Interactive Story: Download

The story program is freeware, subject to the following conditions:

1. The program is not permitted for use on pornographic sites.
2. You may edit the program in any way you like, but you must leave intact the line that says:
   Story program written by Valerie Mates
3. You must send an e-mail message to me (at valeriemates@earthlink.net) with the address (URL) of your new story program.

The story program runs on Unix servers and on Windows NT servers. Here are links to download the Unix and Windows NT versions. To download the story program, you will need to copy it to your home computer, then transfer the program from there to your server. There are lots of different ways of doing this, depending on your setup. Here are the details. People send me a lot of e-mail when they get stuck in the download process, so this page describes what to do in lots of detail. I apologize to the people who already know how to do this and don't need this much detail. The download process for the story program is pretty standard, so if you're familiar with installing programs on your server you can skip these details.

What to download:

• If you have a Unix server and you can telnet to it, download the Unix version.
• If you have only ftp access to your server and your home computer is a Windows system, download the Windows version, even if your server is a Unix server.
• If your server is a Windows NT server, download the Windows version.

• Save the program to your computer. Here's how:
  • If your browser is Netscape and you are on a Windows system, hold your mouse pointer over the appropriate link (Unix or Windows) and press down your right mouse button. A menu should appear. Select the option called Save Link As.
  • If your browser is Netscape and you are on a Macintosh, hold your mouse pointer over the appropriate link. Hold the button down until a menu appears. Select the option called Save Link As
  • If your browser is Internet Explorer, hold your mouse pointer over the appropriate link (Unix or Windows) and press down your right mouse button. A menu should appear. Select the option called Save Target As.
• A dialog box will appear. Select the folder where you want to save the program. Remember what folder you put it in!

Now, click on the version you downloaded: Unix or Windows

(Links to versions of the story translated to other languages will go here. If you have translated version 1.4 of the story program into a language that is not listed here and you would like it to be included for people to download, please contact Valerie. Thanks!)

Unix:

• Now you need to transfer the program to your server. You'll need an ftp program to do that. If you don't already have one, you can get one from tucows.com. Make sure you use binary mode to transfer the story-1.4.tar.gz file to your server.
• Now telnet to your server. If you need a telnet program, you can get one from tucows.com. Log in. If your server doesn't offer telnet access, the Windows instructions may be useful to you, even if you are using a Unix server.
• Change directory to the directory where you uploaded the story program.
• Run the command gunzip story-1.4.tar.gz to uncompress the story program.
• Run the command tar xvf story-1.4.tar to extract the files from the .tar archive. This will create a new directory called story-1.4 in your current directory, with the story files in the new directory.
• Create a directory named story in your cgi-bin directory.
• Copy (or move) the files to the newly created directory.
• Make the story program executable (runnable) by running the command chmod 755 story.pl
• Create a directory where the story program can store its data files. For example mkdir /home/mydir/storytext.
• Permit the directory for the data files so that the web server can write to it. One way to do this, if you have root access on your server, is to become root and run the command chown nobody /home/mydir/storytext, where nobody is the ID that your web server runs with, and /home/mydir/storytext is the name of the directory you created for the story data files. The other way to do this is to permit the directory so that anybody on the system can write to it. This is risky, since anybody who shares your server can mess with your story data files. But it's also easy to set up, and if you don't have root access it may be your only option. The command to do this is chmod 777 /home/mydir/storytext, where /home/mydir/storytext is the name of the directory you created to hold the data files. (The third — and by far the best — option is to use a program like cgiwrap so that your ID owns all the story files and only you can write to them.)
• Edit the storyconfig file (in your cgi-bin directory) to show the location of the directory where you are storing the story data files.
• Point your browser to the URL of the story program, which should be something like http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/story/story.pl. If you've done everything right, you should see the front page of the story program. If the program doesn't work, see the FAQ for what to do next.
• Enter the first chapter of the story. If you can save that chapter and view it with the story program, then the program is installed correctly.
• Send e-mail to Valerie to tell her the URL of your new story program.
• If you would like to have announcements of new versions of the program e-mailed to you (usually a couple of messages per year), send a blank message to interstory-subscribe@egroups.com

Windows:

• The Windows version is a self-extracting zip file. You need to extract the files in it. To do that, go to the folder where you saved it and double-click on the program named story-1-4.exe.
• Now you need to transfer the program to your server. You'll need an ftp program to do that. If you don't already have one, you can get one from tucows.com. Make sure you use text mode to transfer the files story.pl and storyconfig. Make sure you use binary mode to transfer the .gif images.
• Use your ftp program to create a directory (folder) named story in your cgi-bin directory.
• Use your ftp program to transfer the files to the newly created directory.
• Use your ftp program to create a directory where the story program can store its data files. The new directory would be called something along the lines of /home/mydir/storytext.
• Use your ftp program to permit the directory for the data files so that the web server can write to it, by permitting the directory so that anybody on the system can write to it. This is risky, since anybody who shares your server can mess with your story data files, but on a Windows server this may be your only option.
• Edit the storyconfig file (on your local computer) to contain the location of the directory where you are storing the story data files, and re-upload it to your cgi-bin/story directory.
• Point your browser to the URL of the story program, which should be something like http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/story/story.pl. If you've done everything right, you should see the front page of the story program. If the program doesn't work, see the FAQ for what to do next.
• Enter the first chapter of the story. If you can save that chapter and view it with the story program, then the program is installed correctly.
• Send e-mail to Valerie to tell her the URL of your new story program.
• If you would like to have announcements of new versions of the program e-mailed to you (usually a couple of messages per year), send a blank message to interstory-subscribe@egroups.com

• In version 1.3 (but not in version 1.2 or earlier, unless you customized your story.pl program to allow non-English characters), readers could enter a specially crafted URL to view parts of any publicly readable file on your host. In version 1.4, readers can view only chapters of the story, not any other files.

• The code that removed characters from international character sets has been removed.
• The program has been renamed from "story.cgi" to "story.pl" because this makes it easier to run the program on some Windows systems.
• We now gently encourage the browser to automatically reload the page after the user has entered a new chapter, so the user is less likely to have to press the Reload button.
• Big improvements to the story's home page.
• The program now links to the story download page instead of directly to the program to download.
• The program calls sendmail directly instead of creating a temporary file.
• The outline function prints the number of chapters — useful information for sites that are competing for the largest story.
• Users can now enter chapters that are more than 50 deep!