Monthly Archives: July 2010

Software, StoryBox, Writing

StoryBox 0.5.66 – Outline Builder

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Alright, this one has a new feature I’ve been dying to add for a while. Something I ended up calling Outline Builder. If YOU can think of a better name for it, let me know.

In any case, it lets you quickly enter text to create a linear outline that you can then use to populate your story with chapters, your chapter with scenes, or the synopsis or the body of the current document with snippets of text. You can reorder them as much as you like within the outline builder, even reorder them in sets. It’s sort of an initial planning tool that doesn’t require you to even have a chapter ready in your project.

There are also some other bug fixes and changes to go with it.

http://www.storyboxsoftware.com/download.htm

So, that was the announcement, now the explanation of why.

I do have my own novel that I’ve been trying to work on, and it’s been stuck at a certain point for quite a long time. I’ve just been far too busy (famous last words of failed would be novelists everywhere) with my work and my other hobbies to find the time to work on it.

In addition, the last entry in the outline for it ended with “and he failed for some reason.” I was stuck for what that reason was, and instead of sitting down and thinking about it and inventing something specific, I just let it sit there and laugh at me.

Our oldest has been staying with us for the last week while her husband is out of town, and she’s been writing up a storm (she’s completed eight more novels than I have….), and I asked her to look at my novel in limbo. She told me, after reading it, that I had to complete it. So I sat down, converted it to ePub format so I could read it on my iPad, read it, decided that it’s not awful, and figured out what was going to happen in the next scene right as I finished reading the final bits.

I started writing it up in the synopsis pane of StoryBox for the scene, and realized that, at least the way I work, there was a better way, and that would be if I had my Outline Builder implemented. Why? I like to write a bunch of short bits that describe what’s going on in the scene from beginning to end. I’d done it a bit on my own, but prior to NaNoWriMo this past year, I’d read Lazette Giffords NaNo for the New and the Insane, and in it, she described her Phase System, which really intrigued me and gave my head a way to describe what I was doing more formally. I don’t use her system exactly, as I don’t bother with the word count part of it, but I really needed the Outline Builder to do it right.

So, now, with the Outline Builder implemented, I’m crossing my fingers that I can get back in the saddle on this novel and get it done by the end of September. If I can do that, it will only have taken me eleven months to finish my NaNo novel from last year. Go me!

Software, StoryBox

StoryBox 0.4.64 – Font Changes and Spell Checking

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This one has, well, some big changes.

First, default fonts, and the font button work completely differently now. The font button now changes the currently selected font of the document. There’s a button in the dialog that lets you set the font as the default font, but the dialog no longer changes fonts everywhere. In fact, changing the default font doesn’t change fonts anywhere at all anymore. You will only see it in new, empty documents. You can select text in your document, right click, and choose the format->fonts->apply default font menu item to apply the default font if you wish.

This also means that, if you have a default template set for a document type, it will not receive the default font. If you wish to have the default font, follow the instructions in the help for creating a template using the font you want in it and set that as your default template.

Why did I make this change? Because far too many people were confused by the way it worked. I don’t want confusion, I want quick understanding and easy to explain. Also, changing the font for documents already in existence was complicated and prone to error or, again, misunderstanding.

Also, there’s one other minor addition that some people have asked for. Spell checking. Right click in an open document and select “Check Spelling” from the context menu. Currently, it’s only using a US English dictionary, but I will be adding additional dictionaries as time goes on.

You will notice, also, that you can add words to either a global dictionary (used across all your projects) or a project specific dictionary.

Hope you like it.

http://www.storyboxsoftware.com/download.htm

Software, StoryBox

StoryBox 0.3.62

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This is one of those builds where I’m putting it up because I’m really excited about it, and I want to show off something cool. Check out the full screen mode in this build, and you’ll see a few new things (you may notice something in the regular mode, too).

First, the scrollbar looks different. I managed to hook a custom scrollbar to the text area, which solves a few problems, like quite a lot of the blinking that was happening as I hacked around issues that came up because of the default scrollbar. It also happens to look a little more appropriate, I think.

Second, if you start typing, you’ll notice pretty quickly that, if you would normally be typing on the bottom half of the screen, it will automatically move your typing to the center of the screen. If you don’t like this behavior, you can turn it off in the View options (on the status bar at the bottom).

Third, you can auto-hide the status bar by right clicking on it and selecting Auto-Hide from the menu that pops up.

A few other minor changes, including the ability to delete old versions round out this update. I was going to take the weekend and play World of Warcraft… I think, however, that I had much more fun.

Get it here!

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StoryBox 0.2.61 – Guess What, I Broke Something Again

Yes, someone found one more thing that I broke. Originally, you weren’t allowed to delete ANY of the first 6 nodes created – Story, Characters, Items, Locations, Box of Notes, and Trash. Then, I decided to take up someones suggestion and allow you to create multiple story nodes. Turns out, when I added the new node types to allow that sort of thing, I had a subtle bug crop up – I was referencing the wrong enumeration when trying to figure out what I couldn’t delete, so now, you couldn’t delete the first 12 things! I’d never noticed before because the two enumerations had the same number of items.
Anyway, that’s fixed now. I also made quite a few other minor improvements, especially in the speed of applying styles like bold and underline.

You know the drill…

Now, I’m going to go play WoW for a bit and then watch some poorly reviewed movies with my wife.