FOSSPicks
FOSSPicks

Graham Morrison looks at KIT Scenarist, Inboxer 1.0, Tungsten, rtl_433, Oil 0.3.0, Etcher 1.3.0, and more!
Screenwriter Studio
KIT Scenarist
While there are plenty of applications, and plenty of additions to Vim and Emacs, that help you write a novel, not many can help you write a screenplay for theater, video, television, or films. This may be due to screenplays being more specific, more niche, and perhaps a little lower down on the spectrum of dream careers for people who can follow one word with another. But they're also (theoretically) easier to write than a novel and offer another potential avenue for people wanting to find a path into professional writing. With the odds stacked against authors getting their work published, additional avenues are always worth pursuing.
KIT Scenarist is a Russian application written for screenwriters. It gets off to a great start by offering to run with a preference chosen from 12 different languages, and either a light or dark theme. You then get to choose which modules to enable by default, such as the research module for collecting your background information, the cards module to help you build a script from a series of ideas written on cards, the statistics module to help you charge per brilliant word, the script module itself with support for scenes and standard scriptwriter tools, and, finally, a starter template, such as the "Final Draft Screenplay" template. However, you can just as easily create your own templates or apply a template to an already worked-on script to change its layout and structure.
The application feels more like an IDE for scriptwriters than an augmented text editor. When you start a project, for example, you're guided through creating characters and adding background details for them, creating scenes, adding dialogue, and pulling the whole thing together into a script that can easily be exported as FDX, PDF, Fountain, and DOCX formats. For writers, simple things such as dynamic word count are seldom implemented, but Scenarist gets this right, as it does the automatic text formatting, which gets out of the way and lets you write your dialogue or your descriptions without having to worry about syntax. You can easily see the plot status, organize the threads of your story, and change things around without having to resort to a pair of scissors and randomly sequenced bits of paper.
There's even a review mode where editors can leave comments, and your research can include external directories and images, all selectable from a module tab that can be opened alongside the editor if you opt for the two-panel mode. Scripts have a very specific layout and format, and KIT Scenarist can generate this output from your content without you needing to know the specifics of how to generate the exact formatting. This also includes essential details such as the timing for each line of dialogue, reflected in the chart for the statistics overview for the entire script. Scenarist is remarkably mature and capable. The Qt user interface makes it feel like a native Linux application, and it's easy to see why there are more than 1,000 script writers using the application already.
Project Website
https://kitscenarist.ru/en/index.html

Gmail client
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
2024 Open Source Professionals Job Survey Now Open
Share your expectations regarding open source jobs.
-
Arch Linux 2023.12.01 Released with a Much-Improved Installer
If you've ever wanted to install Arch Linux, now is your time. With the latest release, the archinstall script vastly simplifies the process.
-
Zorin OS 17 Beta Available for Testing
The upcoming version of Zorin OS includes plenty of improvements to take your PC to a whole new level of user-friendliness.
-
Red Hat Migrates RHEL from Xorg to Wayland
If you've been wondering when Xorg will finally be a thing of the past, wonder no more, as Red Hat has made it clear.
-
PipeWire 1.0 Officially Released
PipeWire was created to take the place of the oft-troubled PulseAudio and has finally reached the 1.0 status as a major update with plenty of improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Rocky Linux 9.3 Available for Download
The latest version of the RHEL alternative is now available and brings back cloud and container images for ppc64le along with plenty of new features and fixes.
-
Ubuntu Budgie Shifts How to Tackle Wayland
Ubuntu Budgie has yet to make the switch to Wayland but with a change in approaches, they're finally on track to making it happen.
-
TUXEDO's New Ultraportable Linux Workstation Released
The TUXEDO Pulse 14 blends portability with power, thanks to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU.
-
AlmaLinux Will No Longer Be "Just Another RHEL Clone"
With the release of AlmaLinux 9.3, the distribution will be built entirely from upstream sources.
-
elementary OS 8 Has a Big Surprise in Store
When elementary OS 8 finally arrives, it will not only be based on Ubuntu 24.04 but it will also default to Wayland for better performance and security.