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Pandoc filter to generate narrative charts

This module provides a filter for pandoc to generate narrative charts. The look of these charts can be customized to a certain extent (e.g. colors, line widths). The story line of each character is routed automatically with respect to the other characters.

Installation

This module is compatible with pandoc 2.11 and stack lts-17.4.

Prerequisistes

Build and install

  • Get the source code. Either
    • clone this repository or
    • download and extract the ZIP
  • Go to the source code directory
  • Run either
    • cabal install or
    • stack init followed by stack install

The installation might take some time due to the size and number of dependencies.

Example

The chart

Example Narrative Chart

has been generated from the following markdown document:

```narcha-event
who: hero
when: beginning
where: home
```

```narcha-event
who: hero
when: ending
where: fortress
```

```narcha-event
who: antagonist
when: kickoff
where: fortress
```

```narcha-event
who: hero
when: kickoff
where: street
```

```narcha-event
who: antagonist
when: kickoff
where: street
```

```narcha-event
who: hero
when: journey
where: road
```

```narcha-event
who: hero
when: climax
where: valley
```

```narcha-event
who: antagonist
when: climax
where: valley
```

```narcha-plot
axisColor: #666
nameHeight: 20
eventGrid: 100
nameLen: 100
left: 150
bottom: 130
```


```narcha-where
id: home
name: Home
key: "1"
```

```narcha-where
id: street
name: A Dirty Street
key: "3"
```

```narcha-where
id: road
name: A Lonely Road
key: "2"
```

```narcha-where
id: fortress
name: Evil Fortress
key: "6"
```

```narcha-where
id: valley
name: The Valley
key: "5"
```

```narcha-who
id: hero
name: Our Hero
color: blue
key: "5"
```

```narcha-who
id: antagonist
name: Villain
color: red
key: "6"
```

```narcha-when
id: beginning
name: Beginning
key: "1"
```

```narcha-when
id: kickoff
name: Kick-off
key: "2"
```

```narcha-when
id: journey
name: The Journey
key: "3"
```

```narcha-when
id: climax
name: Climax
key: "4"
```

```narcha-when
id: ending
name: Fin
key: "5"
```

Other input languagues should work as long as you can define code blocks with classes/languages.

Elements

There are five kinds of elements, some optional, to create a chart:

  • Characters (narcha-who)
  • Times (narcha-when)
  • Places (narcha-where)
  • Events (narcha-event, i.e. Who was when where?)
  • Plots (narcha-plot)

The elements are removed from the parsed document. The plot element is replaces with a raw HTML block, thus it's most likely that only HTML output will work with this filter.

Elements can be presented in any order.

The syntax of each element is as follows:

Events: narcha-event

```narcha-event
who: <who-id>
when: <when-id>
where: <where-id>
tags: <Comma-separated list of words, surrounded by square brackets>
```

The three ids <who-id>, <when-id>, <where-id> are arbitrary unicode strings that identify a character, a time, and a place this event will happen in the story.

Events are unique. Mentioning the same event multiple times has no effect.

Events can be tagged to exclude them from plots. If an event has no tag, it will shown in all plots.

Characters: narcha-who

```narcha-who
id: <who-id>
name: <name>
color: <color>
key: <key>
```

This element provides optional descriptions for characters. Again, this has to be unique. If multiple elements for the same <who-id> are found, the last one is used.

The id <who-id> is one of the ids mentioned in the events. Descriptions for non-existing characters, i.e. those without any events, is undefined behaviour. At the moment, nothing will be rendered.

<name> is an arbitrary utf-8 string that will be copied verbatim into the svg element. Since no escaping is used here, you can abuse it to insert arbitrary tags into the generated svg. This can be a security risk. You have been warned.

<color> is an SVG colorspec, e.g. red, #ff0012. This is the color of the story line.

<key> is an arbitrary utf-8 string that is used to sort characters. Number-only keys have to be quoted, e.g.

key: "1968"

Keep in mind that keys are sorted lexicographically, e.g. in the following order:

key10
key1
key9

Times: narcha-when

```narcha-when
id: <when-id>
name: <name>
key: <key>
```

These are similar fields as in narcha-who with similar meanings and limitations.

Extranous descriptions are also undefined behaviour and will be mapped to empty time (columns) in the chart.

Places: narcha-where

```narcha-where
id: <where-id>
name: <name>
key: <key>
```

These are similar fields as in narcha-who with similar meanings and limitations.

Extranous descriptions are also undefined behaviour and will be mapped to empty places (rows) in the chart.

The <name> field can be a multi-line YAML string, e.g.

```narcha-where
id: somewhere
name: |-
  Here
  There
  Everywhere
key: "012"
```

For each line, a separate line will be produced in the SVG.

In case you do not add narcha-where definitions, the <name> and <id> fields will be set to the <id> field of the event as used in an event. In this case, the keys will be generated as zero-padded three-digit numbers in order of apperance in the events. This will generate the cleanest charts.

Plots: narcha-plot

```narcha-plot
axisColor: <color>      [black]
top: <integer>          [20]
bottom: <integer>       [100]
left: <integer>         [100]
right: <integer>        [50]
arrowGap: <integer>     [10]
eventGrid: <integer>    [50]
nameHeight: <integer>   [10]
nameEdge: <integer>     [1]
nameLen: <integer>      [50]
nameGap: <integer>      [1]
show: <boolean>         [yes]
tags: <list of words>   []
```

This will generate a plot from the elements with the parameter above. The parameters can be given in any order. If a parameter is not present, the value in the square brackets will be used instead.

<color> again denotes a valid SVG color spec.

<integer> denotes a positive integer. Most have lower limits around 0. The meaning of these elements is:

Parameter Meaning
axisColor Color of axes and text.
top Number of pixels above the first row.
bottom Number of pixels below the arrow of time. If this is too small, the time descriptions will be cut off.
left Number of pixels left of the matrix. If this is too small, the place descriptions will be cut off.
right Number of pixels right of the tip of the arrow.
arrowGap Number of pixels between the last time mark and the arrow head.
eventGrid Number of pixels between two time marks.
nameHeight Height of name strings in pixels.
nameEdge Number of pixel, denoting the vertical gap between character name boxes.
nameLen Number of pixels, denoting the width of the character name box. The name will not be clipped.
nameGap Number of pixels between the box of the character name and the first event marker.
show Should the plot be displayed. Use this to temporarily disable a plot.
tags List of tags to show. Empty list show all events.

Possible improvements

  • Use natural sort for keys, e.g. 
    thing10
thing1
thing-12
    would be sorted as 
    thing-12
thing1
thing10
  • Better parsing of integer keys, i.e. no more quotes.
  • Nicer curves on the first events