Reading and focus

A lot of writing is really reading back: scrolling through, catching up, finding the line to fix. So Patterpad treats the script as something to read as much as write, and gives you ways to strip it back, re-theme it, and get out of your own way.

Writing View

View ▸ Writing View (⇧⌘M) clears everything away: both side panes and the bottom bars, leaving only the script and the hint bar. The top bar stays, faded almost out of sight, and firms up when you point at it. On macOS it’s the window’s title bar, so taking it away would leave the window’s own buttons floating over your prose. It hides the furniture, never the words, so spelling mistakes stay underlined while you write. Nothing is lost; it puts your exact layout back the moment you leave, by the same shortcut, Esc, or the quiet “Exit Writing View” pill at the bottom-left.

Colour themes and fonts

The View menu carries two reading controls, both remembered.

Under Colour Theme you get Follow System, Paper, Mist, Slate, or Night. Each is a hand-tuned set where the background, accents, and character colours all sit well together, not a plain light/dark flip.

Under Font Theme you get Newsreader, Literata, Source Serif, or Courier (for a typewriter, “script” feel).

You can zoom in and out from the View menu too, alongside full-screen.

Jumping anywhere: ⌘F

Press ⌘F (or the navigator’s Search… field) to open a small floating search window that stays on top of the editor. It finds a scene or block by title or address, any line by its dialogue, narration, or choice text, and a specific line by its id, then jumps you straight there, centred, without losing your place. It also browses lines by writing or recording status, by author tag, and finds where a property is used.

Full details, and project-wide find-and-replace, are on the Search and navigation page.

Walk it live

Reading catches most things; some you only feel by playing. Play ▸ Play Scene (⌘P) runs the story on the real engine, right there beside the editor. See Playtesting.

Open where you left off

These reading and focus tools sit on top of the way Patterpad just picks up where you left off: your last project, your last scene, your exact cursor position, with the scene you land on drawn first and the rest filling in behind it. The Overview covers the workspace, the panes, and the project-overview landing.