=== stripShow ===
Contributors: monkeyangst
Donate link: http://stripshow.monkeylaw.org/
Tags: webcomics, plugin, comics, cartoons, art, automation, strips
Requires at least: 2.2
Tested up to: 2.6
Stable tag: 1.7

stripShow is a plugin that turns WordPress into a full-featured webcomics automation system.

== Description ==

So you want to produce a webcomic, and you've heard other creators rave about how WordPress is the way to go. But now you need a software package that can integrate your comics with your blog, as well as keeping the whole thing automated. This is where stripShow comes in.

stripShow will allow the webcomic creator to upload his or her comics using a handy WordPress admin interface, create custom themes that incorporate comic-specific template tags to navigate between comics, group comics into hierarchical storylines, and even enter searchable transcripts of your comics to make finding particular strips easy.

Support questions can be asked at the [stripShow support forum](http://www.spinzonecomics.com/index.php?board=12.0 "stripShow support forum").


== Installation ==

IMPORTANT: stripShow's installation process has changed for version 1.7 -- if you're an existing stripShow user, please note these instructions carefully.


1.	If you're upgrading from a previous version of stripShow, deactivate the plugin in the Plugins pane of your WordPress administration page.
2.	Unpack the stripShow archive into the wp-content/plugins folder of your Wordpress root folder.
3.	With the stripShow plugin folder, you will find a folder called example-themes. This contains the default stripShow theme, called stripshow. If you wish to use this theme, copy this folder to the wp-content/themes folder of your WordPress root folder. I don't recommend moving the original; keep it in place in case any modifications you make to the theme prove undesirable and you wish to revert to a pristine copy. I also recommend changing the name of the folder from stripshow to something of your choosing and changing the name of the theme in style.css to reflect this.
4.	Create a folder, off of the WordPress root, that will hold your comics. Most people call the folder comics, but you can call it whatever you like.
5.	If you plan to customize the stripShow theme (and I recommend that you do -- it's very, very ugly), then I suggest renaming the theme. To do so, rename the stripshow directory to a name of your liking, and edit the theme name in style.css within. This way, when new versions of stripShow are released, the default theme won't destroy the changes you've made to yours.
6.	Activate the stripShow plugin from the Plugins pane of your WordPress admin page.
7.	Navigate to the Presentation screen, and set your current theme to stripShow, or whatever you renamed the theme to in step 4.
8.	Navigate to Options->StripShow. Here you will find the following options:
* Comics directory - This is the folder, relative to the WordPress root, that your comic files are stored in. It's comics by default, but you can change this to whatever you named your folder in step 3.
* Date format - There are many ways to name your comics files, and stripShow hopes to accommodate most of them. This field is the format for dates in your comic filenames, using the PHP date format. For example, if your comic for April 1, 2007 is named "20070401.gif" then this field should read "Ymd" and if it's named "2007-04-01.gif" then the field should read "Y-m-d".
* Comics category - This is the WordPress category that all your comics are stored in. If you are using "ComicPress mode," (see below) then this is merely the category that automatically-imported comics will be filed in.
* Non-comics category - If you are using "ComicPress mode," then this is the WordPress category which stores all your non-comic blog posts.
* Category mode - This option selects the "operating mode" of stripShow. The only difference between the two modes is the way stripShow regards categories. The two modes are Multiple-category mode (This is the mode familiar to users of ComicPress and is included here to support sites that have been migrated from that software. One category is designated as "non-comic" (blog posts), and all other categories are considered to contain nothing but comics.) and Single-category mode (This is stripShow's native and default mode -- one category is designated as being for comics, the others are all for blog posts.)

9.	Once these options are set to your liking, navigate to your main WordPress page -- your system is now ready to add comics, if you haven't already got some.
	
== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Can I use one of Tyler Martin's ComicPress themes with stripShow? =

stripShow 1.7 has not been extensively tested with ComicPress-derived themes. stripShow 2.0 will add full compatibility.


== Template tags ==

stripShow provides a number of tags for theme authors to use in their templates. Without these tags, stripShow basically does nothing. The example themes included with stripShow make extensive use of these tags, and I've tried to make their meaning as clear as possible through a review of those themes. Below is a description of each tag.

* `show_comic`() - This tag displays the comic for the date being viewed. I have placed this tag in index.php and single.php

* `is_comic`() - A conditional tag returning TRUE if the current entry being displayed is a comic, and FALSE if it is not. I like to use this tag to wrap all the navigation functions in the sidebar, which are meaningless if the reader is reading a non-comic page (such as an About page for instance), so they don't appear.

* `first_comic`(_link text, title text (optional), always (optional)_) - Provides a link to the first comic in your archive. This link will not be displayed if you are already at the first comic. This tag takes one argument, which is the text you want to display as the link (this can also be any HTML, such as an `<img>` tag, which is what I used in the default theme). The title text argument provides the text that shows up as a tooltip (via the HTML TITLE argument for the `<img>` tag) when the reader mouses over the comic.The always argument will force the link to display whether the reader is viewing the last comic or not.

* `previous_comic`(_link text, title text (optional), always (optional)_) - Provides a link to the comic immediately preceding the one you're viewing. This link will not be displayed if you are already at the first comic. This tag takes one argument, which is the text you want to display as the link (this can also be any HTML, such as an `<img>` tag, which is what I used in the default theme). The title text argument provides the text that shows up as a tooltip (via the HTML TITLE argument for the `<img>` tag) when the reader mouses over the comic.The always argument will force the link to display whether the reader is viewing the last comic or not.

* `next_comic`(_link text, title text (optional), always (optional)_) - Provides a link to the comic immediately following the one you're viewing. This link will not be displayed if you are already at the last comic. This tag takes one argument, which is the text you want to display as the link (this can also be any HTML, such as an `<img>` tag, which is what I used in the default theme). The title text argument provides the text that shows up as a tooltip (via the HTML TITLE argument for the `<img>` tag) when the reader mouses over the comic.The always argument will force the link to display whether the reader is viewing the last comic or not.

* `last_comic`(_link text, title text (optional), always (optional),absolute (optional)_) - Provides a link to your index page. This link will not be displayed if you are already at the last comic. The first argument for this tag is the text you want to display as the link (this can also be any HTML, such as an `<img>` tag, which is what I used in the default theme). In addition, this particular tag takes two optional boolean arguments -- the absolute argument will make the link point to a permalink rather than the index page. The title text argument provides the text that shows up as a tooltip (via the HTML TITLE argument for the `<img>` tag) when the reader mouses over the comic. The always argument will force the link to display whether the reader is viewing the last comic or not.

* `first_comic__url`(),`previous_comic_url`(),`next_comic_url`(),`last_comic_url`() - If you'd like to write your own PHP functions that use the addresses of the first comic, next comic, etc, then use these functions. They just return the URL of the comic in question, in absolute format (including http://), for use in PHP commands.

* `random_comic_link`(_link text_) - This displays a link to a randomly-chosen comic.

* `storyline_dropdown`() - Displays a drop-down menu of all storylines.

* `the_story`() - Displays the name of the current storyline.

* `story_part`() - Displays the current part of the current story. This is returned as a number.

* `story_parts`() - Display the number of parts in the current story. Used in concert with "story_part()," above, can be used to display "Part 1 of 5" etc. If the current story doesn't have an ending (for instance, if it's an ongoing, not-yet-complete story), then a question mark is returned, as in "Part 1 of ?"

* `get_current_comic_blog`() - To display the blog entry associated with a particular comic, put this before the Loop on your index.php page. This acts much like wp_query() but unlike that command, won't mess up the other tags on the page. It really only needs to be on index.php -- the other pages do fine without it.

* `get_noncomic_posts`() - You can put this tag on your index.php page, and it will basically run a Wordpress query for non-comic blog posts, which you can then access using a regular loop.

* `end_noncomic_posts`() - If you choose to display recent non-comic blog posts on your page, you must follow up that loop with end_noncomic_posts(), or any template tags you use thereafter, like comic navigation links, will be all wrong.

* `recent_comics`(number, before, after) - Shows a list of links to the number most recent comics (defaults to 5). If you enter values for before and after, that text will be put before and after each link (useful for wrapping links in things like `<li>` tags).

* `recent_noncomics`(_number, before, after_) - Same as recent_comics(), but shows the most recent non-comic blog posts instead