Fountain for Sublime Text Updated With New Themes, Package Control and More

Back in September I cooked up a little package bringing Fountain syntax highlighting and other goodies to Sublime Text 2. Over the last few weeks I’ve polished it up a bit and last night it was added to Package Control, so you can install it right from within Sublime Text. For a full overview, check out the project on Github.

I’ll share a bit about what’s new, but first, go get it:

Installation

  1. Install Package Control.
  2. Select Package Control: Install Package from the Command Palette (⇧⌘P).
  3. Select Fountain.
  4. Write the next Full Metal Jacket.

What’s New

Package Control

A big thanks to Isaac Arias for filing a pull request to get this working. Not only does being in the Package Control repo make it easier than ever to install Fountain for Sublime Text, but I like to think it adds a token of legitimacy to the whole endeavor. Fountain is indexed now, folks, like being added to the phone book!

Themes

The Fountain syntax grammar is still heavily customized, which means that themes need to be customized as well. This may not always be true, but it’s the case at present. The new default theme is called Fountain Byworded Light based on Philip Belsky’s excellent theme of the same name. Here’s what it looks like in all its Fountain glory:

Fountain Byworded Light

I tried to keep all the elements colorized but subtly. Notes and Boneyards ought to jump out at you. This is the new base theme, so if you want to make any of your own you should work from this one as the old Classic theme (still included) doesn’t have all of the grammar definitions included. One addition I hope you like is “punctuation” highlighting, so the asterisks and octothorpes used as part of the syntax should fade away a bit.

There’s also a Fountain Byworded Dark and a Fountain Tomorrow Night, based on Chris Kempson’s theme family.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Straight up ganked the methods for this from Brett Terpstra’s awesome MarkdownEditing package. Thanks, Brett.

  • *, **, ( and [ - Wrap selected text with asterisks (single for italics, double for bold) parentheses or brackets as needed.
  • ^⌘n (control + command + n) - Note: If triggered with nothing selected will start a new Fountain formatted note ([[This is a note.]]). If triggered on selected text it will wrap it with double brakcets as a Fountain note.
  • ^/ (control + /) - Boneyard: If triggered with nothing selected will start a new Fountain Boneyard section (/*This is the boneyard*/). If triggered on selected text it will wrap it in Boneyard formatting.

An Ongoing Project

There are still a boatload of improvements I’d like to make to this little package. Mostly, though, I’d like to make writing screenplays easier. Eventually I’d like to make some screencasts showing you some of the power tools hidden within Sublime Text and how screenwriters can use them. Completions, for example, can make writing dialogue-heavy scenes incredibly simple.

On top of that, this code needs cleaning up, a project for another time. Luckily, you’re welcome to take a peek at the Github repo and make any changes you please. If you have feature requests or ideas or questions, please share them here in the comments or contact me directly. I tinker with this stuff more than I actually write movies (could you tell?) so the best thing you can do is stress test it and tell me how it holds up.

Tip Me If You Can

If you’d like to throw a little something my way I’d be very appreciative. I maintain the candler blog and these other little projects in my spare time. If you’re able and want to get me a coffee, a beer or dinner, this is the easiest way to do it.1 I thank you in advance.


  1. Unless you’re visiting Austin. In that case I accept the real thing. ↩︎