Welcome beta testers! Thanks for taking kicking the tires of screenwriting.io. If you spot any bugs or have recommendations that could improve the user experience, please let is know via the form below. Please include your OS and browser version in your comment to better help us address any issues that come up.
Alternatively, if a problem could be better explained through a screenshot, please send an email with the file attached to ryan@johnaugust.com. Thank you for helping us out!
Great idea.
Looks clean. Will abuse it more tomorrow. It’s definitely something for the iPad next to the writing Mac (when I’m not writing on the iPad that is).
This is a great idea. You don’t know how many times I’ve wished there was a screenwriting website like this. First FDX Reader and now this. Genius once again Mr. August.
OSX Lion 10.7.1 Firefox 7
Really love the site – very slick interface and a great idea! I love the concept of an encyclopedia specifically for screenwriters.
I think that the landing page is a little confusing however. Rather than using language like “Search Screenwriting.io”, it might be a little more intuitive to saying “What do you want to know?” or “Ask your question.”
Also, instead of “Starting Places” I think “Example Questions” or even “Popular Subjects” might better express what those are.
Overall, however, I absolutely love the concept of this and will definitely be keeping an eye on it! As a screenwriter early in his career, I think this will be an excellent resource.
Thanks!
Aside from any bugs that I’ve yet to see, my initial impressions is that this is perfect. It’s clean, it’s direct, and yet what you can find is unrestricted. This is the Google for screenwriters.
Only thing I would put in, and this may be gilding the lily, is placing a small notice above or below the search bar. Just a quick bit, something like, “Got a screenwriting question? Go ahead. Ask us anything.”
The predictive feature goes a long way toward anticipating questions, and combining that with a brief message would quickly dissolve any initial confusion of “how does this work?”
But as far as what this site does, it’s pretty obvious what it does, and it does it well.
One thing: Maybe add bits on West End / Broadway specific formatting. Such as when to insert song names for longer pieces with the sheets attached etc. Seems that everybody is doing that in their own way.
You’re right, John – this is way closer to done than most Beta sites I’ve worked with. Really simple layout and design, and I like the anticipatory search engine. I tend to agree with Eric’s suggestions about the homepage.
Do you intend to be the sole curator for the site, or will it have some wiki-esque elements to it as well? For a lot of the formatting issues, it certainly makes sense to have cut-and-dry responses with links back to the specific examples in your library. But for more involved questions involving the writing process (e.g., developing a character’s voice), I wonder if a Quora-like section would be possible? This may simply clutter your intention, though…
This is chock full of awesome sauce. Love it! I would say definitely stick with the clean and simple layout and design. I have only done about 15 searches so fat but based in the results I’m guessing this is all hand rolled results, which is great, but there are some missing basics (example: couldn’t find “what does POV stand for/mean”). I purposely searched for things a novice would look for as I assume that is one of the primary targets.
I personally think this kind of thing is the future of search (vertical, hand rolled, better and more focused than broad search like google or bing). I rolled my own Asia business search here: http://www.z3n.co A different approach, but similar intent–vertical search. I’m still a beginner script writer, but a long-time professional tech writer, the SECOND you are ready to announce/leak this, please let me know so I can ask a couple of direct questions: adariostrange@gmail.com
Sorry, “so fat” = so far
Nice, clean design and layout. I like that the answers come with script examples, very helpful.
It would be nice if the starting place subjects on the landing page were more random suggestions that change when refreshed. Or a popular question tag option on the landing page.
It’s also great that you don’t just feature the craft of screenwriting but the business side too e.g. what is an option? What is the WGA? etc
Nice interface, but I’m not finding it all that useful so far. (And I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a novice screenwriter with basic questions.)
I started off with “When is it okay to use voiceover?” since I know you’ve written about voiceover at least a few times on the site. None of the answers that came up remotely related to voiceover. However, when I ran a single-site search on Google (“When is it okay to use voiceover site:johnaugust.com” without the quotes), a relevant article appeared as the third result.
Next I tried: “How do you write an action scene?” Again, no particularly relevant answers. Single-site search on Google came up with great results.
Searching “What is a dissolve?” or “What is a voiceover?” produce “What does a manager do?” as the first result; the latter at least does eventually bring up a definition of V.O. (several results down the page).
I really like the idea of this site and I think it’s a great way to make the wealth of screenwriting information you’ve produced more immediately accessible. For now, though, I don’t see a compelling reason to use it instead of plain old Googling.
Addendum: I’m using Google Chrome on Windows XP.
Very nice! I agree with Eric’s comments above. I got useful answers to questions I worded very casually, so it feels right to encourage people to just ask away.
In that spirit, the auto-complete feels a bit agressive. Type “W” and you get a distractingly huge list. It takes restraint to keep typing what you had in mind rather than get distracted by all the delightful questions!
As co-founder of Twitter’s Scriptchat, this is the type of site many of our new screenwriters would love.
Regarding searching, the best way I found to get more refined results was to just type in a single word, like “manager”. Or else I’d get results for every word in the question, most not relevant. I’m not a web designer, so I have no idea if you’re able to tweak that.
I assume you’re still inputing data, as there’s nothing on CAPS, agents, or dialects.
I’ll keep playing around with it and see if I have any other thoughts, but I agree a small descriptor at the beginning on what the site is would help make it more intuitive.
I also agree with another commentor that the inclusion of the business side of screenwriting is genius! You’re taking Dr. Format’s book to the next level. Bravo!
I love the site. Great idea and very simple. The layout and style choices are great, too.
If I had any feature request it would be an ability to save relevant posts within the site for future reference. Tweeting, +1ing, or Facebooking them tends to get lost in the noise. I could just bookmark them, though, so it’s pretty low on my need-to-have list.
For iOS 5 GM on the iPhone, the Q and A markers force the question and answer into a narrower area. My first instinct is to zoom in to get the paragraph to fill the screen for better reading. I’d probably pull the Q and A markets or restyle them in a way to allow maximum reading enjoyment. Here’s a screenshot:
http://cl.ly/0Y030G3K3z262F0j1P3p/o
There’s a lot of whitespace on the left and right that could be used.
Very well done. Clean, readable layout. No clutter, which is nice. Most of the questions are pretty general, and may not be of too much interest to people who are are already committed to the idea of writing something, but with a bit of work, this could easily be the best screenwriting resource on the web. Kudos.
Forgot to mention I’m on MAC OS X and used Safari. No tech issues.
Terrific idea.
I like the design. It’s simple and easy to use. Perhaps a category button could be useful and might give people a different way to research terms, definitions, concepts, etc?
Oh and I’m using Firefox on Mac OS X. No complaints. It runs fine.
So far, so good. Yesterday it did prompt me to enter a username and password, but I assume it was just closed down for maintenance? I’m using Windows 7 and Firefox 6.0.2 fwiw.
Haven’t been able to get a bug to pop up yet. Awesome resource!
Why are the Live Look/QuickFind results inline in the page? Over time, I’d imagine, it will slow down the load/page-creation time instead of loading search results after 2 characters are typed in. You can set the search query_vars in a wp_query ajax request to get that list.
Well thank you August Team !
I just have one comment. As in johnaugust.com, when clicking on a link it opens in the same tab, it would be great if it opened in a new one so we can go back reading the answer without forwarding… Because the way I read sometimes I want to see the link you are refering to before finish to read the all article. Though that’s really a detail.
Great job !
Great idea. Thanks very much. I enjoyed the page on outlining and the link to the JA site that allowed me to view real, working outlines. Very helpful.
Wow, what an ambitious project! Great idea, much better to have all the basics covered in one place. How will new material be added? Will you monitor questions and create answers or will you take suggestions?
@Danny
That’s how it was set up pre-beta and it was just so slow. I’m happy with how it works currently, but will certainly be keeping an eye on how it holds up going forward.
I’d like to see this page evolve and have hyperlinks in a searchable menu that would lead you through the screenwriting process. Not sure if that’s the intention but it would be nice.
Thank you for the great site and effort thus far.
I’m on Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.8 running Firefox.