Octomode

https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode

Octomode is a collective editing space for PDF making, using Etherpad, Paged.js and Flask.

Inspired by the multi-centered, tentacular cognition capabilities of the octopus, we imagined a space in which the artificial boundaries of writing and design can be crossed; where writing, editing and designing can be done in one environment simultaneously, allowing the format to influence the matter and vice-versa.

Ongoing circulations

Octomode is strongly relying on (Ether)pad and shared habits of collective note taking in such collaborative environments. In the end, octomode is just a combination of a few free software tools, and we like to think of octomode as a boilerplate, that can be re-configured and re-transformed into other possible environments. It is anyway strongly inspired by the beautiful work of others, including:

• Ethertoff by OSP
• Etherbox by Constant
• etherdump by Michael Murtaugh/Constant
• etherpump by Varia
• Pad2Print by Luuse

Octomode is published under CC4r: please feel free to use, change, transform and republish into many directions, within the limits of the conditions formulated by the COLLECTIVE CONDITIONS FOR RE-USE (CC4r) license.

Made with Octomode

Bulgarian antifascist bulletin (1, 2023)

First edition of the SomeTimes, the (ir)regular printed newsletter of Varia (April, 2022), announcement, documentation

Eerste editie van de Af en Toe, de (on)regelmatige gedrukte nieuwsbrief van Varia (april, 2022), announcement, documentation

Hosting with, a zine capturing a conversation at AMRO22 in Linz around art servers and hosting practices (self-published by Varia in July, 2023), documentation

How to use octomode?

If you want to work collectively on making a PDF, you can make a new octomode environment here: https://cc.vvvvvvaria.org/octomode/.

You can write any name of in the input field, this will be the name of the new octomode environment and pads that are used.

More documentation can be found here: https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode

Octomode default templates

PAD.md

---
title: octomode
language: en
---

<!-- 

                                      |      
  __   __ _|_  __   _  _  _    __   __|   _  
 /  \_/    |  /  \_/ |/ |/ |  /  \_/  |  |/  
 \__/ \___/|_/\__/   |  |  |_/\__/ \_/|_/|__/
                                             
  
  This document is opened in octomode.

  pad          : all materials for the PDF are collected here (written in Markdown)
  stylesheet   : all CSS rules for the PDF are collected here (written in CSS)
  html         : render the structure of the lay out as a HTML (with PyPandoc)
                 [note] this view does not render any styling!
  pdf          : render the lay out as a PDF (with Paged.js)

  https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode

-->

<!--

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a pad on *creative crowd*, a Varia server for publishing experiments.
This server is still pretty fresh and in progress!

How can this server be available AND unstable, public AND being paid for,
free to be used AND situated, a production environment AND in transformation?

While surfing the contradictions, we are working on the collective guidelines
for engaging with this server... Visit for updates: https://cc.vvvvvvaria.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-->

<section id="cover">
# *in octomode* { #title }



</section>

<section id="main">
Octomode is a collective editing space for PDF making, using Etherpad, Paged.js and Flask.

Inspired by the multi-centered, tentacular cognition capabilities of the octopus, we imagined a space in which the artificial boundaries of writing and design can be crossed; where writing, editing and designing can be done in one environment simultaneously, allowing the format to influence the matter and vice-versa. 

```
Edit this text in the PAD view.
Edit the styling in the STYLESHEET view. 
Preview the page in the HTML view.
Render it on pages in the PDF view.
```

</section>

PAD.css

@charset "utf-8"; 

@page{
    size: A5;
    margin: 10mm 20mm 25mm 20mm;

    @bottom-center{
        content: counter(page);
        font-family: monospace;
    }
}
body{
    font-size: 12px;
    line-height: 1.5;
    color: #822b01;
}

/* ------------------------------------ cover */

@page:first{
    background-color: #f3c6ff;
    color: #822b01;
}
section#cover{
    break-after: always;
}
section#cover h1#title{
    font-size: 300%;
}

/* ------------------------------------ main */

section#main pre{
    color: magenta;
}

CSS Print

Some CSS Print examples can be found at: CSS Print

Octomode on the CC server

Octomode is installed on the server at: /var/www/octomode/ and runs as a system user octomode.

You can restart octomode with: $ sudo service octomode restart

Or see its status with: $ sudo service octomode status.

The code that is used for octomode can be found here: https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode.

Error log

For some adventures in Octomode, please see the Error log.