=MECH= Kabikaboo -- The Writer's Assistant Tool


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12/24/2009 19:21:34

Sentharn
Member

Kabikaboo

Update December 31 2009: Kabikaboo 1.7 for Win32 released!

Planning a story is difficult. Although I am sure that many writers are well at home with notebook and pencil, it can be extremely difficult to keep track of all the elements of a story properly.
The problem is that notebook pages are linear and difficult to organize; it is difficult to shuffle around pages and pages of notes as story ideas change and rearrange. Keeping track of story idea notes can be daunting and difficult.

And that is precisely what Kabikaboo aims to resolve.

Kabikaboo is an Open-Source project, described simply as "a tree-based note pad, designed to help you plan a book or complex project." It is invaluable for the planning stages of a novel or any sort of project that requires a hierarchal method of organizing information. I have found it to be an incredible tool!

Kabikaboo allows for 'nodes' to be created, and each of these can either contain data or contain data *and* organize the data of it and its children nodes in the view window. There is no predefined schema; the author can define her own nodes and their relationship to one another. Text files can be imported and split into nodes, and the entire project can be exported as a document file.

Screenshots can be found here.

Please note that the one and only dependency is the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package, a small (free) 1.7MB download that most modern computers will have already. Older computer s may need to fetch it.

Downloads

For Windows users with Administrative Rights, kabikaboo-1.7-installer.exe is the current installer.
For Windows users without Administrative Rights, kabikaboo-1.7.win32.zip can be unzipped to any location on the computer and run as a normal user.
Both can be downloaded from the official Downloads bar at the main Kabikaboo website.

For Debian and Ubuntu Linux users, Kabikaboo has been tested extensively in Ubuntu 9.04 and onwards; Debian packages should work in Testing/Unstable provided the proper dependencies are present. Either download the Debian package or add the Kabikaboo package repository ( https://launchpad.net/~kabikaboo/+archive/ppa ) to your Apt package sources and install the package "kabikaboo".

For Red Hat Linux and Fedora users, an .rpm package is available from the official Downloads bar at the main Kabikaboo website.

Installing

The automatic installer is simple; follow the instructions, read the information file that pops up at the end, and then start Kabikaboo from the Start Menu or Desktop!
To use the .zip package, simply unzip the folder within kabikaboo-1.7.win32.zip to any convenient location on your computer and run "kabikaboo.exe" inside the directory. The directory does not have to be named "kabikaboo-1.7", it can be named anything.

Settings location
Please note that Kabikaboo writes its settings to the file ~/.kabikaboo/settings.txt; for example, on my system it is C:\Documents and Settings\Sentharn\.kabikaboo\settings.txt if you would like to remove all traces of Kabikaboo from your system, don't forget this directory! (The period is important. You may have to enable "Show Hidden Files" in Tools > Folder Options to see this folder.)

Uninstalling/Purging

To uninstall via the install program, simply click the "Uninstall" shortcut in the Start Menu, or run the uninstaller from the Kabikaboo directory. (The installer does not remove all files in C:\Program Files\Kabikaboo, or wherever you chose to install it, in case you saved documents there; better safe than sorry! If you don't want it after uninstalling, just remove the directory.)

To uninstall via the zipfile, simply delete the Kabikaboo directory.

If you for some reason would like to completely purge all traces of Kabikaboo from your system, be sure to delete the directories: "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\.kabikaboo" (Yes, the period is important. You may have to enable "Show Hidden Files" in Tools > Folder Options to see this folder) and the directory you installed/unzipped Kabikaboo to (By default, "C:\Program Files\Kabikaboo"). If you used the installer, run the uninstall program before deleting the directories. Kabikaboo's uninstaller will not by default remove your .kaboo files, but be sure to double-check the directories before you delete them!

Although the win32 Kabikaboo port has been tested by myself and the other Kabikaboo developers--as well as many other writers who use this application--the development team cannot guarantee data integrity of the .kaboo files used by the program. It is recommended that you back up your .kaboo files often. In addition, you may wish to keep exported plaintext versions of your notes. Kabikaboo should not eat any files, but if it does, please notify me so I can file a bug report and track the error down with the other developers. Or, if you'd rather, feel free to file your own reports at the main Kabikaboo website.

Kabikaboo is my main 'notepad' for ideas and notes for my novel, and without the program it would be much harder to keep track of everything. I hope other writers find it as useful!

< Message edited by Maegwyn -- 1/1/2013 17:02:58 >

Post #: 1

12/24/2009 22:33:21

alexmacf
Member

OMIGOSH! This is exactly what I need! So much easier than digging through my notebooks!
Sentharn, you are my new best friend.

Post #: 2

12/25/2009 22:07:15

demolitiondragon
Constructively Friendly!

Awesome. You just saved me from writing a program to do just this. *cheers* =D

Post #: 3

12/26/2009 15:33:47

Alixander Fey
Member

I've used OneNote previously. This seems great Sentharn! I'm downloading now.

Post #: 4

12/26/2009 15:56:20

Sentharn
Member

I am glad that it appears to be useful, and especially glad that no bugs have cropped up!

The 1.7 port is coming along nicely except for two minor hitches:
1. GtkSpell has no Windows binaries and no Windows Python bindings. I am not familiar with cross-compiling Windows libraries from Linux. How difficult would it be to live without spellcheck?
2. Python-gnome also does not exist for Windows. Since it is used primarily for the help browser, it's likely I could compile the help into a platform-independent .html or a Windows-specific .hlp or .chm. We'll see what freeware tools I can dig up.

Yes, those qualify as "minor". The rest of the application is portable with little difficulty.

Again: if anyone discovers any bugs, please, please post it here or, if you happen have or are willing to register to have a Launchpad account, at the Launchpad bug tracker (The link is at the first post). It improves the program for everyone!

Also: perhaps this could be stickied if it is useful enough?

Post #: 5

12/26/2009 16:04:25

alexmacf
Member

My computer doesn't have enough memory to support it. ;-; Don't you hate Vista on computers too small to hold it?

Post #: 6

12/26/2009 16:35:02

Sentharn
Member

It doesn't? Is there an error message that is displayed? This program shouldn't be too heavy on memory or CPU resources. Kabikaboo runs on a computer with 256MB RAM (Although that is on a native Linux distribution and performance is "decent".)

EDIT: Memory usage on Windows XP for a clean start is 19MB.

EDIT2: Is Kabikaboo itself failing, or is the installer failing? If it's the installer, I can package a no-frills .zip version of 1.6, which would be easier to install.

< Message edited by Sentharn -- 12/26/2009 16:49:57 >

Post #: 7

12/26/2009 16:53:21

alexmacf
Member

I don't know; my mom says that I can't download it because our computer doesn't have enough memory to support it. She's worked with computers for something like 20 years now, so I trust her.

Post #: 8

12/26/2009 17:23:11

Sentharn
Member

To speak frankly, your mother likely does not trust programs that are not produced by a commercial and reputable company. That is understandable; especially with the earlier Windows versions (Notably XP and earlier), user permissions were close to non-existant, and so a malicious program could do quite a bit of damage. Windows Vista and 7 have made great strides towards redesigning this security-flawed approach, great strides!

(Did you hear that cat?)

However, your mother's explanation at face value doesn't ring true. Internet Explorer, after some minutes of browsing, easilly exceeds the amount of memory (Note: physical RAM) that Kabikaboo uses. Firefox, at a clean start-up, uses 6MB more than Kabikaboo--with one tab open. Don't get me started on Microsoft Word or Open Office (which I do not have available on my Windows XP computer, though I am quite aware of its bloat). If your computer can support Internet Explorer or Firefox (Which I assume it does, seeing as how you are posting this on the World WIde Web), your computer can run Kabikaboo.

See this screenshot: http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8933/kabikaboo.jpg

(Note that, although 5GB is an uncomfortably small free space margin for *me*, with my development files and such, I could install Kabikaboo roughly 200 times in that remaining space.)

Now, your mother could be referring to disk space. It is not uncommon for hard disk space to be referred to as "memory" (which, technically, it *is*--it's a form of "secondary" or permanent memory). Older computers often had small hard drives. However, my 'test' Windows XP computer--the one I'm typing with (incidentally, with Kabikaboo, Firefox and Internet Explorer open at the same time)--has only a 40GB hard drive, which are fairly rare to find nowdays in this age of 500+GB drives. Kabikaboo uses about 25MB of diskspace--0.025GB. It's very unlikely that your computer doesn't have enough free disk space to run Kabikaboo. (If it did, then I humbly recommend you get your computer to a professional and clean it of temporary files--*STAT*!)

Either way, it's very unlikely that your computer cannot handle Kabikaboo. No disrespect to your mother, but I believe she simply does not want you installing programs from an uncertain source. And I don't blame her.

At any rate, I'm terribly sorry that the program doesn't work for you!

< Message edited by Sentharn -- 12/26/2009 17:32:15 >

Post #: 9

12/27/2009 5:11:33

Xirminator
Member

This program seems like a godsend, but how safe it is? It won't attempt to delete or steal my stuff, will it? (I get really twitchy abotu this sort of stuff, sorry.)

Post #: 10

12/27/2009 14:28:02

Sentharn
Member

Xirminator, you are talking to the queen of paranoia regarding data security. (Sorry, bad pun.) I've been using both the Windows and the Linux versions of Kabikaboo for several weeks, and have yet to be befallen by any disasters.

Too long, didn't read: it is safe, but keep backups simply because it is a wise thing to do!

This is the beauty of Open-Source; the code is there for all to see. In the installer, you have the option of installing the original Python code to review (it doesn't do anything unless you have a Python interpreter installed, plus all the fun dependencies like gtksourceview, pygtk, gtk+, etc, etc), which, ironically, is only 80KB. Although many of you are likely not familiar with Python, the source code is written in English-like statements--Python is a beautifully easy-to-read and cross-platform language--and so you can review it yourself in kabikaboo-1.6.src.zip in your install directory. I've looked over the source code myself several times in the past few days; it does what is advertised. In addition, if you are uncomfortable even running the installer, you can download the source .zip directly from here: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~supertanker/kabikaboo/win32/files (Download kabikaboo-1.6.win32src.zip). If you want to see the "trunk" from which I derived the source code (which, incidentally, the win32.patches in my branch were just applied to), you can either download a Windows Bazaar explorer or download the 1.6 tar.gz release and use a program such as 7-Zip to untar it and examine the original source.

Believe it or not, Xirminator, my first thought after fetching Kabikaboo for the first time was, "This thing isn't going to send my lovingly-crafted storyline off to someone, is it?" During operation, Kabikaboo does not access the network--believe me, that would have red-flagged me immediately. And with three active developers (one of which is me), a small codebase (80KB compressed), and public access to the code repository, it isn't very likely that any malicious code that, say, e-mails all your stories to an oversea e-mail server in China, could last very long. Again, the beauty of Open-Source. This program has been around for at least several months and has been used by dozens of Linux users--it's very unlikely that any such practices would go unreported.

Some of you may be noting the difference in size between the zip source (80KB, which is roughly the size of the Linux download as well--in fact, the Linux download *is* the source!) and the installer (~9mb! What?!). This was a deliberate choice for packaging on my part. I decided against creating a small download package and forcing the user to download the dependencies, lots of stuff that the program depends on. I figured this would make users even more paranoid. I also figured it would turn users off from using this program, because, to be frank, it took four days to set up a working Gtk+PyGTK+GtkSourceView+PyGTKSourceView+Python environment under windows.

So, all these dependencies are packaged as well in the installer, so the end user does not have to go around on a ridiculous scavenger hunt.
Also, some of you may have noticed an .exe executable instead of a .py script in the installation dir. That is because packaging a full Python interpreter with working extensions is next to impossible. Instead, the python scripts have been passed through a Python extension called "Py2EXE", which byte-compiles the .py scripts and "freezes" it and all the extensions it needs into an executable that can execute on any Windows system, instead of only a Windows system with Python+Gtk+PyGTK+GtkSourceview+PyGTKSourceView.

If you're concerned about the more garden variety of malware infecting the file, the installer, executables, and libraries have all been scanned with several utilities (Avast, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Malware Bytes Anti-Malware) and results are negative across three isolated test machines.

In summary: it's safe, but keep backups anyways, since it is a good habit to be in, especially if your data is so important that it raises this concern in the first place. If you want to be doubly-secure, simply ensure that Kabikaboo does not have network access by configuring [insert your firewall here] correctly--indeed, if you are running Windows habitually, it *should* be locked down to a default "deny" rule on all programs, adding exceptions only for those which you are absolutely sure require network access. Kabikaboo should not request network access--I hesitate to say "will not" only because I am not sure if clicking the "Website" link in the "About" dialog counts as network access or not.

Edit: Stupid typo.

< Message edited by Sentharn -- 12/27/2009 14:31:05 >

Post #: 11

12/31/2009 21:27:56

Sentharn
Member

Kabikaboo Version 1.7 for Windows platforms has been released! This brings the Windows ports up to the current Linux release version as well.

This is primarily a bugfix and aesthetics upgrade. Little new functionality has been added, but the user interface has been polished to make things easier to locate and use. Version 1.7 of Kabikaboo has been tested by the development team with and found to work with Version 1.6 documents with no fuss.

Unfortunately, GtkSpell binaries and Python bindings are not available for Windows, and so there is no spell-check feature in the win32 port--but proper spelling is not quite so important in notes.

Downloads and information are available at the Kabikaboo website. The setup program can be downloaded from the official Downloads toolbar on the right.

Post #: 12

12/31/2009 21:31:54

horusmaster9
Member

This sounds like an awesome program. Someone needs to PM me when they get the timeline feature in (for Windows, of course <.<)...
Then I'll download it and take care of it and keep it safe and... yeah. :D

Post #: 13

12/31/2009 22:01:41

Sentharn
Member

I don't know how long that feature will take to implement; if it's not in the Linux build, it's not going to be in the Windows build for some time.

The Timeline "blueprint" is being discussed on the Kabikaboo website blueprints section: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/kabikaboo
(Go ahead, you can look; it's open-source, after all). Judging from the discussion, it's not certain how we would go about implementing it, and until that's nailed down there's likely going to be no progress on it. (Does anyone have suggestions?)

horusmater9, the program is well usable and extremely useful in its current state. Why not download it and give it a try as it is?

Post #: 14

12/31/2009 22:16:31

horusmaster9
Member

I've got a massive document in a .txt, and that's serving me quite well. However, the development of the timeline is a must-do for me, and it's also essential for me to determine how the characters will deal with things based on the past. Besides, I can't set up anything unless it's in a .zip anyway. Accursed Parental Controls... xP

Post #: 15

12/31/2009 22:39:08

Sentharn
Member

I knew I forgot to do something for a release! I will package a .zip for 1.7 within the next few days. (It isn't so much a matter of packaging as it is uploading.)

< Message edited by Sentharn -- 12/31/2009 22:43:17 >

Post #: 16

12/31/2009 23:50:08

Alixander Fey
Member

Sentharn I've fallen in love with this program. But I don't understand the problem with a timeline function. I just inserted a topic in "events" named Timeline and wrote it out. Unless you want something really spiffy and cool.

DF	Post #: 17

1/1/2010 1:30:21

Sentharn
Member

Alix, I used a similar method for my own story. I suppose that some users would benefit from having an easy-to-use, graphical organizer for events, however. In any event, it may be included in a future release, once it is decided how to go about implementing it.

For those of you who do not have Administrator rights on your computers, a.zip file (kabikaboo-1.7.win32.zip) is available at the official Kabikaboo site. It provides the same files installed by the installer, but it can be unzipped anywhere on your computer and run from there. It is not necessary to keep the folder named 'kabikaboo-1.7', either; it can be named whatever you wish.

Please note, however, that it is not completely self-contained: Kabikaboo writes its settings to the file ~/.kabikaboo/settings.txt. If you for some reason would like to completely purge all traces of Kabikaboo from your system, simply delete the directories: "C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\.kabikaboo" (Yes, the period is important. You may have to enable "Show Hidden Files" in Tools > Folder Options to see this folder) and the directory you installed/unzipped Kabikaboo to (By default, "C:\Program Files\Kabikaboo"). If you used the installer, run the uninstall program before deleting the directories. (The installer does not remove all files in C:\Program Files\Kabikaboo in case you saved documents there; better safe than sorry! If you don't want it after uninstalling, just remove the directory.)

< Message edited by Sentharn -- 1/1/2010 3:52:55 >

Post #: 18

1/1/2010 13:42:55

horusmaster9
Member

Oh, well, in that case, please excuse my lack of originality. xP
Sounds great, especially so if the great Alixander Fey says. I'll download it once I get the chance (have to go soon 7.7). :D

Post #: 19

1/4/2010 5:53:24

Xirminator
Member

I'm downloading and installing it now. I'll be using it for last Novemeber's NaNoWrimo novel that I wrote. Thanks Sentharn.

Post #: 20

1/7/2010 23:49:09

demolitiondragon
Constructively Friendly!

@ Horus: for a stop-gap measure, you could try making a timeline-like spreadsheet. Adjust the column and row sizes, fill with colour, add some labels. *shrugs* If your spreadsheeting program allows it, you can attach notes to each section. Just a suggestion.

Post #: 21

4/6/2010 13:08:23

UrufuHiken
Creative!

YES! Thank you! Really, really, thank you!

Oh the hours of toil trying to organize and outline. You have no idea how much this helps me!... Or actually you most likely do... SO THANK YOU!!!

I'm so happy I fully intend to use excessive amounts of exclamation points on every one of my sentences for the next 3 hours!!!

Post #: 22

4/6/2010 13:44:15

Ganden
Member

Any news on this getting a mac version?

-Tolan

_____________________________

We have enough people who tell it like it is;
we need more people who tell it like it should be.
--My motto for life.

MQ	Post #: 23

4/22/2010 17:37:00

Reaper Sigma
Member

Hmm, seems like a cool program. But one question; Is it free? I'd look myself, but I like to retain my reputation as a procrastinator.

Post #: 24

4/22/2010 17:52:23

horusmaster9
Member

Of course it's free; it's open-source, you silly goose. Open-source is the idealist of the internet. :P

Post #: 25

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