When it’s a folder.

The first release of PageFour suffered a minor identity crisis. It was trying too hard to fit into its target market. The product was aimed from the start at the writing community, and all its features were written with that community in mind. In line with this, the terminology adopted by the user interface followed a ‘novel’ theme, with chapters and pages predominant.

The problem with this was that the chapter and page format just did not fit. From the start, it all felt slightly off, but it wasn’t until some of the early PageFour users became vocal in their confusion that I really sat down and thought about it.

When you start writing onto a blank page, over time that page becomes a chapter. You may have old and new versions of this chapter, as well as notes and character summaries, but the final chapter will be written on one page in PageFour. The pages within chapters format was just plain wrong.

The upcoming release of version 1.2 has allowed me to address this confusion by removing any reference to chapters in the user interface.

From day one, the most important element to the PageFour design was that it imposed no restrictions on the way a writer worked. I wanted to avoid what I saw as the major pitfalls of other writing software: the rigid compartmentalising of the writing process - character summaries here, plot outlines there, linked in just such a way, each chapter in a certain place, etc.

PageFour was to be wide open; capable of being adapted by any writer to the way they chose to write. Put your plot outline wherever you wish; build your character summaries in any way you choose; manage your chapters in your own unique way: as different pages and versions within one folder, as a simple main page with notes alongside - whatever works for you.

The revised naming conventions, coupled with the new Multiple Notebook feature make all this possible. Version 1.2 of PageFour consists of any number of Notebooks defined by the user. These Notebooks contain folders, again defined by the user, and each folder contains pages.

It really is that simple. A folder can contain a chapter; it can contain a series of character sketches; it can contain an entire novel. It can contain whatever you want it to contain.

The simplest solutions really are the best.