You can see how unsettling this would be. And then I discovered THAT email was posted in the thread. But I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and replied to their email with my file attached - along with a note that requested that the file is "for your eyes only."Ī few hours later, I checked back in the forum to see if anyone else had replied to my thread, and lo and behold, there was my file - attached to a new post that contained the text of my reply email.Īs you can imagine, this freaked me out, and I sent Mariner tech support another email asking them what on earth they were thinking by posting my proprietary file for all the world to see. It's a proprietary document, and the thought of someone mishandling the file or even stealing an idea is enough to give anyone pause. Two days later I received an email from Mariner's tech support telling me that this was the first time they'd heard of the problem - and would I please send them the file so that they could see if they could duplicate the issue with their systems.Īs you can imagine, sending a screenplay to strangers is a scary proposition. I logged onto Mariner's user forum and asked if anyone else was experiencing this problem and, if so, is there a solution. Unfortunately, this feature worked for me about 20 percent of the time - the rest of the time I had to type out the complete name.
When you select the Character style, and type the letter C, you should get a menu that displays both Carl and Christine.
Say, for example, you've got characters by the name of Carl, David, and Christine. One of its features is an auto-complete menu which, in theory, is supposed to present you with a menu of your characters' names when you type the first letter or two. My introduction to it came when I started a new script a couple of weeks ago, and I found it to be a pleasure to use. Montage is a simple, no-frills screenplay app that does its job with a minimal learning curve. Although, I did notice in reading the user guide (yeah - I am one that actually reads those things) - did I see correctly the copyright date of 1998-2009? Come on guys! It’s 2011! Isn’t there a newer version of Montage out there?
So overall, at this point, I’d have to say that I am a happy camper. Next on the goodie list is those character and location areas where you can add all sort of things about each one (including pictures which is very nice) and having it all right there is something that I know I will take advantage of.Įqually of value will be the list of folks I can send a script to (when I get up the nerve) because, well, as stated earlier - this is a new experience for me so I’ll need all the help I can get.
And so it is with the full screen view of Montage - this nice clean area (with the color of my choosing) is very nice indeed. One is the full screen deal - as a painter, a blank canvas is not a threat but very appealing. So I tooled around a bit and found some goodies that have made me excited about writing my script. I just recently downloaded Montage to try my hand at writing a screenplay. And, as someone who is relatively new at writing but with a lot of experience in drawing and painting, I know that creativity begins in the brain. Let me confess from the get go here - I am a fan of Mariner so yes, this review will appear biased.