Welcome
| Whether you are visiting the Star Trek
Dimension for the first time and now wish to learn a little more about the project before
you start experiencing the Dimension, or you have already rummaged in some of the various
projects and problems or questions have arisen, I cordially welcome you in the Star Trek
Dimension introduction. This page will give you a concise overview of the Star Trek
Dimension Archival Edition and will provide you with the basics which you should know
about this large, extensive web project. It will familiarize you with the background
story, the goals, the structure and the interface of it. At the end of this introduction,
you will be able to navigate through the Dimension without any problems, and you can use
the possibilities of the site optimally. By the way: if you only want a quick introduction
to the possibilities of the Dimension, proceed to "The projects" immediately. |
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The
Star Trek Dimension
This web site, which has been created
between 1997 and 2002 and is online since August 1999, is an extensive compendium
which will provide you with information on almost all aspects and topics of Star Trek -
from the Original Series to Star Trek. Voyager - in a multimedia experience. For this
purpose, quality, quantity and uniqueness of the content as well as a creative,
professional presentation have been the pursued properties when creating the site. Of
course, several CD-ROMs and books have been published by Paramount itself in the past,
however, this web project has the advantage that every piece of information is avaiable
digitally, that it is second for free, unlicensed and uncensored in order to provide a
common ground for the interested fans all over the world, and finally that it is one of
the most comprehensive, detailed and graphically sophisticated works on Star Trek in the
internet.
In about one dozen
"projects", that are autonomous parts of the websites devoted to one particular
topic or aspect of Star Trek, you will find "conventional" collections, e.g.
episode guides, multimedia download areas and link lists, as well as revolutionary new
things. These really unique projects which you probably haven't seen in the internet
before in that way are the actual core of the Dimension. They in particular symbolize the
primary task of the Star Trek Dimension, which - following the Star Trek motto - shall
boldly go where no website has gone before, and explore new fields of Star Trek as well as
electronic publishing. The Star Trek Dimension should not remain on the surface, it should
proceed to the underlying causes and don't leave out the "why" apart from
"how". Therefore, you will not only find a detailed and visually appealing
reproduction of the Star Trek universe, but also guided tours behind the scenes of Star
Trek with a multitude of background facts, as well as approaches of the author himself
which try to solve existing problems, examine rarely explored aspects of Star Trek like
the cartography and subspace, and make conclusions from the basic knowledge.
Finally, the Star Trek Dimension should
not only stand out due to its creativity, but also its interactivity. That does not only
mean that the Star Trek Dimension may be a stimulus for the visitors to become active
themselves und to deal with the offered information in a creative way. It was the
original goal of Gene Roddenberry to provide the human beings with an intelligent way of
entertainment, which should make them deal with the shown problems, and - following the
traditions of the enlightenment - make them exert their own mind, not only consume
passively. The Star Trek Dimension doesn't pursue lower principles.
The
structure
Essentially, the Star Trek Dimension
consists of three hierarchical levels. The main page (or front page), which appears if you
type in the URL www.stdimension.org/int, is at the
head of the site. The main page contains links to the next level: the information files
like the introduction, the FAQ, the news, the community and also the projects page. The
latter page provides access to all Star Trek Dimension projects; therefore it is the
"control center" of the Dimension. Mostly, the projects themselves consist of a
multitude of pages, which are subordinated to their respective main pages, e.g. the LCARS
files to the database, the single chapters to the Cartography and the episode descriptions
to the guides. This basic structure is important for the conventional, frame-less
navigation through the site via links.
The
navigation
Due to the generally uniform layout of
the Dimension, most pages have a distinctive header which is intended to help you to find
your way through this website.
The heading always refers to the
website area - on the information pages as well as the projects. For instance, the pages
"Last updates", "News archive" and "Publicity" as parts of
the news area all have the heading "News update", and every chapter of the Star
Trek Cartography has the designation "ST Cartography".
The right link with the up arrow always displays the parent page again. It corresponds to
the Windows Explorer button "Upward". Due to the general structure of the
Dimension, a click on the link consequently displays the main page, if you are on one of
the information pages, and the projects page, if you are on the overview page of a
project. If you are on a subordinate page of a project, you are taken back to the
overview.
However, as the button always shows the name of the parent page that is the link
destination from your current position ("frontpage" on the information pages,
"projects" on the project overview pages, "overview" on the projects'
subordinate pages and in few cases "back" on even "deeper" located
pages), you don't have to think too much about this.
You can navigate through the Star Trek
Dimension even faster with the Dimension bar, the navigation frame which you will
generally find above the actual page content. The bar contains links to the main page and
the control center of the Dimension as well as links to the most important projects,
facilitating the access to every part of the site from every part of the site. On the
left, the website title is displayed, below which you will usually find the title of the
displayed page. The thirteen icons grouped by separators represent the most important
projects of the Star Trek Dimension. Click with the mouse on one of the pictures to open
the corresponding project. On the right, there are two text links, which display the
respective pages. The main page grants access to the various information files, and the
projects page contains links to additional projects as well as short project descriptions.
By the way: in the LCARS database, the navigation bar is hidden in order to make the
simulation of the LCARS terminal as realistic as possible. The bar re-appears as soon as
you leave the database with "logoff".
To facilitate navigation through the
website areas, in some projects with many pages an additional project bar is displayed,
which is shown right below the Dimension bar. At the moment, this applies to the episode
guides, the Web Dimension and the Media Library. These bars consist of the project's title
on the left and a selection box which allows you to open each page of the project very
quickly.
Areas which only consists of three
sub-pages, e.g. the news or the community, contain a link selection below the title
picture. The bold item is the currently selected page, the purple items are
links to the other pages.
If a page is very extensive, you will
usually find an overview first, which contains, as a list of contents, links to the
different paragraphs of the page. Links in the text itself are marked purple.
Cross references to similar or continuing topics you will find below the paragraphs, for
example
 Special notes concerning the use of the LCARS database are
available here.
The
projects
Since you are now familiar with the basic structure
of the website, a quick tour through the Star Trek Dimension should conclude this
introduction and answer the question: "In the end, what possibilities offers the Star
Trek Dimension?". First, there is the huge LCARS database
of the Federation, which was the sole project of the Star Trek Dimension at the beginning
and remains the most core project of the Archival Edition. With 300 files in the German
and 170 files in the English version, this project is also the most extensive part of the
website. It perfectly simulates a LCARS terminal with frames, Javascript and appropriate
images, how it would use a researcher from the 24th century, and provides information with
the typical layout, but also many photos and multimedia additions. The database isn't
complete at all and shouldn't be in the end, as due to its profoundness and a content
which exceeds the mere reproduction of the Star Trek knowledge (like in the Star Trek
Encyclopedia), it is the ideal project to browse through on a rainy day. In contrast, a
number of unique treknology projects, which belong to the category "own approaches of
the author", and provide background information, take a look at the Star Trek world
from "outside". For example, Investigating
Trek tries to solve some of the problems of Star Trek, and the Subspace Manual and the Star Trek Cartography, the largest source on maps
& distances on the net, depict own interpretations of these background topics in
extensive elaborations. Furthermore, there are three episode guides identical in
structure, the ST:TOS Guide, ST:DS9 Guide, ST:VOY
Guide. They contain hundreds of episode files with up-to-date, detailed information
and my own comments on the episodes of the series. You will also find a multimedia
download area in the Dimension - the Media Library,
which offers a unique collection of high-quality Star Trek wallpapers, sound effects and
more. You see, there really are (almost) no limits to the Star Trek
Dimension.
Informed about the basic possibilities
of the
Dimension, you can now enter the colorful world of Star Trek and experience indefinite
possibilities in indefinite diversity. Enjoy the ride!
The author of the Star Trek Dimension
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If you have further, more in-depth
questions: the FAQ answers specific questions on the Dimension. |
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