Geezer and I are creating a publication on building a medieval style crossbow -- sort of a follow on to the "Iolo's First Book of Crossbows".

One of the goals is to make the information readily accessible, meaning that Windows, OS X, and Linux users all can read/view/copy/modify things as mush as possible. Also, I would like the software for this be (1) Open Source, (2) free, or at least (3)cheap!

Before we do much work on this, we'd like to know how you might want this to be presented. Below are some file formats that we're considering, but we don't know what you would want. SO LET US KNOW!

Text could be in one of the following:

* on-line/html,
  Notes: Viewable by everyone, not so easy to copy and modify
  Software: LOTS!

* .pdf -- Adobe PDF,
  Notes: Everyone should be able to read this; Good editors not readily available.

* .odt -- Open Document Text format
  Notes: Open source; Available on all OS's
  Software: http://www.libreoffice.org/ ; http://www.openoffice.org/

* Others not mentioned...



But what about the plans? What file format do you folks want?

* .dxf -- AutoDesk Data Exchange
  Notes: Widely Supported on all OS's; No fiddling to make sure that your scaling is correct; Easy modification of drawing.
  Software: LOTS!

* .svg -- Scalable Vector Graphics
  Notes: Directly viewable on all HTML5-ish browsers; Editors on all OS's;
  Software: LOTS.

* .png -- Portable Network Graphics
  Notes: Open Source format; Not very flexible;
  Software: LOTS!

So, with all of that, put in your votes!

Thanks,
Silly Person

I already have created a medieval crossbow building tutorial, and it was on my website before the website was taken down. Converting it to .pdf is not an easy option because the text was hyperlinked in a zillion places to large photographs. I suppose the entire tutorial will have to be rearranged to make it usable by all you fellows out there. Any ideas on how to make that happen without a bunch of work?

Darius, I took the time to create your tutorial as a Word document, and pasted and formated each photos into the appropriate places in the document, as I remembered that it wasn't always available and wanted a copy I could keep on my workbench. I think I also created it as a PDF, but can do that again if necessary, simple there. Want me to email it to you?

Hmm... I don't think that I asked the right question, so let me elaborate.

I work on Linux, I'm a tech-head, and I know what I want. I want .SVG files because it's open source, and I can take a working drawing and easily fiddle with it. .DXF files are also a good choice, but the programs for dealing with those are a bit 'clunkier' to use.

Since I don't use Windows or OS X much, I don't have a gut feeling of what programs are readily available for working with the various file formats.


So, especially for the plans, what program/format do you want to see for the book/guide/program?

Thanks,
Silly Person

Hi Silly Person, Guys, quite a project you have there.

My first thought would be a simple PDF. That's what I route my Sketchup templates to for printing.

PDF's are viewable in practically any browser (given the plug-in is installed) right? So since they can be embedded in an HTML website to be viewed right there in the browser, it should make any necessary modifications/updates a breeze, since we'll be dealing with a single file that can be swapped rather than modifying HTML code(as much as I respect the guys with the skill, I'd hate to have to do something like that myself). And lets not forget - the sweet compactness of PDF's that makes them great for downloading and printing to scale...compared to the raw image/text.
Also, as far as I know, it's possible to embed a wide variety of files *into* PDF's? File formats like SVG's that are great indeed and would make sweet templates, animated GIFs that are perfect for short visual presentations, as well as 3D model viewers for the wide variety of CAD files, and lots of other cool stuff too I'm sure. Not sure if these plugins are free/open source, but being an IT guy, you'd probably know better/have better chance of finding out.

Other stuff I'm not sure about, but then again I don't know much about anything and the more I learn the more I realize I really don't know anything about anything. So let it rip, use what will make your and our life easier. A real great thing you're doing here and I support you all the way - Looking forward to the developments in this topic and it's goal.

Good Luck,


Ivo

PS: For single component Plans as well as assemblies, I like Sketch-Up files since it's easy t learn and there is a huge public network/community with sharing/viewing capabilities already existing with Google...sort of like this ...



And like with any community...there are people working on making .SKP format CAD/CAM compatible, so an ordinary guy can design and then simply order a part from a fabrication companies(Custom milling centers, plasma/laser/w-jet/edm cutting centers) by sending them their design.

I guess do whatever is best from a tech perspective. I for one consider your post another language entirely. Let the pros do what pros do best.

All I better weigh in here.
PDF's - I have a love/hate relationship with PDFs. For a downloadable version of the text PDF's work but I like HTML for viewing online.

For the plans SVG would be cool, but I suppose having a PDF version would be good as well.

So too keep this from being too long and technical, having a couple of different options to get the data isn't a bad idea.

Silly Person wrote:Geezer and I are creating a publication on building a medieval style crossbow -- sort of a follow on to the "Iolo's First Book of Crossbows".

One of the goals is to make the information readily accessible, meaning that Windows, OS X, and Linux users all can read/view/copy/modify things as mush as possible. Also, I would like the software for this be (1) Open Source, (2) free, or at least (3)cheap!

Before we do much work on this, we'd like to know how you might want this to be presented. Below are some file formats that we're considering, but we don't know what you would want. SO LET US KNOW!

Text could be in one of the following:

* on-line/html,
Notes: Viewable by everyone, not so easy to copy and modify
Software: LOTS!

Software: None. Why not use our Wiki, when we have one here?

I don't see what benefit we would gain from working in our own silos. The good thing with Wikia wikis is that everything is licensed under Creative Commons licenses, so the content can be migrated elsewhere, printed into a book or whatever. Also, it's relatively easy to backup all content to a safe place, in case Wikia should go down or something. The Wiki solves all the operatingsystem/file-format issues as well, given it's intended for distributed, collaborative editing.

What do you think?