Fountain is a free and open-source

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...

markup language that makes it possible to write a formatted screenplay in any text editor, on any device, using any software that edits text files. Fountain (which got its name from ''Fountain Avenue'', the famous Hollywood shortcut) was inspired by

John Gruber John Gruber (born 1973) is a technology blogger, UI designer, and one of the inventors of the Markdown markup language. History Gruber is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from Drexel Univ ...

’s

Markdown Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is appealing to human readers in its source code form. Markdown i ...

, and has its origins in two different and non-related projects: ''Scrippets'', developed by

John August John August (born August 4, 1970) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist. He is known for writing the films '' Go'' (1999), ''Charlie's Angels'' (2000), '' Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' (2003), '' Big Fish'' (2003), ' ...

and Nima Yousefi, and ''Screenplay Markdown,'' developed by

Stu Maschwitz Stuart T. Maschwitz, commonly known as Stu Maschwitz, was the co-founder and chief technology officer of The Orphanage, a visual effects company that was based in California. He has worked as senior visual effects supervisor on several films. ...

History

In 2004, screenwriter John August was looking for a Markdown-like syntax for formatting text documents into screenplay form. In 2008, he and Yousefi released ''Scrippets'', a plug-in for

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

and other platforms that allowed users to embed short sections of a screenplay in

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

posts and forums, using formatting hinted from plain text. At the same time, Maschwitz, software director of Red Giant Software and co-founder of The Orphanage, was working on a similar but more extensive project, ''Screenplay Markdown'', that allowed plain text to be interpreted into a screenplay format. When August and Maschwitz realized they were both working on similar text-based screenplay formats, they decided to merge their projects, and the result was ''Fountain. ''NoFilmSchool:
John August and Stu Maschwitz Release 'Fountain,' a Handy Screenwriting Tool / Markup Language
'

Implementations

Fountain has since been implemented in several popular

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

s and screenwriting applications, such as

BBEdit BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software, originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6, and currently supporting macOS. History The first version of BBEdit was created as a "bare bones" text editor to serve as a "p ...

, Emacs,

JotterPad JotterPad is a text editor app for Android, developed by Two App Studio. It is proprietary software that uses the freemium pricing strategy. Features Jotterpad supports the markdown and fountain markup languages. Among its features are themes, ...

Scrivener A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who could read and write or who wrote letters to court and legal documents. Scriveners were people who made their living by writing or copying written material. This usually indicated secretarial and ad ...

, Slugline,

Storyist Storyist is a creative writing application for Mac OS X and iPad. Tailored for novelists and screenwriters, it provides a word processor, a cork board with support for index cards and photos, an outliner, and a project manager. Features Word ...

, Sublime Text,

TextWrangler BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software, originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6, and currently supporting macOS. History The first version of BBEdit was created as a "bare bones" text editor to serve as a "p ...

Trelby ''Trelby'' is a free and open source screenwriting program which focuses on providing a simple, uncluttered interface to writing screenplays. It is a rebranding of an older screenwriting program called Blyte. It currently runs on both Windows and L ...

, Vim,

Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code, also commonly referred to as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft with the Electron Framework, for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code comple ...

, Writer and many others.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://fountain.io
Fountain on MediaWiki

Scrippets
Markup languages Screenwriting

History

Implementations

See also

References

External links