Screenwriting app_website 70/30
So I began writing a screenwriting app around two years ago, I’m 41 now so I come back from the text editor era where I would download websites and tweak their html code on notepad. Long story short, Javascript became my go to for almost any tool I could think of. CORS aside…
I’m a filmmaker and animator who loved Celtx, however when they discontinued their PC app a depression struck, felt like the world was over, what was I gonna do with all those .celtx files and stories that I wanted to film, animate and read.
Being a tinkerer an oldsk00l, began writing a converter parser for celtx, just to be able to turn it into a pdf locally or a txt/json type of file.
TLDR: https://cocoalopez.com/script/
V01 was born (It had a drag and drop feature and display, that was all)
It was then that I saw the potential, what if I could write my own screenwriting app, that works locally, vanilla javascript, all self contained into a single .html so if needed anyone can save that file and keep writing for the years to come.
Thought it would be quick, years came by and had it as a side project, spending a few hours at night tweaking it, adding functions, testing, debugging.
About 4 months later I had the first one with a proper screenplay format parser, basic interaction and something I felt proud of, a page navigation like if you’re scrolling tapping pages on a typing machine. (Most of it is hacked tabbing with <a> anchors and offsets but worked back then.
V02
Coming up with more ideas was the easy part, implementing them was a pain in the ass, but I wondered, what if people could just convert other formats and have them in there as a basic format transfer and review tool, I have no intention on competing with Final Draft or other software, just something you can start working with easily on your phone or computer.
So I added support to OSF (which almost nobody uses) but still, fountain, fdx, celtx and my own json format.
Page zoom in zoom out, sticky type of notes and a revisions format to keep everything within the same file. 0:00 / 0:26
Half a year more later…
V11
Toolbar I thought was the next natural evolution, plus a minimalistic mode so we can focus on writing only, dark mode and local autosave.
And one feature I’m really proud of, have you ever wanted to review two documents that are “similar” or do a side by side rewrite and have them autoscroll together so you can see exactly the part you’re working on both sides?
Sync Scroll Across Windows
Just open two different documents or even the same one on different revisions and have them scroll side by side while you correct it. 0:04 / 1:03
V30
And just went on, more features, scene navigation, colored revisions, character counter, more polish until we arrived to V74 or release V2.0 Finally gave it a claude fable pass, since my codebase is a huge single file it struggled so I did a functions audit, optimization pass and finished up the last release with.
Mobile mode, floating toolbar, UI Wizard, multiple autosave slots, draggable toolbar.
Two and a bit more years later…
If you feel like trying it out:
