This lecture is no longer included as a part of the regular Webmastering course taught by Prof. Bennett, but due to its popularity it has been archived as an article..

The Lost Lecture: Designers Like Flow Charts

Today I am going to show you something that may help you when developing scripts. This little trick is something that serious computer people spend a lot of time reading about. They also spend too much money for books on the topic, but designers can usually grasp this concept in a matter of minutes. What I am going to show you is something like flow charting. It can really help you figure out how to arrange the parts of any script that you are writing. It can also be very useful in picking apart a script written by someone else. But instead of using a boring script as an example we are going to build a flow chart based on a real life experience.

Here is the scenario:

You are sitting at home one night with your "Significant Other". It is about 11:30 pm and you have a class in the morning. You have just finished watching a movie and are getting ready to go to bed when, suddenly, a pair of headlights shine through your window. You look out the window and see that the headlights are coming from a car that belongs to a friend of yours.

Your "Significant Other" gives you a glaring look and says, "Get rid of him!", then gets up and heads toward the bedroom.

Now this friend of yours must not be a very good friend if he keeps showing up this late on a week night, but you have found yourself a little low on friends lately and you don't really want to be rude.

(laughter from class)

Let's start the chart:

So far we really only have two things to include: the fact that your friend arrived and that your "Significant Other" said to get rid of him.

(Bennett goes to the whiteboard and starts drawing)

So you won't offend your friend, you have decided to offer him something to drink. Keeping in mind that you are supposed to get rid of him, you have decided that if he wants something to drink you will give him something, if he doesn't want anything, then you will tell him that you have to go to bed and diplomatically send him on his way.

Now our chart will look like this:

What happens next is determined by your friend. If he says that he would like a drink, our flow chart will follow one path. If not, it will follow another. If he doesn't want anything to drink you will do what your "Significant Other" said to do ..."Get rid of him!"

Ok, now we have charted what will happen if your friend is not thirsty, but what if he does want something to drink? We will now add an action where you get him a drink. We also need a place to get the drink from. Most people keep drinks in the fridge, so we will create one.

(Bennett continues to draw flow chart)

Ok, what kind of things are you going to have in your fridge?

(soda, beer, tea)

Soda ... or as we yankees say: "Pop". Iced tea ... gotta have iced tea. What else?

(Drano!)

No! We are not going to keep Drano in the fridge!

(milk)

Ok, milk... that's better.

(Bennett adds beverages to chart)

Now we need to determine what will happen after he finishes his drink. We know what grief we can get if we don't keep our "Significant Other" happy, so ... as soon as he finishes his drink, he is out of here.

That's it. You have completed a flow chart. In this case we used a typical occurrence from real life, but what does this have to do with scripting? In reality this chart contains many elements from a typical script. Look at the chart again with scripting labels:

(Bennett adds labels to the chart)

This same sort of charting can be applied to scripts. If you are attempting to write a complex script, I recommend that you chart out the different parts as a road map. This will help you keep track of all of the elements and give you a pretty good idea of how the script should flow.

Any questions?

Ok, then ... take a ten minute break. When you get back we will take the quiz. ...Well, actually I should not have said "we". "You" are going to take the quiz and I am just going to walk around the room and make you nervous.

(lecture ends)