John August

Apps

Highland and the Kindle are friends

Apps, Challenge, Geek Alert, Highland

Ben Godar uses Highland to read screenplays on his Kindle by [converting PDFs](http://www.bengodar.com/2012/07/john-augusts-highland-and-kindle-are.html):

> Once you drag the PDF into Highland, it will convert it into Fountain – recognizing all the screenplay elements. Export as a Fountain file, then save as plain text. From there, you can get the file onto your Kindle by e-mailing it to your Kindle address, upload using a program like Calibre, etc.

Fountain files are really just text files. You can change the .fountain extension to .txt and Kindle will happily read them.

> The file still won’t look *exactly* like a screenplay on your Kindle. Everything will be left justified. But the line breaks will stay the same, character names will be capitalized… all in all, it will look like a screenplay.

Ben’s solution works, but I’d love to see a little more screenplay formatting. If any clever readers feel like some geekery this holiday weekend, here’s my challenge to you:

**Build a converter that takes a Fountain file and formats it nicely for the Kindle.**

In addition to text files, Kindle understands RTF and HTML/CSS, so one of those might be a good option.

If you make something interesting, email or tweet me a link. I will be delighted to hype anything cool that comes of it.

Highland adds Quick Look previews

Apps, Highland

Speaking of Highland, my favorite new feature in the [Highland beta](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland) is Quick Look previews.

Do you ever find yourself staring at a folder of scripts, confused which draft is which? You open the files one at a time, skimming through them to find what you’re looking for.

Stop. Just select a file and press the spacebar. Up pops a preview of the script.

highland quick look

You can even up-arrow and down-arrow through all the files in the folder.

“Well sure,” you say. “That works great for your fancy new Fountain files, but who has folders full of those?”

Here’s the thing: Highland’s previews **even work with Final Draft (.fdx) files.**

final draft quick look

For whatever reason, Final Draft itself doesn’t support Quick Look. Highland does. So now you can Quick Look those files.

It works even if Highland isn’t running. Even if Final Draft isn’t installed. It’s just an extra little bonus because you deserve nice things.

Fountain, 10x faster

Geek Alert, Highland, Screenwriting Software

We’re keeping Nima Yousefi busy working on Highland, but he’s found time to push a major update to [Fountain](http://fountain.io/), the open-source format and code library that [makes the magic possible](http://nimayousefi.com/2012/06/fountain-update/):

> It came to our attention that on iOS devices the parser’s performance was less than stellar. In fact, it was pretty terrible.

> Long story short, now there’s FastFountainParser. It’s a traditional line-by-line parser and roughly ten times faster than the old one. So, that’s a win.

What this means for screenwriters: Fountain-based screenwriting apps for the Mac and iPad will be much, much faster.

Also included in the package: our libraries for HTML export and pagination.

> It splits large dialogue blocks up across pages, adding the appropriate MORE and CONT’D, and is smart enough not to split in the middle of a sentence.

Fountain is designed to be completely agnostic — you can write Fountain in almost any app that generates text. That said, specialized apps can do amazing things, and we want developers to have a consistent base to jump off from.

I’ve had the chance to try out some of the forthcoming apps. You’re going to love them.

Less IMDb: Faster and cleaner than ever

Apps, Less IMDb

Ryan spent much of this last week updating [Less IMDb](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/less-imdb), our browser plug-in that makes IMDb approximately one billion times better.

Version 1.2 sniffs out some of the new cruft that IMDb has packed into its title and people pages, hiding it away so you can see the credits. Ryan has also streamlined how it works, so you’ll find pages loading faster than ever.

Here’s a [little screencast](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0A5XUOpBg) I did that shows what it does and how to install it:

For Chrome, you can install it from [our site](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/less-imdb), or with one click from the [Chrome Web Store](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/necddehinbndjblnhmgcodpobjfpblle?hl=en-US). Well done, Google!

For Safari, it’s three clicks from [our site](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/less-imdb). It’s also available on Apple’s [Safari extensions gallery](https://extensions.apple.com/), but without an easy link. Bad Apple.

If you have an earlier version of Less IMDb for Safari, it’s a good idea to uninstall it first to prevent possible wonkiness. Instructions are in the video.

Less IMDb was the first thing we made as a company, and it still gets the most traffic to the site. We don’t make any money off of it, but goodwill is its [own currency](http://myothercareer.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/less-imdb-safari-extension/):

> Their Less IMDB Safari extension is a godsend. It gets rid of nearly all of the garbage and delivers the streamlined UI that’s as close to how it used to be as possible.

And that’s why we made it.