Improve documentation for dialogue highlighting and story comments
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.. _docs_features_dialogue:
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*********************
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Dialogue Highlighting
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*********************
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Character dialogue can be automatically highlighted in your text both while you're writing and in
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generated manuscript documents.
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The default language settings in novelWriter are for English. That includes the dialogue
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highlighting settings. However, many dialogue styles are supported. You can modify this by changing
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the settings under "Text Highlighting" in **Preferences**.
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.. figure:: images/fig_dialogue_highlighting.png
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The **Text Highlighting** section of **Preferences**.
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Quoted Dialogue
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===============
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By default, dialogue highlighting is enabled for double quotes as defined in the **Quotation
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Style** section of **Preferences**.
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.. figure:: images/fig_dialogue_quote_styles.png
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The **Quotation Style** section of **Preferences**.
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You can change which quote symbols are highlighted by selecting one of the options of "None",
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"Single", "Double", or "Both" from the "Highlight dialogue" setting under **Text Highlighting**.
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You can also enable or disable the "Allow open-ended dialogue" setting to allow the style where
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multi-paragraph dialogue is not closed until the last paragraph.
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.. admonition:: Limitations
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Dialogue highlighting for single quotes is difficult to process when the same single quote
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symbol is also used for apostrophes. There isn't a good solution to this. Your best option in
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those cases is to insert an alternative apostrophe symbol in cases where the highlighter guesses
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wrongly. See :ref:`docs_more_typographical_symbols_apostrophe` for more details.
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Alternative Dialogue
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====================
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There is also an "Alternative dialogue symbols" setting you can use to add your own symbols. These
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are highlighted in a different colour than regular dialogue, so you can use both at the same time.
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The intended use case here is if you use an alternative style to distinguish a different style of
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communication.
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The feature idea came from a science fiction series where mind-to-mind communication used a
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different quotation style.
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Dialogue Line Symbols
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=====================
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In some languages, a single symbol at the start of a paragraph can indicate that the whole
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paragraph is dialogue. Often this is a short dash (en dash), but not always.
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.. figure:: images/fig_dialogue_line.png
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An example of dialogue starting with a short dash.
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You can enable this feature by adding the symbols to the "Dialogue line symbols" setting. Multiple
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symbols are allowed.
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Dialogue with Narrator Break
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============================
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The dialogue symbol setting will not detect when the narrator breaks in. In some styles there is no
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way to actually detect this; in others there are. These are usually dashes. You can select one of
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the supported dash symbols for narrator breaks.
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.. figure:: images/fig_dialogue_narrator_break.png
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An example of dialogue starting with a short dash and a long dash narrator break.
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Alternating Dialogue and Narration
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==================================
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The alternating dialogue and narration style is supported with the "Alternating dialogue/narration
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symbol" setting. It can be set to one of the supported dashes. This style will switch into dialogue
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mode when it encounters the selected dash in a paragraph, and switch back out when it sees the next
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one, and so forth.
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.. figure:: images/fig_dialogue_alternating.png
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An example of alternating dialogue and narration using a long dash.
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