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+--- Forum: Causality Story Sequencer (https://forum.hollywoodcamerawork.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Thread: The problem with Tags (/showthread.php?tid=12)
The problem with Tags - saket74 - 12-01-2023
Hi
I have used Causality a few times and I think its a really cool tool for writers who like to construct a story beat by beat. But I'm not so sure about the whole 'tag' aspect. I much preferred the earlier subtext beat with the option to not include it in the time line. For example if I have a beat which is about a 'Boy meets Girl' I would like to add the subtext beats 'Jock' and 'Girl Next Door' to the main beat which to me would be character beats.
RE: The problem with Tags - perholmes - 12-01-2023
Hi, and thanks for the first non-testing post on the new forum!
You can actually still do all that, there's no loss of functionality from before. What has changed in how they behave is that beats can be invisible in multiple ways (from the docs: https://caudocs.hollywoodcamerawork.com/beats/beat-features)
Visible: The Beat is fully visible in both the Whiteboard and in the Script.
Disabled In Script: The Beat is grayed out in the Script and in the Whiteboard, and won't be printed.
Hidden In Script: The Beat is completely hidden in the Script and won't print. It's shown as a thin outline in the Whiteboard.
So simply press Ctrl+D twice on any beat, or right-click and select Visibility -> Hidden In Script. There's supposed to be a shortcut for holding Alt while dragging the beat into the whiteboard, but it appears broken on the current version, and I've made a note.
RE: The problem with Tags - perholmes - 12-01-2023
Ah, shoot, I misunderstood your question! It's about putting tags into the whiteboard, right?
In order to do these kinds of "staging beats", they have to be beats. There's no way to put tags into the whiteboard currently.
Basically, the concept from before where beats could be like beats or like tags, with some beats attached to other beats that may or may not be in the timeline, it created a maze of logic that was the cause of 90% of our crashes, because we were basically dealing with a combinatorial explosion where we simply couldn't account for all the situations you could end up in, which is the hallmark of a wrong design.
We had to come clean and be able to state clearly what things are. So now, beats are beats. When they're in the whiteboard, they're always in the script, but not necessarily visible. This gives them a definite position in the story, but in a way that doesn't force you to be responsible for the plot they're being put into the middle of, because they're just kind of ghost beats that you haven't committed to, yet.
Tags are for abstract ideas, like emotions, character traits, and also for small storylines.
So where before, you had to use beats for both, they're now clearly separate. If you want to stage beats, just put them in the whiteboard, but make them invisible in the script. And if you want to do abstract ideas, you use tags and attach them to beats.