StoryMill

User Guide

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Mariner Write, Mariner, WinJournal, Montage, Desktop Poet, Contour and Mariner Paperless are registered trademarks of Mariner Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Table of Contents

Section 1: First Encounters with StoryMill!
Chapter 1: StoryMill Basics!
The central metaphor! The main project window and general terms! Adding and removing items! Editing items! Annotations! Adding and managing views! Searching!
Chapter 2: Views, Chapters, Timelines, Tags!
Working with views! Working with chapters! Editing in the project window! Timelines! Storylines! Editing scenes in the timeline! Events! Tags! Smart views! Trial version and registration!
Section 2: Working with StoryMill!
Chapter 3: Advanced Text Editing!

The ruler!

Styles! Spellchecking, nd and replace! Splitting windows! Conversion utilities!
Chapter 4: Exporting Your Work!
Exporting basics! Export templates! Using export template keywords! Keywords reference! Document templates! Custom document templates!

Chapter 5: Tools!

Snapshots! Using snapshots! Word frequency! Highlight Clichs! Progress meter! Window fading!

Chapter 6: Preferences!

General preferences! Editor preferences! Full Screen preferences! Status preferences! Snapshot preferences!

Troubleshooting!

3 of 66
Section 1: First Encounters with StoryMill
Learn the basics that youll need to start writing.

4 of 66

Chapter 1: StoryMill Basics
In this chapter: Welcome to StoryMill! Part word processor, part database, StoryMill 4.0 provides every author with the tools essential to writing a best seller: everything from project-wide annotations to centuries-spanning timelines. StoryMill introduces aspiring authors to multi-level writing methods of tracking characters, scenes, and locations, while professional writers will appreciate StoryMill's time-saving ability to oversee and manage the full creative process with Smart Views. Built from the ground up for Mac OS X, StoryMill offers an innovative way to channel and ne tune the creative writing process. Although StoryMill provides an impressive array of features to help you write and track the details of your story more effectively, none of them are required! StoryMill is incredibly exible: it can simply be a no-nonsense place to write and revise using its distraction-free full screen and powerful annotations, or a complete database of every character, location, and scene that makes up your novel. In order to help you jump straight into writing, this chapter introduces the basic interface and concepts behind StoryMill and describes how to add, edit, and delete any item in your project. StoryMills central metaphor The main project window Adding and removing items Editing items Annotations Adding and managing views Searching

5 of 66

The central metaphor
Before you can effectively make use of StoryMill, you need to understand the concepts it is organized around. StoryMill takes scenes as the basic building blocks of writing. A scene is a smaller part of the overall story that may be demarcated by time, setting, or content. There is the text that makes up the scene, but the program also recognizes that there are characters (the actors in the story), a location (the setting), and other information, such as notes, that you as the author can manage.
Tip: Think about scenes as discrete ideas that you can quickly capture - and organize later. You cant control when your creative juices will run - but you can control how you organize them. So, rst jot down the scene youre thinking of - and then decide later how you want to integrate it into your story. Approaching your story this way allows you to develop it in a non-linear fashion. Once you capture your ideas as scenes, then you can get creative again deciding how you want to arrange them.

8 of 66

The source list lets you sort individual items, simply by dragging them around. An items status is represented in the source list by a colored circle to its right. You can also assign it a status in its individual item view (shown at right), comprised of a header bar, content pane, metadata pane, and status bar. Header Bar: This bar displays the icon of your selected item, its title, and its status. Content Pane: The content pane displays all the text (and in some cases, pictures and notes) that youve ascribed to the item youve chosen. Metadata Pane: The metadata pane contains an array of information specic to the item, including pictures, tags, and links. Status Bar: This bar allows you to choose the zoom level for your content pane, and depending on the item selected, will monitor its cursor location, page number, word count, and character count.

continued from above

9 of 66
Since your project is made up of items organized into containers in the source list, StoryMill provides you with the following views: Novel, which contains the entire narrative text of your project and is made up of chapters and scenes Characters, which are the actors in your project Scenes, which can have characters, locations and timelines associated with them Locations, which are the different settings in your project Tasks, an example of a generic item view - a catch-all that can be used for notes, tasks, or any number of other things Research, which contains researched information pertinent to your project Current Tasks, which is a generic smart view. Trash, which contains a list of all the items you have deleted, including the ability to restore them. Smart views are a special kind of view based off another view. A smart view acts like a lter and only shows items that match its search criteria. Smart views have a gray gear situated to their right, and use the same icon as the view they are ltering (the generic view in the example at right).

10 of 66

Adding and removing items
StoryMills items have a diverse amount of information attached to them, but how you add and remove them is always the same. To add an item, click the Insert button in the toolbar. You may also choose EditInsert Item or use the hotkey N. If you have a container highlighted, the new item will be inserted at the bottom of its items list. If you are already working in a item list, your new item will be inserted immediately underneath the one currently highlighted.

Insert button

When you insert an item, the name eld will automatically gain focus, allowing you to immediately name your new item. Your new item will also have its own view with header bar, content and metadata panes, and status bar (only for chapters and scenes). To remove an item, either right click it (control-click for single button mice) and choose Remove Items, select it in the item list and choose EditRemove Item, or hit.

Tip: Searches are project-wide! This means that a search run while a particular view is selected will still return results from another view.
Keep in mind that StoryMill does not search anything except an items name, notes, and text (in the case of chapters and scenes). To search by tags or other information in the metadata pane, youll need to use smart views or temporary lters.

16 of 66

Chapter 2: Views, Chapters, Timelines, Tags
In this chapter: Using the information from Chapter 1, you should have a grasp on the basics of using StoryMills views and items. However, there are four specic features that form StoryMills core that deserve a more in-depth look: views, editing, timelines, and tags. All of these features were touched on in Chapter 1, but heres a quick run-down: Scenes are the basic building blocks for everything written in StoryMill. Within the scenes container view in the source list, scenes are organized in the order they occur in the written work. Scenes have a broad amount of information attached to them, including characters, locations, start and end dates, and storylines. Chapters - the rst item list in your novel view - provide an easy way to gather scenes into groups. If you arent organizing or jotting down details and backstory, youll probably be working with the chapters of your novel. Timelines are a second way to look at your scenes. Whereas the scenes view is ordered by when scenes occur in the narrative, the timeline orders scenes based on when they fall in time. Timelines put your scenes in context with one another, regardless of narrative order. Tags provide an easy way to organize and sort any item in StoryMill in conjunction with smart views. Working with views Working with chapters Editing in the project window Timelines Storylines Editing scenes in the timeline Events Tags Smart views Trial version and registration

17 of 66

Working with views
Each item container in the source list by default has a container description view (scenes container view shown at right) that allows you to add a new item, manage tags, and in the case of scenes and scenes-based smart views, see all the your views items as part of a timeline. The scenes container view provides a good example of how to work with container views: Clicking on Add a New Scene will add a new item at the bottom of your scenes list, with the same single item view enabled as for all your other scene items.
Tip: Once youve added a new scene, assign it a chapter in its metadata pane, and sort it within the scenes list by dragging and dropping it. The order of the scenes in the scenes list dictates their order in the chapters. If you are placing chapter text in scenes, reordering the scenes will automatically move the text in the chapter. The tag cloud provides an easy way to manage your scenes tags. Adding a tag directly to the tag cloud adds it to all the scenes in your container. The bottom pane of the scenes container view is unique in allowing you the option to open a timeline of your scenes.

Container description view (scenes view)
Tip: You cannot add new scenes in the novel view; instead, youll need to add them in the scenes view.

18 of 66

If you need to add information to multiple scenes at one time, you can use the contextual menu (shown at right). Select from the source list the scenes you want to modify with shift-click or command-click and right click them (or control-click for single button mice). From the contextual menu you can add tags, set statuses, open an attached character or location in its item editing window, open the chapter that contains the scenes, and more. Individual item views provide a different set of options for managing your work. As described in Chapter 1, each single item view displays a header bar, content pane, metadata pane (described in detail below), and status bar, enabling you to edit your story in a variety of ways. Tip: Different individual items will display different views. For example, the upper pane of a characters view will allow you to make notes on the character, while the upper pane of a chapters view will allow you to edit text. Each individual item views metadata pane whose mode bar (shown below) allows you to control a variety of metadata panes.
The available panes in the metadata pane vary by item, although Pictures, Tags, and Links are common to all items. Each will allow you to store different pieces of information, such as:

19 of 66

Notes: your ideas and thoughts on your item. Pictures: any images you have associated with your item. Tags: any lters or organizing themes (see Tags, p.31). Links: links to web URLs or desktop les for reference purposes. Scenes: a list of scenes included in or associated with your item. Locations: a list of locations dened for the scenes included in or associated with your item. Characters: a list of all characters in your item. This list is populated by the characters view (if you have one). Info: Unique metadata attached to scenes and characters, detailed below: # - Chapter: the chapter that contains the scene. - Storyline: which storyline (in the timeline) the scene is in. - Location: the setting for the scene. This drop down is # populated by your locations view (if you have one). # # # # ! - Start Date: the date and time the scene starts. - End Date: the data and time the scene ends. - Characters: a list of the scenes characters. This list is populated by the characters view (if you have one). - Traits: role and physical characteristics of your characters.

20 of 66

The individual scene views unique metadata pane (shown at right) is worth a closer look: Fields such as chapter, storyline, and location with the small up and down arrows in their corner are drop-downs; click anywhere in the eld to open the drop-down and select your desired value. Choose a start and end date by clicking on the calendar icon to choose a specic date from the date picker (such as Aug 10, 1747). Although the start and end date elds can be useful in the scene view for quick reference, they are primarily used for sorting scenes in the timeline. Not every story takes place in the real world, of course, but the timeline (and the start and end dates) can still come in handy; just pick an arbitrary date to start from, and arrange your scenes relative to that date. To add a character, click the + button. A list will open with all the characters in your characters view (excepting any that are already attached to the scene). Click and drag characters to reorder them.

21 of 66

Working with chapters
There are two places to edit chapters: the project window and the item editing window. In the project window, you can toggle open the novel view using the arrow to its left and click on individual chapters for the single chapter view. You can then toggle open individual chapters in the same way to see the single scene view. The chapters list in the novel view is best for setting statuses or sorting your chapters. The single chapter view is best for editing a chapters aggregate text in the project window, and the single scene view is best for working on a single scene.
Tip: The word count eld in the single chapter views status bar counts all of the words in the currently selected chapter. If you need to know how many words are in chapters 1-3, just select the appropriate chapters and the aggregate word count (along with page and characters count) will update accordingly! In the single chapter view, the top pane in the screen contains the chapter and scenes text. Youll also notice a status bar along the bottom of the window whose content is unique to the single chapter view (due to the inclusion of the cursor location eld):

22 of 66

Zoom level

Cursor location

Approximate page count

Word count

Character count
The cursor location is the name of the scene (or chapter) that the cursor is currently located in; the others should be self-explanatory. In order to help you distinguish between scenes, alternating scenes have a light background color (shown at right). Although the top half of the split-screen window contains the chapters text, chapters still have notes. The chapters notes are available in the metadata pane.
Tips: They may not look it, but chapter notes are rich text! You can use bold, italic, different fonts, even images if you want. The approximate page count refers to a formula used by publishers to estimate the page counts of published books. These are not intended to correspond to page counts on 8.5 x 11 inch paper!

23 of 66

Editing in the project window
The project windows source list is a useful tool for navigating between novel view, single chapter views, and single scene views to see the text of your project in context. The project window also offers a number of features that make text editing easy. Most of the unique features of the project window (as opposed to an individual item editing window) can be found in its toolbar.
Save: This opens a standard save dialog. Alternatively, choose FileSave As or hit S. Insert: Click the Insert button to add a new item to your view. Snapshots: Click this button to show and control all your snapshots (see Using snapshots, p. 55). Full Screen: Click this button to enter full screen mode. You can also choose ViewFull Screen or hit F. While in full screen mode, hit escape to return to normal. StoryMills full screen mode is an excellent way to reduce distractions and focus solely on your text. Timeline: The Timeline button launches the timeline window (see Timelines, p. 26).

24 of 66

(continued from previous page) Progress Meter: The progress meter allows you to to track your progress during a single writing session or on your entire project (see Progress meter, p. 58). Annotate: The Annotate button allows you to control annotations (see Annotations, p. 14). Jump To.: Use the Jump To. button to jump to any annotations in your current view, allowing those annotations to act as bookmarks. This is particular useful if youre working with a large amount of text (possibly in a chapter view or the novel view). You can also choose EditFindJump to Selection or hit J. Highlight: Select text you wish to highlight and choose a highlight color from the drop-down. Each highlight color is associated with a specic status and the available colors are based on your preferences (see Status preferences, p. 64). You can also choose TextHighlight to highlight selected text. To remove highlighting, select highlighted text and choose None in the Highlighter or the menu. Search: Use the search bar to run a project-wide search for unique text, including item notes. To edit the contents of the toolbar, right click it and choose Customize Toolbar or choose ViewCustomize Toolbar.
Tips: - You can use the full screen for any item! - Color and margins in the full screen are controlled in the preferences! See Full screen preferences, p. 63.

25 of 66

Timelines
Your scenes view, and any smart view based off your scenes view, can be viewed as a timeline. To open a timeline of your active view, click the Timeline toolbar button in the project window (shown at right), or choose ToolsTimeline. The timeline window has unique ways of allowing you to manage its content: Storylines: storylines group scenes horizontally so you can see the relationship between them. Zoom controls: hover over the control to change the base unit of measurement all the way from minutes to centuries. Navigate: jump to the rst or last scene in the timeline, view all scenes, or navigate by storyline. Insert Scene: insert a scene into your timeline and assign it dates and a storyline. Insert Event: insert an event that spans storylines. Scenes Palette: view the list of untimed scenes, sorted by chapter. Search bar: search for scene names and automatically navigate to the rst matching one found. Tip: The timeline window has an interface that works much like your favorite online web mapping service. Simply grab the screen or two-nger swipe your trackpad to pan through the timeline. Similarly, pinch your trackpad to zoom in or out of the timelines scale. If you zoom out enough, your scenes will be grouped together into a single container much like smaller cities disappear into larger ones on your mapping service.

Clicking on the groups small info icon will launch its rst scenes timeline window. From there you can edit another scene from the group by selecting it from the windows drop-down list.
Right click (or control-click a single button mouse) anywhere in the timeline other than directly on an existing screen to open a menu (shown at right) that allows you to insert a new scene or event at that precise time. You can also zoom in or out of that exact time.

29 of 66

Events
An event in the timeline is something that happens at a single point in time but that may affect scenes across storylines. For instance, in Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, the rst man killed on Skeleton Island by the pirates affects Jim Hawkins storyline (because he witnesses it) and also affects Dr. Liveseys storyline (because he and the people with him hear the man die). Click the Insert Event button (shown at top right) or simply right click (control-click on one button mice) anywhere on the timeline to add an event to the timeline. You will see the Event Inspector window:
Tip: You can add events to the timeline just by clicking where you want them to fall!
To save your event, type a name for it, optionally type a different date and time, and click Done. The event will show as a blue line with the name near the ruler (shown at right).Double click the name to edit the event in the Event Inspector.

30 of 66

Tags are short words or phrases that provide a exible way to attach metadata to items in StoryMill. If the metadata, such as name and status, that StoryMill provides is enough for your project, then you never have to use tags. However, if you want to be able to lter views based on custom metadata, youll need to use tags. For instance, if you wanted to keep track of all the pirates in your novel, you could attach a pirate tag to each pirate in the characters view, and then create a smart view to show only pirates (shown at right). To add a tag, click the + button at the bottom of the tags area in the items metadata pane, choose EditAdd Tag, or hit T. A blank tag will be added. As you type, it will autocomplete if it nds a similar tag in the project. You may also click the arrows at the right side of the tag to open a drop down with all past tags. Select the tag you are looking for. Drag and drop tags to reorder them. To remove a tag, click the tag to highlight it and then click the - button at the bottom of the tags area or hit delete.

31 of 66

Smart views
Smart views are very similar to smart folders in the Finder and smart playlists in iTunes. Although you can create smart views based off a number of different pieces of metadata (the specic metadata depends on the type of item), using smart views together with tags is often the most efcient way to lter your items. Click the + button to add a new smart view or choose Add Smart View from the gear button at the bottom of the source list. In the rules window, do the following: Type a name for your smart view. Optionally, choose a standard view to lter (by default, the view that was selected when you created the smart view will be ltered). Select a metadata eld. Select a qualier. Enter a search term. Some metadata (such as status or tags) will autocomplete as you type, or you can click the arrows in the corner to choose from a drop down.

34 of 66

Section 2: Working with StoryMill
Discover some of StoryMills more advanced features
Chapter 3: Advanced Text Editing
In this chapter: If you are familiar with other programs that use the default Cocoa text editing features (such as the ruler, styles, etc.), then you should feel right at home in StoryMill. Alongside the default Cocoa text editing controls, StoryMill also provides a number of useful features that make advanced text editing easier. This chapter covers the tools that make StoryMill a powerful text editing environment, including: Styling and the ruler Spellchecking Find and replace Window splitting Text conversion utilities Although you can do a surprising amount of editing in StoryMill, there are certain features that youll need a word processor for, including headers, footers, advanced page layout, footnotes/ endnotes, and so forth. For information on how to export your work for use in a word processor see the next chapter, Exporting Your Work. The ruler Styles Spellchecking, nd and replace Splitting windows Conversion utilities

36 of 66

The ruler
By default, the ruler is on in every text view. If the ruler is on but your cursor is not inside the text view, youll see the mini ruler: Tip: You can insert hyperlinks in your text! Drag and drop links from your browser, or highlight text and choose TextAdd Link to assign the link manually (or TextEdit Link to edit linked text).
If the ruler is off, you can click inside the text view and choose TextShow Ruler or hit R. The visible full ruler looks like this:
Use the buttons in the ruler for quick access to styles, text justication, line spacing, and automatic lists. Drag the T at the left of the ruler to set rst line indent for the selected text. Drag the downward arrow at the left of the ruler to set the left margin of the selected text. Drag the downward facing arrow at the right of the ruler to set the right margin of the selected text. To add a tab stop to the ruler, drag it from the tab stop well at the far right (which contains, in order, a left tab stop, center tab stop, right tab stop, and decimal tab stop). To remove a tab stop, drag it outside the ruler and drop it. Tip: A tab stop in the ruler sets where text will land in a paragraph if you hit tab. Using tab stops you can arrange text in columns. Text at a left tab stop is left justied, text at a center tab stop is centered, text at a right tab stop is right justied, and text at a decimal tab stop is aligned based on its decimal point (useful for columns of dollar amounts, for instance).

To export anything out of your project, rst choose FileExport. The exporting window will open (shown at right). The pane on the left contains the available export templates. When you select an export template, the area on the right will be lled with a preview of what your exported text will look like. Once you have the template that you want, select what kind of document youd like to export to using the drop-down in the lower right of the window and click the Export button. A standard save dialog will open, allowing you to choose a destination and a name for your exported le.

43 of 66

Export templates
You can edit your export templates from the export window. Once youve chosen FileExport either select a current template or click the + button at the bottom left to add a new template: Tip: If you double click the name of a template other than the highlighted template, you may need to wait until the preview has been generated before you can edit it (the amount of time will vary based on the size of the text to be exported and the speed of your computer). This slight lag is normal; the program hasnt frozen!
If you add a new template, its name will be highlighted in the template list by default, ready to be edited. Otherwise you can double click the templates name to change it. Once you have the template you wish to edit selected, click the Edit button to toggle between previewing and editing mode (shown above). Youll see something similar to the screenshot at right. Words such as $chapters_view$ and %aggregateText% are special keywords that are placeholders for the contents of items in whichever view youre working in. When exporting, the template will loop through all the items in the designated view and stick in their specic information in place of the keywords. In the example shown, the chapter text and scenes text (the aggregate text) for all items in the chapters view will be displayed, with page breaks in between.

44 of 66

Using export template keywords
Keywords in export templates may initially look very strange, but theyre actually quite easy to use! There are two types of keywords: $keywords$ (dollar sign keywords): Keywords that start and end with a dollar sign tell the template which view youre working with %keywords% (percentage sign keywords): Keywords that start and end with a percentage sign tell the template what to stick into the exported document for each item in the selected view. If you apply text formatting (such as font, size, bold, alignment, etc.) to a keyword, that same formatting will be applied to the text that it stands for (see the example to the right). There are certain keywords (such as %name% and %status%) that apply to all items and can be used with any view. Others (such as %scenesInChapter%) can only be used with a specic type of view. See the Keywords reference for a complete list of keywords. You can place as many different views in a single export template as you like. The exporter will process all items in a view, and then proceed to the next view in the exporter and process all of its items (and so forth until it hits the end of the template). Tip: Remember that keywords are case-specic! Where there are two words not separated by an underline character, the second word will always be capitalized. For example, %creationdate% will not work, but %creationDate% will.

Snapshot menu

Gear menu

55 of 66

Word frequency
StoryMills word frequency tool, available via ToolsWord Frequency, allows you to track your most frequently used words in the currently selected item. Word frequency also works with the novel and chapter containers in the source list. To see your most frequently used words, select an item in the source list and choose ToolsWord Frequency to open the word frequency window (shown at right). The word frequency shows all of the words in the selected views content pane, along with the number of times they occur. You can search through the list by using the bar at the bottom left. By default, StoryMill excludes a number of commonly used words from the list (such as the, I, to, and so forth). To view or change which words are excluded, click the Exclusions tab. Use the + button to add words to the exclusions list, and the - button to remove them (see screenshot to the lower right). When you have the word frequency tool open, the view that it is analyzing will have the top ten most frequent words highlighted in varying shades of red. The most frequent word will be darkest, and the tenth most frequent the lightest (shown below). Close the word frequency window to remove the highlighting.

56 of 66

Highlight Clichs
The highlight clichs tool does exactly what you would expect it to do: it highlights potentially clich phrases in the selected text view. To use it, make sure that your cursor is in a text view, and choose ToolsHighlight Clichs. After StoryMill has processed the text, potential clichs and colloquialisms will be highlighted in red: Tip: Highlight Clichs ignores both context and adjacent text when it looks for clichs and colloquialisms. For instance, in the screenshot at left a few hands on board is being highlighted because StoryMill thinks that hands on (as in Im a hands on person) is clich. In this instance, however, the phrase is not being used the way StoryMill thinks. Additionally, the phrase great crowd will have eat crow highlighted like so:
When clich highlighting is on, the menu item will have a checkmark next to it:
StoryMill doesnt care that the phrase is embedded within other words; it just notices a text pattern thats dened as clich. To turn off clich highlighting, choose ToolsHighlight Clichs a second time or start typing in the text view. Clich highlighting will also turn off automatically if you switch to a new item or view. Moral of the story: take StoryMills highlighted clichs with a grain of salt! The tool is intended to help you nd clichs, but just because it highlights something doesnt mean you necessarily should revise or delete it.

57 of 66

Progress meter
The StoryMill progress meter allows you to track your progress both during a single writing session or on the project as a whole. The project meter by default is available in the standard toolbar: Tips: The goals you set in the project meter window apply across projects. If you choose 6,000 words per session as your goal, each project will have a 6,000 word session goal (even though how close you are to that goal will differ per project). If you want to count text in your session goal that you typed elsewhere, paste it into a chapter using EditPaste and Count in Progress or V.
The progress meter tracks all text typed in chapters (including scene text). As you near your word goal, the progress meter will ll. When you reach your goal, the progress meter will optionally notify you with an alert sound. By default, the progress meter in the toolbar will display your session progress. Your session progress is the number of words that youve typed in a chapter since you last launched StoryMill. You can also display your progress towards an overall word goal by clicking on the progress meter once:
Double click the progress meter or choose ToolsProgress Meter to open the progress meter window (shown at right). Click the goal numbers to set them, and for session progress click Words to choose from words, minutes, or approximate number of pages. To set your session progress back at 0, click the Reset button.

58 of 66

Window fading
You may nd yourself at times wishing to reference information outside of StoryMill while you write. While you can always use command-tab and so forth to switch to other applications to reference them, StoryMill also provides the option to fade almost any of its windows. Fading causes the window to become highly transparent (just how transparent is congurable in the General preferences; see p. 61). To use window fading, you can either add the custom toolbar button or choose WindowFade Window. If you want to use the toolbar button, right click anywhere on the toolbar (in either the chapter editing window or the project window) or choose ViewCustomize Toolbar. Drag the Fade button from the sheet to the toolbar:

59 of 66

Chapter 6: Preferences
In this chapter: For the most part, the StoryMill preferences should be selfexplanatory. However, if you need to nd out specically what something in the preferences controls, this chapter provides a comprehensive reference for each section of the preferences. To access the preferences, choose StoryMillPreferences or hit , (command-comma). By default, youll see the general preferences: General preferences Editor preferences Full Screen preferences Status preferences Snapshots preferences
The toolbar area at the top has buttons for the ve different sections of the preferences: General, Editor, Full Screen, Status, and Snapshots.

60 of 66

General preferences
Serial Number: when you buy StoryMill, you can enter your serial number here. Check for updates on startup: check if you wish to have StoryMill automatically check for updates when you launch the program. Auto-save documents every [num] minutes: set an auto-save interval, or 0 (zero) to disable auto-saving. Open at startup: choose whether to open a new document or the last document you had open when you started up StoryMill. Default template: choose the template used for new documents. Fade transparency: drag this slider to adjust how transparent windows become when you use window fading (see Window fading, p. 59).
Tip: When you start dragging the fade transparency slider, the preferences window will become transarent. Dont panic! Keep dragging the slider until the preferences are the transparency that youd like your windows to be when you fade them. When you let go of the slider, the window will return to its normal opaque self.

61 of 66

Editor preferences
Show Ruler: check if you want the ruler on by default. Uncheck if you want to manually show the ruler. Check Spelling as You Type: check this to have StoryMill always check your spelling as you type. Enable Smart Quote Substitution: check this to have StoryMill convert straight quotes to smart (sometimes called curly) quotes. Changing this preference will not change text that has already been typed - to convert typed text, open your content panes contextual menu by right clicking (or control-clicking for one button mice) within it, and choose the SubstitutionsSmart Quotes option. Sort Bookmarks List: check this to have the bookmarks drop-down in the chapter editing window sort annotations alphabetically. Uncheck to have annotations displayed in the order they fall in the text. Use the Alternate Color button to set the background color of your alternating items in the chapter and novel views. The rest of the editor preferences set the defaults for text in your text views. Click Select to choose a default font and size using the Mac OS X font picker. The text shown is example text in the font you choose. For the remaining controls, such as Default line spacing, either type the number you want in the box, or use the arrow controls to increment up and down. Changing the defaults will not change any text that is already typed. To do that, you may want to use styles (see Styles, p. 38).

64 of 66

Snapshot preferences
Check Create Automatic Snapshots for Statuses to have StoryMill automatically take a snapshot of your text when you assign it a status. Choose which status to take automatic snapshots of from the list below. Changing this preference will not create snapshots of text that already has been assigned the status you choose. You will have to assign the text the selected status after you have enabled this preference for it to work. To take a snapshot of your existing text, choose ToolsSnapshotsTake Snapshot or simply hit S. Click the + button to add a new status (or the - button to remove a selected status.)

65 of 66

Troubleshooting
If youve gone through the documentation and are still having problems with StoryMill, were here to help! For technical support, please visit http://www.marinersoftware.com/ support/. We make every effort to reply promptly, in most cases within 24 hours. We would also love to hear if you have an idea or feature request to make StoryMill better! Email us at ideas@marinersoftware.com to help us improve our software. You can also nd a friendly community of StoryMill users in the Mariner Software forums: http://www.marinersoftware.com/forum/
Thank you for using StoryMill! We look forward to hearing from you.

66 of 66