New character templates.

[siliconserf]

Feature Request: User Editable Templates for Character, World, and Plot entries.

In the current version, Manuskript allows adding characters to the project. You hit the '+' icon and the code creates the new character object from a hard coded template. What I would like to see is to have a Template section (above Debug) that has user editable versions of addable items. This allows "pre-loading" items like "Characters" with "boilerplate" information. As an example, there are questions that I would like to have show up (optionally) in the Character/Notes section when I add a new character. Snowflake includes a lot of suggested data entries for a character bio. Currently you have to add each of those by hand for each character. Multiple character templates would support different defaults for different types of characters (important, secondary, walk-on, and only referred to).

[olivierkes]

Thanks for those ideas.

Right now, I'm refactoring the code, and I want to make characters/word/plot items similar to outline items (editor / text items). This would simplify a lot coding because the same code to search for one type of item could be use for the other.

But this could also allow for more radical UI changes. For example:

Some possibilities:

• Every of those items could be regrouped in the same view (as in the fake screenshot above)
• We could use split view to have a parallel view of a text and a character for example.
• Characters and plots could be within "folders" or "groups" (instead of having one long list categorized only by importance)
• The metadata pane could be used also for characters
• …
• And finally, to answer your initial post, a template system could be created for any of those type of items (I'm thinking of a normal folder that we would create item within, and one we declare this folder as "template folders" any item within can be used as a base for creating a new item)

What do you think? (I'd like also to have @hugo-id and @gedakc's take on that)

[olivierkes]

(and also @thoronaug ^^)

[siliconserf]

Excellent! That is very much what I had in mind. And I thought the logic would apply nicely to other kinds of objects. Glad to see the efficiency of coding supports this.

[anicede]

That tree view is marvellous, @olivierkes, it seems it might save a lot of clicking back and forth.

One thing I've been hungry for is plots in plain text rather than xml as I do a lot of outlining on the go on my tablet. Would this be possible?

[gedakc]

Thanks @olivierkes for asking my opinion.

I like the idea of being able to re-use the code for the different areas of editor/character/plot/world. This should mean more easily maintainable code. I also like that it would mean we could get rid of the Navigation pane, and hence free up more screen space.

One drawback I foresee is when a large book is expanded to show all chapters (Dan Brown novels > 100 chapters) this would push other items like characters, plots, and worlds off the visible screen. This would force lots of scrolling to find these other items. With the current 0.6.0 GUI I can quickly switch between editing my novel over to checking/adding a character trait. Then just as quickly I can return to the editor where I left off.

If there were a way to anchor these other items (chapters, plots, world) at the top of the project tree then that might be one way to attempt to address my navigation concern.

[siliconserf]

The mock-up looks good. To address the navigation concern caused by a high number of chapters, I suggest a vertical slider control that pops up when the number of lines displayed on the left column exceeds what the size of the window permits. The same horizontally for when item titles get to long for the window. Lastly, make the left column re-sizable much the way the over-all program window behaves. It is the kind of behavior that might be expected from using word processors and web browsers.

Along with the above I suggest a "collapse" icon that affects all items in a level. It would work like this: If you select one of a large number of chapters, hitting the "collapse" control would move focus to the next higher level of organization and collapsing all of the documents under that level.

I'm a little confused by "...get rid of the navigation...". Are you actually referring to the plot list window that pops up when you select Plots? Because clicking the Navigation tab causes the left hand window to appear and disappear.

[olivierkes]

Thanks for your feedbacks!
It's still for the future, but it helps me see where we are going.

One thing I've been hungry for is plots in plain text rather than xml as I do a lot of outlining on the go on my tablet. Would this be possible?

Sure! I'll have to think of a file format n°2 anyway. It makes sense that plots are in plain text.

If there were a way to anchor these other items (chapters, plots, world) at the top of the project tree then that might be one way to attempt to address my navigation concern.

That's my main concern with that model. The same problem will happen if there is a large number of characters. Imagine the Game of Thrones series in a manuskript project..! My idea was to add a filter pannel: maybe 4 toggle buttons to show/hide item types (texts, plots, characters, world items — we could add a research folder in the future), and a text input to filter items (by title or content).

Lastly, make the left column re-sizable much the way the over-all program window behaves. It is the kind of behavior that might be expected from using word processors and web browsers.

Yes that's the way it is now and it will remain, it's important!

Along with the above I suggest a "collapse" icon that affects all items in a level.

Yes that could be useful. Right now, when right-clicking on a item, we can expand/collapse that items, or all. Expand/collapse all is useful, but the single item is not (we can click on the arrow). It could be replaced with "Expand/Collapse siblings".

[thoronaug]

Thanks @olivierkes for naming me.

That escalated quickly! XD
Well, I thought this thread was about character templates, and now we're talking about changing UI!

The tree view look awesome, but is it really that useful? I like that view for characters, plots, etc, but if there are so many characters, so many plots, so many chapters it would end in an unclean pane with too much information on in.
Maybe I'm wrong, because I didn't have enough time to examine every feature in Manuskrip but I think the Outline and the Editor (in the ouline view mode) sections are very similar. Perhaps you can merge these two in a bigger Outline, where double clicking an item leads you to the edition of the item and where you can include the tree view for characters, plots, objects, etc.

And keep the Navigation Panel, removing some unused icons. I know @gedakc doesn't like it, and maybe he is right. But if you shink the width of the panel to the icons size, it's pretty small.

This is only my opinion and I respect the others'. Thank you so much for asking.

[gedakc]

And keep the Navigation Panel, removing some unused icons. I know @gedakc doesn't like it,
and maybe he is right. But if you shink the width of the panel to the icons size, it's pretty small.

@thoronaug I actually prefer the Navigation panel because it allows me to quickly jump between the editor and characters. Perhaps @olivierkes could keep the navigation panel, yet make some of the project tree code generic so that it could be used for more than just the editor.

EDIT: Also I think the Navigation panel makes it easier to learn/follow the Snowflake Method because one can work their way through the icons starting from the top and in the process develop a novel.