Hey folks! The unofficial page count module has been released. You should be able to find it under "My Script Frenzy".

Here's the FAQs regarding validation:

How do I create a PDF?
What Will You Do With My Uploaded Script?
How can I scramble my script before submitting it to your untrustworthy page-counting goons?
Can I keep writing and adding to my page count even after I've had the script verified?

Please report any issues with this process in this thread, so we can track them easily and get them fixed quickly!

Before reporting, please read the FAQs, this thread and scan the first page of topics to avoid duplicate reports.

The validator accepts blank business-card-sized pages as complete pages of script

I've reported it, but I have to wonder why someone would bother uploading blank business cards to the validator. ;)

Heather
Forums Moderator

That's correct. It's a page counter NOT a word counter.

It also accepts 100 pages of text you didn't write :)

There are lots of ways to cheat, but in the end you're only cheating yourself.

If you cheat.

Which you won't.

Because we trust you.

-> firebus
-> Web Programmer
-> www.nanowrimo.org
-> www.scriptfrenzy.org

Yeah, I know you trust us, and I know we would only be cheating ourselves, and I said so ten days ago

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My suggestion would be to advise us how to use something which is going to be as accurate as possible so we all know we've done our best to get it right, and carry on with the 'honesty box' approach, because

a) Even with a widget, anyone can cheat - copy and paste a few pages in to get the numbers up - hell, it could all be complete rubbish or stolen from scriptorama anyway, and

b) If you cheat, *you* will know you cheated and

c) We're not going to cheat because everyone here is doing it for FUN!
==================================================================

The point of mentioning the blank business cards was to indicate that the validation widget doesn't check the number of words, it doesn't check the size of the pages, and it doesn't even check there is any content at all. Now I assumed that this was a bug that needed reporting because I assumed that a validation widget would validate things enough to reject 78 tiny blank pages as being 'not a proper script', at least. I thought that it would look at the contents of the file, reformat it to its own specification and report the number of pages when it is formatted that way thus giving Screnziers a benchmark figure for their script.

Please don't think I'm picking on you, I know you do all this for coffee and free trips in the Screnzy helicopter, but there are a number of points that your widget doesn't address:

a) What is the point of a widget which is more trouble than just typing in the number of pages when it does absolutely no checking at all and the person uploading the PDF has just made the PDF and knows perfectly well how many pages are in it - (the same as in the script they made the PDF from)?

b) This doesn't help people who have 20,000 words and 30 pages who would like to ensure that they are formatting their script correctly.

c) This does not allow Screnzy to level the playing field, i.e. there is no way to find out if my 100 pages is equvalent to someone else's 100 pages.

d) What was the point of all the days and days of talk about 'they're working on it' when all you seem to have done is:

==================================================================
PdfReader reader = PdfReader.fileReader(filename);
PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument(reader);
int pageCount = doc.getPageCount());
==================================================================

and then you stick the page count in the database?

Some people want it official. Personally I'm not worried, but as a programmer, I was interested to see how sophisticated the validation would be, and thought the least I could do was a bit of testing.

Other people want the 'official stamp' - Lousy Writer 13 said: I don't care what standard is chosen, just that we choose one...[snip]...The "Script Frenzy standard" is what needs to be published and followed by the widget and none of the other standards really matter to me,

But there is no Script Frenzy standard, is there? And I get the impression that a lot of people were hoping there would be.

Ian

I put my document in the validator and his validate but it doesn't seem to have done anything.
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Oh my... I actually think I can do this. Of course I may go crazy in the process...

I got the whole pdf thing okay. However in the past, when you entered the count and the count met the number to be accomplished, the counter said FINISHER. Now it doesn't. Does that mean it isn't working correctly.

Lisa Kucharski

No, the official victory notifications and the like will come online later -- right now the validator is just there to make sure people know how they are doing according to the site's robots. You'll have to re-validate in a few days when the official one goes live.

-----------------
NaNo 2006(win): "Children of the Stars"
NaNo 2007(win): "Darkness Falls"

See but when I validated nothing happened. Did the sites robots count my pages or not?
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Oh my... I actually think I can do this. Of course I may go crazy in the process...

The 'robots' will set your page count to the number of pages in your PDF, whatever format or content is has. If your page count is already at 100 and you submit a 100 page PDF, then you will see no difference, of course, but you should be sent to the View tab of My Script Frenzy when it happens.

There *is* no difference between entering the page count manually as before, and creating and uploading a PDF with the same number of pages. No validation is done other than retrieving the page total from the document.

But you can always set the page number manually to something else, and then submit a PDF just to see it update it.

Ian

Hi,

While procrastinating yesterday, I put together the kind of thing I thought the validator would be - i.e.takes a text file, formats it to a standard, and then outputs the page count.

It's here http://write.roughian.com/formatter/

Currently it only works for Celtx and FD exports, but that is only because I only have Celtx and FD exports to work with.

If anyone would be kind enough to send me a partial script (or full script for that matter) from other screenplay software, web sites or templates of any sort, I'd be very grateful and I'll work to get it to accept them. For most standard text files from programs, this will be just a matter of telling the program what the tab settings are.

This utility will be permanently available (for free, of course) on the main web site (my web site, that is, not the Script Frenzy site (unless they want it)) once the main web site has been rewritten.

If anyone at SF is interested in it (bit of a scramble for this year, but maybe next - although I'd give this year a go if you are interested) let me know.

Paste a script into the box and press the button

Check the checkbox before you press the button to see the output on-screen as it is created. This is slow - how slow depends on your machine because all the processing is done on your machine, and your script doesn't get sent anywhere.

Ian

PS, I'd be grateful if any Mackies would throw a file at it, too.