It’s Christmas, Theo, it’s the time of miracles!

Slugline 1.2 is available now on the App Store. This is a major performance and maintenance update — we changed everything, then made it look like we changed very little.

Speed

The guts of Slugline have been completely reworked. The result of this major undertaking is dramatically better performance across the entire app, especially with long documents. Slugline should feel tuned up and streamlined, even if you’re writing The Hobbitar.

“I’ve Scene Numbers you people wouldn’t believe.”

If your screenplay has Fountain scene numbers, Slugline now recognizes them and prints them correctly.

Fountain Scene Numbers look like this:

INT. THE NAKATOMI BUILDING (LOS ANGELES) - EVENING #7#

Slugline shows you that it’s recognized a Scene Number by displaying it in light gray as you write. Scene Numbers also appear in the Outline View. When you Preview or Print, they appear in the margins alongside your Scene Headings.

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Big

Changing the on-screen size of your text is now much slicker. The zooming is smoother, with smaller increments. If you don’t like increments, you can pinch-zoom to any size you like using your trackpad (Magic or otherwise). And the Preview now matches the zoom size you choose for writing.

Bad

We’ve added a TV Pilot Template! With act breaks, page breaks, and, well, we based it on the Breaking Bad pilot, so it has a lot of breaks. Find it under File → New From Template.

And Less Ugly

• Bold, underlined text now prints correctly.
• Creating a Note near the end of the document no longer causes horror.
• Dual Dialogue now previews and prints correctly even when the first dialogue element is longer than the second.
• Smoother transitions in and out of Preview.
• If you open a new screenplay while in full-screen mode, Slugline no longer bumps you out of full-screen mode.
• Home and End keys now do the things they say on them.
• Emoji probably works now. Please be responsible. 🌮💯
• Centered text works better. The End.

This major update is just the beginning of yet more awesome stuff we have coming your way, so if you didn't get your Christmas wish in 1.2, please stick with us — we value your feedback, and we want the same things you do.

Speaking of feedback, we are always grateful for your positive reviews on the App Store. Thanks for writing with Slugline!

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If you’re bringing in text from another app — either by opening it as a text file or even just copy/pasting from another app, there are some simple things you can do to ensure that Slugline interprets your writing with the correct formatting.

Action Elements

Slugline will interpret most text as Action elements. This is usually a good thing.

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.

If you copy/paste this paragraph into Slugline, it will be formatted as Action.

Depending on where your text comes from, it might have extra carriage returns at the end of each line, like this:

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the⏎
corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer⏎
pulls out his cell phone and dials.⏎

For the best results in Slugline, remove these extra carriage returns:

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.⏎

Scene Headings

As long as your Scene Headings begin with INT., EXT., or that kind of thing, Slugline will interpret them correctly.

Scene Headings also need empty lines before and after.

INT. BOXCAR - MOVING - DAY

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.

Paste the above into Slugline and you’ll get a Scene Heading followed by an Action element. Perfect!

Character and Dialogue Elements

Slugline will interpret Character elements correctly if they are in UPPERCASE, and followed immediately by Dialogue — with no empty line in between.

MORTIMER
Come on.  Pick up.

Depending on where your text is coming from, you might need to edit it a bit to ensure that your Character/Dialogue pairs are arranged like this. The result will be that Slugline will automatically format them correctly when you paste in the text.

INT. BOXCAR - MOVING - DAY

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.

MORTIMER
Come on.  Pick up.

As with Action, make sure your Dialogue elements don’t have extra carriage returns.

So if you have this:

ELDRIDGE
Figured four blocks. Hey with these⏎
four blocks and the ninety pounds,⏎
are we going to be far enough away?⏎

You should edit it to look like this:

ELDRIDGE
Figured four blocks. Hey with these four blocks and the ninety pounds, are we going to be far enough away?⏎

Transitions

Slugline will automatically recognize any transitions that are in uppercase and end in TO:.

INT. BOXCAR - MOVING - DAY

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.

MORTIMER
Come on.  Pick up.

CUT TO:

Just make sure they have an empty line before and after, like Scene Headings.

If you have Transition elements that don’t end in TO:, you can convert them inside Slugline, or hint to Slugline that they are Transitions by adding a greater-than symbol to the beginning, like this:

> INTERCUT WITH:

The > tells Slugline that the line should be interpreted as a Transition, and it won’t appear in your printed screenplay.

This is called forcing an element, and you can do it with Scene Headings too. If you have Scene Headings that don’t start with INT. or EXT., you can force them with a leading period, like this:

> INTERCUT WITH:

.THE BOXCAR

Where Mortimer is just barely holding on to life.

That’s a Transition, Scene Heading, and an Action element, respectively.

The result? You can copy/paste this entire plain-text example into Slugline, and it will be formatted correctly as a screenplay:

INT. BOXCAR - MOVING - DAY

AGENT MORTIMER lies bleeding in the corner.  The car ROCKS gently.  Mortimer pulls out his cell phone and dials.

MORTIMER
Come on.  Pick up.

CUT TO:

EXT. POOLSIDE BAR - DAY

A fiercely gorgeous brunette sips the last of something from a rocks glass.  This is REBECCA.

Behind her, a dark FIGURE approaches.  Just as she notices him, her phone RINGS.

> INTERCUT WITH:

.THE BOXCAR

Where Mortimer is just barely holding on to life.

Which is super cool.

Copy/paste examples from the web into Slugline, watch them appear as a formatted screenplay! pic.twitter.com/RkZYeJe2wI

— Slugline (@SluglineApp) December 29, 2015

Writer-director Seth Worley visualizes his film's structure as a clock face.

Seth Worley’s latest film, Real Gone, is the latest in Film Riot’s Epic Summer series of shorts. It’s hilarious, dark, and made with Seth’s usual clever DIY attitude.

Seth wrote Real Gone in Slugline, and detailed some of his writing process in this behind-the-scenes video. Story structure nerds may particularly love his “clock” method of outlining. Check it out: