Need a scene assembler

[ralbeck]

I would like a graphical user interface to a tree structure of files where the trunk is a novel, the branches chapter names, and the leaves are the scenes. The scenes would be written as usual in Atlantis. But, a special feature could be invoked to assemble all the scenes into a complete novel. And, if the order of the scenes was not just right they could be moved around and the novel reassembled.

[Robert]

Why not apply a Heading 1 style to each chapter title (branch), and an Outline Level of 1 to each paragraph of the scenes (leaves)?
Please have a look at The Headings panel of the Control Board for detailed explanations. Here are excerpts:

You can use Drag & Drop in the <b>Headings</b> panel to reorder the structure of the active document. As you drag headings up or down on the <b>Headings</b> panel and change their position, the corresponding headings and their associated text are moved accordingly up or down the document itself. The chapters of the active document can be reordered by dragging the relevant headings up or down in the <b>Headings</b> panel. Dragging the selected heading(s) in a horizontal direction instead of up or down promotes or demotes the corresponding heading(s) in the active document.
…
You can also right-click the <b>Headings</b> panel for more commands. The right-click menu allows to expand or collapse all headings (to hide or show child headings), send the whole outline structure to the clipboard as a plain text, choose the headings of which levels should be picked up by the <b>Headings</b> panel from the document, and finally you can adjust the font size used by the <b>Headings</b> panel for displaying its headings.

HTH.
Robert

[ralbeck]

Thanks for the suggestions. This is a little difficult. For instance, I currently use a list to number my chapters automatically with a specific heading. I don't usually have a heading for scenes but I use **** at the end of scenes. I can move scenes around but if I move a chapter the scenes don't follow.

You don't provide a choice for an outline list format that is common for novel writers -- that would be a big help.

Chapter 1
Scene 1
body text
Scene 2
body text
Chapter 2
Scene 1
body text
Scene 2
body text

And, just to add more work for you, it would be nice to have some list of metadata about the body text that is not printed (like: this scene is where the villain searches for the protagonist on the train)

[Robert]

For example, you could apply a Heading 1 style to the chapter headings, and an outline level of 2 to the first paragraph of each scene.
As a result, you could use the Headings panel of the Control Board to select the first paragraph of each scene with this bottom toolbar button:

You could also use the Headings panel of the Control Board to select the first paragraph of each scene, plus the body text that follows down to **** at the end of the scene. With this bottom toolbar button:

In other words, you could select each scene down to **** at the end of the scene with the above button.

Now if you select a chapter heading, plus one or several scenes with outline level 2 that follow the chapter heading <i>within the Headings panel of the Control Board</i>, you can use the mouse to move around the selected chapter heading and scene captions <i>within the Headings panel of the Control Board</i>. The corresponding texts will be moved around accordingly within the document itself.

This might sound overly complicated, but it isn’t really, and works quite well.
HTH.
Robert

[ralbeck]

Thanks for all your helpful comments.

I wish there was a "non-printed style".

So, I could add comments like: " John's point of view. Midpoint of book." Such text would not print and would not be included in the word count.

Hope this makes sense. Thanks,
Ralph