Bookwriter

Bookwriter is a writing application for one long book. The book is a folder of Markdown files. You write each piece on its own, arrange the pieces in an outline, and export one manuscript or a PDF.

The rules of the manuscript live in bookwriter-spec.md. This file is how you run the program and how a book is laid out on disk.

Clone the repository, install the dependencies, and link bw onto your PATH:

git clone git@github.com:unclebob/bookwriter.git
cd bookwriter
npm install
ln -s "$(pwd)/bw" ~/cmds/bw

~/cmds is one directory already on PATH. Any other directory on PATH works the same way. The link points at bw in the clone. The script resolves that link and uses the clone as its home.

The machine needs zsh, Node and npm, Rust (cargo), and the Xcode Command Line Tools.

Then:

Usage:
  bw <directory>
  bw --help

Build Bookwriter and open the book in <directory>.
The directory must already exist. A folder with no manuscript yet becomes an empty book.

bookwriter <directory> opens that book without rebuilding.
bookwriter --help prints this usage.
With no directory, bookwriter opens spec-book/.

bw --help and bookwriter --help print that usage and exit. bw with no directory, or with a path that is not a directory, prints the same usage and exits with status 64. bw opens the book from a Bookwriter app bundle, so the Dock and the app switcher show the book icon.

Inside the window:

• File → Open Book (⌘O) opens another folder. Export Manuscript (⌘⇧E) writes one Markdown file. Export PDF writes a PDF. The PDF prints the front matter's notes at the end of the front matter and each chapter's notes at the end of that chapter. Export Chapters to Word writes each front-matter piece as FM-title.docx and each chapter as cc-title.docx into one directory.
• The outline is the book. Drag a row to reorder it, or drop it on a folder to nest it. The form under the outline edits the title, synopsis, status, role, and unit. The book title is the field at the top of the window.
• A section opens in the Markdown editor. A folder opens as a reading view of that folder, in tree order.
• Markup shows or hides the preview beside the editor. The preview follows the buffer, including unsaved text. Clicking in the Markdown scrolls the preview to that place.
• Find (⌘F) searches the open text. The find panel has a whole-book checkbox. Find Next is ⌘G.
• Command Palette (⌘K) inserts emphasis, strong, inline code, a link, a picture, a heading, a list, a quotation, a code block, or a footnote. The Markup page lists the same commands.
• A footnote marker in the preview scrolls to that note, and the return mark scrolls back. When the Markdown is on screen, the cursor moves to that same place.

my-book/
  book.yaml
  images/
    bridge.jpg
  manuscript/
    010-front-matter/
      _index.md
      010-preface.md
    020-naming/
      _index.md
      010-the-rule/
        _index.md
        010-inward.md
    trash/
      _index.md

book.yaml holds the title.

title: The Book Title

Under manuscript/:

• A directory is a folder of pieces. _index.md inside it is that folder's own prose. The body may be empty.
• Any other .md file is a section.
• trash/ holds deleted pieces. Empty trash removes those pieces and leaves the folder. Export and the reading view skip it.
• Sibling order is the numeric prefix: 010, 020, 030. The words after the prefix are a name taken from the title when the piece is created. Renaming the title does not rename the file. Dragging rewrites the prefixes in that directory.
• Pictures live in images/. A picture in the text is a path from the book folder, such as images/bridge.jpg.

Each Markdown file starts with a header the application owns. The body after the header is yours, and it is written back as the editor holds it.

---
id: inward
title: Inward
synopsis: Source dependencies point inward, toward policy.
status: draft
role: body
unit: text
---
A dependency points inward.[^1]

# Where the rule stops

[^1]: Toward higher-level policy.

id stays put for the life of the piece. status is idea, draft, revise, or done. role is front or body. Front matter is not numbered. unit is part, chapter, section, or text. A part or a chapter is numbered, and a part, a chapter, or a section starts on a new page. Text stays on the current page. The numbers are computed from the tree. They are not stored in the file.

The body is Pandoc Markdown. A heading in the body is a subsection, written with #. A footnote is [^1] with [^1]: … in the same file, or an inline ^[…]. Labels are local to that file.

Tests are the *.test.ts files next to the source, and the tests at the bottom of src-tauri/src/lib.rs.

npm test
cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml --lib