I apologize in advance for the rambling post to follow. More than a specific feature request this is an invitation to consider the entire writing process for a complex fiction or non-fiction project requiring a lot of research, planning, task management, and associated content and how Granthika best fits in the bigger picture of this process.
I tend to do a lot of research, planning, to-do lists, and notations for my writing projects. How should I keep these separate from manuscript scenes? The alternatives I’ve considered within Granthika are to keep worldbuilding and other planning notes either (a) in a separate project, (b) in the Objects section, and or © in the Notes sections associated with Characters, Locations, Events, and Objects. If in a separate project, the scenes could then serve for planning notes. Ideally, if using this method, Granthika would provide convenient ways to reference and link to content in one project from another project. I suspect this is not a better approach than optimizing the non-manuscript content support within each project.
I like the idea of organizing information more like data in a database and having the software generate ‘reports’ with the desired content, just as a database management system’s reporting tools allow users to choose what data to include in a report and how it is organized. A reporting approach supports organizing content for different ‘management’ purposes. I have in mind getting an overview of my WIP’s plan. A glossary is an example of planning or supporting content that should be distinct from the manuscript and not included in word counts or other manuscript statistics. Another is an outline (of which there are many types–two-tier, scenes and scene elements, etc.).
As is, Granthika is implementing the ‘database’ concept very well by capturing content as discrete chunks that can be related to each other as needed. I think the additional capability I desire can be achieved by going further down the current design path. One specific functionality I would like – to be able to mark specific notes as tasks or to-do items and have a view in Granthika that consolidates all tasks. I can and do manage these now outside of Granthika and that works, but I have to enter items manually or redundantly or copy/paste from one app to another.
I know scope creep can be deadly for software projects. If the capabilities I’m referring to are outside the vision for Granthika, having a robust API and/or connectors supporting integration with existing planning and reporting apps might be an effective approach. For example, if I could integrate Granthika with Microsoft Planner, Airtable, Asana, Trello, or similar apps (for task management) and with Scrivener, Evernote, Notion, OneNote, etc., for project planning notes, we’d have a more complete writing ecosystem. IFTTT and/or other free or inexpensive app integration services could allow users to ‘roll their own’ functionality.
Thanks!