3: Make a new file

3.1 Introduction

From the File menu choose New. In the dialog box name your file and the directory where it will be saved.

Tip: After this you will be able to use export functions allowing in particular saving in another format. When creating a new book I recommend you select an empty directory created for this purpose. By doing this you can gather in a single place the information that is useful to you for the work in progress, whether this is from oStorybook or not. For your own organization, gathering all your information, including the oStorybook file in one folder, makes things easier, especially for backups.

3.2 Note

Most of the examples in this manual are based on "Le médecin malgré lui ", a play by Molière. So I chose the file name "LeMedecinMalgreLui" without using spaces and marking each word with a capital letter. The file created on your hard disk will take the extension "h2.db", or "mv.db", or "osb5" depending on the operating system in use.

3.3 Naming advice for file

Important Note on File Name: Do not use special characters such as / \? * : or others. For more information see Wikipedia article. A correct filename should contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), space, underline, and dash.

Examples :

The following names (without quotation marks) are correct

Names like these are incorrect :

3.4 Appearance

After creating the file, oStorybook looks like this:

At the top is a traditional menu and toolbar of icons which are shortcuts to the corresponding functions.

3.5 Note on the panes of the oStorybook main window

These sub-windows, called views, are anchorable (dockable). Dockable sub-windows work the same way as a traditional application window, without it being exactly like a normal window.

Dockable sub-windows can be moved, closed, minimized,or maximized. For now leave them as is. If you accidentally close a pane and you can not find it again, you can still use the default presentation via the Windows menu.

3.6 Detail

  1. This pane shows a tree list. The objects listed are the characters, locations or scenes in hierarchical order. For more information on how to use this view, see chapter "14.9 Tree view".
  2. This pane shows information about an object. It is associated with the selected object in the tree or any of the views. For example, by clicking an object in the tree, its information will appear in this pane.
  3. This view is called "Chronological View". The chronological view shows the scenes in chronological (date/time) order. As you can see, the first scene is already created.
  4. Dockable panes can be organized via their tabs, much like the Firefox tabs. Four of these tabs are currently open and available. Click one of the tabs to change the view. See chapter "4.1 Aspects and use".
  5. The status bar always provides three items of information:

The first thing to do after creating your file is to fill in the main properties of the book, see chapter "6. Properties".

3.7 Menus

List of menu items:

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