A text Myst Online project

[KathAveara]

D'ni LM maps the D'ni characters to special characters, whilst the current D'ni font maps them to upper and lower case letters. Here's an example of the two side-by-side:

!Sora .reKUan treKleft
!šora .rekúan trekleft

Ok, maybe not the best example in the world. Here's the full alphabet.

'.vbtsSjgykKaIfpiEeArmTdDhoOcwuUxlåzn
'.vbtsšjgyxkaáfpiíeérmþðhoóçwuúclæzn

One looks ugly, and one is hard to type. Well, even the current D'ni font has a hard-to-type character, å, unless you are very familiar with how to type them. I have become used the the second font, but I do reccomend the first font for the beginner.


A screenshot is attached.

[belford]

I came across the two different D'ni character encodings when I started to work on the project. However, I had trouble getting the LM version to work as a web font. That's why I went with the standard version. Must have been cosmic rays, though -- it's fine when I test it now.

http://eblong.com/zarf/tmp/ui-test/font-test.html

http://www.mystembassy.net/downloads/dnifontchart.pdf

I would be happy to switch in the LM version, but I only want to have a single version. Two is begging for confusion.

Unfortunately, the articles that I remember reading about the difference have all fallen offline. As I understand it, the LM (linguistic mapping) uses Latin characters that approximate the D'ni sounds (þ and ð for the "th" sounds, for example). This sounds better to me; if anybody has an objection, now's the time to raise it.

[Pavitra]

I would have thought that the more ASCII-ish version would be more in keeping with Seltani's philosophy of low barrier to entry, but if the people who've spent time actually using these fonts prefer LM, then I'd defer to them.

The font test page shows the current font correctly on my computer, but not the LM font. Could the difference be e.g. that you installed the font on your hard drive, so that it's displaying in your browser without the webfont thing working? (I confess I don't really understand the technology involved.)

[KathAveara]

Hence why I said give it the name dnilm, and only mention it as a footnote for the people who prefer it. Cyan's font is better for the beginner, while the LM is for people who moved away from Cyan's font.

[KathAveara]

My screenshot seems to have failed. Anyway, it says in transition where the Age name is, and that the booklet is empty, and it says it's not connected to the server if I try to type anything. Does that help? Oh, and there's nothing in the window

[belford]

I added a third font section to the test page, with a slightly different version of the Dni_Script_LM font file. That works for me on more browsers on more computers. (I have two Macs, but no Windows machines to test, I'm afraid.)

Cyan's font is better for the beginner, while the LM is for people who moved away from Cyan's font.

Having a single version is better for everybody.

My screenshot seems to have failed. Anyway, it says in transition where the Age name is

Does your browser have a way to display an error log?

[Pavitra]

The third font on the test page works for me.

Edit: Is it currently possible to make Seltani display the D'ni numeral for 20?

Edit2: If the ascii-style mapping is chosen, then perhaps 'q' and/or 'Y' could be used in addition to / instead of the current 'å'. The D'ni font I found online ("D'ni Script Version 2.2") uses these.

[rivenwanderer]

This is a really exciting project, I'm having loads of fun just exploring (though I'd love the ability to write ages too! Same username over there).

My one pony request (that is probably not entirely reasonable) would be a way to in some way include images in worlds. I know, I know, this is text! But I think it'd be neat to be able to incorporate still, stateless images in the pop-up descriptions (or even in the main pages, but the popups seem less problematic as far as affecting page layout).

[KathAveara]

Does your browser have a way to display an error log?

If it does, I have no idea where to find it.

[Pavitra]

KathAveara: What browser are you using? or if you don't know, what tablet are you using?

rivenwanderer:

The main problem with images is that if they become perceived as 'standard', then that makes it harder to make Ages. I'm not a good artist, and I don't want that to mean that no one will play my Ages. Also, an all-text game can be used by vision-impaired players with screen reader software, and images disrupt that.

However, if you really want to include an image, it is possible to create a link that leads to another website, and you could put an image there; the image would not be displayed inline as part of the Seltani interface, but the link to the image would be findable through the game.