a simpler, if less completist way.

But care is why we love J Nash (and some other people) so much. That and the ever popular housewives' favourite 'the other one was me as well thanks to an administrative error' gag which - surely!- we would have been treated to had Digiworld lasted another three days.

And then the crowd baying for blood all selfishly shout in unison "AND WHEN YOU'VE DONE THAT, UPDATE HOUSE OF NASH YEAH? NO YOU CAN'T HAVE A BREAK. THANKS." Poor, POOR J Nash.

But remember kids, even TV's famous Jesus Christ had to suffer in order to save mankind from his sins. So it is with Digiworld. Or something.

Like Jesus Digi has also risen from the grave and ("PRETTY FLOWER" - Ed)ed off down the pub to get away from the rowdy crowds.

Dear Mr Nash

While you're talking unto the fans, would it be too pushy to ask also for some more of The Weekly? Not content with everything being excellently archived, it'd be nice to see some of the series 1 stuff that didn't get re-used. Are those old offline zips still available anywhere? I seem to remember an especially brillo short story (slightly more serious I recall) about an army of skeletons attacking a ship, or something. Thanks in advance!

Cheeri-o!

Can't you just hire some worker Elves to do it all?


giant_frying_pan

UPDATE. There's probably some crafty way to do it all semi-automatically by adjusting the SCIENCE to emit "local" links rather than "special Geraldines," but I know I'd end up poking through it for years fixing little bits I'd suddenly noticed, so the read-it-save-it-convert-it method for each page is the most straightforward.

Ish 1 was the trickiest; with all the beardy-weirdy bits worked out, ish 2 was transferred much more quickly. I estimate I could slog through an ish a day (ie, the whole day) which may or may not happen. Anyway, the sinister conversion process is more or less under control, which is the reassuring thing. Hurrah! UPDATE ENDS.

JN

Can you not use the almighty power of Applescript to automate the conversion process?

MINI SHOVEL (UPDATE). Finished ish 5 last night.

Bloke who said, "Why not do GIFs? Then you could still have the display prefs," a while back in a message I can't be bothered looking up properly, because you can't quote multiple messages anyway, etc:

That wouldn't work for some reasons. For example, the GIFs would all have to be snapped individually anyway (so that's still sitting there 2,000 times; more, in fact, as my screen can't hold a full ttext page, so I'd have to glue bits of picture together) and probably look different to your font setup (as the pics would be of mine). Also, there'd be no way to have different TV surrounds without frames, which I'm not going to use because it would fail. And! you'd be scuppered if you were blind or something. Plus! correcting any typos and so on would be impossible. So: no GIFs.

Bloke who said, "Why not use Applescript?":

Eh? It'd be a million times easier to adapt the SCIENCE to emit archive-ready pages in the first place, as mentioned in a previous message. But that won't work because I know I'd be COMPELLED BY INVIOLABLE UNIVERSAL LAWS to adapt the SCIENCE in such a way that the entire eight-ish run could be converted by clicking a single neat button, this preparatory adaptation process taking approximately exactly the same time anyway as manual editing.

Hideously, individual conversion IS the most straightforward method, as new little bits have to be added to each page (non-repeating "highlight" and "banner" sections, for instance). Now we're over halfway through, it's merely a regimented factory production-line slog FOR YOU, with Popular and the Rev empathetically punching each other in the gums. FEEL THE DIGIWORLD LOVE. FEEL IT, DAMN YOU.

JN.

i feel it.

...No.

May as well say the offline archive's up to ish 8 now (just excitingly added the sensationally dull, entirely factual ECTS game list copied straight from gamespress.com, which a bloke from Codemasters wrote in to complain contained a spelling error, which obviously was their fault in the first place because we pasted the list directly from their uploaded "press release." Once again, somehow we win) so it can't be long before the blimmin' thing approaches completion.

I wouldn't pin your holiday plans on it though, and in that vein The Day of the Jackal regrettably missed the chance in the opening sequence for that supremely confident plot-engineering colonel to say "Oh no! My wife!" as the firing squad obeyed orders to shoot him after all.

Incidentally, here's a thing. The Day of the Jackal: a chilly, scientific examination of the meticulous preparation of Edward Fox to assassinate de Gaulle - a story of tension, suspense and painstaking, outwitting analysis by both criminal and lawbloke. The remake, The Jackal: Bruce Willis buys a remote-controlled field gun over the Internet which is accurate across a mile and fits inside the back of a van - a story of a man who has some slight trouble finding a place to park. These cretins are idiots.

JN.

I...

.......

....yes. Yes, there it is.

EDIT: That was re feeling the digi love. I should've quoted but I am stupid.

Well that's a rather depressing start to page 2 >:(

*shish does the "I want the archives" dance

Yes, it would have been funnier if it went on the end of the page before really.

Still though.

*does the happy happy dance dance of archiveal joy*

The foul cur. I hope you sent him packing with a swift box of the ears.