A book page primer

ggevalt's picture
Submitted by ggevalt on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 1:06pm

Hi,

This is a test book page to give you an example of how book pages work. Click here if you already know how this works and just want to make a book already.

As Locke-Peter has suggested, it would be fun to create some ongoing, collaborative stories or poems or essays... The book page content type offers you a way of connecting the different parts that are written by different people. One of you can create the first (or "parent") chapter of the piece and the others can build on it by creating "a child page" directly from the piece or by creating a new book page. SECRET: The directions are more complicated than doing it.

The steps:

  • Under "create content" create a "book page."
  • Give your story a title. (Suggestion, if you are adding to another person's story, give it the same title with logical added info as in "A book page primer -- Part 2"
  • In the box titled "Parent:" you'll see that < top level > defaults in the box. If you want your book page to be the beginning, keep it as is. If you want your book page to be part of another book, put your mouse cursor in the middle of the box (or the blue arrows) and click. SCROLL down to the appropriate PARENT (the title without the multiple "--" marks) and click your mouse. IMPORTANT POINT: Take note of how many child pages are under the parent already; count 'em.
  • Paste or write your part of the book in the "body."
  • "Weight" -- this determines where your book page falls in sequence in the story. Weight is a misnomer but what it means is that the lower the number the lighter its is and the closer to the parent if falls; as in, -14 is lighter than -13 or 13 so it will fall closer to the parent which should be set at -15. So this is where your previous counting comes in. If there were, for instance, three child pages before yours, your piece would be given a weight THREE below -15 or -12. (So, since in this example you are the fourth chapter or child page, count down four from -15, so the first page or parent page was -15, the second -14, the third -13 so yours is -12). Simply complicated, no?
  • You can fill out the log message if you want, and then click submit.

Your piece should now be displayed with some links at the top and the bottom to navigate your way to the stories before and after.