
Very clever story telling using HTML and Javascript... - dclaysmith
http://hobolobo.net/
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hobolobo
Well, this is awkward. (Check u/n) I am unable to claim responsibility for
this :)

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mambodog
I am working on something similar to this, though I've implemented a renderer
like that of a game, with all visible elements being rendered at 30 fps,
foregoing DOM manipulation for writing HTML text directly to innerHTML[1], and
culling non-visible elements. This avoids the slight jerkiness that exists
when scrolling on the linked page.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RRnyChxijA&t=22m56s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RRnyChxijA&t=22m56s)

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MrHoatzin
Another reason for the flicker is that Hobo Lobo doesn't calculate a realtime
scroll, it has a repeating 50ms timeout that listens to see if horizontal
scroll has happened, and then recalculates all the positioning. I guess I
could set it up to fire more often, but I felt 50ms was a good tradeoff of
performance vs quality.

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silvestrov
For each page, you must use the horizontal scrollbar to see see the animation
and the rest of the images.

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petewailes
Totally didn't get this until I started poking around. Assumed the next page
links up the top would take me forward, not scrolling right.

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Martijn
I wonder if it matters whether people are using their trackpad. I was using
mine and immediately figured it out; maybe it's because scrolling horizontally
is trivial with a trackpad?

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ComputerGuru
I just wanted to confirm the same. Didn't even give it pause on my MBP.

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MaxGabriel
But I will say that on my old HP G60 laptop, I wouldn't have had the same
ability (it only had the up/down scroll via the touchpad), and I think alot of
other laptops are similar. The scroll experience on my MBA is perfectly
smooth.

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jpdelatorre
Looks really cool. This would be an amazing tablet app for children. +1 if
there's a voice over option. Although it seems a LOT of work to put together.

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zeugma
If you read the story further, you will see it is not really the children
version of the tale.

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jpdelatorre
I'm referring to the technology/approach he used to present the story and not
the actual story.

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kungfooey
Wow. This is fantastic. Clever story, clever execution, clever little
surprises in the illustrations. Can't wait to see what else this guy comes up
with.

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petewailes
So, I've got a question... Whilst this is undeniably cool, can anyone actually
anything beyond short children's literature being told this way?

As a more random note, what innovation have people seen/would people like to
see in the literature space? How would you tell a novel online?

Discloser: am writing a novel, and reserve the right to totally take any ideas
from this and incorporate them. If I do, you'll get a credit in the book.

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ulisesroche
You may want to take a look at eliterature.org, for some ideas. I think there
is something to be said that visual and interactive novels make up about 70%
of game titles released in Japan.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel>

An IF novel should do quite well as a mobile App. I've been taking a few stabs
in the dark lately, adapting Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" into an IF piece, but
haven't had much luck, really.

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petewailes
Interesting. I'll have a more thorough nose around that later. Cheers!

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nerdinexile
You know what this'd be great for? Narrative puzzles. Imagine if Planetarium
(<http://www.beholder.co.uk/planetarium/>) had had access to this technology.

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ineedtosleep
Microsoft also made something similar to show off IE9's HTML5/CSS3
capabilities. I don't have a link handy, but it should be easy to find.

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inportb
I really enjoyed the experience!

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sigvef
<http://hobolobo.net/what-is-this-thing> thinks I'm using Internet Explorer,
when in reality I'm using Chrome 14.0.803.0 dev-m.

