September 30, 2026
Plainchant used to begin at the blank page. That is the right place for a writer who already knows it, but a difficult introduction for anyone else. The project now has a front door: a homepage that explains the promise before asking for the first line.
The centre of the page is a small picture of Plainchant's whole idea. Raw text sits on one side: a scene heading, a line of action, a character and one line of dialogue. The formatted screenplay sits on the other. Nothing was dragged, indented or styled. The words did not change; the software simply understood what they were.
The page borrows the app's Courier type but puts it on warm paper, with one red accent. It feels related to the writing room without pretending to be the writing room. On a phone the same example stacks and scales down rather than turning into a different pitch.
New writers see the smallest useful guide: start a scene with INT. or EXT., put a character's name in capitals, press Enter to let them speak, and export when the draft is ready. The element bar and Tab key are there when the syntax is forgotten. There is nothing to memorise before writing.
The rest of the page explains what becomes useful later: focus mode and quick edits, the Library and versions, the outline and script statistics, proper output, and the local-first promise. Narrated videos have their own short section too, because read-aloud time and video chapters are now a real part of Plainchant rather than a footnote.
The homepage adds no account, tracker or script. It is only HTML, CSS and the same fonts already bundled with Plainchant. The writing app now lives one step behind it, and every Start writing link goes straight there. Installed copies still open directly into the editor, and both the front door and the writing room are kept for offline use.
Plainchant now has a public explanation to match the editor it has become. The existing 339 unit tests pass, as do 327 browser unit tests and all 730 end-to-end checks of the writing app after its move.
The next useful test is not another feature. It is to give the page to someone who has never seen Plainchant and find out whether they understand it, trust it and reach the first scene without needing an explanation.