MemoryBook
[NOTE: tap or click on the "Prelude" icon (upper left-hand side of
the main screen) first for navigation instructions]
[NOTE: the "+" and "-" icons at the bottom right of the screen in
each chapter (such as the "Prelude") will
allow you to alter the size of the
font for easy reading]
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Another sabbatical from Columbia, another media-book app finished
(previous ones include
My Music Book
and
My Book of Dreams).
This one is designed for tablet devices with that whole 'integrated
music/text/graphics' experience. You can get the app here:
Memory-Book
for iPad (note the dash in the title. "Memory Book" with no dash was
already used in the App store)
Ruh roh! Apple has removed the "Memory-Book" app until I get it recompiled
for 64-bit (oh I just love apple...). Since there is NO OTHER WAY
to get you an iOS version except through the Apple App Store, I'm afraid
the best I can give you right now is an OSX (i.e. laptop) version:
MemoryBook.app.zip
Apologies!
Memory Book
for Kindle Fire HD/HDX (I believe it will run on generic Android tablets with
sufficient CPU/memory and audio capabilities)
Usage notes:
Tap (or click) on any of the 'chapter' icons on the main screen to read
a chapter. The whole main screen scrolls left-and-right; tap or click
and drag it to see.
In each individual chapter nearly all of the text-areas scroll
vertically. As with the main screen, tap or click and drag
on the text-area to see more of the writing.
The following controls will be at the bottom of the chapter screen:
- O - tapping or clicking on this will take you to the
main ("Overview") screen.
- < and > - tapping/clicking on these will take you
to the previous or the following chapter in the main screen sequence.
- - and + - these will increase or decrease the font size
for personal reading preferences.
In the text, I make occasional references to web-links. These
appear as words in
red
typeface. As described
in the "Prelude", I decided not to make them active links in the
text itself. If you go to this page:
you will see all of the links associated with the chapters that have
them.
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[NOTE: If you are having problems running the application, check
here]
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This "book-thing" (as I'm calling it) is one of the more self-indulgent
things I've done. This is the initial text from the "Prelude" chapter:
This is a book of memories. The
memories aren't really special to anyone but me. They don't lead
to some big autobiographical revelation or secret confession.
To be honest, they're fairly random. I just wrote down things
that I remembered while typing this text. As a result, this
represents one slice of my memories at one particular time.
Memories are constantly shifting. This does not.
I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, though, and I hope other
people are able to enjoy it. Several of my original testers suggested
that a mechanism for other readers to share their own memories
might be interesting. I've got some ideas, so stay tuned!
As I've said before about these things, I'm much more
a composer than an author or a computer-graphics person.
I do like the sounds! For the geekily-inclined, I programmed this
using the
RTcmix
synthesis and signal-processing language, working within the
openFrameworks
development package. All of the sounds (except one) are generated
in real time
from a small set of sample-recordings I made of my Steinway piano,
inherited from my musician-grandfather. The joy of digital
signal processing!
If you're interested in seeing the source code (Xcode and Eclipse projects),
here it is:
I hope you enjoy the MemoryBook! Let me know what you think,
if you want.
Brad Garton
garton-at-columbia.edu
Summer, 2014
