Sunday, March 21, 2010

Progress, Celtx

I have made progress, and lots of it.  Very nearly done with the initial public release - expect it tomorrow or Tuesday.

ONX is now completely compatible with yWriter and StoryBook, and I've made a lot of progress with tidying it up.  I've also done a great deal to generalize everything in order to maximize compatibility with programs that aren't as common, don't exist, or I just haven't gotten to yet (less relevant).

I've started on Celtx compatibility.  I have to say, it is a very different beast.  I'm not personally a big fan, but maybe that's just because I'm not used to it.  At any rate, it's not my place to pick and choose while writing this standard - it's supposed to universal or as near to it as is possible.  Anyway, Celtx introduces some interesting problems, and if anyone is reading this blog I'd love some feedback on how to handle it.  You see, Celtx does handle characters, location, scenes, scripts (which ONX will support, if not as fully as novels), etc.  That's fine, and I've started added some elements based on their schema.  But they also do production and pre-production stuff.  Actors, storyboards (as in putting pictures in order, not putting scenes in order ... a somewhat subtle but very important difference), that kind of thing.  So my question is, how much of that do I support?  This is at its heart a NOVEL standard.  But on the other hand, if people are using a certain program to write/plan their novels, do I just have to support that entire program?  Or can I get away with sticking to just the novel-related stuff (and how do I define that)?

I'll be giving this some thought, and I'll make a decision eventually regardless, but as I said feedback on this one would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. BASIC Celtx compatibility will be in the initial release, but I won't be answering the questions posed in this post prior to release.

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