Niles-n'-Plebian Kranny

The Niles-n'-Plebian Kranny (or Kranny for short) is a discontinued HTML trinket developed by Dozerfleet Labs as freeware for consumption by the general public. It was originally developed as a MediaWiki trinket to aid Dozerfleet Database pages in site navigation, mainly as a part of improving project history cataloging. From there, it evolved into something with broader possible application. Its name is a parody of the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook, with the Huestream being a parody of the Nook Color and Kindle Fire. On October 16th of 2014, around 10:25PM EDT, the official download page for the Kranny was moved from this wiki to the Dozerfleet Labs blog. As of 2016, the Kranny is no longer supported.

Ferris and SWOCC Invasions
The Kranny's history goes back to January of 2010. It was decided as early as January 1st that DozerfleetWiki would serve the Dozerfleet founder's portfolio cataloging history best by preparing it for the rapid influx of video projects to document that would inevitably occur upon entering TVPR 499 class that upcoming spring semester. The Ferris Invasion soon caught on, and projects piled up faster than the Dozerfleet founder could document them. It was soon revealed that a handful of navboxes wouldn't be enough. But before the portfolio catalog could be properly formalized, the SWOCC Invasion took place.

Portfolio catalog initiation
In April of 2011, DozerfleetTV video project history started being documented. It took until almost September to finish documenting all video projects. In January of 2012, the Dozerfleet founder became intrigued by the rise of e-readers in the market; pondering getting one. This led to the revised portfolio catalog system in February with portfolio catalog entries resembling e-reader screens. All projects would be documented, and all projects would trace back in time to the earliest project, and would trace back to a single SVG image of an art portfolio box

However, this got too lengthy for a single page. Projects were then divided by "eras," with a different portfolio bag for each era. The portfolio catalog was then divided into several catalog pages by division. From there, the division portfolio catalogs were divided into "completed" and "inactive" subdivisions that each categorized projects by era. Era definitions would further be divided differently to fit each division, so not all era lists contained the same groups of years.

Wiki-formatted Kranny
With the Portfolio Catalog for Dozerfleet project history having been broken into so many categories and subcategories, with so many pages resulting, it seemed only logical there should be a navbox for it all. The navbox on this wiki was originally going to be a simple one at the page bottom. However, the list format for portfolio catalog pages didn't suit a traditional end-of-page navbox format. And since the entries were on little "cards" that looked like e-reader screens, it only made sense to craft a fancy navbox at the top right of every list page that would exploit the e-reader visual theme for all it was worth. The result was a template that once featured on this site.

HTML site version


With the successful implementation of the first Kranny on this wiki, the Dozerfleet founder soon realized its potential as a generic navigation template that anyone running an HTML site could tweak for their own needs. This resulted in an HTML5/CSS3 Kranny being made that could be tweaked to support the needs of anyone wanting it to run the navigation for their site. It would be embedded on an HTML5 page that would contain areas to copy and paste the code needed for users to start developing their own customized Krannies.

That HTML5 page was then copied into a ZIP file, after first having the base-64 code for its own icon and the Dozerfleet Labs logo SVG file embedded inside it. The officiation of Dozerfleet Labs as a division hinged on this page. The resulting page for copy-pasting template open-source code for individuals to customize their own Krannies with was then uploaded inside its ZIP file to MediaFire; where it would be made available for public download. The entire Kranny project was completed on February 21st of 2012. A rotated version of the Kranny, which renders at an angle and adds dimensionality to the illusion was uploaded on February 22nd to MediaFire.

Naming scheme
The term "Kranny" is a portmanteu of "Kindle" and "cranny," with "cranny" coming from the phrase "every nook and cranny." The "Niles" part combines "Barnes" with the Nile River, which is longer than the Amazon. "Plebian" is an antonym for "Noble," hence its usage. The "Huestream" refers to it being in color like the Nook Color/Tablet, while referring to a stream as in a stream of water. This makes it the fire vs. water counterpart to the Kindle "Fire."

Kranny Basic for MediaWiki
The MediaWiki Edition of the Kranny is the most simplistic form available. It features an "Omega" symbol that spoofs the arch symbol on the Barnes & Noble Nook. However, the button is purely for decoration. It ultimately does nothing. The text and screen are designed to be off-black and off-white respectively, reducing the contrast ratio so that the result resembles a Kindle Touch screen.

This Kranny is very limited in features, having a fixed height and width with only enough room for basic navigational features. However, it is not hard to tweak the code to create fixed-height DIVs that auto-scroll. Scrolling works more like typical web page vertical scrolling, as opposed to the virtual page-turning in actual e-readers.

The downloadable HTML page features a section of copy-paste code for developing one's own MediaWiki navboxes with a Kranny appearance.

Kranny Basic
The Kranny Basic is a little more advanced, allowing for web-style vertical auto scrolling in the case of navigation overflow. The Omega button now serves as a link to the main page of any site, and can be customized based on the assigned given name of said main page. When hovered over, it glows prominently. Hyperlink text now covers itself in a dashed box border when hovered over, mildly reminiscent of a selected link on an e-reader. The interface is still more-or-less straight-on viewing.

Kranny Rotated
The Kranny Rotated works almost exactly the same way as the Kranny Basic, with the exception that it is 3D transformed with CSS3 instructions. This version adds a sense of dimensionality to a page. It could be especially useful for screens that allow stereoscopic display, especially when creating the illusion of a truly 3-dimensional website. The Kranny Rotated works in every major browser except Internet Explorer and Opera, though its contents do not always render cleanly and perfectly in Firefox.

Kranny Huestream for MediaWiki
While not yet available for mass public download for HTML page templates, the Kranny Huestream is a variation that was developed for use on certain DozerfleetWiki pages. It spoofs the Nook Color, Nook Tablet, and Kindle Fire. Full contrast ratio is restored to this version, and full-color images are viewable as navigation components along with navigation text.

Desktop PC web browsers
The Kranny and its copy-paste open source code page have been tested in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. They have not been tested for Opera compatibility. With the exception of hyperlinked text, animations do not work in Internet Explorer. Rotation and shadows don't work either, nor does the Kranny's gradient show up in that browser. Internet Explorer renders are otherwise clean. Only IE9 was tested, so the Kranny may not load in earlier versions, such as Internet Explorer 7 or 8. It is all but guaranteed not to work in IE6 or earlier.

In Chrome and Safari, the gradient renders a little more cleanly than in Firefox. The rotated version also renders better in Webkit-based browsers as opposed to Gecko-based ones. Sometimes though not always, the rotated Kranny's text becomes distorted in Firefox. The Omega button's glow works about as well in all three higher-end browsers, though it renders skinnier in Chrome and Safari.

Kranny on Nook and Kindle
As for viewing pages that feature the Kranny on an actual e-reader, only the higher-end e-readers did particularly well. The Nook Tablet in particular renders most of DozerfleetWiki as cleanly as Google Chrome does. The Nook Color, however, does not have support for the full features and functionality of Wikia. Therefore, the Kranny's code is completely broken on that unit. Some animations may not work. The main browser for the Nook apparently uses a Webkit foundation, as the e-reader's operating system is a modified version of Android. Firefox support for the Nook has been brought up to Barnes & Noble for consideration; but as of March of 2012, the Nook does not support Firefox or other Gecko browsers.