Fountain

Highland 1.0.2 is [now available](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12) the Mac App Store. This release is mostly just the standard bug fixes and performance enhancements. Nothing wrong with that.

Nima added one sly trick you’re likely to love: shift-return makes the line uppercase. Boom. Try it! Your caps lock key will feel lonely.

We’ve also added support for the Lyric element. It’s not part of the official Fountain spec yet — the syntax might change — but I needed it so here it is. Lyrics work like dialogue, except each line is preceded by a tilde (~), and you can have multiple stacked lines of lyrics — even blank lines if you need them.

Here’s an example. This…

MARIONETTES
~Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! The amazing chocolatier!
~Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! Everybody give a cheer!
~He's modest, clever and so smart
~He barely can restrain it...

…comes out as this…

In screenplay format, Lyrics show up in italics. In stage musical format, well…maybe that’s something for a later release.

One last thing: your terrific feedback and five-star ratings mean a lot. Thanks for being awesome and supportive.

Highland is $20 in the Mac App Store. [Get it now](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12), or check out the [demo version](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/).

We’ve had a great response to [Highland][2], our plain-text screenwriting app, with lots of five star ratings that make us blush. We’re working on new features, but first we’re squashing some bugs.

Here’s what’s [new in 1.01][3]:

– When you save (or autosave), Highland remembers where your cursor was. Because that’s How It Should Be.
– Highland retains newlines upon Save. So if you like to use a lot of blank lines for some reason, go right ahead. It’s your script.
– Drag-and-dropping text within the editing window is so much better now. Try it!
– When you import a PDF or FDX file, we treat it like a new Fountain file — which it basically is. The first time you save it, you’ll give it a name.
– Fixed a bug that caused an occasional crash during Save.
– Fixed Export menu command.
– Updated welcome screen text.
– There was some stray Fountain markup (====) in FDX export. Whoops. Fixed.
– In Dark Mode, we’ve made the scroll bar easier to spot. ((Did you know you can change the colors in Dark Mode in the Preferences panel? Nima was like, “But what if someone picks terrible colors, like pink-on-red?” And I said, “What are you, the Color Police?” Then he showed me his badge.))

If you haven’t tried out Highland, there’s a [demo available][2]. (Mac App Store rules won’t let us mention it in the product description.)

Keep sending your report cards and comments. That’s how Highland improves. And I’ll admit it: stars are nice, so if you’re enjoying Highland and feel like telling folks, leave us a review.

[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12
[2]: http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland “Highland”
[3]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12 “highand mac app store”

[1]: http://johnaugust.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/highland-icon-200×200.png

Highland, our long-in-beta screenplay editor, is finally available in the [Mac App Store today](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12).

It’s regularly priced at $19.99, but through the end of the month, it’s half-off at $9.99.

In addition to letting you write scripts in plain text, Highland converts files between PDF, Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain formats. It works in all directions.

Yes, all directions — you can give it a PDF of a screenplay and it will melt it down to an editable file. That seems like magic, but it’s actually just a lot of hard work, and a year’s worth of report cards submitted by beta testers.

Melting PDFs is a feat that no other screenwriting app even attempts, so we made a [little video about it](http://player.vimeo.com/video/59698758?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=0):

We’ll never be able to convert every PDF, which is one reason we offer a [free demo version](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/) so you can see how it works before you buy it.

With Highland, you can also tackle FDX files without Final Draft. We’ve found our users are often writing in Google Docs or TextMate or vim — or on their iPads. Whatever setup you prefer, Highland can get you into and out of Final Draft smoothly when you need special features.

Highland is a great bridge between apps, but over the last year we’ve found more and more users are simply doing their writing in Highland. It’s a full-featured editor, with spelling, versions and find-and-replace. Because it’s plain text, you can focus on the words and not the formatting.

The biggest changes to Highland are easy to spot: a new icon, a new UI, and two new fonts. Courier Prime is an obvious addition, but we’ve also included Highland Sans, a brand-new editing typeface that’s sharp on the screen and easy on the eyes.

Other additions include Dark Mode for late-night writing, fast pagination and Apple’s speech-to-text dictation.

And there are more cool things in the works. But today is a major milestone, because Highland was such a long time coming. I want to thank Ryan, Nima, Stuart and our amazing beta testers for their perseverence.

Check out more information, including a FAQ, at [Quote-Unquote Apps](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/).

You can find Highland on the [Mac App Store](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12).