HJG 2013-02-22 - A WebMaze is a maze of webpages, with links pointing to other pages of the maze.
The userinterface looks like an old-fashioned text-adventure, with commands like "Go north", "Go west" etc. Except, there are no objects, no inventory, no enemies, no actions etc. beside walking around:
Maze You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. The floor is solid stone. Exits: * North another part of the maze * South the entrance * West a trap for webcrawlers and spammers © 2012-12-22 Contact: Webmaster
Each such page is quite simple, but creating/maintaining all the links by hand would be errorprone and boring.
So I wrote a program that creates such a set of webpages. (Does that make me a html-programmer ? :)
This one is really simple, as it uses a hardcoded 3x3 maze:
7 - 6 - 5
! ! !
X <- 8 - 9 - 4
- ! !
3 - 2 - 1 <- 0
0: Entry=index.html 1: first room 2,3: dead end
4,5,6,7: correct path 8: last room X: Exit=index2.html
9: Trap (can be reached from rooms 2,4,6,8)The entry- and exit-pages (here 0 and X) are 'outside', i.e. not part of the maze. The generated files index1- and index2.html are just meant as an example.
The trap is a set of rooms with links that only point to other traps. Anybody that visits more than 3-4 such trap-pages is most likely a bot / webcrawler.
One way to use this, is to 'hide' some part of a website (or all of it :)
E.g. all the maze-pages go into a subdirectory "webmaze", the standard startpage index.html redirects to the first maze-page, and the exit-page of the maze points to the renamed homepage, e.g. /index3.html.
To specify a redirection, just put a line like this at the top of the startpage (after "<head>"):
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=webmaze/maze1.html">
To prevent cheating/guessing, we also need to catch 404-errors (i.e. redirect them to our trap-page :). Such a custom local ErrorDocument is specified with an entry in the file .htaccess, e.g. :
ErrorDocument 404 /webmaze/maze9.html
Before using this script, you might want to customize it a bit (scheme for roomnames, messages, contact-eMail, index1/2/3-files etc.).
# https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/37725
# webmaze08.tcl - HaJo Gurt - 2013-02-18
#: Generate a set of webpages that form an text-adventure-type maze.
# Contains a trap for webcrawlers.
# Simple, static version
# Now also generates example-files index1.html + index2.html.
# index1.html is to be moved into the document-root of the webspace,
# as a replacement for the default index.html.
# All the maze*.html - files go into a subdir "webmaze".
# Installation - at your workstation:
# * Create subdir "webmaze"
# * Copy this script into this directory and run it there --> files are generated.
# To run just the maze locally, drag+drop maze1.html into your browser.
#
# To see the redirection working, move index1.html one level up from webmaze,
# then drop it into your browser.
# Installation - at the webserver:
# * Rename index.html --> index3.html
# * Create subdir "webmaze"
# * Transfer all files maze* from subdir "webmaze" at the workstation
# to the subdir "webmaze" at the webserver.
# (Depending on your ftp-client, you might want to zip the files first)
# * Transfer the file index1.html from subdir "webmaze" at the workstation
# to the webroot "/" at the webserver.
# * Rename index1.html --> index.html
#
# Entering your website, the new index.html should redirect to webmaze/maze1.html.
# After running thru the maze, the last mazepage webmaze/maze8.html
# leads to the exitpage webmaze/index2.html, and this
# webmaze/index2.html redirects to index3.html, which is the old index.html.
#
# The examplefiles wait 5 seconds before redirecting, so you can see
# what is going on, but you can set that time to 0.
# Todo:
# * Generate a maze, like [maze generator] or [maze generator2],
# or import a maze-description in a suitable format.
# * Simpler way to generate the set of trap-pages.
# * Tweak page-layout, meta-entries etc.
# * Options: Switch entry+exit / Disable trap (replace with deadend)
set Hdr "WebMaze v0.8"
####+####1####+####2####+####3####+####4####+####5####+####6####+####7####+###
## Console-settings, to allow running in wish as well as in tclsh:
catch { console show }
catch { wm withdraw . }
# catch { console eval { .console config -bg grey -fg blue } }
# Resize & put at top-right corner on 1024x768:
##catch { console eval { wm geometry . 56x12+550+0 } }
catch { console title "$Hdr" }
proc q {} { exit }
proc put1 {s} {
#: Output to screen or file
global fp
# puts $s
puts $::fp $s
}
####+####1####+####2####+####3####+####4####+####5####+####6####+####7####+###
if 0 {
Simple 3x3 - Maze:
N
W+E
S
7 - 6 - 5
! ! !
X <- 8 - 9 - 4
- ! !
3 - 2 - 1 <- 0
0: Entry=index.html 1: first room 2,3: dead end
4,5,6,7: correct path 8: last room X: Exit=index2.html
9: Trap (can be reached from rooms 2,4,6,8)
}
# Hardcoded maze-layout:
set Loc1 1 ;# First room
set LocL 8 ;# Last room
set LocX X ;# Exit - redirecting examplefile is generated / see RoomName(), ExitPage()
set LocT 9 ;# Trap
# Pg Ty N E S W
set Links " 1 R1 4 - - 2
2 .. 9 1 - 3
3 DE - 2 - -
4 .. 5 - 1 9
5 .. - - 4 6
6 .. - 5 9 7
7 .. - 6 8 -
8 RL 7 9 - X
9 T 9a 9b 9c 9d
9a T 9b 9c 9d 9e
9b T 9c 9d 9e 9f
9c T 9d 9e 9f 9g
9d T 9e 9f 9g 9h
9e t 9f 9g 9h 9i
9f T 9g 9h 9i 9
9g T 9h 9i 9 9
9h T 9i 9 9 9
9i T 9 9 9 9 "
proc RoomName {N} {
# set Name "http://example.com/maze$N.html"
set Name "maze$N.html"
if {$N == $::LocX} { set Name "index2.html" }
return $Name
}
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proc RoomText {Ty} {
set Msg "The floor is solid stone."
if {$Ty == "R1"} { set Msg "You entered the maze here." }
if {$Ty == "RL"} { set Msg "You can leave the maze from here." }
if {$Ty == "X" } { set Msg "You have reached the exit." }
if {$Ty == "DE"} { set Msg "This is a dead end." }
if {$Ty == "D2"} { set Msg "Turn back! The end is here!" }
if {$Ty == "T" } { set Msg "You fell into this trap for webcrawlers and spammers." }
if {$Ty == "t" } { set Msg "You are still falling down this trap." }
return $Msg
}
proc LinkText {N} {
global Loc1 LocL LocX LocT
set Msg "another part of the maze"
if {$N == $Loc1} { set Msg "the entrance" }
if {$N == $LocL} { set Msg "you see light from that part of the maze" }
if {$N == $LocX} { set Msg "the exit" }
if {$N == $LocT} { set Msg "a trap for webcrawlers and spammers" }
return $Msg
}
proc RoomLink {Dir N} {
# put1 " <li> <a href=\"maze$N.html\">$Dir</a> [LinkText $N] </li>"
put1 " <li> <a href=\"[RoomName $N]\">$Dir</a> [LinkText $N] </li>"
}
proc TrapLink {Dir N} {
put1 " <li> <a href=\"[RoomName $N]\">$Dir</a> </li>"
}
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proc Header {Pg Ty} {
put1 "<html>"
put1 "<head>"
# put1 "<title>$::Hdr</title>"
put1 "<title>WebMaze: $Pg</title>" ;# for history & bookmarks
put1 "</head>\n"
}
proc Body1 {Pg Ty} {
put1 "<body>"
put1 "<h1>Maze</h1><hr>"
put1 "<br>"
put1 "<p>You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.</p>"
put1 "<p>[RoomText $Ty]</p>"
put1 "<p><b>Exits:</b>"
put1 "<ul>"
}
proc RoomLinks {N E S W} {
if {$N ne "-"} { RoomLink North $N }
if {$E ne "-"} { RoomLink East $E }
if {$S ne "-"} { RoomLink South $S }
if {$W ne "-"} { RoomLink West $W }
}
proc TrapLinks {N E S W} {
if {$N ne "-"} { TrapLink "Down - normal speed" $N }
if {$S ne "-"} { TrapLink "Down (slower)" $S }
if {$W ne "-"} { TrapLink "Down (faster)" $W }
if {$E ne "-"} { TrapLink "Down (extra quick)" $E }
}
proc Body2 {} {
put1 "</ul> </p>"
put1 "<hr noshade>"
put1 "<!-- Footer: -->"
put1 "© 2012-12-23 "
put1 "Contact: <a href=mailto:[email protected]>Webmaster</a>"
put1 "</body>"
}
proc Footer {} {
put1 "</html>\n"
}
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proc StartPage {File Txt To} {
# Replacement for index.html, it redirects to the first maze-page.
# The original index.html would be placed after the exit-page of the maze.
puts "# File $File"
set ::fp [open $File w]
put1 "<html>"
put1 "<head>"
put1 "<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"5; URL=$To\">" ;# seconds until redirect
put1 "<title>$Txt</title>"
put1 "</head>\n"
put1 "<body bgcolor=cyan>"
put1 "<h1>$Txt</h1><hr>"
put1 " $Txt: <a href=\"$To\">$To</a>"
put1 "</body>"
put1 "</html>\n"
close $::fp
}
proc ExitPage {File Txt To} {
# Page after the maze is completed, it shows a short message,
# and redirects to the old index.html (renamed "index3.html")
set ::fp [open $File w]
puts "# File $File"
put1 "<html>"
put1 "<head>"
put1 "<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"5; URL=$To\">" ;# seconds until redirect
put1 "<title>$Txt</title>"
put1 "</head>\n"
put1 "<body bgcolor=lime>" ;# light green
put1 "<h1>$Txt</h1><hr>"
put1 "<p>You have reached the exit.</p>"
put1 "<p>Congratulations !</p>"
put1 "<p>And now, for something completely different: <a href=\"$To\">$To</a></p>"
put1 "</body>"
put1 "</html>\n"
close $::fp
}
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puts "# $Hdr :"
foreach {Pg Ty N E S W} $Links {
set pgFile [RoomName $Pg]
puts "# Page $Pg : $N $E $S $W - $pgFile"
set fp [open $pgFile w]
Header $Pg $Ty
Body1 $Pg $Ty
if {$Ty=="T" || $Ty=="t"} {
TrapLinks $N $E $S $W
} else {
RoomLinks $N $E $S $W
}
Body2
Footer
close $fp
}
StartPage index1.html Redirect "webmaze/[RoomName $Loc1]"
ExitPage [RoomName $LocX] Done "../index3.html"
puts "# done."
#.See also: