File Structure

WareWoolf saves its projects as plain text markdown files so they are human readable and archival. (That is, if someone found your files in 100 years and WareWoolf no longer existed, they could still just open the .txt files and have perfectly readable copies of your work.) It uses a specific variant of Markdown created for WareWoolf, called MarkdownFic. More on that in the "MarkdownFic" chapter of this wiki.

There is a primary .woolf project file which holds your notes and metadata, and individual .txt files for each chapter in a subdirectory.

• Frankenstein.woolf
• Frankenstein_chapters
  • Chapter 1.txt
  • Chapter 2.txt
  • Chapter 3.txt

The reason for doing this rather than one (more convenient) file is speed. This way, WareWoolf does not hold your entire (perhaps very long) novel in memory, but only one chapter at a time--the chapter you are viewing. That way it can run on low-powered computers like a Raspberry Pi while still being fast and responsive.

WARNING: Please note that the .txt chapter files must be kept either in a subdirectory or the same directory as the project file. If you move them, WareWoolf will prompt you to enter the new location at load. (You can also change the expected chapters directory in the Properties tool under File > Properties > Advanced. This shows the relative filepath saved in the .woolf file for finding the chapters.) Changing the file names will also confuse WareWoolf and it will prompt you to match the new filename with the correct chapter on load. In general, editing the contents of the chapter files in other applications is fine, but changing the filenames is a bad idea. (Note that when you change the chapter label in WareWoolf and save, it saves that chapter with a filename based on the new label.)