* First, I cannot get reasonable formatting. I realize there really are no "rules" but there are very common formatting practices and this software doesn't seem to really obey any of the pagination related ones (where to insert page breaks, i.e. don't introduce a new character's dialogue if at least two lines of dialogue can't fit on the same page, etc.) If you could either automate some of this by some common "standard", that would be great. If not, I would settle for adding a page break insert, that actually got saved with the script, and honored with the export to pdf function.
* Second, if I rename a character, I have to then go and use my web browser's find method to hunt down all the places this character name was used. This would be much easier to do with a find/replace edit function in the software. Even better would be to tie this feature into the Character Development section, such that changes to a character name in that section would result in updates in the script automatically (at least in places in the script that might be easily tied to metadata, like a character's dialogue section).
* Third, add a "scenes" section or maybe "locations" section to the project area, so we can create notes about locations. This could be used both for real research (facts about a city or town) or just our own made up "research" ("facts" about a futuristic civilization, etc).
Overall, I think this is an excellent system and definitely the best web based editing experience for screenplay writing. It's better than scripped.com (which has nothing but an editor, which I don't need scripped.com for :p), scriptbuddy.com (which is very metadata driven, and pretty nice, except their editing mode is like index card based, and really not fun to write in) and screenwritingpro.com (this last site doesn't even seem to work at all).
Anyway, I really like this site but would like it even more if any of the above got implemented :)
Thanks
rgr
This really is the best site for screenwriting. I teach it to my intro to creative writing students and it seems to help them learn instead of just teaching them to fill in the blanks. It's not enough to tell people to just plug ideas into a formula, I think it's so important to teach writers to think critically and learn how to develop their story.
Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback. We're planning on rolling a few releases over the next several months and will try to address your items.
Regards, Suzy