GUIDE TO BUILDING YOUR OWN STATION

You are probably wondering: where should I even start if I want to
build my own station on the Nightfall Express? And you'd be right!
This is a little guide to get you started in building your very own
station.

1. Get a place to host your station

To start building your station, you first need a location to construct
it. You can either find existing servers that offer nex hosting, or
you could host your own. This very server offers nex hosting, so
simply send me an email (m15o at posteo dot net) and I'd happily set
you up with some space!

2. Set up the foundations

Now that you know where to put your content, let's see how to
structure it. Nex serves two types of elements: documents and
directories. So how about we go ahead and create a page to let
visitors know more about us?

Let's create 'about.txt'. You can use any text editor for that. If
you're not sure which one to use, how about ed? The '.txt' extension
is mainly there to be explicit about the content the file contains,
but it's not necessary. You can remove the extension if you'd like,
but it's a good practice to keep it so that Nex browsers can display
different extensions differently.

Since 'about.txt' is a text file, there's no specific syntax you
should use when you write it. Nex will simply display the file
regardless of how you write it. If you'd like to underline your title
to make it stand out, you can!

About me
========

Or perhaps you'd like to keep it more compact and do:

[ About me ]

That also works. What matters more is consistency: pick a style for
your page title and keep it consistent across your station. Remember
though, text files are... text files! Don't assume the viewer will use
any format when they read it. For that very reason, it's considered
best practice to limit the numbers of characters per line to 70.
Here's how you can do it:

fold -w 70 -s about.txt

So take your time and build your about.txt page! Put information about
you, and maybe an email where you'd like people to contact you.

Next, let's set up your index page.

If someone visits your station now, they will see a page with a link
to your about page. It's great, but it's not the best way to welcome
your visitor. We can fix that by creating an index page. If a
directory contains an index page, nex will display it.

So go ahead and create a file called 'index'.

The great thing about the index page is that you can include links in
them. Links use the following structure:

=> <url> [optional text]

So on your index page, you can warmly introduce your visitor, and
point them to your about page! Nex browsers know that when they
display a directory, links are described using the above format.

Congratulations, you've now learned the bascis of setting up your
station! You can now add a nexlog/ directory or a journal.txt.

A best practice to keep in mind is to include a '/' at the end of urls
that describe a directory. That's the cue browsers will take to know
that links will be in them. E.g.:

- Bad:  => nexlog
- Good: => nexlog/

3. List your station on nex!

I'd love to know about your station and list it! Send me an email and
I'll make sure to add it on the Nex's homepage.