Veronica Berglyd Olsen
73 lines
2.9 KiB
ReStructuredText
73 lines
2.9 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _a_notes:
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*************
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Project Notes
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*************
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novelWriter doesn't have a database and complicated forms for filling in details about plot
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elements, characters, and all sorts of additional information that isn't a part of the novel text
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itself. Instead, all such information is saved in notes that are written and maintained just like
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all other text in your project.
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The relation between all these additional elements is extracted from the documents and notes by the
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project indexer, based on the tags and references you set within them.
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Using notes is not required, but making at least minimal notes for each plot element, and adding a
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tag to them, makes it possible to use the Outline View to see how each element intersects with each
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section of the novel itself, and adds clickable cross-references between documents in the editor
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and viewer.
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.. _a_notes_tags:
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Tags in Notes
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=============
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Each new heading in a note can have a tag associated with it. The format of a tag is
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``@tag: tagname``, where tagname is a unique identifier of your choosing. Tags can then be
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referenced in the novel documents, or cross-referenced in other notes, and will show up in the
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Outline View and in the back-reference panel when a document is opened in the viewer. See
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:ref:`a_struct_tags` for how to reference notes.
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The syntax highlighter will alert the user that the keyword is correctly used and that the tag is
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allowed, that is, the tag is unique. Duplicate tags should be detected as long as the index is up
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to date. An invalid tag should have a green wiggly line under it, and will not receive the syntax
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colour that valid tags do.
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The tag is the only part of these notes that the application uses. The rest of the document content
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is there for the writer to use in whatever way they wish. Of course, the content of the documents
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can be added to the manuscript, or an outline document. If you want to compile a single document of
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all your notes, you can do this from the :guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool.
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One note can also reference another note in the same way novel documents do. When the note is
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opened in the view panel, the references become clickable links, making it easier to follow
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connections in the plot. Notes don't show up in the Outline View though, so referencing between
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notes is only meaningful if you want to be able to click-navigate between them, or of course if you
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just want to highlight that two notes are related.
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.. tip::
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If you cross-reference between notes and export your project as an HTML document using the
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:guilabel:`Build Novel Project` tool, the cross-references become clickable links in the
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exported HTML document.
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Example of a project note with two headers, with separate tags, and with references to other notes:
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.. code-block:: none
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:linenos:
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# Main Characters
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## Jane Doe
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@tag: Jane
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@location: Earth
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Something about Jane ...
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## John Doh
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@tag: John
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@location: Mars
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Something about John ...
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