I am pleased to announce the availability of an application developed to
aid fiction writers on Linux. It is called plotdb, the plot database. It
is designed to help track all the components of a story, including
characters, objects, concepts and locations, and to attach them to
chapters and scenes in a way that facilitates the story-writing component
of authoring. I wrote this application to scratch an itch I had for free
(as in beer and as in freedom) novel writing software for Linux.
The pure python version of plotdb is v.0.3. This sounds extremely low,
like pre-alpha, but the application began existence in the early fall of
2007 using a different database engine. Recently, I decided to move to
sqlite as the database back end, which is supported as a native module in
python 2.5.x. The first release of the version written in pure python was
dated 4/30/2008.
I have used the original version of this software extensively since it's
initial incarnation in August of 2007. I have used this pure python
version since I ported it to sqlite. There is no real difference that I
can see in the two versions, except the pure python version is easier to
maintain, albeit slightly slower. I would consider this beta quality
software, tested somewhat in real usage but not full production yet. I am
currently writing a novel and use this software daily for that purpose.
I, David May, am the sole party of blame in the production of this
application. It was conceived and written by me from scratch. You can
get plotdb with my compliments at:
http://w3.cnm.edu/~dmay/plotdb.html
plotdb is released under GPL v.2. I am willing, as time permits, to
incorporate changes made by users into the application. I am particularly
interested in portability changes that allow plotdb to be used on Windows
or Mac, since I use Linux almost exclusively. You can contact me at
dmay at cnm dot edu
If this is not the correct forum to announce this software, please accept
my apologies in advance. And thanks in advance for any direction anyone
can provide on where else this should be posted to capture the largest
audience of interest. I do not lurk this list, so please respond to my
email as well as (or in lieu of) posting to the list.
Kind regards,
David F. May
