Introduction

NB: This public [S]kript documentation is still under construction

[S]kript™ is a web-based toolset designed for creating dynamic, interactive, real-time stories. With its intuitive screenplay editor and seamless integration with Google Drive, writers and creators can collaborate and bring their stories to life without any coding. In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through the basics of setting up your first project and getting your story up and running in no time.

Accessing [S]kript™

To use [S]kript™, you’ll need a Google account. This allows you to authenticate and use Google Drive for storing your stories and media.

• Visit: haibalabs.com/skript.
• Sign up or log in using your Google account credentials.
• After logging in, [S]kript™ will ask for permission to access your Google Drive. This integration supports collaborative editing, version control, and media management directly from the cloud.

Once you've logged in, you'll be presented with an on-boarding tutorial that introduces the high-level UI. Follow this to get familiar with the basic panels and controls.

The Panels in [S]kript™

[S]kript™ is a web app made up of a variety of flexible panels. You can move, resize, and close them as needed to focus on different parts of your work.

• Editor: The main panel where you’ll create your story. It functions as a text editor but is designed specifically for interactive storytelling.
• Player: The panel used to play back and test your story in real-time.
• Story Graph: This panel provides an overview of your story’s structure and flow.
• Files: Manage the media and assets associated with your project.

You can easily switch between panels using the toolbar, close panels you don’t need, and reopen them as necessary. The layout is flexible and can be customized to suit your workflow. You can even maximize panels to focus on a specific task, such as writing.

Writing Your First Story

Before creating a project, you can immediately start writing your story in the editor and testing it in the player. The Editor panel is your primary workspace for creating your interactive story.

Here’s a simple story to get you started:

#Beginning
= the inciting event
  Something happens.
  @text Car accident right in front.

#Middle
= complications and conflicts
  It gets complicated.
  @text Turns out it's not just an accident.

#End
= resolutions
  Everything is resolved.
  @text Total world destruction has been averted
        

This short example demonstrates how a story flows from the beginning to the middle and ends with resolutions. You can see how the @text command is used to display events to the audience, such as the car accident and the complications that follow. You can edit the text and test it in real-time using the Player panel.

Creating Your First Project

Once you’re comfortable with the editor, you can create a project to save and manage your stories. A project is simply a Google Drive folder where you store your story and associated media files.

1. Choose a Google Drive folder where your story will be saved. This folder becomes your project folder, and you can store multiple stories within the same folder.
2. No specific folder structure is required, but any media you want to use must be located within this folder or its subfolders.

Once the folder is chosen, your project is set up and ready for story creation.

Testing Your Story

One of the key features of [S]kript™ is its playback functionality, which allows you to test your story as you write it.

• Click "Test Story" from the toolbar to see how the story unfolds.
• During playback, you can pause, edit the script, and resume playback, with all your changes reflected immediately.

Controlling Playback Duration

By default, each section is assigned a duration, but you can control the exact length of time a section plays using the @duration command.

#Scene 1 | 1m10s
@text A mysterious figure appears. | duration = 30s
        

Sections can expand or shrink to fit the time required by the media and commands they contain.

Error Handling

[S]kript™ helps prevent and identify errors as you write. If there’s an issue in your script, a red dotted line will indicate the error, and you won’t be able to play the story until it’s fixed.

Additionally, playback errors will show up as notifications in the top-right corner of the screen, explaining how to resolve them.

Managing Files and Versioning

[S]kript™ automatically saves your progress in real-time, and Google Drive handles versioning. You can access previous versions of your story via Google Drive’s version control features.

If network issues arise, [S]kript™ will save a local backup of your work, syncing once the connection is restored.