I just started building a simple editor specifically geared towards NaNoWriMo. I dubbed it NaNoWriTool.
Features that I want to include:
- [implemented] editing plain text files, much like Notepad
- [implemented] word count, of course... but live, updated in real time
- a word counter that does exactly the same as the counting monkeys of the NaNo site
- [implemented] the word count target for the day
- fully automatic backups, to an external drive if possible, that are really hard to screw up
- some formatting features, say, for emphasis and chapter headings
- automatic replacement: straight quotes by curly quotes, double dashes by en-dashes, triple dashes by em-dashes, and three dots by ellipses
- a fullscreen mode that removes everything but your manuscript from the screen
- a timer for word wars, that records your word count at the start and end of the war and computes your score
- a feature like Write or Die that starts to do annoying things if you don't type for a while
Features that I will not include:
- support for non-Western languages; I cannot test this so it would be hard to do
- support for multiple character sets; it uses UTF-8 and nothing else
- full-fledged formatting; really, you don't need this when writing a manuscript
- a spell checker; we're talking about NaNoWriMo here!
I'm building this in C#/.NET, which means that it will certainly run on Windows, but probably on Linux and MacOS too. You'll need the .NET framework on Windows and Mono on other platforms.
Here's a screenshot of the tool so far, showing part of my manuscript and also that I'm a bit behind schedule:
I have not released NaNoWriTool yet, but hope to do so in the upcoming days. It will be completely free and open source (BSD licensed).
Thoughts, comments, ideas, feature requests, post them here!
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Known in chatrooms as thomastc
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 16, 2008 - 23 10
I can't edit my start post! I'll put updates in this post then...
53,875 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 02 14
No ideas yet (still thinking) but I just wanted to post my thanks and support!
62,000 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 06 46
Oh wow...this would be awesome. It looks like it would be really helpful during NaNo, even though I write on my Neo, when I write on the computer, this would be a lot of fun.
Looks good so far! Maybe you could put in a setting so that it would show only a few lines of text and maybe black out the rest of the screen or something, so you could kill your inner editor. I suppose you can always shrink the window for that, but it might be fun to have.
51,940 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 09 21
Obviously this is made for Windows users as you said. Being a Mac OS and Linux user myself, could you make sure that it's Wine and Darwine compatible (aside from having .NET framework)? I know there shouldn't be any major issues since it's a text editor and all but just figured I'd put that out there. Not unless you want to write one for Unix based users? hehe.
Thanks,
-Cel
53,255 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 10 58
Thanks,
-Cel
Well, if he's careful, his app will probably run on OS X and Linux under the Mono framework, although perhaps with a bit of work on his part.
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LJ: gruberman.livejournal.com
AIM: NoGuitarMercy
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 13 22
I will not port it specifically to other platforms, because that would take too much time. I am trying to get a novel done this month, you know ;) To give you an idea, it took me less than three hours to throw this together in Visual Studio, whereas a port with another visual tool that I don't know, or no visual tool at all, could easily take me a week of work.
That being said, I will try not to use any platform-specific features, so it should run on Mono just fine. I'm mainly a Linux user myself so I know where you come from :) It'll still look Windows-ish, but hey, it's about the content!
51,940 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 14 01
No worries. I appreciate the fact that you're trying to do something for other writers. You release it.. I'll try to make it work ;) From what you've got now, I could use it for other writing projects outside of NaNo.
-Cel
50,038 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 16 27
*watches with anticipation*
this will certainly help regardless of month.
50,066 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 19 57
This would be SO COOL! Thank you, ttencate, and good luck finishing it!
--The Mystical Moose
32,078 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 20 30
Any chance you'll leave this open source so that those linux users here (not myself, I don't have the skill), could fine tune it themselves for Mono?
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 17, 2008 - 20 55
Yes, it will be open source! I've just gotten a SourceForge project approved, but I won't have time at least until Wednesday to do anything with it. Getting back to noveling now!
50,043 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 06 46
Cool. I was thinking of doing something similar, although I'm a technical artist rather than a programmer, so I mainly use scripting languages. So I was going to try creating a novel writing tool using Python. Of course it will run a bit slower, but at least it will be cross platform from the beginning.
What I really want is to have a tool that I can use to organise all the bits of my writing into notes, outline, text (scenes or whatever) and so on. But I don't want to have to choose which box my writing should go in before I start writing. I just want to open up an editor and type type type type. I want to write a paragraph of outline to warm up, then get going on a few scenes in a row, then add some notes, and so on. So I want my program to make it easy to break up a page of mixed writing really easily, like I'm just going through it with different coloured highlighters, and based on that it will sort chunks of text into the appropriate places, and create links between the separate chunks.
I think this will make things easier for people who like using Neos or wordprocessors like Q10, or write or die. I haven't used any of those things yet, but I can see the appeal. I've been using yWriter because it sets everything out so neatly, but it's hard to warm up to my writing session because I have to organise my thoughts so much before I start writing. Either that, or I have to copy and paste things into the right places afterwards.
But anyway, I'm not even going to contemplate starting on my tool before the 1st of December :)
66,601 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 13 35
What about entering your username and password, and the program will automatically update your wordcount on the website whenever you save? I don't know if it would be possible, but it would be pretty cool!
Aaron
allgeektout.com
50,035 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 13 46
This sounds very good except that I write for the web, so autoreplace that I can't control is a big turnoff for me. (Curly quotes are, IMNSHO, a tool of the devil.)
Also, it would be very, very cool if one could adjust the day targets to accomodate both other lengths and other numbers of days. (So, for instance, that someone doing Young Writers could use your tool, or someone who wanted to use it for a different project of a pre-determined length.)
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 18 53
lisae: That all sounds quite fancy, and would turn this tool into a general novel writing tool, which is not my intention. As you say, there are enough of those tools already!
gmunchkin: Actually that was one of the things I wanted to do, but I forgot to put it on the list! And the forum won't let me edit my previous feature list either... I think it freezes posts after a certain time. So here it is:
zvi: Curly quotes work just fine on the web. But I understand that people may not like autoreplacement, so I will make it optional. Using the tool for anything but NaNo is explicitly not a design goal, sorry! (But if some developer finds it worthwhile to add, they can always fork the source and add this kind of stuff!)
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 22 04
Well, for those who are feeling adventurous, the first version of the program is up now! Please note, no warranty, bla bla, if it eats your novel, don't blame me. That being said, go get it here:
http://nanowritool.sf.net/
50,035 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 17 54
Tried to run it under mono on Ubuntu 8.04. It gave back errors I'm going to look into, but I'm not sure if they're things that my mono installation is missing, or things you haven't completely specified in your program, so I'm reporting back to you:
** (NaNoWriTool.exe:9619): WARNING **: The following assembly referenced from ~/Desktop/NaNoWriTool.exe could not be loaded:
Assembly: System.Windows.Forms (assemblyref_index=0)
Version: 2.0.0.0
Public Key: b77a5c561934e089
The assembly was not found in the Global Assembly Cache, a path listed in the MONO_PATH environment variable, or in the location of the executing assembly (~/Desktop/).
** (NaNoWriTool.exe:9619): WARNING **: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies.
** (NaNoWriTool.exe:9619): WARNING **: Missing method EnableVisualStyles in assembly ~/Desktop/NaNoWriTool.exe, type System.Windows.Forms.Application
Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies.
File name: 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'
50,035 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 18 32
Yes, it was missing libraries on my end. I installed libmono-winforms1.0-cil and libmono-winforms2.0-cil and it opened up just fine. I can open a file and start a word war.
I wasn't clear how to turn annoyances on or off. Are they installed yet?
50,091 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 20 03
Please, feel free to post about this in the Marketing and Self Promotion forum... each participant gets one topic there.
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 23 15
zvi: Good to know that it works! Annoyances are not yet implemented.
Dragonchilde: Once I have put some more features in, I'll post there, thanks!
2,241 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 07 49
There's a tool called "The Writer's Novel" that has what I think is one of the best features ever for a simplified writing tool - transparency. It allows you to make your writing pane transparent in 10% increments up to being completely invisible. A good option for those who don't want lookie-loos reading over their shoulder when they're writing in public.
I also like the way that tool handles files - each project has a master file. Each master file can contain any number of chapters. You can have only one master project open at a time, but within that project you can open an unlimited number of chapter files. You can choose to export the entire novel as a single document, even opting for a text-scrambled version if you're paranoid about uploading your document online for word count purposes.
I have no idea how hard things like that are to implement, but I did like those features. I would probably be using that tool, but I think $25 is a bit overpriced since I'm currently broke.
I agree with the above poster about having the ability to edit the auto-replace features. Curly quotes drive some people crazy. Also, I thought most word processors (like Word) convert a single dash to an en-dash and a double dash to an em-dash. I don't know anyone who actually types a triple dash ever. I never would and I think that would drive me nuts as I use dashes quite a lot. I usually only type "space-dash-space" which with your system I think would leave me with a tiny little hyphen as my dash. I could live with that, but would prefer to be able to alter the auto-replace to suit my typing style.
Just a few thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em.
Edited to add:
I downloaded the program and wanted to say I like the nice, simple interface of it. I did note a few issues though - none of the auto-replace features seem to be working at all. Also, the save button has a text tip that calls it the 3rd toolbar button or something. I was going to leave bug reports for you on sourceforge, but can't seem to get back on the site right now.
62,000 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 11 01
Ooh, nice. I downloaded it and I'm playing with it now.
Something that might be nice to have is adjustment for a daily target. Maybe you can set it for a catch-up target for words-per-day. Kinda like on the same website as write or die, there's a catch-up meter. So that way it doesn't tell me that I have to write 35k today.
101,563 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 12 17
Am I supposed to have to hit ctrl+tab to insert a tab? Just hitting the tab key does not work.
Otherwise, love it. The built-in word war stuff is enough for me.
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 22, 2008 - 19 31
pearannoyed:
- There are tools out there (such as Glass2k and Chaos Crystal) that allow you to make any window transparent. So you can use that with whatever editor you're using.
- The project stuff you talk about does sound handy, I'll be the first to admit that, but it is currently too much work for me to implement this properly.
- There is no auto-replace yet. That is why it does not work :)
- Thanks for spotting the incorrect tool tip. This has been fixed in the latest version.
fabi60:
- A "catch-up" word count target does indeed make more sense, but is not as easy to implement as you might think at first. It depends on the current word count, and that changes all the time, so the catch-up count would keep increasing while you type! So it would need to save the word count at the start of the day and base it on that, but I'm not sure how to do that reliably with multiple different files and all.
Rach:
- In the latest version, you can insert tabs simply using the Tab key.
50,009 / 50,000
Nov 22, 2008 - 19 32
And the "latest version" I was talking about is there! Get NaNoWriTool 0.2 from the website.
New in this version:
- Settings are now saved.
- Font and colour changes are possible.
- A full screen mode for distraction-free writing.
- The previously open file is reopened on startup.
- A file name given on the command line will be opened if it exists, allowing you to associate files with NaNoWriTool in Windows Explorer for easy opening.
18,860 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 11 59
That is a great idea.
56,234 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 12 47
This looks really great! Good job.
50,224 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 12 55
I got an "unable to determine file format" message when I tried opening it. It did download as an .exe file, but the message says "The file *** does not appear to be compressed or encoded. It is advised that you obtain further info about the contents of this file from the sender or provider of the file".
I have a Mac, is that the issue?
:-(
62,000 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 12 58
I'm sure it would be a lot harder, especially to have it automatically update itself as you write. I was just thinking it would be cool. Maybe there could be a button to calculate it instead of having it go as you type?
50,058 / 50,000
Nov 23, 2008 - 13 07
THIS. IS. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
when you release it, how can i get it?!?!