Tech Tip: OU Create's Wordpress and Adding Navigation Links

Before this semester I had never used OU Create or Wordpress, so this has been a lot of learning. When choosing a site to host my project on, Dr. Gibbs suggested that I check out OU Create because it's platform is friendly to hosting the HTML file I needed because of my Twine story. The first day I looked into it, I was really overwhelmed. For this Tech Tip, I'll be specifically showing you how to add header links in the Wordpress application of OU Create, because it took me a hot minute to figure it out.

Setting Up OU Create

Every member of the OU community has access to OU Create! Once you create your account and log in, you will see a page similar to this: 

For this example, you'll want to click on Wordpress and go through the set up for that. This will include picking a domain name. The one I use for class is dungeonsanddecisions.oucreate.com. 

Once the application is installed, you'll click on "My Applications" and then on your domain link that has /wp-admin/ on the end of it:

This takes you to the editing/admin side of your site. It should look something like this:

Setting Up Header Links

Once you're on the admin homepage, you'll click "Appearance" in the left-hand column. This will take you to a page with six pre-loaded themes you can use, or an option to make your own. For my project, I use the "Twenty Seventeen" theme. 

Once you pick your theme, you'll click the blue "Customize" button that shows at the bottom of the theme. 

This should take you to what looks like your site page, but with a control panel on the left side of the screen. Click on the "Menus" option. Once in Menus, there should be a choice labeled "Navigation" with "(currently set to:)" and either Top Menu, Social Links Menu, or nothing. 

Click on Navigation. There will be a place to name the menu if you choose, and a button that says "+ Add Items"

There will be a list of pages and posts after you click "+ Add Item" to choose from. Choose what you want to add to the Navigation Bar, and you should see it automatically added to the left under what you have your navigation bar titled. 

NOTE: If you have not created any pages, posts, etc. yet, there will be no items to add. Create a tester page/post if you need to. 

This will update on the preview of your page in the background. Once you are done, don't forget to hit the blue Publish button at the top of the control panel. After you have published, you are all done! 

I hope this helps! 

All pictures were screenshots done by me from my personal view of the OU create website. 

Tech Tip: Adding External Links in Twine 2.0

Hello and welcome to my second Tech Tip involving Twinery.org!

Since my first story using twine, I have been trying to figure out how to add external links, or link that when clicked will take you to an outside webpage. I wanted to use this to revise my stories and add in links to my other stories, for those who want to read them in a very continuous manner. When looking at different websites, including Twine's own Wiki (lightly outdated) I could not find anything that worked.

Finally, I found a Twine Help Forum (found here) with a problem post asking for help regarding external links. From this post, I finally code the line of code I needed to create an external link:

(link-repeat: "LINK NAME HERE")[(open-url: "http://insertyourlinkhere.com"]
I edited the code taken from the forum so you can better see where things would go, such as what you want the clickable link to say and where to put the url you want to go to.

This can go in a twine passage along with everything else. Here is an example of what it can look like from an editing point of view:

(Screen shot of a passage where I used an external link to a Dice Roller)

This took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out, but now that I have it, I plan to go back and edit my stories to include links back to my Story Web page, as well as links that lead straight into the other stories. 

I hope this helps someone else!

Tech Tip: Starting Twine, Saving, and Backing Up Stories

Hello and welcome to a very basic Twine introduction. I learned a lot about Twine from Keegan Wheeler when Dr. Gibbs connected us to talk about Twine. I've also learned a lot from Twine's Wiki and the YouTube series listed in a blog post Keegan made that you can read here! I wanted to write up my own tech tip from the perspective of someone who has only recently begun using Twine!

1. Getting Started

Twinery.org is the official website for starting your own twine story. On the front page, there is different information about patch updates, downloads, and more. Something I really like about Twine is there is the option to use it online. This means you don't have to download any sort of program to create your stories. 

Something very important to note about this is that the information is saved to your browser. This means that there is no login username and password that you use to access your stories. It is just saved to whatever internet browser you're using, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. This can sometimes cause a problem with working on projects from multiple computers. 

For example, if I save my work in Google Chrome on my work computer (where I get a lot of my school work done), I won't be able to just open my project on my personal laptop later, even if I am using Google Chrome. There is a solution, though! Which leads me to...

2. Saving and Backing Up Stories

Backing up Twine stories is very very important. Since everything is only saved in your browser, one cookie/cache clear will wipe out everything saved in Twine. This is why "publishing to file" is your best friend. Here is where you can find it when you're editing your story:

Publish to file will download an HTML file to your computer. This HTML file will allow you to always have your work backed up, as well as allow you to edit your story in multiple browsers. 

Going back to my earlier scenario, if I am working on my project on my work computer, but want to work on my story on my laptop, I can use publish to file. Once I have the file, I can email it to myself. Then, on my laptop, I download the file from my email. Then, I go to twinery.org, click "use it online" and I will click "import from file" on my homepage: 

You will be able to upload the file you downloaded from your email and pick up editing where you left off! 

These are just a couple of things that I thought would make a good Twine Tech Tip post, since they are important and things I find myself using most often. I hope they helped you understand Twine a bit!