Storylines

Storylines is an open-source Windows writing app for building stories chapter by chapter. It combines a clean editor with tools for characters, dialogue-heavy scenes, story analysis, focused drafting, and accessibility-minded workflows.

Storylines is designed for writers who want more structure than a plain text file without jumping into a heavyweight tool. Draft chapters, keep track of characters, work with dialogue-focused scenes, review story information, and stay in flow with Focus Mode, keyboard shortcuts, and recovery features.

The app is built as a WinUI 3 desktop application on Windows App SDK with DI-backed window scoping for multi-window workflows.

Highlights

• Chapter-based writing workspace for longer projects
• Character and dialogue tools for story-driven drafting
• Story Analysis view for quick project insight
• Focus Mode, read aloud, voice dictation, and keyboard shortcuts
• Autosave, recovery, undo/redo, export, and Microsoft Store updates
• Localized UI in English, Czech, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Simplified Chinese
• Built for Windows 10 and Windows 11 with accessibility in mind

Get Storylines

• Install from the Microsoft Store
• Build it yourself from source

Build From Source

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 1903 or later, or Windows 11
• Visual Studio 2022 or later with the .NET desktop development and Windows application development workloads
• .NET 9 SDK if you want to use the command line

Command line

msbuild src/Storylines.sln /p:Platform=x64 /p:Configuration=Debug /t:Restore
msbuild src/Storylines.sln /p:Platform=x64 /p:Configuration=Debug
dotnet test src/Storylines.Tests/Storylines.Tests.csproj --platform x64

Running Tests

Unit tests

dotnet test src/Storylines.Tests/Storylines.Tests.csproj --platform x64

UI / end-to-end tests

UI tests in src/Storylines.UITests drive the real packaged app via Appium and the appium-windows-driver.

Prerequisites

1. Install Node.js (LTS).
2. Install Appium and the Windows driver:

   npm install -g appium
   appium driver install windows
   

3. Build and deploy the app so it is installed as an MSIX package:
   • Open src/Storylines.sln in Visual Studio, set configuration to Debug | x64, then press F5 (or Deploy from the Build menu).
4. Find the app's AUMID (Application User Model ID):

   Get-AppxPackage *Storylines* | Select-Object PackageFamilyName
   # Example output: 3597CaffeStudios.Storylines_abc123xyz
   # AUMID = <PackageFamilyName>!App
   

5. Set the required environment variable:

   $env:STORYLINES_TEST_AUMID = "3597CaffeStudios.Storylines_abc123xyz!App"
   

Running the tests

Start the Appium server in one terminal, then run the tests in another:

# Terminal 1 — keep running while tests execute
appium

# Terminal 2
dotnet test src/Storylines.UITests/Storylines.UITests.csproj

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Default	Description
STORYLINES_TEST_AUMID	Yes	—	Package AUMID (see step 4 above)
STORYLINES_APPIUM_URL	No	http://127.0.0.1:4723	Appium server URL

Writing new UI tests

• Add AutomationProperties.AutomationId="YourId" to any XAML element you want to target.
• Locate it in tests with driver.FindElement(MobileBy.AccessibilityId("YourId")).
• Add the test class to src/Storylines.UITests/Tests/ and use IClassFixture<AppFixture> to share the driver session.

Visual Studio

1. Open src/Storylines.sln.
2. Select the Debug configuration and x64 platform.
3. Restore NuGet packages if Visual Studio prompts you.
4. Build and run the Storylines project.

Project Links

• Release notes: change-log.md
• Contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Privacy policy: privacy-policy.md
• Microsoft Store release guide: docs/microsoft-store-release.md

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, translations, and pull requests are all welcome. If you want to help, start with CONTRIBUTING.md, or leave a review on the Microsoft Store.

License

Storylines is released under the MIT License.