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Software tips

How to write using Story Software – mini-mini, Ku Klux Klan costumes and Burkas

Nov 6th, 2012
by Geoff-D.
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You might wonder where this blog is going with a title like that. Well, in the modern way, I apologise to everyone before I start, for whatever, whenever, whoever. So there!

I was chatting to a friend about Story Software and he noticed that many so-called ‘for writers’ word processors (those aimed at serious writers) have a blank slate/screen, with few or no buttons, menus etc. This is basically a simple or minified UI (user interface) so people can concentrate on the task in hand and not get distracted.

As a biological example, higher animals have a complex and expressive area for sending/receiving information (the face) and a simple UI for mating. The intense relationship between the two might be about information processing in tiers, complex to simple, but that is getting into Rudy Rucker territory.

In the writing realm, consider the over-crowded and ever-changing UI of all-in-one software like MS Word, and a paper and pen.

So to focus, simplify the interface.

Story Software tip: use the shortcut Ctr-Shift-A to get your current text box or image to expand to full screen. This still has the toolbar at the top but I am adding a ‘minify the minify’ option to remove even that. This will be in v2.3 and called the mini-mini button.

It is actually easier to edit text at 100% so probably better to make your main typing box full screen manually but whatever, there are many ways to get the same result.

A simple user interface seems to be especially appealing to Mac users, so on the Mac everything will also go white, apart from the text, which will go whitey-grey.

NaNoWriMo

Last week saw the start of NaNoWriMo the November novel-writing sprint. I am starting a new graphic novel, this will be blogged about on Story Turbo.

How to write: ideas:

Talking of minimal UIs, in the area of costumes, there is the Ku Klux Klan’s white tent with eye holes, and the black burka with eye slot (I suppose, dominance and submission).

Story starter: two characters, one in KKK garb, other in a burka: ‘eyes meet across a crowded room’. Write a story to get to that point, without offending anyone (unless you really want to).

The above story starter could lead to tolerance, intolerance, racism, anti-racism (set in a Council office), aliens (for SF), student fancy dress party (for coming of age), spanking (if you want some sales), a graphic novel with black and white illustrations, perhaps a bit of grey…

Better, faster, more benefits for writing, creativity, productivity

Oct 20th, 2012
by Geoff-D.
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New Story Lite v2.2 is out next week, the installer is made so I will put it online soon. I listed the benefits in the last blog, well OK, I listed the features.

NEWS: Live! To buy a Story Lite v2.2 license at sale price of 95c, go here >

Benefits are:

Easy to work with many boxes of notes and ideas because you can select and move around groups now, not just one box at a time.

This means you can make say a title box and a main text box, and drag them about, also clone them for repeats.

Neater line up of rows and columns, this will help you think since the brain works fastest with simple layouts. The snap to grid tool means you can set say 20 pixels as your grid.

Transparent text boxes and Z level, so you can make layered texts.

Instant shortcuts to zoom to boxes or view. Some of these are in the current version but there are more for power users.

Better paging system on the arrow keys, makes it easier to ‘paginate’ your layouts for presentations or slide shows.

Better web export, on a Publish button, and a link to ‘how to’ guides to get your work into Blogs, Content Management Systems (CMS) and Social Media, and anywhere else. There will be more on this topic later.
And in v2.3 (along later) the process will be automated.

You can lay text directly onto anything else, and control the layers – using the transparent text box feature, and the Z levels control. I will make an example of using this next week.

So, not long to wait.

Any ideas for new features just drop a line via Contact page.

Add text styles to a Story Software document

Oct 10th, 2012
by Geoff-D.
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Story Software text styles

Story Software text styles

Text Styles Template file

There is a new file for text styles, you can use this as a basic method to copy/paste styles into new boxes (or clone them). You can edit these to suit, they use a serif font (Times New Roman) and a sans serif font (Arial) and a number of styles like Heading, Subheading etc.

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Floating windows idea from a reader, Story software tips

Jul 26th, 2011
by Geoff-D.
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Screen windows Story Lite

Screen windows Story Lite

We had an interesting idea from Ilan, a reader and user of Story Lite software. He said:

“I think there is one feature that is very critical to me, that’s missing. The ability to float the Story Lite window above other windows. Thus, if I want to copy/paste some text from a web page, a pdf file that I’m reading, some email, or a different source, into Story Lite, I can simply position Story Lite above the maximized web browser (etc.) window.”

Yes that is a good idea, we have automatic copy/paste (so you don’t even need to see the Story software) in the new online version out in the next few weeks.

For v1.1, and all the desktop versions, the Story Lite window is in a standard Windows or Mac window, so we can’t make it act differently, as that is built into the system.

TO FIX THIS
You have to adjust the size and shape of the Story Lite window to suit your screen layout, then you can save a new Template (or just save and open the file) with a new box layout, such as vertical or horizontal.

ONLINE VERSION NEWS
We have a new online version out soon, which is a simple version of Story Lite in a browser window, this will have auto copy/paste into the online box, which can then be saved as Story format, or txt and rtf for Word etc.

This will be useful if you are working online for research or note gathering.

This will be ready soon, I will email everyone about it.

Thanks
Geoff