Re: Screenplay formatter?

--- In [email protected], John Markley <jmmjr@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Dale -
> 
> Two comments at this point:
> 
> 1)  From your initial post --
>    "If you instead of hitting Enter a second time you hit the Tab 
key it
> assumes you want a Character Name.  It takes you to the Center of 
the
> page and assumes upper case.  Typing henry will give you HENRY. 
Enter
> again and it takes you to a Dialogue line, centered and directly
> below the Character Name."
> 
> I've studied the issue of automatic centering of text, both during  
> input and after input, quite thoroughly now, and am regrettably  
> confident in saying that it is not possible in standard Palm text  
> fields such as the memo field, using pedit or anything else.  The 
only  
> way is to approximate centering by moving the word or string with  
> spacebar, tab, backspace.  This is an inherent difference between 
text  
> editors (pedit, Memos, standard Palm text field, .txt) which 
derive  
> location from counting characters and don't deal with the concept 
of  
> "center of the line" because the line is a variable item, and word  
> processors such as WordSmith.  I've tried a gazillion ways to 
trick  
> it, no-can-do.

Thanks for the information.  I need to learn to be more exact when 
I'm describing things.  Technically -- nothing in the screenplay 
template is centered.  The various element position are based on 
inches (or part of inches) from the left and/or inches (or part of 
inches) from the right.

But... the good part (for me) is that Movie Magic Screenwriter is a 
well written program.  When you paste in text, one of the options 
is: "Import Text In Screenplay Format".  If you select that option 
the formatter knows (or guesses) what you want it to do.

int. kitchen -- day
JOHN chases a RAT.
JOHN
Damn rat.
RAT
(disgusted) 
Damn John.

For example: This will format properly when you paste into the script 
formatter.  It knows to capitalize the Scene Header INT. KITCHEN -- 
DAY, based on the beginning, "int."  It knows that John chases... is 
an action paragraph.  It knows JOHN and RAT are a character names, 
based on the fact that they are all in upper case. It knows 
that "Damn rat." is dialogue because it follows a character name. It 
knows that (disgusted) is a Parenthetical, because it follows a 
character name and it's in parentheses.

So pasting the above into Movie Magic Screenwriter will give you a 
correctly formatted script -- including position from the left, right 
and all the carriage returns it needs.  (Maybe I'm making this harder 
than it needs to be.)

I am sorry if I led you on a wild goose chase on the centering 
thing.  
  
> 2) from you and Jose -
> Quoting fjmancho <fjmancho@...>:
> >> Is there any way to select Tekei from the keyboard in the DA, or 
will I
> > have to touch the
> >> screen with the stylus?
> >
> > The best thing is to launch Teikei with pTools or pEdit pScripts 
(For
> > pScripting issues, read John's advice below: You will learn how 
to do it).
> > There are many ways to do it directly from the Keyboard.
> >
> > This pScript might help you
> >
> > {Teikei::/&daLaunch[@@Teikei DA@@]}
> >
> > You must respect the space between Teikei and DA (again, follow 
John's
> > advice to operate with pScripts).
> >
> > If, as I have seen bellow, you have decided to work with pEdit (I 
don't
> > have it yet, I am a pTools user) you must be able to do that 
easly.
> 
>    This would facilitate things for you right away, and you can 
run  
> the pScript using pedit alone, don't need pToolSet, so let me give 
you  
> a quick tutorial on how to do it so that with a couple of key 
presses  
> on your keyboard you can open TeikeiDA.
> 
> A)  Open pedit (are you using peditPro?), 
menu/Op/preferences/general,  
> and put a check in the "escape character is" box. The default  
> character is the back apostrophe, ` .  On your keyboard find a  
> character that is easy to key but that you will rarely if ever use 
in  
> the ordinary flow of text input.  Depending on your keyboard it may 
be  
> the default `, or you may choose some other.  Put that in for your  
> escape character (referred to as ESC) using the little scroll 
arrows.
> B)  Test what you've just done by -  with your keyboard hooked up,  
> return to pedit Edit or List view, and enter your ESC character  
> followed by the "&" character, that is, if your ESC is the `, you  
> would enter  `&  .  You should then see the pedit pScript 
activation  
> dialog appear.  Dismiss it by keying a period character, "."  .
> C)  Now do ESC M (escape char followed by capital M) and your  
> pScriptPad will open.  A couple of lines down from the top put in 
the  
> pScript that Jose gave you
> 
> {Teikei::/&daLaunch[@@Teikei DA@@]}
> 
> This is programming code, so it must be exactly as written to 
work.   
> There are no spaces between any of the characters except between  
> Teikei and DA.
> Close pScriptPad (tap the OK button, or key in ESC o).
> 
> D)  Open a pedit memo (edit view).  Do ESC &  to open the pScript  
> dialog.  Type in an upper case T (first letter of Teikei, the name 
of  
> your pScript, you have only one pScript so no ambiguity) and then 
type  
> either a colon ":", or the letter "d" for "do it", and your 
pScript  
> will open Teikei for you.  Voila.

Thanks again, John.  I'll try to dig into it and see how far I can 
get.  (I am using pEditPro.)

---
Dale


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