Shaxpir 2.0: HTML Export

We’ve heard it again and again. The number one most common complaint from our beta testers was the inability to get their writing out.

Shaxpir saves all of its content in an encrypted database on your hard drive, and silently synchronizes all your changes to our secure servers in the cloud, where we keep at least three redundant copies of everything you write. It’s a secure, resilient system that lets you write while offline, and yet still keep your projects in sync across multiple different devices, like your home and work computers.

But up until now, your words have been trapped inside the software.

So building an export framework has been our top priority during the design and engineering of Shaxpir 2.0. In this latest release, we’re shipping our first export format, HTML, and including a few basic options for configuring the exported content.

Every story project now includes an EXPORT panel that looks like this:

On this panel, you can choose a few basic configuration options:

• You can choose whether the chapters in your book will be exported with their names, or just their numbers, which can be represented numerically (1, 2, 3) or as words (one, two, three).

• You can choose to include only the MANUSCRIPT in the export, only the NOTEBOOK, or both the MANUSCRIPT and the NOTEBOOK.

• You can choose whether or not to generate a TABLE OF CONTENTS for inclusion in the export.

• You can click on the SAVE AS PATH to configure the file name and the directory where the exported content will be saved.

When you click the SAVE button, Shaxpir will assemble an HTML file using the designated content fragments from your manuscript and/or notebook, saving a single HTML file in the designated location. Margin comments, concept artwork, and connections are never included in the exported HTML.

With this feature, you can assemble all the chapters in your manuscript and publish them in an open portable file format. HTML is the standard format for publishing on the web, as well as the underlying technology of all modern eBook publishers. HTML files can be easily converted into KF8 files (for Kindle) or ePub files (for iBooks, Nook, etc), and can be imported into all major word processors (like Microsoft Word and Google Docs) or page-layout applications (like InDesign) for print publishing.

That’s why we chose HTML as our first export format.

But this is only the first release of our export framework, and we have big plans for expanding it in the near future to support more configuration options, more export formats (like PDF or KF8), more content types (margin comments, concept artwork, connections, etc), and more integration with the version history.

With the new export functionality in Shaxpir 2.0 authors can now feel confident, not just that their words are securely backed-up, but also that they can be published and shared with anyone on the internet.