How can I install Transdown on my system?

Right now Transdown is Mac-Only.¹ If you have a Mac and want to give it a try, read on.

Minimum Requirements

Hardware

You need a Mac. Transdown has been tested on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).²

Software

If you want to be able to preview your Inqscribe transcripts live as you write, You’ll need:

• A fully-licensed³ copy of Inqscribe
• Marked2, the app displays a live preview of your Inqscribe transcript as you write.⁴
• Node.js, which handles custom-processing the preview. If you don’t have Node installed right now, don’t worry!. I’ll show you how to install it a bit later in this guide

Emotional Temperament

You should install Transdown if you:

• Feel brave (this software is offered without any warranty)
• Want to pioneer this
• Could help by submitting bug reports as new issues when stuff goes awry⁵

Installation Overview

There are several main parts to installing Transdown for Inqscribe/Marked integration:

1. Installing Node,
2. Downloading the Transdown Source Code
3. Adding the Transdown stylesheet to Marked
4. Setting up Marked to use Transdown as a custom processor
5. Verifying everything works by loading a transcript

How To Install Transdown on Mac OS X

1. If you don’t already have it, install Node.⁶ There are two basic ways you can do it:

   1. For Developers and the Adventurous: using homebrew⁷ at the terminal:

      		> brew install node
              

   2. For Most Folks: Downloading a precompiled package directly from Nodejs.org.

2. Download the latest version of the Transdown source code and remember where you put it.⁸ You can accomplish this one of three ways:
   1. Download the source files directly as a .ZIP file, which you should unzip.⁸
   2. Clone the Transdown Repository using the free Github for Mac app.⁸

   3. Clone the repository at the command line using git:

      # First, navigate to a directory where you want to store
      # the Transdown folder, then
      > git clone https://github.com/briandk/transdown.git
              

3. Add the custom stylesheet to Marked.
   1. Open the Marked App
   2. Click the Marked 2 menu, then choose Preferences
   3. Within Preferences, hit the Style button
   4. Under Theme -> Custom Styles, Click the + button.
   5. Within your copy of Transdown, navigate to stylesheets -> markedApp -> transdownMarkedPreview.css. Click to select it, then hit the Select button.
   6. Click “Apply”.
4. Specify Transdown as a Custom Processor
   1. Open the Marked App (if it’s not already still open)
   2. Click the Marked 2 menu, then choose Preferences
   3. Within Preferences, hit the Advanced Button.
   4. Check the “Enable Custom Processor” box

   5. For the value of Path, enter:

      /usr/local/bin/node

   6. For the value of Args, you’ll need to put the full path to your local copy of the rendering script: renderInqscribePreviewinMarked.js. Here’s an easy way to do that.
      1. Use Finder to bring up where you saved Transdown
      2. Within Transdown, navigate to javascripts
      3. Click and drag renderInqscribePreviewinMarked.js from the Finder window directly into the field for Args in Inqscribe
      4. Click “Apply”
5. Verifying your installation
   1. Open a transcript in Inqscribe. If you don’t have one ready to go, you can open your Transdown directory and navigate to MarkedAppDemo -> RebeccaWellsFrameShiftEpisode20120406.inqscr.
   2. Open Marked
   3. Click the Inqscribe icon in the window’s title bar and drag it over the Marked icon in the dock.
   4. In Marked, click the Style selector in the lower-left corner of the window. Select TransdownMarkedPreview.
   5. That should do it. If you’re still experiencing difficulties or issues, contact me!

Where can I find out more info?

Visit Transdown.org