Add new docs theme, and restructure (#978)
* Change documentation theme to 'furo' * Update docs source for new theme * Update index and split introduction * Add a Getting Started section to the docs * Rename getting started docs file * Reorganise setup instructions * Update usage sections for consistency * Update docs references in main README * Show release in sidebar
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Veronica Berglyd Olsen
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.. _a_intro:
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************
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Introduction
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Key Features
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************
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novelWriter is a simple, multi-document plain text editor using a markup syntax inspired by
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markdown to apply simple formatting to the text. It is designed for writing novels, so the
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formatting features are limited.
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novelWriter is a multi-document plain text editor using a markup syntax inspired by markdown to
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apply simple formatting to the text. It is designed for writing novels, so the formatting features
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are limited. Your novel project is organised as a collection of separate plain text documents
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instead of a single, large document.
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The idea is to let the user focus on writing instead of spending time on the formatting of headers
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and text. Therefore you cannot change the look of the text in the editor window. Instead, you
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provide formatting tags where they're needed, like for instance which text is a header, where you
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want text bolded or italicised, and what alignment you want for paragraphs. The actual formatting
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is then added to the text when you run the :guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool.
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Below are some key features of novelWriter.
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A document viewer to the right of the editor can also show a renderred version of any document if
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you want to inspect the result, or just want to keep a second document open for reference when
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you're writing.
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**Focus on writing**
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The aim of the user interface is to let the user focus on writing instead of spending time
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formatting text. Formatting is therefore limited to a small set of formatting tags for simple
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things like text emphasis and paragraph alignment. When you really want to focus on just
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writing, you can switch the editor into :guilabel:`Focus Mode` where only the text editor window
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itself is vissible.
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You can split your novel project up into as many individual files as you want to. The files are
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glued together when you build the project, in the top-to-bottom order in which they appear in the
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project tree. Splitting the project up into chapter and scene files means you can easily reorder
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them using the drag and drop feature. More details about how projects are structured is covered in
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:ref:`a_struct`.
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**Keep an eye on your notes**
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The main window can optionally show a document viewer to the right of the editor. This view
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panel is intended for displaying another scene document, you character notes, plot notes, or any
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other document you may need to reference while writing.
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In addition to novel text documents, the project can contain notes on the various plot elements,
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characters, locations, etc, that make up the story. These notes are organised in a set of
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category-specific top-level folders referred to as *Root Folders*. Each note can be assigned one or
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more tags (one tag is allowed for each heading in the note), and these tags can be referenced from
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within the novel documents and other notes.
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**Organise your documents how you like**
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You can split your novel project up into as many individual documents as you want to. They are
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all glued together when you build the project in the top-to-bottom order in which they appear in
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the project tree. Splitting the project up into chapters and scenes means you can easily reorder
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them using the drag and drop feature.
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These tags make it possible to inter-link documents, and you can also generate an overview of the
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entire novel project and how the various documents and plot elements are interconnected. The tag
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and reference syntax is covered in :ref:`a_proj` and :ref:`a_notes`.
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**Keep track of your plot elements**
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All notes in your project can be assigned a *tag* you can *reference* from any other document or
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note. In fact, you can add a new tag under each heading of a note if you need to be able to
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reference a specific section. Note tags are organised into categories with specific keywords you
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can use to reference them.
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These features are available through special meta keywords described in :ref:`a_struct_tags`.
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Syntax highlighting is provided to make it easier to verify that the markdown tags are used
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correctly.
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**Get an overview of your plot elements**
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In the :guilabel:`Outline` tab on the main window you can see an outline of all the chapter and
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scene sections of your project. If they have any references in them, these are listed in
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columns. You can also add a synopsis to each document, which can be listed here. You have the
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option to add or remove columns of information from the outline. A subset of the outline
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information is also available in the :guilabel:`Novel` tab under the main project tree.
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An overview of the supported formatting syntax is covered in :ref:`a_ui`.
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.. _a_intro_storage:
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Project Storage
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===============
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The files of a novelWriter project are stored in a dedicated project folder. The project structure
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is kept in a file at the root of this folder called ``nwProject.nwx``. All the document files and
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associated meta data is stored in the other folders below the project folder. For more technical
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details about what all the files mean and how they're organised, see the :ref:`a_storage` section.
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This way of storing data was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, all the text you add to your
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project is saved directly to your project folder in separate files. Only the project structure and
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the text you are currently editing is stored in memory at any given time. Secondly, having multiple
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small files means it is very easy to sync them between computers with standard file synchronisation
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tools. Thirdly, if you use version control software to track the changes to your project, the file
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formats used for the files are well suited for this.
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.. note::
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Since novelWriter has to keep track of a bunch of files and folders when a project is open, it
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may not run well on some virtual file systems. A file or folder must be accessible with exactly
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the path it was saved or created with. An example where this is not the case is the way Google
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Drive is mapped on Linux Gnome desktops using gvfs/gio.
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.. warning::
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You should not add additional files to the project folder yourself. Nor should you manually edit
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files within it as a general rule. If you really must manually edit the text files, e.g. with
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some automated task you want to perform, you need to rebuild the index when you open the project
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again.
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Editing text files in the ``content`` folder is less risky as they are just plain text. Editing
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the main project XML file, however, may make the project file unreadable and you may crash
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novelWriter and lose project structure information and project settings.
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.. _a_intro_design:
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Design Philosophy
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=================
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The user interface of novelWriter is intended to be as minimalistic as practically possible, while
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at the same time provide a complete set of features needed for writing a novel.
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.. note::
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novelWriter is not intended to be a full office type word processor. It doesn't support images,
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links, tables, and other complex structures and objects often needed for such documents.
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Formatting is limited to headers, emphasis, text alignment, and a few other simple features.
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.. tip::
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If you do need to align information in rows and columns in your notes, you can achieve this with
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tabs and line breaks. The tab stop width can be specified in :guilabel:`Preferences`.
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The main window does not have a toolbar like many other applications do. This reduces clutter, and
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since the documents are formatted with style tags, is more or less redundant. However, most
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formatting features supported are available through convenient keyboard shortcuts. They are also
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available in the main menu so you don't have to look up formatting codes every time you need them.
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A full list of shortcuts can be found in the :ref:`a_kb` section.
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In addition, novelWriter has a :guilabel:`Focus Mode` where all the user interface elements other
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than the document editor itself are hidden away.
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The colour scheme of the user interface defaults to that of the host operating system. Some other
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light and dark colour themes are provided, and can be enabled in :guilabel:`Preferences` from the
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:guilabel:`Tools` menu. A number of syntax highlighting themes are also available in
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:guilabel:`Preferences`. A set of icon themes in colour and greyscale are also offered. The icons
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are based on the Typicons_ icon set designed by Stephen Hutchings.
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The main window is split in two, or optionally three, panels. The left-most panel contains the
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project tree and all the documents in your project. The second panel is the document editor. An
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optional third panel is a document viewer which can view any document in your project independently
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of what is open in the document editor. It is not intended as a preview window, although you can
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use it for this. The main purpose of the viewer is for viewing your notes next to your editor
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while you're writing.
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A second tab is also available on the main window. This is the :guilabel:`Outline` tab where the
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entire novel structure can be displayed, with all the tags and references listed. Depending on how
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you structure your novel documents, this outline can be quite different from your project tree.
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Your project tree lists individual documents, your Outline tree lists the structure of the novel
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itself in terms of partitions, chapters and scenes as it appears in the text of those documents.
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.. _Typicons: https://github.com/stephenhutchings/typicons.font
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.. _a_intro_project:
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Project Layout
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==============
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You are free to organise your project documents as you wish into subfolders, and split the text
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between documents in whatever way suits you. All that matters to novelWriter is the linear order
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the documents appear at in the project tree (top to bottom). The chapters, scenes and sections of
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the novel are determined by the headings within those documents.
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The four heading levels (**H1** to **H4**) are treated as follows:
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* **H1** is used for the book title, and for partitions.
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* **H2** is used for chapter tiles.
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* **H3** is used for scene titles – optionally replaced by separators.
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* **H4** is for section titles within scenes, if such granularity is needed.
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This header level structure is only taken into account for novel documents. For the project notes,
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the header levels have no structural meaning, and the user is free to do whatever they want. See
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:ref:`a_struct` and :ref:`a_notes` for more details.
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.. _a_intro_export:
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Project Export
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==============
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The project can at any time be exported to a range of different formats through the
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:guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool. Natively, novelWriter supports export to Open Document,
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HTML5, and various flavours of Markdown.
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The HTML5 export format is suitable for conversion by a number of other tools like Pandoc, or for
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importing into word processors if the Open Document format isn't suitable. In addition, printing
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and printing to PDF is also possible.
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You can also export the content of the project to a JSON file. This is useful if you want to write
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your own processing script in for instance Python as the entire novel can be read into a Python
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dictionary with a couple of lines of code. The JSON file can be populated either with HTML
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formatted text, or with the raw text as typed into the novel documents. See :ref:`a_export_options`
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for more details.
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A number of filter options can be applied to the Build tool, allowing you to export a draft
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manuscript, a reference document of notes, an outline based on chapter and scene titles with a
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synopsis each, and so on. See :ref:`a_export` for more details on export features and formats.
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**Building your manuscript**
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Whether you want to compile a manuscript, or export all your notes, or generate an outline of
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your chapters and scenes with a synopsis, you can use the :guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool.
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The tool lets you select what information you want to include in the generated document, and how
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it is formatted. You can send the result to a printer, a PDF, or to an Open Document file that
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can be opened by most office type word processors.
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.. _a_intro_screenshots:
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