How can we grow this project?

[orielhaim]

Hey 👋

I’ve been putting a ton of time into Storyteller and I’m honestly using it daily and i think it turned out pretty awesome.

But it’s still really quiet here and I’d love to grow this into something with an actual community.

Any ideas on how to get it out there?

Would really appreciate any thoughts 🙏

[peter88213]

Some notes on version 1.20

Project import

I tried to migrate a 78.800 words novel and gave up because it apparently requires copying the entire text scene by scene via the clipboard.

Consistent user interface

• On the library page, "Settings" means program settings.
• On the other pages, "Settings" means book metadata settings. Clicking on Settings makes the program forget the context. So if I click on "Settings" when editing a scene, there is no back link to this scene, but "Back to library".
• The scene metadata dialog is sort of hidden under the ... menu entry as Edit scene.

Manuscript export

I tried the .docx export.

• Title and author are missing. Instead, there are 7 lines containing the word "Page".
• Chapter descriptions and scene titles are included. Did I miss an "opt-out" setting?
• The first exported .docx document was set in a sans-serif font. After making some changes in Storyteller, such as formatting single words italic and bold, the second docx document exported was set in Times New Roman.

[peter88213]

Another note on version 1.20

Where is my work stored on disk? There is nothing visible im my Documents folder. Further investigation reveals an SQLite database in the user profile. This type of data storage makes it virtually impossible to work across multiple devices, such as a desktop PC and a laptop.
How to back up my work on external devices?

[peter88213]

A suggestion based on version 1.20

Metadata/Characters/world building export feature

As mentioned above, the scene metadate dialog is quite hard to find, and the metadata is exported partially to the manuscript.
Instead, a separate metadata export would be useful, e.g. as a csv file. the same applies to the world building data and character sheets.

[orielhaim]

Project import

I would be happy if you would open a separate issue with a detailed request for everything that needs to be included

Settings pages

Still looking for a solution to make it clearer

Workspace state

Working on this. It needs to be saved in a database so that it can be returned to the same state even after the program is closed. I would be very happy to receive a pr

Manuscript export

It is still beta, I have hardly tested it at all and I am still not sure how to solve the division into pages. It is not completely stable.

backup

I am currently working on a backup and restore option. I will also add the option to choose the path for saving.

Metadata/Characters/world building export

You are welcome to open a separate issue with a detailed request

[orielhaim]

Addressed in 56c632e d8392ca

[peter88213]

Hmm, looks like I misunderstood the topic of this thread. At first, I thought it was about the technical growth of the project. Now I see it more in terms of community building.
GitHub does offer some tools for that. I’d start by enabling the discussion forum to separate general discussions from issue reports.

The question then is whether it will be more of a developer community or a user community. In my experience, most writers don’t have a technical background and are unlikely to create a GitHub account.

When it comes to receiving contributions to the code or other materials, such as translations and documentation, it might be worth considering opening up the wiki, where some introductory resources could also be made available.

By the way, if you plan to collaborate with other developers, I strongly advise against closing their bug reports as "completed" just because you’re not interested in the issue.

I’ve been looking around a bit. Apparently, Storyteller is essentially a database application with Electron as its front end. In my opinion, a major drawback is the immense file size of the releases. I live in a country that isn’t exactly renowned for its high-speed internet infrastructure, and since I’m in a rural area, 150 MB is already a lot just to see if anything has changed in the error log.

By the way, there’s currently some buzz on Reddit about an app called Penpoint, which follows a similar concept to Storyteller but is closed-source and was created by a developer who wants to make money but otherwise remains anonymous. In my opinion, there’s still quite a bit left to finish here; what stands out, though, is how small the download package is. My guess is Tauri. Have you ever considered that?

[orielhaim]

As for the wiki, I didn't think there was any point in opening it when only two people were talking here😅
If you think it's useful I'll open it

Regarding the closure of your issue Sorry again

Regarding the download size, it's true that it's large, but these days most people have internet at a speed of 1gb

Regarding Tauri, I considered it, the problem is that it depends on the webview of the system and this can cause a lot of instability and maintenance difficulties. Right now I prefer to stay with Electron
(Maybe in the future I'll think about moving it to SaaS, I don't know, we need to discuss that)

[peter88213]

As for the wiki, I didn't think there was any point in opening it when only two people were talking here😅
If you think it's useful I'll open it

It's up to you. The wiki is also an easy-to-use tool for you to create all kinds of documentation—whether you’re explaining the key features of your software design or quickly drafting a user manual.
I use mine for tutorials:
https://github.com/peter88213/novelibre/wiki