novelWriter Alternatives

novelWriter

The core features of novelWriter are:

- A plain text editor with a minimal set of markdown formatting features, plus a few additional features like tags and comments. Tags and comments are not counted towards word counts.
- Most features have keyboard shortcuts to speed up using the editor.
- Files are organised in a tree view with no automatic ordering. The order of the files are as you set them, and are saved in the same order.
- Files live in a set of root folders, and cannot be moved between them. These are currently Novel, Character, Plot, World, Timeline, Object and Custom. There can only be one of each, except for the Custom one.
- Within the root folders files can be organised in subfolders. The folders will have no impact on the layout of the compiled novel when I get around to adding the export feature. They are simply there for your convenience. The order of the text files in the final novel is dictated purely from the order of entries in the tree.
- Each file can have a file layout, which currently doesn't do anything other than indicate the purpose of the file. It will, however, be used to control the format and structure of the parts of the novel when the export features are added. Each chapter must have a chapter type file. The text of the chapter can be put in the same file, or in following scene files. The choice is yours. The entire book can also be written in a single file of type Book.
- Documents can be either opened in the editor (left pane) or in view mode (right pane). That means two documents can be opened at once, making it easier to work on one while following the other.
- When tags and references are set in the documents, a timeline window will show the relationship between the novel sections and the supporting files like character files, locations, plot elements, etc.