Veronica K. B. Olsen
127 lines
5.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
127 lines
5.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _a_intro:
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************
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Introduction
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************
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novelWriter is a simple, multi-document plain text editor using a modified markdown syntax to apply
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simple formatting to the text. It is designed for writing novels, and allows for the component
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documents to be ordered freely to create the desired structure of the novel. More details about how
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projects are structured is covered in :ref:`a_struct`.
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In addition, the project can contain notes on the various plot elements, characters, locations,
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etc, that make up the story. These notes are organised in a set of category-specific top-level
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folders (root folders), and each entry can be tagged and cross-referenced from within the novel
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documents and notes. These tags make it possible to inter-link documents, and generate an overview
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of the entire novel project and how the various documents and plot elements are interconnected.
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This is covered in :ref:`a_proj` and :ref:`a_notes`.
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These additional features are not standard in markdown, but are available through special meta
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keywords described in :ref:`a_struct_tags`. Syntax highlighting is provided to make it easier to
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verify that the markdown tags are used correctly.
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An overview of the supported markdown syntax is covered in :ref:`a_ui`.
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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, and bold, italicised and strikethrough text.
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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 markdown tags, is more or less redundant. However, all
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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. A full list of shortcuts can be found in the :ref:`a_ui_shortcuts`
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section.
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In addition, novelWriter offers a :guilabel:`Focus Mode` where all the user interface elements
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other 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. In addition,
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a dark theme is provided, and can be enabled in :guilabel:`Preferences` from the :guilabel:`Tools`
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menu. A number of syntax highlighting themes are also available in :guilabel:`Preferences`. A set
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of icon themes in colour and greyscale are also offered. The icons are based on the Typicons_ icon
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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, and
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the optional third panel is a document viewer which can view any document in your project
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independently of the document editor.
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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 as it appears in the text of the 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 plain text file,
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HTML document, novelWriter flavoured markdown, standard markdown (requires Qt 5.14), and to a basic
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Open Document format.
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In addition, printing and printing to PDF is also possible. The best supported export format is
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HTML, which can be imported or converted by a number of other tools like Pandoc, or simply imported
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into Libre Office Writer and similar word processors.
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It is also possible to export the content of the project to a JSON file. This is useful if you want
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to write your own processing script in for instance Python as the entire novel can be read into a
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Python dictionary with a couple of lines of code.
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A number of filter options can be applied to the produced document, 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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.. _a_intro_screenshots:
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Screenshots
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===========
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**novelWriter with default system theme:**
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.. image:: images/screenshot_default.png
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:width: 800
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**novelWriter with dark theme:**
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.. image:: images/screenshot_dark.png
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:width: 800
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