Sharpee
Chord Writer / Getting Started / Overview

Chord Writer

Chord Writer is a macOS app for writing parser-based interactive fiction in Chord. You write the story, and the app composes it as you type, builds it, plays it, runs its test tree, and packages it for release.

What you need

An Apple silicon Mac running macOS 11 or later — the build targets macOS 11, which is what the first M1 Macs shipped with.

Chord Writer drives the Sharpee command-line toolchain rather than carrying its own, so install that too. Once, and it stays current independently of the app:

  1. Node.js 18 or newer.
  2. The Sharpee CLI — npm install -g @sharpee/devkit.

The status bar names what you are actually running, the app's own version first and the toolchain it resolved second:

Chord Writer 1.0.0 · Sharpee 5.0.0 / Chord 3.0.0

Those versions move independently. Chord Writer is versioned as an app; Sharpee and Chord are versioned as a platform and a language.

The window

Four regions, each with a fixed job.

The Chord Writer window: project pane on the left, the story source in the editor, and the Play tab on the right running the story in a retro terminal theme.
The project pane, the editor, and the right panel on Play — the story built and running beside its source.

The project pane, on the left, shows your story as typed groups: Story, Walkthroughs, Assets, Feelies, Web Template, and Other. These are lenses over the folder rather than a mirror of it, so a file's position in the tree does not tell you which directory it sits in on disk. Anything that matches no group lands in Other, so nothing is ever hidden from you.

The editor, in the middle, is a tabbed text editor. Opening a file from the project pane opens a tab.

The right panel carries seven tabs:

TabWhat it shows
BuildOutput from the build, as it runs
PlayThe running game
TestingYour test tree — recorded as you play — and its results
IndexEverything your story defines, read out of the composed story
DiagnosisA longer explanation of an error you hit
DocumentationThis documentation, bundled into the app
PublishPackaging a release

The bottom dock carries two: Problems, which lists compile diagnostics for the story you are editing, and Game Errors, which collects runtime errors from the game while you play it.

The Documentation tab is these pages, built into the app:

The Documentation tab: a contents rail of Chord Writer and Chord pages beside a rendered documentation page.
The same author documentation as this site, bundled at build time — so it is never older than the app, and never needs a connection.

Next

Your first story walks from an empty screen to a game you can play.