Steven8, in an earlier post mentioned a free writing software platform he just switched to and I wanted to second his opinion.

TRELBY is a FREE screenwriting package that is quick to download and is 100% better than CELTX, IMO...

I have used Celtx now for 3 years and have gotten by with it. It has its good side but it also has many downsides as well.

After downloading Trelby earlier and messing with it a bit, I instantly realized it was way ahead of Celtx.

It's much cleaner, it shows the pages as they would appear as a PDF, page breaks and most importantly, the reports are excellent.

I am a amateur writer. I write because I like too with little expectation of ever going "big" that’s why I haven’t invested in a costly screenwriting program.

For someone like me, this program is bad-a$$.

Thanks Steven8 for bringing it to my attention.

http://www.trelby.org

Shawn...

Trelby is open source from what I gather... That, to me, would be huge.  You could, I could, make the program whatever you want with a bit of coding.

I might dl it and tool around with it.  

Had a very quick try with it - went for an import from a txt, as this often confuses programs - FD is the only one I see getting it right first time - Trelby gave me a dialogue box to check beforehand - then loaded it really quickly - way faster than FD - too soon to coment now - but promising signs.

Don't like the interface - but that might not be a major drawback - cheers for the heads-up, though!

Only thing is, isn't it Trilby? A trilby hat... Not trelby??  

Trying it now. I like how it adjusts the bottom as celtx has a tendency to break up dialogue and action lines.

The PDF look is great.

Looks really promising. Thanks.

Quoted from Baltis. Only thing is, isn't it Trilby? A trilby hat... Not trelby??

Ha!

Justin Timberlake would be proud.

Shawn.....><

Holy crap.  I was about to download FD 8 tomorrow, too.  (I haven't found any screenwriting software that I like and I'm starting to hate Word, so I figured I might as well give it a chance.)  I was going to download FD 8 last week, but I put it off because it was my son's birthday (and rent was due) and I decided to get him a couple extra things.

I saw Steven8's post earlier today and decided to tool around with Trelby for a little bit.  It does everything I like to do in scripts that other software I tried couldn't do.  It's awesome so far, I have to say.  There's a couple very small things that are weird, (contact information appears offscreen to the left of the margin if I set it to the right margin), but nothing that would deter me from using the software yet.  Plus, I'm still playing around with it, so I might figure some of those things out along the way.

Not to sound like an advertisement, but...

I just saved $250 by reading Steven8's post.

Looks like I'll be checking out some of his stories soon.

Anyone know how to bold and put things in italics in Trelby? It's not as simple as Control B or control I.

Look under...

HELP / COMMANDS

Shawn.....><

It is definitely Trelby, not Trilby, like the hat.    It is, also, Open Source, just as Baltis said.  If you, or someone you know can code, you could make any changes you wish.  That is the beauty of Open Source.  Just like Balt said about Fade In, the file format is open, so that makes it even better, I'd say.  I tried the Fade In demo as well, and I really like it, too.

However, I am very happy I found it, so you all could find it too.  I'm going to finish my 7WC challenge with it, and use it from now on.  I like it much better than Celtx.  It is pretty designed for the keyboard.  Everything can be set up however you want it.  I love Open Source software.

As far as reading my scripts, I have none here on SS at the moment.  In a minor fit of hysteria last year (I believe it was) I asked Don to take them down, and delete my account.  He did so, but I have since had him reinstate it.  Still, however, my scripts are not here.  Some were lost when my hard drive croaked, then my online site I had used for backup just plain disappeared one night.  It was a free site, so what did I expect.  Live and learn.  I did have a friend send me the ones he had saved, so I have them on my comp at work.

Perhaps I'll resubmit them.  But I think I'd like my 'first' work to be the 7WC.  I just have to get to writing. . .

I'm not sure Trelby can do bold/italics. It's not under HELP / COMMANDS. Also, I found this forum string about some users complaining about the inability to bold/italicize:

https://github.com/oskusalerma/trelby/issues/1

It's the only issue I've found so far.

Quoted from steven8 It is definitely Trelby, not Trilby, like the hat.

Funny thing though...

My shortcut icon is a hat. LOL

Shawn.....><

Quoted from kingcooky555 I'm not sure Trelby can do bold/italics. It's not under HELP / COMMANDS. Also, I found this forum string about some users complaining about the inability to bold/italicize: https://github.com/oskusalerma/trelby/issues/1 It's the only issue I've found so far.

Sorry about that King...

I realized that after I posted as well.

By the way, what would you be wanting to BOLD/ITALICIZE in a script anyway?

Shawn.....><

Hey Cooky.

Are you trying to bold scene headings and slugs, or are you just trying to bold and italicize certain words in an action?

I just learned something new!

Thanks King.

Shawn.....><

No, there appears to be no bold, italics or underlining.  I guess the way to accentuate things is single quotes.  Kind of a bummer, although I'm not that fond of bolding anything other than slugs.

Check out tools/name database.  Pretty sweet!

Being open source you could simply add it in yourself... Hell, I,bet, you could edit it in jave4.  

Yeah, I saw that. Like a quarter of a million names. Sweet!

I'm actually writing a quick short tonight just to see how it works for me and so far...

A++

Excellent tools, spellcheck, ect...

Man this feels like something I would have paid for had it not been free.

Shawn.....><

There are bold and italic's here -- however, they are handled kind of sloppy.  But with them being here already you can go into the system file -- find the settings for it and create a key command for them to be used.  I'm going to tool around with it tonight and see if I can't re-edit some of that and make something of it.

If I have any luck I'll post the means to do it here.

For now, if you want both bold and italic:

Go to

Script>
>Setting>
>Change>
Element>
>Dialogue

Then click the respected boxes... Then, after you write your dialogue, tick them off.

Hopefully just temporary.

Also of note, you all must change your fonts in the offset because they have it set to Courier pitch 10.

Go to

File
Settings
Change
Display
Font

You da man Balt-

By the way...

I hope your Passover was nice.

Shawn.....><

Well spotted, Balt.  I'll be changing that font setting, and let us know what you come up with on the editing.

Hmm.  Just found something I'm not too fond of, but isn't a total killer.  Trelby's still the best I've come across along the line of free software.

I finished a script and went to save it as a pdf to send it to someone.  

Whenever you open that saved pdf, it won't open up to the title page.  It'll open up to wherever you left your cursor when you saved it from the Trelby file.

Luckily I checked it before I sent it, and imagine my surprise when it opened up to the final page of the script.

So make sure when you 'save it as' on your computer, the cursor on the Trelby file is at the beginning of the script.  I have to go to work and don't have time, now, but I'll see if there's a way to get the pdf to open up to the title page.

To stop opening on the current page, go to Script Settings. then go to the "PDF" section. From there unclick "Open PDF on current page". That should force your PDF file to open at the title page going forward.

Hey, cooky.  Thank you very much.  You saved me from wasting a good hour in the morning.  :-)

This might be a stupid question but I'm new here so I'm allowed a little ignorance:

If I were to switch to Trelby from CeltX, is it just a matter of copying and pasting my current projects over or would that present formatting issues?

Quoted from Mehdoh If I were to switch to Trelby from CeltX, is it just a matter of copying and pasting my current projects over or would that present formatting issues?

As far as I know, yes it would cause problems - best bet to my knowledge is to export to txt, then import.

.. but I might just go check that out ...

Strangely - seemed to work best when exported from Trelby as an RTF, saved as a txt, then imported into Celtx - still minor errors here and then. Nothing serious.