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Add title pages, standard manuscript format and collapsible panels

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Five changes to the export and the window chrome:

* Manuscript details gains a contact field and a "Begin exports with a
  title page" option: the title, the author beneath it, and the contact
  details beneath that, laid out line for line as typed. A chapters +
  master export puts the title page on the master, not on each chapter.

* "Standard manuscript format" lays an export out the way an agent or an
  editor expects a submission: 12pt Courier, double-spaced, half-inch
  first-line indents, a Surname / Title / page header on every page but
  the title page, chapters opening a third of the way down, and `---`
  rendered as the conventional centred `#` scene break. The title page
  becomes the submission kind, with contact top-left and an approximate
  word count top-right. Off by default; margins were already the
  standard 1in on US Letter and are unchanged either way.

* A folder button beside Export ODT opens the project folder in the file
  manager -- the enclosing git work tree, including one still awaiting
  confirmation, since showing a folder is a smaller question than
  choosing which repository to commit to.

* The toolbar and the file list each collapse, from the pair of buttons
  at the right of the menu bar or from the View menu, and Ctrl+D folds
  both away together for distraction-free writing. Both choices persist.

* The editor sizes to its viewport instead of a fixed 30 rows, so the
  height a folded panel gives back reaches the page rather than leaving
  grey space below the text box that did not even take focus.

Two traps worth recording. ODF's style:master-page-name is inherited,
and any paragraph style carrying one forces a page break before every
paragraph that uses it -- a four-line contact block came out as four
pages until Contact_20_Line stopped inheriting from Contact_20_Block;
a test now pins which styles may carry one. And the status bar shares
a function with the toolbar, so guarding that function's top rather
than the top panel alone silently took the word counts away with it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GYSGPDwkSzhm4qLqjCbqxU
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landon
2026-08-25 17:58:59 -05:00
parent 66d3f9817e
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README.md
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@@ -230,6 +230,29 @@ so a defaulted title in `part-2/` continues counting from `part-1/`.
A manuscript project is more than its chapters. These read the rest of it.
### Distraction-free writing (Ctrl+D)
**Ctrl+D** folds away everything that is not the page — the toolbar and the file
list together — leaving the menu bar, the editor and the status line. Press it
again to bring both back. It is also **View ▸ 🖹 Distraction-free**.
The two panels toggle separately as well, from the pair of buttons at the right
of the menu bar or from **View ▸ Toolbar** and **View ▸ File list**:
| | Hides | Gives back |
|---|---|---|
| **⬆** / **⬇** | the Workspace, Export, Grammar and Spelling rows | about an inch of height |
| **⬅** / **➡** | the file list down the left | about 260px of width |
Both choices are remembered between runs, so the window opens the way you left
it. The toggles live in the menu bar rather than in the panels they hide, since
a control that hides a panel cannot sit inside it, and the menu bar is the one
strip that never goes away. The status bar is unaffected — the word counts stay
visible while you write.
The editor grows into whatever the panels give back rather than staying a fixed
height, so folding them is worth real writing space and not just grey margin.
### Hiding the header while you write
A scene card's fields sit at the top of the same file as its prose, and once
@@ -306,9 +329,42 @@ the **whole manuscript's total**. Reference files are not counted.
### Manuscript details (Settings ▸ Manuscript details…)
Title and author, written into exported `.odt` files as their document
properties — what a word processor shows under File ▸ Properties. A blank title
uses the project folder's name. Exports previously carried no metadata at all.
Title, author and contact details. The title and author are written into
exported `.odt` files as their document properties — what a word processor shows
under File ▸ Properties. A blank title uses the project folder's name. Exports
previously carried no metadata at all.
**Standard manuscript format** lays the export out the way an agent or an editor
expects a submission to arrive, which is not a matter of taste: a monospaced,
double-spaced page is a predictable ~250 words, and the margins leave somewhere
for their notes to go. Turning it on gives you
- 12pt Courier (readers substitute a metric-compatible font where it is absent),
double-spaced, with half-inch first-line indents and no blank line between
paragraphs — a blank line would read as a scene break;
- `Surname / Title / page` flush right on every page but the title page, with
the numbering starting at 1 on the first page of text;
- chapters opening about a third of the way down their page;
- `---` in your markdown rendered as the conventional centred `#` scene break;
- a submission title page: contact details in the top-left corner, an
approximate word count opposite them in the top-right, and the title a third
of the way down with the byline beneath it.
Margins are 1 inch on all four sides of US Letter either way — that part was
already standard before the option existed.
**Begin exports with a title page** puts a page of its own at the front of every
export: the title, the author beneath it, and the contact details beneath that,
with the first chapter starting on the page after (in standard manuscript
format it takes the submission layout described above instead). The contact box
is free-form
and laid out line for line as typed, so an address, an email and a phone number
each land where you put them — including the blank line you leave between them.
The option is off by default, and an export with nothing to put on the page
skips it rather than opening on a blank sheet.
For a chapters-plus-master export the title page goes on the master, not on each
chapter file.
### Exporting chapter files (File ▸ Export chapters + master)
@@ -316,8 +372,8 @@ Writes one `.odt` per chapter into a `chapters/` folder, plus an `.odm` master
document that links them — the shape the template's `Full Text.odm` implies.
**The per-chapter files are the reliable part**: they are ordinary documents and
open anywhere. The master is a shell with a title page and one linked section
per chapter; LibreOffice does not follow those links when it opens the file, so
open anywhere. The master is a shell with the title, the author (or the full
title page, if you asked for one) and one linked section per chapter; LibreOffice does not follow those links when it opens the file, so
treat it as a starting point to relink rather than as the assembled book. For a
single finished document, use **Export ODT**.