The first thing you must/should do is enter the name of your manuscript and Save it to the database. After doing so, the manuscript is added to the treeview at the left of the Manuscript window. This manuscript is then your active manuscript. To activate a manuscript, click on the name, it will them be your active manuscript.

The active manuscript is a shortcut to the Characters, Storyboard and Story Setting functions. When you open one of these windows (forms) to work with that data, the window will open with the data for the active manuscript. You can change the manuscript by selecting one of your manuscripts in the combo box control at the top right of the window you are working in -- Characters, Storyboard and Story Setting. Doing so will not change your active manuscript. You must do this by clicking on the name of a manuscript in the Manuscript window treeview.

When you start Writers Project Organizer and go direct to one of the three functions mentioned in the above paragraph, that window opens with the data for the current active manuscript. When you close Writers Project Organizer, the last manuscript you have worked with is the active manuscript.

In the image of the treeview, ‘Ripped Van Winkle’ is the active manuscript.

THE MANUSCRIPT TABS


Suppress in views. When you check this box, as in the image above, WPO will prevent the manuscript from showing in any of the submission windows. When this box is unchecked, the manuscript will show in the submission windows. After checking or unchecking this box make sure you click on the Save button.

Writers Project Organizer requires that the fields Status, Type, Genre Type and Genre had data selected from their respective combo boxes. You can Add, Edit and Delete these categories by opening the Category Editor.

The 'Date Started', 'Date Finished', and '1st Date Sold' fields must be entered in your computer's Short-Date-Format. The 'Date Started' field in the above image is entered in the short date format for US-English. This may change depending on your regional settings.

The Copyright Date accepts the year, 2005, 2008, etc.

If you are not sure about your computer's short date format, look at the status bar in the main window for today's date. It is formatted using your computer's short date settings. See image below.

THE REFERENCE TAB

You can list your files pertaining to the active manuscript in the References Tab. You must enter the Name manually. For the Path, you can enter it manually, or click on the appropriate Locate button and navigate through your directories until you find the file. When you find the file, select it, click on the Open button, and Writers Project Organizer will place it into the grid. To open the file, click on the Open button. Doing so will open the file in its default program. If you have entered a valid website address (url), Writers Project Organizer will open that webpage in your internet browser. The Status combo box is designed for you to order your References.

The CHARACTER TAB

This displays a read-only grid displaying the characters for your manuscript that you have entered into the Character Form. By right clicking the mouse button on the grid you can open the Character window to display all the characters for the active manuscript, or you can open the Character window to the selected character for editing.

Chapters/Scenes, Plot, Outline, Theme/Pitch, Synopsis, ToDo, Notes Tabs

These Tabs contain memo fields where you can enter large amounts of text (up to 30,000) characters pertaining to the Tab's heading.

RTF NOTES TAB

SUBMISSION VIEWER TAB

You can view all submissions for the active manuscript by clicking this tab. Select one of the options and then click on 'View submissions for selected manuscript'. You can also Add/Edit/Delete a submission for the active manuscript by clicking on the 'Add/Edit/Delete a submission' button.

RIGHTS SOLD TAB

Keep track of the rights you have sold for the active manuscript by clicking on this tab and filling in the data.