You may have noticed a little robot icon in the toolbar, and are wondering what an API key is. Don’t worry its pretty simple.

Open AI charges for their service so it’s easier for me to set this up so you can use the assistance bot yourself – the good news is that it’s really easy to sign up and use it.

Step 1

Go to OpenAI API page and click on the sign up button – you follow the easy prompts to create an account and get logged in.

Step 2

Click on this icon top right and ain the dropdown select “View API Keys” – you won’t have one – click on “Create new secret key” and COPY the key from the popup window – you will want to save this into a text file somewhere for later use.

Step 3

Open up wavemaker version 4 and click on the Bot icon and paste your key into the API key field. Press “save” and you should now see the question form – You can simply ask OpenAI to do … well pretty much anything. But bear in mind that you only get a $5 allowance free – then you will have to pay more to the open ai account

What are tokens?

To be honest … not sure myself – but every question and answer uses tokens that seem to go for a tiny fraction of a cent each – I have set the limit for token use per request to be 50 tokens by default – but you can set it higher (50 tokens is probably about a sentence of reply and a short question)

So, You’re looking to write a book. Well wavemaker is here to help. It’s much much more than a text editor and going through all of it’s features will take some time so I’m going to break it down into common things, starting with the writing tool.

All this will be coming soon with the videos

One of the most requested features I have had was the auto-sync to google drive.

The problem I always hit was how do you deal with overwriting when you accidentally have TWO devices doing the same thing! But Google drive does one nice thing. It KEEPS a version history

This is great because it means you can always recover from a bad upload by simply downloading an older version of the file

Step 1 : Log into Google Drive and find this file

Step 2 : Right click and find the “Manage Versions” Option

This will give you this screen – you can find the last ‘good’ version and download it by clicking on the ‘three dots’ menu

This can also be used to create a ‘snapshot’ of your work at ANY POINT.

Once you have the file on your device you can load it in using the “Upload Database” option on the main screen!

As you may have guessed putting together software like this for people to use is hard work. Ideally I’d like to get to a point where I can make an income from this, which would allow me to focus on continually developing the software.

You can help out a couple of ways , become a Patron (for $2 /$5 per month) or a one off donation via paypal of whatever you can give.

If you can’t donate anything then you can help by spreading the word on facebook, twitter and reddit (along with anywhere else you like) – more users means more people contributing.
https://www.facebook.com/wavemakercards/
https://twitter.com/WavemakerCards
https://www.reddit.com/r/wavemakercards/

I spend a considerable amount of time, not only building, but supporting wavemaker so if you like it, help me out and keep it going

I like wordpress, I really do……. however I simply don’t have time to check all the places people can comment at me or ask questions.

So I’m going to suggest that if you have an issue there are some better places to get feedback and help (and frankly I’m way more likely to respond – I just had to clear out 500 spam messages – ughhh)

So my two regular checks are twitter (@wavemakercards) and reddit (r/wavemakercards) I’ve added some embeds below.

Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/wavemakercards/

• Help! I uninstalled wavemaker from my pc because it disables my mic, but it still says wavemaker is using it!
• Best place for suggestions/discord
• Pinboard
• I Love This App… When It Works
• i accidentally opened a google drive save before saving my current work

Twitter is also available!

Tweets by WavemakerCards

Why Wavemaker novel planning & writing software is free.

I started out building wavemaker as I wanted software that suited me. Don’t get me wrong, there are some nice programs out there. Scrivener is really good, Atomic Scribbler is nice, Manuskript is decent  and so on ….. 

But none of them are cross platform. Wavemaker  works on virtually anything and syncs between devices easily so you can write at your desk, or while walking the dog (Yes, I actually do this, dictating into wavemaker on my phone while out and about)

But Why Free??

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take your money if you insist 😉
(You can become a patron at the  Wavemaker Patreon)

But my aim is to create some great free novel writing software, for ME. 
The fact you get to use it is a bonus. Also I really ENJOY creating stuff like this. If ever I get enough Patrons to support me I’ll go full time at this, but until then I have to squeeze it into my spare time.

I’m also  Open sourcing the code for the older versions, and will do with the current version when I have all the bit’s I want done – I want to do this as others will be able to help by adding features, fixing bugs and making it better. 

This is what makes Wavemaker truly unique. It’s goals are to be as inclusive as possible, as useful as possible and as easy to use as possible.

If you want to try out this amazing Free Novel Writing Software then give it a go. There’s nothing to lose 🙂 https://wavemaker.cards

Wavemaker is a PWA (Progressive Web App), which at it’s most basic level is a website that you can install locally and run without an internet connection. If you visit https://wavemaker.cards with a browser that allows you to take advantage of this (Google Chrome at time of writing is the first) You get the install button appearing

At time of writing Windows/Linux/ Android do this by default (as should iOS) – on a mac you may need to enable the browser settings for Chrome

If it the button doesn’t appear check the 3 dot menu

Why use PWA’s

Easy. Wavemaker is designed to be an online tool – it can run offline very easily, but about 95% of what you download as part of the software is basically the web browser (chromium) to run the actual software in!

Using a PWA means I don’t need to create installers and apps for every platform – I just make one website that you can install locally and run offline. A Major bonus is that the software can automatically update from the website if it needs to – boom, it’s now evergreen software 🙂 This leaves me more time to make the software better for everyone, rather than hunting down a problem with a specific installer.

This is a new technology, but you can expect this to become pretty common now. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Firefox are all keen on this technology so it should be widely supported on all browsers pretty soon.

Version 3 is now live, you can find it  at  https://wavemaker.cards

Installing

Wavemaker is a Progressive Web App now which will install virtually anywhere and run offline, It’s also been built to work on tablets and phones!

Managing Your Work

Your Projects need to be safe, Wavemaker has changed and now uses a local database to keep your projects in, this can be easily backed up and moved, as can individual projects – you can also back it up to google drive and restore it to a different device with a click.

New Features

It took a while, and we have a LOT of new features – multi level organisation, formatting options and distraction free ….

New note taking Database

This is based loosely on google keep, keep notes and photos tagged in an easily searchable database – top tip – use it from your phone to record pictures of locations!

Snowflake Tool

An old favourite back again – build your idea up from a simple paragraph

Planning Board

Manage all your scene and character notes!

Grid Planner

Based on  the planning grid used by  JK Rowling. 

Timeline Planner

Another old favourite – build up your story by event planning

Challenge Mode

New Export Options