software for writing plays

[Howie]

hi everybody

 

i was busy last night reading 'lady windemere's fan' with some friends. one of them hadn't been able to get the book on time and had downloaded a translation from the net (which meant that we had three different translations, which was sometimes quite amusing). anyway. he hasn't got a printer so he sent it to me so i could print it. it was of course in doc format *grumble* *grumble*.

 

so i sat in frount of my computer for about an hour editing it to make it look passable; standardising the paragraph structure, putting buehnenanweisungen (staging directions?) in italics etc. and i thought, why doesn't someone write an XML format for plays? something like:

 

<play name="lady windermere's fan" author="oscar wilde">

<act number="1" setting="room in lady windermere's house">

<staging instruction="goes to table and picks up fan" />

<sentence speaker="ladywindermere">This is my first sentence! yuh-huh!<staging instruction="jumps in the air"/>I'm so happy!</sentence>

<sentence speaker="doriangrey">I'm in the wrong work</sentence>

</act>

<act number="2"...

...

...

</play>

 

then i could write a little software in java to allow plays to be written and edited on a windowing system etc. etc.

 

does software like this already exist? i haven't found anything...

 

i even already have a name for it: playwrite

 

howie

[Graeme]

As someone who deals with message formats (such as XML) as part of my job....

 

 

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?

 

 

Seriously, allowing plays to be in a canonical format that allows them to be printed in the way that the reader wants to read isn't such a bad idea. I doubt there is enough of a market to make money out of it, but for a hobby, you'd find a niche audience (pun intended).

[Howie]

As someone who deals with message formats (such as XML) as part of my job....

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?

Seriously, allowing plays to be in a canonical format that allows them to be printed in the way that the reader wants to read isn't such a bad idea. I doubt there is enough of a market to make money out of it, but for a hobby, you'd find a niche audience (pun intended).

 

if would of course also be useful for librettos, film scripts and the like

 

i'll start work on it as soon as i have a spare month

 

what do you think of java as a language for this sort of project? it would probably be easier to use a scripting language, but then you have portability problems

 

and XML is a lot more than just a message format have a look at odt, docbook, etc

 

howie

[dkstories]

Yes, there are several scriptwriter programs out there for movies, television and stage productions..

[Camy]

If you use word...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scriptsmart/

 

They are free and come in both a UK, and US version (for those of us who spell colour incorrectly).