John August

Apps

Final Draft Reader’s limited view

Apps, FDX Reader, Highland, Screenwriting Software

Late last week, Final Draft released a new version of [Final Draft Reader](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/final-draft-reader/id497421221?mt=8), adding support for iPhones to their heretofore iPad-only app.

From a basic design standpoint, their iPhone implementation is almost identical to what we did with [FDX Reader](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fdx-reader/id437362569?mt=8), using a continuous scroll rather than page-flipping to accommodate the smaller screen. I won’t break out the old imitation-is-flattery bromide; it’s simply the right choice given the situation.

Unfortunately, you’re going to be scrolling a lot with Final Draft’s version, because they insist on using traditional Courier. It’s a mistake. You simply can’t fit very much on the screen using that font.

Compare [two screenshots](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/fd-v-fdx-72.jpg) from Frankenweenie:

iphone screenshots

Like FDX Reader, Final Draft Reader allows you to reduce the font size. By doing so, you can fit the same amount of Frankenweenie on the screen. But you probably wouldn’t like the [results](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/smaller-fd.jpg):

smaller final draft screenshot

Final Draft Reader isn’t trying to match printed pages like it does in portrait view on the iPad, so there’s simply no good argument for sticking with Courier for this “Reader View.” It’s just bad design.

Being an official product, the app provides “100% accurate Final Draft pagination, formatting and page breaking.” That’s like saying only Coca-Cola can provide pure Coke flavor, but fine.

Their app can do several things FDX Reader doesn’t even attempt, such as editing ScriptNotes and showing colored page revisions. You can link to your Dropbox account, but only for exporting files *from* the app, so it’s not particularly useful. That’s consistent with a lot of what I found: placeholders and possibilities rather than actual utility.

Final Draft Reader is now free. That makes sense; they want users to pay for the $50 Final Draft Writer app.

We’ll keep selling and supporting FDX Reader as an alternative, but as I wrote [back in February](http://johnaugust.com/2012/pricing-fdx-reader), we’re not actively developing it anymore. Our next projects include more ambitious efforts like [Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/).

Fountain for Sublime Text

Fountain

Jonathan Poritsky has whipped up a [Fountain syntax highlighter](http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/09/10/fountain-for-sublime-text/) for [Sublime Text](http://www.sublimetext.com/), an increasingly popular text editor.

I love to see this kind of itch-scratching. It’s why we made Fountain. We want people to be able use it with whatever tools they prefer, and to whatever extent they find helpful.

Here’s a screenshot:

sublime fountain screenshot

Personally, I don’t find this kind of syntax highlighting all that useful for Fountain.

We designed the markup so elements would be defined by whitespace — both visually and logically. Character names already feel unambiguous to me, so making them a different color doesn’t do much. Putting notes and other meta info in color, on the other hand, seems potentially great. So maybe that will come in a future incarnation.

Regardless, there’s no right or wrong way to use Fountain. I love to see people making it their own.

**UPDATE:** Jonathan has already put out an update that adds in syntax coloring for Notes, Boneyard and other helpful meta-things. Totally worth a look.

Bronson Watermarker 1.6 gets customized

Apps, Bronson

The new version of Bronson Watermarker — in the [Mac App Store today](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bronson-watermarker/id481867513?mt=12) — adds our single most-requested feature: customization of the font, size and transparency of watermarks.

It’s one little button, but it lets you spend a dangerous amout of time tweaking and futzing with your watermark.

That potential time-suck is why we made it easy to ignore. You don’t *have* to choose fonts and colors and opacity. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. After all, the default styles are good enough for [Ron Howard’s Arrested Development script](https://twitter.com/RealRonHoward/status/228261666234707969/photo/1).

[bronson icon](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bronson-watermarker/id481867513?mt=12)

But if you need to customize the watermark — perhaps on a dark photo — now you can.

Bronson 1.6 also includes Mountain Lion support, Retina graphics and the ability to drag in images directly from iPhoto.

All this, plus a refreshed icon that looks great on your dock.

Bronson Watermarker is a [steal at $9.99](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bronson-watermarker/id481867513?mt=12) in the Mac App Store.

Writing screenplays with Scrivener and iA Writer

Apps, First Person, Fountain, Highland, Screenwriting Software

A reader named Gerry wrote in to share his screenwriting workflow, which uses [Fountain](http://fountain.io) as a bridge between Scrivener, iA Writer, Dropbox and Highland.

—

first person[iA Writer](http://www.iawriter.com/) is my favorite application to write in because of its minimalist UI and Focus Mode. I just wish it had features similar to [Scrivener’s](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php) Binder and Compile. I love the flexibility of having one scene or one sequence per document and organizing them within Scrivener’s Binder — as was [described so well](http://prolost.com/blog/2010/6/17/the-state-of-screenwriting-software.html) by Stu Maschwitz on Prolost.

Fortunately, Fountain lets me leverage both iA Writer and Scrivener.

I write scenes in iA Writer using Fountain syntax, saving them as plain text files in a [Dropbox](http://dropbox.com) folder. I can then work with them using iA Writer on a Mac, iPad, or iPhone, which is handy.

iA Writer is perfect for scenes, while Scrivener is great for the bigger script.

Because Fountain files are plain text, Scrivener is happy to handle them. I use Scrivener’s “Sync > with External Folder…” command to build a binder for the script, which maintains a link to those original files.

scrivener screenshot

(I prefer working with a minimized Scrivener UI. I “borrowed” icons from the Storyist application to customize Scrivener’s Binder.)

Meanwhile, iA Writer still sees the individual files. If I edit them, those changes appear within Scrivener after the next “Sync > with External Folder…”

iawriter screenshot

Using Scrivener’s “Compile…” command, I can then export a group of Scene and Sequence documents as a single plain text Fountain file.

With [Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland), I can then convert that Fountain file to PDF or Final Draft.

—

Gerry’s workflow is more complicated than many screenwriters would prefer, but I like that he’s using the tools he wants for each part of the process. Rather than being boxed in by one monolithic app, he’s taking the best of various apps.

With Fountain, we’ve worked hard to keep the format as agnostic as possible. Scrivener and iA Writer didn’t have to add support for Fountain, because they’ve always had it.

Some upcoming apps will do more with the format — using its built-in notes and sectioning, for example — but even the most basic text editors can do 90% of what you’d want.

For now, Highland helps complete the loop by letting you convert to and from Fountain easily. The free public beta is still going, so if you’re curious, by all means [try it out](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland).