So far I have seen a lot of recommendations for the creative side and that is great. I have a request for what goes before that, the research. Not only does a novel sometimes require a fair bit of research to write properly but many of the creative tools also help for the nonfiction writer. If a research folder was included where I could import and view all of my research materials it would be helpful. This would appeal to students, academics, researchers, or anyone writing a more formal paper who needs many of the same tools as the creative writer.

bobboberson wrote:So far I have seen a lot of recommendations for the creative side and that is great. I have a request for what goes before that, the research. Not only does a novel sometimes require a fair bit of research to write properly but many of the creative tools also help for the nonfiction writer. If a research folder was included where I could import and view all of my research materials it would be helpful. This would appeal to students, academics, researchers, or anyone writing a more formal paper who needs many of the same tools as the creative writer.

I agree here -- a proper database of research, with the ability to organize and search, and create with templates quickly. This would, though, be beneficial with the project tree.

@bobboberson: About research:

Yes, I have thought about that too. My idea is to somehow integrate braindump into it. The question is: Do you want to have a specific research database for each project, i.e. store the research together with the book project? Or do you want to have a separate research database that is used in all your book projects?

ingwa wrote:The question is: Do you want to have a specific research database for each project, i.e. store the research together with the book project? Or do you want to have a separate research database that is used in all your book projects?

We can always have integrated databases -- simply, an ability to export the "Research" folders into a file, that can again be imported (or linked to) by other book projects. The research folder, then, can always synchronize to other systems, such as via Ubuntu One, Dropbox, or OwnCloud.

I'm new to Calligra in general (just installed it today) and so this feature might already be available, but will Author have built-in thesaurus? If it doesn't please make this a feature request. Thanks.

I think omni outline is a great guide to what is required. It has been my favourite program and is better than emacs in outliner mode.
The ability to navigate with out a mouse is VITAL as is the ability to drag elements around and undo.
WYSIWYG was mentioned but is't important for writing.
Writing is about outlining (see the book on the pyramid principle) and then formatting.
A cleaver outliner and publishing tool is what is required.

The cleaver bit of an outliner would recognise xml schemes.
A section of a book outline might look like:
<heading>abc #the heading which has some relative position in the document heirarchy

<notes>abc # this note reminds me the author what I'm going to write here
<paragraph>abc # part of my work

<notes>abc
<paragraph>abc # a paragraph in which part of the text contains a reference

<reference>abc # a reference related to the paragraph above

Author would be able to process and allow actions based on xml schemes, with different key bindings allowing different types of authors to define and work in a ways that suit them.

The publishing element may out put the headings in to html for my website.
Or remove notes and export latex for my publisher.

The number of panes which the author can view aspects of the document does not need to be fixed.
For instance a shopping list may be a simple list.
A novel may have a pane listing character summarise, chapter sketch, historical details and the work window.

Revision control, efficient string searches dictionaries, thesaurus would all be candy.

I've wanted an authoring tool so much I spent a long time thinking how I would do it, I hope my views are not over bearing, I would have had ago doing it myself but I'm a **** programmer.

Just thought I'd point to something that might be a great inspiration for Author, both for interface and features: http://www.ulyssesapp.com/

I may have missed this elsewhere but it would be great if Author had formatting for writing plays / screenplays / radio plays and so on.