Hello, and welcome! Thank you for wanting to help improve StoryBuilder. Here's what you need to know.
If you have a question, make sure it isn't already answered. Our goal is to provide answers to the most frequently asked questions somewhere in the Issues or Discussions.
Another source of information is our Discord server. You can join it from this link.
The rest of this document discusses possible ways to help.
Nobody knows a program like the person who uses it the most: not even the guys who wrote it. Everyone who's ever used buggy program- and they're all buggy- knows that.
If you find StoryBuilder useful, it's in your interest for it work properly. If you find a bug, please report it by opening an issue. Select New Issue and pick the Bug Report template.
Please provide as much context as possible, and if you want to work on a fix, we'll be forever grateful! Please try to test around for a bit to make sure you're dealing with a bug and not an issue in your implementation. If possible, provide a demo which isolates the bug and turns it into its smallest possible representation. That would help a lot!
Got an outlining itch StoryBuilder can't scratch? Tell us about it, either by opening an issue. Select New Issue and select the Feature Request template).
Alternatively, you can develop your idea by starting a new discussion. We're always looking to make StoryBuilder better.
We'll try to prioritize new feature development that makes our users happy. Toward that end, we'll put together a feature voting system soon. The goal is making StoryBuilder more usable.
One of StoryBuilder's defining characteristics is the thousands of suggestions it offers for hundreds of elements. If you're looking for an idea, a theme, a subject, a role, a plot twist, a location, or just about anything, you'll find a a drop-down list full of ideas and examples. They're there to prevent those pauses when the keyboard stops and you just can't come up with the thought you need.
No list is perfect, however. Many times when you're using StoryBuilder, you'll browse a list's contents and not see what you're looking for. If the omission is especially glaring, you might pass it along. There'a s channel, list-suggestions, on our Discord server for just that purpose.
The samples StoryBuilder provides could use some company. If you're trying to get familiar with StoryBuilder, why not pick a favorite novel, short story, television episode, movie or stage play and outline it? The samples work best when the story's familiar. Star Wars, anyone?
There's a channel on our Discord server for just that purpose.
The process of creating an outline from prose is deconstruction, and you can learn a lot by taking a story apart. Hint: If you're having problems, you might take a look at Cliffs Notes. They're the deconstruction champs.
The StoryBuilder user manual is maintained in as a Scrivener project which is currently maintained apart from the StoryBuilder repository. The process uses Scrivener's Compile to produce markdown, which is split and reformatted by some c# code, and then deployed to github-pages for the StoryBuilder repository.
If you're interested in working on the documentation, contact [email protected].
If you're interested in helping to develop StoryBuilder, see the Programmer Notes.