Full text export of narrative related items

[ahansonauthor (Andrew Hanson)]

In the post, Workflows with Markdown, @matt stated:

@matt

Markdown is pretty simple, so a markdown export would be relatively easy for us to implement. The challenge is just working out a format that will satisfy enough users to warrant the effort.

I imagine we would definitely include a Markdown export of the narrative if we were to do it, because it makes a lot of sense to me to build a timeline, then construct a narrative in Aeon Timeline planning out your story, and then export that in Markdown so it can be pulled into another writing app to produce the actual text

I had totally forgotten about this discussion when I added my feature request. But this is the kind of export that would benefit me. Exporting to a docx format would also work, I suspect, for most writers. Ulysses can import Word docs and so can Scrivener. And a Word format is more universal for writers who can’t take advantage of Markdown. But, as I use Ulysses, Markdown would be my preferred format.

I am left wondering whether the detailed, and often quite technical debate which took part in the linked post ever resulted in a feature request per sé. Or whether @matt is still contemplating a Markdown integration, both in terms of an export function and within Aeon for styling of notes:

@matt

One semi-related item idea that has been suggested a few times is a pop-out editor for notes etc. that provides a larger, more comfortable space to write those notes.

It is feasible this could be expanded to be somewhat of a markdown editor in future, allowing the basics of rich text into our notes (i.e. bold, italic, links and perhaps lists… but not tables etc.).

Which would be a fantastic feature to add. Styling in Aeon is much needed and Markdown provides a really neat, easy and efficient way to achieve this.

But regarding Matt’s question re working out a format for exporting, I think something close to the way iOS handles the Narrative Outline would work. At least for my needs:

This shows the narrative position, the title, summary and the metadata the user wanted to include in the narrative within Aeon. I can imagine users selecting which relationships to include or exclude in an export.

@jess if there isn’t already a feature request for narrative exports could one please be added? And if there is, could the above context be added to it please?

Many thanks

Andrew