So, last night, I released 0.1.58 – and there were two GLARING issues in it (one I found, one that was reported to me by one of you). Those are fixed in this latest build, along with a couple other goodies. Next stop, RTF import – unless you all find something else utterly and annoyingly broken.
5 thoughts on “StoryBox 0.1.59 – Dum, dum dum dum…”
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Hi Mark,
Just checked in for the first time in a while, and it’s looking good! You’ve got a great update schedule going, and you’ve added numerous features. I think I’ll be switching from yWriter as soon as I sit down and make sure I’m not missing any feature I desperately need.
I guess my current requests would be:
– Ability to define “styles”. Each character can have only one style at a time (no nesting/overlap, this isn’t MS Word), which is user/template defined, and includes feature such as style name, font color, highlight color, size, and face, in-line/break flow (keep within it’s own paragraph essentially), global/document scope, as well as the ability to lock that text from being changed, and potential future features such as automatic insertion, searching by style, etc. This would allow for better template design and setting up templates as static forms just ready to enter data, as well as basic formatting control if people want to setup quotation, heading, editing comment, or other useful styles. They could also serve as a way of bookmarking text, in combination with a search feature.
– Ability to turn off features for certain nodes, or altogether. For example, I don’t want a ‘Characters’ tab to open when I click on Characters, only when I click on an actual character document, nor do I want the properties to appear if I do open it. I find it really easy to end up with a very cluttered tab bar, making it hard to find the one I want to edit next.
– Individual “create document” buttons for each document type that can be added during toolbar customization. I prefer individual to the drop down, but this would allow for people to customize as they wish.
– Create new character (right-click on node, I assume this might apply to item, location also) should either highlight the name of the new doc for renaming, or open it up in the window for editing. Right-now it does neither.
Well that’s my 2c, keep the great work coming!
One other request – Can we either create additional top-level Story nodes, or create Story nodes underneath the main Story node (to manage a trilogy, or multiple short stories, for example). Right now, you can kind of do this by creating a document and renaming it, then moving chapters under it, which is fine except you have to keep creating chapters outside of it then dragging them in, instead of being able to create them by right-click or toolbar and have them appear inside the selected story (document) node. It would be nice if you could carry this to a potential deep nested level – for example you could have ‘status’ nodes to track which stories are in what state of writing, editing, subbing, etc., or you could have genre or topic nodes to groups stories or articles/essays accordingly, and if you could nest those levels several deep also but still have the app recognize that a Story node can have chapters under it, and so on, then that would be great. I currently use one yWriter doc to store and organize my short stories and story ideas, and I would like to continue that, but go even further with SB’s nesting document structure.
Any kind of Styles feature will probably be post 1.0. They are, unfortunately, a very large and complex feature made doubly difficult by the poorly implemented Microsoft RichTextBox that I’m using (I’m looking for alternatives – but for now, any alternatives are out of my price range).
For node opening issues, I’ve been thinking of providing a “double click” option that would only open a document when you double click it. There are other options, too, that I’m thinking of, like having documents with children only open if they are clicked when they are already expanded (first click would expand, second click would open). Whatever I do, it has to fit my requirement of being as easy to understand as possible.
The problem with individual “create” buttons on the toolbar is that there are already a lot of buttons, and for those using smaller screens, they take up a lot of real estate.
And lastly, for highlighting the node so you can rename it or opening the document for editing immediately, early on I tried those features out and there were work flow issues with them, especially if you wanted to add a bunch of documents at once like I tend to do. I’ll see what I can do though, because it would be nice to be able to just type the title immediately after creating a new document.
Right now, the basic nodes that exist (Story, Characters, Locations, Items, etc…) are all special in that they can’t be put in the trash by clicking the trash button, as well other types of processing internally. I agree, though, that it would be cool to have multiple story nodes that recognize creating chapters, etc… so I’ll look into it right after the RTF import stuff.
> Any kind of Styles feature will probably be post 1.0…
Sure, just putting it out there. Until it’s possible to lock parts of a template down I find that feature kind of annoying though, vs use of an app window with form fields for example.
> For node opening issues, I’ve been thinking of providing a “double click” option that would only open a document when you double click it. There are other options, too, that I’m thinking of, like having documents with children only open if they are clicked when they are already expanded (first click would expand, second click would open). Whatever I do, it has to fit my requirement of being as easy to understand as possible.
Tricky one. What you could do is have a little arrow, much like the ones indicating node expansion but a different shape and/or size, appear to the right of document nodes. Clicking on this would then open the node as a doc. Doubleclick could work, but in a tree structure where your branch nodes are *also* leaf nodes then the metaphor gets a little confused.
> The problem with individual “create” buttons on the toolbar is that there are already a lot of buttons, and for those using smaller screens, they take up a lot of real estate.
Yes, half of which I don’t find useful, because the functionality is accessible other ways. But the point is not to clutter the bar up further, but to provide separate buttons as options in the “customize” feature for a toolbar–accessible for those of us who care, but not there by default.
> I’ll see what I can do though, because it would be nice to be able to just type the title immediately after creating a new document.
I can see how that might not work for your workflow, but I definitely either add content or, more commonly, add a title or synopsis, after creating a scene, chapter, character, etc. If it’s possible to support both that would be good – perhaps if a node is created and highlighted for naming, but your right-click on the parent node again, then it deselects the title of the child node and gives you the normal options to create another child node (or clicking a toolbar button simply creates it).
> Right now, the basic nodes that exist (Story, Characters, Locations, Items, etc…) are all special in that they can’t be put in the trash by clicking the trash button, as well other types of processing internally. I agree, though, that it would be cool to have multiple story nodes that recognize creating chapters, etc… so I’ll look into it right after the RTF import stuff.
Thanks for considering all of the ideas! Storybox has come a long way and just seems to be getting better.