Dual dialogue edge-case

[Paul Rankin]

There was a discussion at some point about "non-interfering elements" (i.e. section headings, synopses, notes, and boneyard comments), which at the time I think John likened to tachyons.

I'm just working on some dual dialogue mechanics and ran into an edge-case. In Highland Version 2.0b32 Gaia (3213), this is rendered as dual dialogue:

> INT. RESTAURANT - DAY
>
> SALLY
> I’m hungry.
>
> /* yoyos were a big craze in high school */
>
> FRED ^
> I’m thirsty.

This is not rendered as dual dialogue:

> SALLY
> I’m hungry.
>
> # section 9
>
> FRED ^
> I’m thirsty.

Also this is not rendered as dual dialogue:

> SALLY
> I’m hungry.
>
> [[ I dropped my Moleskine in the toilet. ]]
>
> FRED ^
> I’m thirsty.

Thoughts? Is this intentional? I can understand how section headings and notes might break dual dialogue, because a user might like to export these.

--
www.paulwrankin.com

[Stu Maschwitz]

For whatever it's worth, Slugline follows the above pattern as well. Boneyards don't defeat Dual Dialogue, but Sections and Notes do.

Seems very edge-case-y to place a Section between two bits of simultaneous speech, but I could definitely see the case that the Note could be useful there and should not break the Dual Dialogue formatting.

-Stu

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[Paul Rankin]

I think the status quo works better. Having an element that *may* be exported between dual dialogue should be enough to break it apart.

It's been on my todo list for a while to implement an HTML export with a Javascript toggle to show/hide notes. Conceptually, if a note is thought of as hidden, as opposed to excluded, I think it makes sense that it would break apart dual dialogue.

But I'm also biased because I've written code that tests for dual dialogue as it is in the source text, rather than after it's parsed and non-printing elements are excluded.

--
www.paulwrankin.com