So forgive any wonkiness for the next few minutes. I’m hunting for a single blank line.
UPDATE (2:03 PM): The problem was a single blank line at the start of the XML file, introduced by extra blank lines at the end of the (hacked) Live Comments Preview plug-in.
I took advantage of the downtime to move all the feeds over to Feedburner. Let me know if you have any issues.
There’s now an official Scrippets plug-in for WordPress, available [here](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-scrippets/).
It’s been working well in the test sites we’ve seeded it to, but if any issues come up in its wider release, plug-in creator Nima Yousefi will be able to send out one-click upgrades. ((WP’s ability to keep plug-ins current is an underheralded godsend.)) So if you’re running a WordPress blog, by all means check it out.
There’s also now an official site at [Scrippets.org](http://scrippets.org), with forums for reporting bugs and tracking progress on other incarnations of Scrippets. Nima’s already whipped up a plug-in for bbPress, and Matt2000 has a version for Drupal in development. If you’re a coder with experience in one of the other blogging/forum platforms, consider this your call to adventure. ((You’ll definitely want to check out Nima’s scrippetize function, which does all the text transmogrifications through arcane-but-universal regular expressions.))
This site uses a Live Comment Preview plug-in that has been hacked to approximate the final scrippet formatting. We’re checking with the original plug-in author to get his okay to distribute a scrippet-friendly version. A similar JavaScript-based solution may be the best option for sites like Blogger that don’t allow traditional plug-ins. Stay tuned.
Hope to be 100% in a few hours.
Surprisingly, it all seems to be working okay. Even the wiki, which I was certain would break.
If you notice anything broken, leave a comment, or email __ask__ (you know the symbol) __johnaugust__ (dot) __com__.
Thanks to the hard work of Nima Yousefi, Will Carlough and Andy Maloney, we have a Scrippets plugin that seems to be working pretty reliably. It’s installed at this site now, and we’ll be seeding it out to a few other screenwriting-oriented websites over the next few days to make sure it plays well with others.
Like most programming projects, getting to 90% was easy. Within hours after my original call to coders, there were three plugins that could get the job done.
That last 10% was tricky, however, because it meant looking for situations that would fail: different WordPress themes, competing plugins, and unexpected user input. For example, my original Ruby code couldn’t distinguish between an all-caps slugline and a character name, and the way I was doing it, it would have been very hard to add that capability. ((The final plugin by Nima Yousefi uses regular expressions.))
In terms of plugins, Markdown is the devil. Rarely have I loved and loathed something so thoroughly. Almost any time you’d see a scrippet break in the middle, it was because of Markdown.
While I think the plug-in is working well, I suspect there will be a few more iterations before we let it out into the wild. So test it out in the comments. As a reminder, the syntax is…
[scrippet]
EXT. HOUSE – DAY
Max is checking his mail when he spots neighbor FRANK crossing the street, heading his way.
Shaking his head…
MAX
I thought we talked about this, Frank.
FRANK
(drunk)
I was born naked and I’m not changing now.
[/scrippet]
which becomes…
EXT. HOUSE – DAY
Max is checking his mail when he spots neighbor FRANK crossing the street, heading his way.
Shaking his head...
MAX
I thought we talked about this, Frank.
FRANK
(drunk)
I was born naked and I’m not changing now.