All Official Open License Content in Markdown format on Github

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Looking great. I did a couple more edits with comments (so sync your fork, it should tell you it’s behind).

Perhaps we should avoid doing Italics on all the headings? I see the raw made that for many of the files though. I don’t really care, but it might be something to script later?

Sidenote: I’m almost done with Lions of the North (rough one due to age of supplement and available pdf). More or less just some tabling at the end + figure out a standardized statblock that works for the module. Everything else should be good. It’s there in wip folder if someone wants to have a look.

22

Yes, I think that would be preferable.

Can you write a script that un-italicizes the text for the folder ? Doing so file-by-file feels... wasteful.

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I figured out how to script it efficiently and I believe safe. 100% of the headings should now be non-italic (all wip files updated).

2 Likes
24

Just some quick updates. @YR7 Has kindly fixed Guardians of the Forest and Realms of Power - the Divine (revised). These look almost good to go, but could use a separate review?
I’m nearly done with Lion of the North, but I decided to take a crack at Definitive Edition, since the custom fonts and format the pdf used wreaked havoc on extraction. After quite a bit of trixing, a much better version with mostly fixed headings is now uploaded (should be pretty good to use for reference or search - but get the real thing of course, it’s a beauty!). I’ve reviewed it completely until chapter IV, and wasn’t that much to fix in this new version. I’ll review the rest later.

Anyone else feel like pitching in?

3 Likes
25

Both also haven't been edited for errata yet, too. That's still needed, for sure.

If someone does want to help out - I note I've found Visual Studio Code to be the best editor, especially as the other's formatted-view to code synchronization was very bad. Visual Studio Code's synchronization is not perfect, but much better.

26

2 questions on that:

  • we aren’t fixing typos and including errata yet, just trying to match the raw book, yes?
  • does the git diff only shows the line changed, or is the entire block rewrapped?
27

I think it's far better to include errata, as we want these to serve as gaming-reference sources rather than an historical archive. Not including errata will also cause inconsistencies between the Definitive Edition, that includes the errata, and rules in the sourcebooks it draws upon.

That said - I think only 5e sources have errata. At least, I can't find errata for prior editions.

As for how git works - I have no idea, I'll defer that question to our resident madman.

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I agree with @YR7. If you find a typo, might as well fix it. Errata same thing, this should be a resource for use.
For tables, quite often we have to restructure a bit - since Markdown keeps it super-simple, and we don’t want complex layout. Same thing for text order, when there are boxed texts in complex layout, you may need to move it to the more suitable place in the flow.

On Git/Github, a real benefit here is we have full history on all the texts. If you check any file and click history upper right, you’ll see every line changed (red removed, green added) and either in single line or block of lines.

As for “Why Markdown?”, I realize it may not be clear to everyone here. But there are several good reasons why Markdown may be the best “forever” format for the open-license text content:

Markdown's greatest practical strength for open-license content is that it is a universal source format. It is plain text, even human-readable without a renderer - and readily convert to any format (HTML, PDF, EPUB, DOCX, Google DOCS, MediaWIKI etc), natively version-controlled with Git, and readable by both humans and machines without ANY proprietary software. It carries no vendor lock-in and is durable across decades.
This write-once, publish-anywhere model means the canonical open-license text can stay clean and unencumbered, while feeding any wanted derivatives in the easiest possible manner (compare this with copy/pasting from PDF (everyone’s favorite…?), trying to convert .docx formats or manually reformatting plain text headings and tables).

You can straight open a markdown in google docs, word, (modern) notepad - or use Visual Code, Typora, Notepad++ (with plugin) etc or copy paste as-is to Websites (like GitHub), Blogs (WordPress, Medium), Notes (Notion, Obsidian), Chats (Slack, Discord), and Forums (this one!) as they all support Markdown natively.

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I answered you just above :wink:

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So I’m a bit OotL, but this would make it way easier to put stuff into Project:Redcap, right? There is the Conversion Tracker, which has been worked on by multiple volunteers, but if this format makes it a matter of copy-pasting, then everything can be made much easier. One inconvenience of this format is that it’s not divided into chapters, as others have commented.

Ideally, we would like to end up with the whole corpus of the text liberated onto Open License complete with tagging and pages to explain references. But that will take a long time. I’ve been wanting to get P:R to be the de facto place to get info on this game, but I have also been busy with my own OL project, two years in the making. Hopefully this work can make people pick up the work on there and complete the tracker.

2 Likes
31

Yes, converting a "done" file to project redcap is now basically running the command line to convert the file, copy-pasting it into a new page on the wiki, and then going over the page to fix the few formatting issues remaining - which I suspect will just be some missing <br> codes.

I'm glad to see confirmation others find the single-file format better.

Yes, I think the project redcap pages could add hyperlinks and community glosses to the text to enhance it. While the markdown repository could be kept clean, to facilitate its use in things like Foundry.

I've been trying to make Project Redcap more start-player-oriented and friendly, by re-organizing the front page a little and improving links from it like adding a primer on ars magica and so on.

2 Likes
32

So, if I understand correctly, Markdown is a plain text file format expected to be accessible to any file reader, word processing program, etc, (or most, anyway) and expected to remain readable for the foreseeable future.

I take it the goal of the project is to make the ArM5 open content more widely readable, with an eye toward avoiding format rot.

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I would say yes, and also transferable/searchable/sourcable/sharable/cooperable/republishable. It has been called a “universal source format” for a reason. It’s also size/clutter optimized and far more optimum for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) if you’re into such things.

1 Like
34

Quick note that the following have been manually corrected by me and/or @YR7 and should be in good shape:

Ars Magica 3e - Lion of the North - The Loch Leglean Tribunal.md
Ars Magica 3e - Tribunals of Hermes - Rome.md
Ars Magica 4e - Icelandic Wars - Land of Fire and Ice.md
Ars Magica 4e - Sanctuary of Ice - The Greater Alps Tribunal.md
Ars Magica 5e - Guardians of the Forests - The Rhine Tribunal.md
Ars Magica 5e - Realms of Power - The Divine (Revised).md

They’ve been separated into a “reviewed” folder.

Working on Definitive Edition now, but the PDF on that seems to have been particularly Infernal :angry_face_with_horns:. Text is overall correct and the md is usable, but lots of little fixes needed due to formatting.

3 Likes
35

Hi,

I came across this project by chance and found it very inspiring. I’ve started doing some cleanup work on Realms of Power: Magic, using Realms of Power: The Divine as a model for formatting and structure.

At the moment I’ve mostly been working on sidebars, tables, and heading hierarchy, and I’m planning to continue with the table of contents and remaining structural cleanup. When the file is in better shape, I’d like to submit it using the method OriginalMadman suggested.

I just wanted to check first whether someone is already working on RoP: Magic.

3 Likes
36

That sounds great. To the best of my knowledge, no one else is tackling RoP: Magic, so that's fabulous!
If you forked the project on github, just always make sure you're working on the latest version. Anyway, I don't anticipate any more sweeping edits across files so less of an issue - they'll likely be more static until someone - or myself - gets to manual edits.
Once you submit, I'll likely do some parsing and add some intro (unless you're adding the same as from the reviewed files) - so you may just want to make sure to resync again after that if you plan on further edits (which will always be fine, quite easy to handle in this format and on github).

2 Likes
37

This is great, thank you for the great work !

However I have a small question : would it be not better to remove the edition prefix such as “Ars Magica Xe -” from the file name ? The files could be moved in edition folders. With the edition prefix the file name is unnecessarily lenghtier.

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Hi,
thank you very much! I’ve now finished my cleanup pass on RoP: Magic and submitted a pull request on GitHub.

I used the reviewed RoP: The Divine as a model for formatting and structure, and worked through the sidebars, tables, heading hierarchy, and many broken paragraphs caused by the PDF extraction.

Thanks again for the encouragement and the guidance.

1 Like
40

Thanks kindly! It's a bit of effort for sure - but less than other options, and now some more people are helping so we're getting close to a fantastic final text edition of these seminal works. Open and free for the community!

Thanks also for your suggestion which may make sense for some, but my personal preference is keeping the file name inherently complete rather than dealing with subfolders. Also easier for people managing or searching for files independently from file structure etc. I likely won't change the strucutre, but you're reminding me we may need to trim some extraneous extras at the end of some file names.
You're of course free to make your own structure once downloaded or forked.

41

Thanks @frederic I'm reviewing the files and at first glance it looks like you've cleaned it up nicely! Looks like it's ready to put in the "reviewed" pilea. Do you have anything in it you feel yet could use some work - like we mentioned in the beginning of the other reviewed files?

It also looks like you've started editing Mythic Locations, since it's part of the pull req (nobody else I know of is doing that yet either). Not sure you were aware that file is part of the pull too since you edited it. Anyway, that's great if you want to.