#! CyberSpaceLand software README:
-------------------------------
beta 0.1
by VJ Übergeek

CyberSpaceLand is a search engine interface that acts as VJ software, a music visualizer,  
or other visual diversion. It's the home version of the software I use in my CyberSpaceLand
Geek-VJ shows. (http://cyberspaceland.org). The visualization option is a special bonus 
feature for you, the home user.

Why? 
----
Life on-line was getting boring. So was life in clubs. But being a geek was getting cool.
Go figure.

Put another way: leisure culture becomes more and more like business culture all the time.
Computers are an unwitting conduit for this mischief - as they move out of the office, 
leisure life moves in. But, there is another side...

How?
----

Before starting: 
If you want sound playback or visualization, put some mp3's in
the "sounds" folder. They need to have the extension ".mp3" for CyberSpaceLand
to find them. 

To start:
(If you're impatient, scroll down to QUICKSTART FOR THE IMPATIENT. Otherwise:)

Launch the cyber.exe file.  The software will launch and try to reset your 
display if necessary. If you click in the upper left corner of the screen a menu will appear, 
giving you options for music playback and/or visualization. The visualization 
option works best on faster computers. For best visual experience, I recommend losing the menu 
after you make this choice. 

Type in your first search term at the prompt. I recommend typing some interesting phrase. 
Then hit the Search button. In a few seconds hit "9" and your first
search results should appear. 

Animations are the basic building blocks of the CyberSpaceLand experience - 
you will always have one animation live, which you can layer effects onto. You can layer
multiple effects, but only one animation at a time. Layering multiple effects creates 
visual results which you can guess at but not completely predict - and therein lies the 
amazing fun.

Select animations and effects and move your mouse. Holding mouse button down
generally causes trailing or other effects. Pull in new search results with "9"
and start new searches with "]". Experimentation and combining effects
is the key to hours of fun and frolic! 

*** If you have selected music visualization, you must use the "K" effect to see
the visualization! *** 

Here's the list of key commands. (Or don't worry about it and just mess around.)
Recommended Quickstart: try different animations under the number keys and i/v/s keys,  
and use the "K" effect and shift and Y keys to add varioius feedback effects. 

(BONUS: When using the "K" feedback, you'll also get additional effect controls if 
you hook up a gamepad or joystick to your system.)

=== System Requirements ===
Tested so far under Windows XP and Windows 2000.
The basic animations work on systems 400 mhz+. For the feedback and other effects, it's best
to have a faster computer/graphics card.


==== animations and other basic functionality.  ====

1 - "Lemmings" animation
2 - "Lemmings 2" animation
3 - "Spiral" animation
4 - "Pinwheel" animation
	if pinwheel is already running, this key toggles the spitting behavior.
	Shift key will make the texts fly off.
5 - Restarts the horizontal scrolling text.
6 - "Misbehaving Wheel" animation
7 - "Lemmings 3" animation (This one has more lemmings!)
8 - Change colors of text objects.
9 - Pull in next search result.
0 - Make text objects flash and rotate. 
	(Toggles this behavior off if already running.)
- - "Diagonals" animation
 
i - "Space Invaders" animation
' - if space invaders is running, make the text fly like in Galaga
s - "Stacatto Text" animation
a - "Raining Text" animation 
	Shift key makes the text grow.
d - "Hyperactive stacatto text" animation
f - With shift key down, Freezes the screen. 
	(Without shift key, runs an animation similar to "Raining Text.")
g - "3D boxes" animation (see "3D effect controls")
	Note - for technical reasons, not all animations can follow the 3D animation.
	The keys that will work to get out of 3D are 1,2,3,4 and P.
l - "Big staccato text in the middle of the screen" animation
m - "The matrix" animation (will start after a few seconds.)
p - "Pong" animation
v - "Asteroids" animation
w - "Wheel" animation

] - Bring up the search input box at lower right hand corner of the screen, so you
	can enter your next search term. (If it's up, this key toggles it off.) 
	You can use either the RETURN key on the keyboard or mouseclick the search button
	to start the next search. Wait a few seconds, then bring in the query results with "9" key.
| - Go back to the start screen. (Requires the shift key be down to prevent accidents.) 


=== speed ===

x - slow down playback speed
c - speed up playback speead
Shift-X or Shift-C - reset original playback speed

=== text and color object positioning and resizing ===

r - If text objects are rotated, unrotate them.
z - With shift key down, tries to clear out text objects' effects buffers. 
	Without shift key down, resets registration points of text objects.
? - Make color objects small (use with "k" feedback enabled.)
= - Make color objects medium size (use with "k" feedback enabled.)
~ - Make color objects tall and thin (use with "k" feedback enabled.)

Note: ?, =, and ~ won't have much effect if you're using the music visualization option.

=== effects ===
(some of these require fast graphics hardware for best results, especially when combining
multiple effects.)

b - generally duplicates mousedown functionality (in case it's awkward to get to
	the mouse in performance.) If on, toggles it off.
e - reset background colors to white (use when h or k are active.)
h - Feedback with rotation, skew, and background. Hit shift key repeatedly while this is enabled 
	to change the feedback. If effect is on, toggles it off.
j - Feedback with rotation but no background (often gives psychedelic effect.) Hit shift key repeatedly
	while this is enabled to change the feedback. If effect is on, toggles it off.
k - Feedback without rotation but with background - this is actually the most basic yet varied feedback.
	can also be combined with h and j feedbacks. Hit shift key repeatedly
	while this is enabled to change the feedback. If effect is on, toggles it off.
n - Works in conjunction with "." effect. Toggles between two different
	looks of the effect (one is more computery, the other is more watery.)
y - Change background colors (use when h or k are active.)
; - Changes the background color to blue - as in old DOS games or the Blue Screen of Death.
	If on, toggles the color back to black.
, - Underwater effect. If on, toggles it off.
. - Strange effect, just try it - also has underwater characteristics. Use with "n" key
	for variations. If on, toggles it off.

t - a gradual color cycling of the horizontal line of background text. Can be useful in "K" feedback
mode - especially with music visualization option! 
Doesn't slow down performance much. If you hold down Shift key while you hit t, the colored
background objects will also color cycle - but this slows things down more.

q - "Quiet!" - turns off all feedback, underwater and "strange" effects, so you have plain
	animation again. 

spacebar - color changing (not gradual) of text objects (Note - this will slow things down
	a bit as well - sort of a strobing effect.)


==== 3D effect controls ====
(used after hitting "g" to enter 3D mode.)

clicking mouse adds a new box (and removes an old one)
holding mouse down increase the speed at which the boxes spin

9 - bring in new text for same query
b - spiral the camera around the 3D world
f - spiral the 3D world and dolly the camera forward
n - spiral the 3D world and dolly the camera backward
m - dolly the camera backward
x - dolly the camera forward
v - toggle trails effect
z - move the camera around the 3D world around randomly

=== misc ====
u - replace search text with perl code (it's code from its own search mechanism.)
If you hold down the Shift key when you hit this, you get longer snippets of code. Without shift
key, you get ornamental characters such as # and ;

[ - if you have two joysticks or gamepads hooked up, you can use this to switch between them

spacebar - toggle between slow and current speeds

=======================

To quit: Ctrl-W 

========================

Hitting any key not listed - such as arrow keys - while effects are running will make the effects recalculate in a new
and probably somewhat unpredictable way. This is useful for example when you want to change the look
somewhat every 4 bars or to do scratching, but you want consistency so you don't want to change the 
animation or effects.

========================

Gamepad/Joystick Support: 

In my live shows, I use two gamepads: a Firestorm Thrustmaster Wireless gamepad (with analog
joystick)and a Dance Dance Revolution compatible dancepad. So the joystick support is more
or less set up for those - I haven't really worked out to make it more generic.. and in fact
I haven't even calibrated my joystick. So, if you have a joystick or gamepad, plug it in try 
wiggling the joystick and buttons while "K" feedback is turned on. Maybe it will work for you. 
However, if things seem to be rotating uncontrollably when you have "K" feedback enabled, 
it's probably because it's not getting along with your joystick - so try unplugging it.

========================

BUGS/KNOWN ISSUES: 

For the feedback and music visualization effects to work most smoothly, requires a reasonably fast 
computer/2D graphics chipset. The rest of the effects will run OK with slower/older computers 
and graphics boards. 

When running music visualization, there will be a few seconds pause before each song. 

You'll probably find yourself using the shift key repeatedly in performance. However, Windows (at least XP)
will bring up some kind of weird hotkeys dialogue the first time you hit the shift key 5 times. Just disable
that, unless you happen to use whatever feature is actually supposed to be activated by hitting the shift key
5 times.

Occasionally, resetting with the "r" key will restart rotations ("j") instead of resetting them. If this happens,
best workaround is to go to an animation where everything is upright (like "s" or "i") - this will usually
straighten things out.

With some system configurations, the automatic display resizing will set the display slightly
off-center. If this happens, just put your display back to its original setting and please
reset your display manually to 800x600.

Since it wasn't initially designed for use by the public, it isn't the most tidy or "intuitive" software in the 
world if you're trying to master it. Then again, you can just bang on it and it will do things.

CyberSpaceLand also runs a companion app called "botiserve" to do the searches. It will exit
by itself along with CyberSpaceLand. However, in the event CyberSpaceLand crashes or otherwise
doesn't exit normally, you may find botiserve in your taskbar. You can just go ahead and exit 
it manually.
========================

QUICKSTART FOR THE IMPATIENT:

- Optional: Put mp3's in "sounds" folder if you want music playback or visualization
- Launch the cyber.exe file
- Optional: Click upper left for menu to choose sound options. Then click "Lose this menu" on the menu.
- Type in "Hello world" in the search box; hit the search button.
- You should see "cyberspaceland returned the following results"... 
- Hit 9, 7 - move mouse... 
- Optional: if you have a fast system, and/or have selected music 
  visualization, hit K, hit the shift key, hit T, and you're on your way...
- Hit 9 each time you want to bring in a new text result... Hit other keys to taste... 
- Hit ] to bring back the search box and start a new search... 

- When ready to quit, hit Ctrl-W. 

========================

BONUS for the Technically Advanced and Unusually Motivated: 

If you want to modify CyberSpaceLand to return something other than web searches, simply
replace the included searchfind.exe app with an application of your own choosing that  
returns lists of results on paired lines, i.e.
What you want in place of the first URL
What you want in place of the first Description
What you want in place of the second URL
What you want in place of the second Description
etc.

========================

DISCLAIMER STUFF

There is of course absolutely no warranty regarding anything to to do with CyberSpaceLand or
CyberPOP. Then again, the price is right...

========================

Amy Alexander (VJ Übergeek)
http://cyberspaceland.org
software ~at+ cyberspaceland.org

Additional contributions: 
Peter Brinson, Hillary Kapan, Charles Forman, Ang Siow Chen