BookGen 1.2

by Aaron White (Argent)

Purpose: BookGen is a limited text editor that provides a quick and easy method of generating HTML source code for use with Morrowind books. No prior knowledge of HTML is required. Simply type in your text and click convert or export, and BookGen does the rest.

More information on the HTML subset used by Morrowind can be found in the Morrowind Books HTML file.

All Morrowind images and files are the property of Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company.

Installation:

This program can be run from any directory. To install, simply unzip to the folder of your choice.

This program requires the Java Run Time Environment to run. If you do not already have this installed, you can download it at http://java.sun.com/.

This program has been converted from an Executable Java Archive to an .exe application using ExecutorDemo. One side effect of using this demo version of Executor is that it runs a console window alongside BookGen. Closing this console also closes BookGen.

Using BookGen:

File

New Book: Clears all the text from the main editor window.
Open Text File: Loads a text (.txt) file into BookGen. This may be a file previously saved with BookGen, or a plain text file written in any other text editor.
Save Text File: Saves the plain text window content to a text file using the book name as the filename.
Text to HTML: Converts the plain text to Morrowind HTML, which is displayed in the HTML toggle pane. Creates a .txt file that contains the HTML source, using the book name as the filename suffixed with '_book'. The HTML code is displayed in the HTML tab pane in the main editor window.
Export to ESP: Exports the book to a plug-in file using the book ID as the filename.

Edit

Color Tag: Opens a drop down menu with (currently) 7 choices of colour. Adds the tag to the end of the text body.
Preview: Opens a preview window that displays the text without tags. Limited usefulness as all formatting is lost.
Image Tag: Adds an image tag to the end of the text. The user is first prompted to select an image file, and then the image size is set.
Left/Centre/Right Align Tags: Adds an alignment tag to the end of the text.

Help

User Guide: Opens this HTML file.
About: Details about BookGen.

Buttons

All of the above mentioned functions are also present as icons in the toolbar. Hover the mouse to get a tool-tip of the button's function.

Drop Down Menu

Select from one of the three fonts supported by Morrowind. If you do not specify a font, the default font 'Magic Cards' is used.

Text Fields

ID: The unique ID of the book. This is required when exporting to a plug-in file.
Name: The name of your book. The name is given the suffix ‘_book’ and is used as the file name of your converted file. A name must be specified before converting, and length can be up to 32 characters. If the name is longer than the size of the text field, press enter while the cursor is in the field to change the tool tip to display the name of your book. To view this, hover the mouse pointer over the Name label.
Main editor window: This is where you enter your book text.

Limitations:

It wouldn't be a 'limited text editor' without some limitations.

When placing alignment or image tags with the buttons (or menu/hotkeys) the tag will be placed at the end of the text body, as there is no code for detecting the position of the cursor.
After inserting a tag using buttons (or menu/hotkeys), you will need to manually restore focus to the text area before resuming typing. Typing while focus is not in the text area can result in random tags being placed in after the end of the text body.
When exporting to a plug-in file, the default images used are Text_Octavo_open_06.nif and Tx_book_open_03.tga.
The preview window discards all formatting and colour changes. It's only real purpose is to judge line length for books and scrolls.

Bugs reports can be sent here. Errors are displayed in the console window; please send a copy and a short description of what you were trying to do at the time.

Future Features/Additions

Excluding any major errors in the code, this will be the last update of BookGen.