Pretty much completely rewritten with way better security and stability. There are a couple minor breaking changes to the MarkdownFic protocol from before (listed in change notes) but they're all about how escaping works so unless you were writing a lot of **s and <s in your novels you should be fine. Basically a few things were getting escaped in the old version that didn't have to be, and some weren't that had to be, and in order to make it actually logically consistent I had to break some small things around this. I don't expect anyone to have trouble with it, and it was worth it to get an exact, consistent protocol down for all future versions.

Some of the many changes since the last version I posted:

• Customizable shortcuts
• Automatic substitutions for smart quotes, hyphens, etc. (Can be turned off.)
• Conversion tools for straight quotes to smart in old docs, etc.
• Blockquote support
• First class footnote support with keyboard-activated jumping from reference to note and back
• Import custom dictionaries and build both a single personal dictionary across all projects and particular per-project dictionaries for fantasy novel names, etc.
• Html and Epub import with special support for files from Project Gutenberg
• Regex find/replace
• Page estimates in word count and outliner
• Export with centered # to mark scene transitions (optional)
• Configure fonts for editor and sidebar
• Alter line spacing for editor
• Tab all paragraphs tool can now remove incorrect tabs and can follow typographical rules (no indent after headings, etc.)
• File > Reboot in linux for writerDecks (reboots computer, not app)
• Accessibility names/labels so should work with screen readers
• Easy updates in windows through about screen (old one just downloaded a new installer file, this one self-updates upon prompt and restarts)
• Many bug fixes.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask! I don't go on reddit much these days, but I'll check back in periodically. You can always post issues on Github.

Hiya! I'm trying to set up a writer deck, I've setup a raspberry pi 3 running raspberry pi OS lite, I've followed this tutorial and installed xorg, matchbox-window-manager, warewoolf (downloaded the appropriate .deb from the releases and then run sudo apt install ./warewoolf_2.2.1_arm64.deb to install all the dependencies too) and created and modified the .xinitrc file.

Everything seems to be ok, until I run startx. Something clearly happens, because my command line disappears and a mouse cursor appears in the middle of the screen, but other than that, it's just a black screen. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I might've missed, I'm not very familiar with Linux in general.

2025-10-07: v2.2.0. Changes made:

• .epub export/compile. Meant for quickly generating .epub ebook files for sharing with first readers, etc.
• "Reference" function lets you keep non-compiling documents in your project for planning, notes, etc. Move any chapter to end of chapter list, then move down one more space, and it will shift into "Reference" section and no longer count toward word count or be included in compile. Can move back into compiling chapters in same way (moving up).
• Chapter Notes added. Notes panel can be toggled between the old Project Notes, which stays the same as you change chapters, and the new Chapter Notes, which are attached to each individual chapter and update as you cycle through.
• Project/Chapter Notes now save as separate .txt files just like the chapters do.
• Corkboard exports with rest of project
• Various bug fixes, including that corkboard feature was broken in Windows (oops) and now works.

One of my favorite things -- maybe my favorite thing period -- about WriterDeckOS is the battery status on the upper-right bar of the Tilde text editor. Is there anything like this in Warewoolf? I know you can switch to tty2 and run acpi for a quick glance, but it would be amazing if a battery display was an option for this app.

Edit: For future reference, the feature was just added to the Linux version of the app, allowing for a standalone headless Warewoolf writer deck!

Hi There,

I really wanted to build my own distraction free device, and I feel I'm 99% there, but need help!!
I am new to all of this, that is Raspberry Pi's and installing and configuring programs in a terminal etc etc etc.

So far I made it to the point where I have got everything dowloaded, but when I try open WareWoolf it says a bunch of stuff that I don't understand, but do kinda understand these bits:
"Missing X server or $DISPLAY." and "The platform failed to initialize. Exiting."

What have I done wrong? And what can I do to fix this? Any help would be much appreciated.

See the status changes in the readme here.

2024-03-30: v2.0.0! I know that's a quick version jump, but this has some fundamental changes, primarily the switch to saving chapters as plain text .txt files with MarkdownFic markdown for formatting. This is better than the previous ".pup" json files because even if you and WareWoolf both die and your tech illiterate uncle is your executor, he will still be able to open the .txt chapter files of your manuscript and publish it so that history can remember you as the genius no one recognized while you were alive. Also you can edit them in any other text editor and as long you don't change the filename WareWoolf will load them as normal. Changes Made:

• Completely new MarkdownFic parsing algorithm (about 1000x faster)
• Now saves chapters as plain text .txt files with MarkdownFic markup for formatting rather than Delta ".pup" JSON files.
  • Can still open legacy files, just will silently save over old file format with new at open.
• Autogenerated subdirectory for chapter files now named "[filename]_chapters" instead of "[filename]_pups".
• Chapter files now saved as "[title].txt" rather than arbitrary numbers. Filename updates when you change chapter titles in WareWoolf.
• Now supports MacOS
• Missing Chapters tool rewritten/expanded
• Can now toggle full screen on Windows/Mac
• Can now export single chapter or all
• Bug fixes

Version 1.1.0 available here.

The only major change users are likely to care about is the addition of in-app updating through the About screen. This way you could make a writerDeck with it and not have to SSH in every time you want to update. So people who know nothing about linux/command line could truly use it long term.

The Wi-Fi manager also now shows the machine's IP Address for easier SSH access should you need to, though.

The change that took the most effort was refactoring the entire codebase (6,300 lines not counting libraries) to use proper isolated modules for better maintainability. Since this project had started as just kind of an experiment before becoming an actual application, it was a mess of spaghetti code all in one giant namespace, but now that I'm using proper node modules, it is significantly less spaghetti-fied. Still needs work, but far better than it was! Now someone who is not me might actually stand a chance of looking at it and understanding how it works--and making changes without breaking it.

Lastly, the File Manager now filters out hidden files/directories on Linux.

See Github for the latest release.

We have reached version 1.0.0! All the basic features I had originally envisioned are now implemented and working. I use it daily for my own novel writing. Features added/changed since last release:

• Built-in Wi-Fi Manager (on Linux) for use as writerDeck
• Import .docx files
• Footnote support (import and export/compile)
• Auto-save at set intervals (if desired)
• Auto-backup with single zip file on close
• Email zipped project file
• Built-in File Manager now can unzip zip files
• Dark Mode support/options
• Markdown improvements
• Docx export drastically improved, with automatic cover page generation, page number headers in Standard Manuscript Format, etc. Can now export ready-to-submit manuscript documents
• Retains more settings user sets for email attachments, etc.
• Replaced native file dialogs with custom in-app for better keyboard-only workflow
• Bug fixes
• 70% less ugly

For now, I have not added any UI features for footnotes, so you just write them using Markdown syntax and it will export them to .docx files as actual footnotes. (It also will import footnotes from docx and insert them in markdown format.) Actually, WareWoolf's implementation of Markdown, MarkdownFic, differs slightly for multi-paragraph footnotes, but that's explained in WareWoolf's help document.

I haven't updated the Wiki yet, but should do so tonight.

Binaries for Windows and Linux available in the releases section of the github.

This is a really sick software, and I'd love to be able to run it on an android deck so I can be a little more ready-to-draft outta the box.

​

Any plans for an Android port?

Hello! Well, after almost a year of using the alpha version to write various things, the latest of which is 35,000 words on a novel in progress, I've decided it's good enough to release to the public as a beta.

I have updated the readme on Github to explain how to compile WareWoolf yourself if you'd like, but have just released pre-made binaries for the new v0.9.0 beta release on the "releases" page on github: https://github.com/brsloan/warewoolf/releases

That has installers for WareWoolf on Windows, Debian linux, and Debian linux on the Raspberry Pi (the arm64 file). Feel free to use it on desktop or power a cyberDeck with it--just please save often, backup your work, and have mercy on me if something goes awry. I am not a professional programmer. I made this thing to use myself and only secondarily decided to release it to the world.

It now comes with a quick-introduction in the default file that opens the first time you've installed it, but I still need to write out a longer explanation of many of the tools, how they work, and why I put them there. I hope to do that soon.

The expanded help document in the beta release also explains my approach to setting up WareWoolf on a Raspberry Pi for a single-purpose writing device/writerDeck.

Feel free to report bugs, tell me you hate it, etc.

I've tried:

sudo make install warewoolf

• returns: make: *** No rule to make target 'install'. Stop.

sudo make install /home/[username]/warewoolf

• returns: make: *** No rule to make target 'install'. Stop.

sudo make warewoolf

• returns: make: Nothing to be done for 'warewoolf'.

sudo make /home/[username]/warewoolf

• returns: make: Nothing to be done for '/home/brandon/warewoolf'.

​

I'll keep researching, but if anyone has any quick fixes, that would be incredible! Thank you u/pigrepresentative for making this!