Any other screenwriters?

[Rick Johnson]

On Friday, March 8, 2013 3:07:59 PM UTC-6, Rick Dooling wrote:
> I am an amateur Python person, and I usually learn just
> enough to make one writing tool or another as I go,
> because mainly I'm a writer, not a programmer. Recently,
> I've been exploring a markdown syntax called Fountain for
> screenwriters

First impression of Fountain: TOTAL CRAP! 

I surly hope this "Fountain" markup is a joke and people are not actually using it to write anything. Fountain's feeble attempts to solve the "plain text" markup problem are an abomination at best, and an insidious evil at worse!

============================================================
 Problem 1
============================================================

Take for example their redefining of the simple and ubiquitous "emphasis markups" of:
   
    /italic/ 
    *bold*
    */bold italic/*
    _underline_
    
To this crap:

    *italics*
    **bold**
    ***bold italics***
    _underline_

...are they joking?

============================================================
 Problem 2
============================================================ 

Their "dual dialog" structure is another folly. "Dual dialog" is so rare that it /hardly/ requires a unique syntactical element. Consider the Fountain solution via this small short story:
    
    ACTOR_1
    Hey, check out that hot chick over there! 
    
    ACTOR_2
    Where?

    (ACTOR_1 slaps ACTOR_2 on the head and points)
    
    ACTOR_1
    Over there you idiot!
    
    (feeling a bit hot from all the walking, hot chick
    opens the top two buttons on her blouse to allow 
    some fresh air in; revealing her ample cleavage) 

    ACTOR_1
    Whoa!
    
    ACTOR_2 ^
    Whoa!
    
Two glaring problems with this syntax: A) i don't know that both actors are speaking simultaneously until *AFTER* i read _both_ lines B) a simple ampersand would have sufficed:
    
    ACTOR_1 & ACTOR_2
    Whoa!
    
There are so many more absurdities that i do not have time to list. If i were you, i would consider a ground-up project that focused on consistency and a very, *VERY* intuitive markdown structure. I could pull a better structure and syntax out of my arse. A simple ASCII text editor with a few "custom modes" is all you need to produce intuitive raw text screen plays that *almost* mimic the real thing.

> There are several apps that purportedly will allow
> screenwriters to convert plain text files to PDFs that
> follow screenwriting format. They cannot replace the $250
> programs we use once production begins, but they are good
> enough for working drafts until production begins.

Well, $250 dollars is not a lot of money you know, especially if you are using the software for professionally.

> However, most of these programs are "apps" with closed
> GUIs, and of course I'm looking for a way to do the same
> thing with Python and call it from the command-line or
> from within Vim
>
> To that end, I would like to take this Ruby script (which
> works pretty well, but throws errors in Mac OS X; some
> Ruby ones and some Prince ones) and convert it to Python
> so I can fix it myself, because I don't know Ruby at all,
> and would rather work in Python.

Ruby and Python are very similar. Have you made any attempts to translate (any portions of) the code yet?