Septangular
Chapter 7
Statistics
How the book is going: its length against your target, today and this week against your daily goal, your pace, and the date you’ll finish at it. Everything is worked out from the book’s own history, so there’s nothing to log.
Three pages
The Statistics sidebar has three pages:
| Page | Shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | Four gauges, a row of cards, a chart of the last 30 days, and the book’s targets. |
| By Part and Chapter | Every part, chapter and scene with its words, and a small line of how each part and chapter has grown. |
| By Status | The book’s words in outline, draft, revised and final scenes. |
The figures are worked out each time you open the section, and again after every save. While they’re being worked out, the Overview shows only the Book gauge, with “Working out your writing history…”.
What’s counted, and where it comes from
What counts as a word
Septangular counts words as a word processor does: a word is anything between spaces that has at least one letter or digit in it. “Well-known” is one word; a dash standing between spaces isn’t a word at all. Only the text of your scenes counts, block quotes included. Comments (<!-- … -->), scene breaks and anything Septangular leaves out of the finished book don’t. Appendix B describes what a scene can hold.
The book’s words are the words in the scenes of its parts and chapters. The Stash, front and back matter, alternative drafts, notes and the Story Bible aren’t counted.
Where the history comes from
Every save keeps a version of the whole book (see Chapter 8), and Statistics reads the book’s length from those versions: each day’s figure is the book’s length at the last version saved that day. A day with no save keeps the figure of the day before. Days are calendar days by your Mac’s clock, from midnight to midnight.
- Today includes unsaved writing. Today’s figures use the book as it stands in the editor, so you don’t need to save to see them move.
- The history starts with the first version. Statistics knows nothing from before Septangular began keeping the book’s history. Text already there when it began, such as a manuscript you brought in, isn’t counted as written on that first day.
- Changes made in other programs are saved as a version when the book next opens, so they count on the day Septangular picked them up.
Under the chart, the Overview says when the history begins: “History since …, from your saved versions. Today includes writing you haven’t saved yet.”
Words written in a day
A day’s words are its net change: the book’s length at the end of the day, less its length at the end of the day before. Writing 1,500 words and cutting 500 makes a day of 1,000. A day of revision that cuts more than it adds has a negative figure, and Statistics shows it as words cut.
The four gauges
Each gauge is a dial with a needle and a coloured arc up to its value. The number under the dial is the value itself; the percentage in the middle is how far it is towards its maximum (it can pass 100%, though the arc stops at the end of the dial). The arc turns green when the goal is reached. A gauge with no goal set has an empty dial and says so underneath.
| Gauge | Value | Measured against |
|---|---|---|
| Book | The book’s words now, unsaved writing included. | The book’s target. Without one: “No target set”. |
| Today | The words written today: the book’s words now, less its words at the end of yesterday. | The daily goal (“of 1,000 words per day”). Without one: “No daily goal set”. On a day that has cut more than it added, the dial reads 0 and the caption says how many words were cut. |
| This Week | The words written over the last seven days, today included. | Seven days of the daily goal. Without one, it reads “Last 7 days”. |
| Velocity | Your pace over the whole book: its words now, divided by its age in days. | The daily goal, which sits at the top of the dial. |
Velocity
The book’s age counts calendar days from the day it began to today, both included, so on the first day it’s 1. The day it began is the earlier of two dates: when its book.xml file was made, and its first saved version. The caption gives the age: “words per day over 63 days”.
Velocity’s dial runs to twice your daily goal, so the goal is at the top, written above the needle with “daily target” under it, or “needed per day” when the goal is worked out from a due date. Past the top, you’re writing faster than you need to, and the arc turns green.
The cards
Below the gauges is a row of cards:
| Card | Shows | How it’s worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Series | The words in every book of the series, and which book this is. | Only in a series. This book counts as it stands now, unsaved writing included; the others as they were last saved. See Chapter 10. |
| Streak | Days in a row with writing. | Counts back from today over the days on which the book grew. If you haven’t written yet today, it counts back from yesterday, so a streak isn’t broken until a whole day goes by. A day that cut more than it added ends a streak. It looks back over the last 90 days. |
| Average | Words per day, “last 14 days”. | The words written over the last 14 days, today included, divided by 14. Cuts count against it. If the history began less than 14 days ago, it’s the average over the days since, and on the history’s first day it’s simply today’s words. |
| Best day | The most words written in a day, and the date. | The best day of the last 90, today included. Before any writing: “No writing yet”. |
| Projected finish | The date you’ll reach the book’s target, at your average. | The words still to write divided by your average, rounded up to whole days, counted on from today: “8 days at 1,868 words per day”. With a due date, it adds whether that’s “in time for the due date” or how many days after it. |
| Due | The due date, and the pace it needs. | Only when you’ve set a due date. See A due date. |
Projected finish shows “—” with “Set a book target to see when you’ll finish.” until the book has a target, or “Write a little each day to see a date.” while your average is nothing. Once the book reaches its target, it shows “Done”.
Words per day
The chart shows the last 30 days, a bar for each, ending with today. A bar’s height is the words written that day; a day of cutting is drawn as tall as the words it cut.
| Bar | Means |
|---|---|
| Blue | Words written, short of the daily goal (or any words, with no goal set). |
| Green | The daily goal was met. |
| Red | The day cut more words than it added. |
Today’s bar is drawn a little stronger than the rest. The daily goal is a dashed line across the chart. Hover over a bar for its day and its words, or the words it cut; hover over the dashed line for the goal. A day with no change has no bar.
Targets
Below the chart, under Targets, are three fields:
| Field | What it sets |
|---|---|
| Book | The book’s target length, in words. |
| Due | The day the book is due. Choose it from the date picker. |
| Daily goal | The words a day you mean to write. With a book target and a due date, it’s worked out for you instead, and can’t be typed in. |
A target is a whole number of words; clear a field to remove its target. The fields’ small arrows step the book target by 1,000 and the daily goal by 50. Targets are kept in the book’s book.xml (see Appendix D), so, like any change to the book, a new target is unsaved until the next save. The gauges and cards follow it at once.
A due date
With a book target and a due date, Septangular works the daily goal out for you: the words left at the start of today, divided by the days left, today and the due day both included, rounded up. Every calendar day counts, weekends too. Because it counts from the start of today, the goal doesn’t shrink as you write today, so it can be met; tomorrow, it’s worked out afresh from where the book stands then.
The worked-out goal runs everything that uses the daily goal: the Today and This Week gauges, the top of Velocity’s dial, the chart’s dashed line and the Daily goal field, which says “words per day, from the due date”. The Due card shows the date and the pace:
| When | The Due card says |
|---|---|
| The due date is today or later | The words a day, and for how many days: “334 words a day for 43 days”. |
| The due date has gone by | How many days overdue, and the words still to write. |
| The book had reached its target by the start of today | “You reached your target.” |
| There’s no book target | “Set a book target to work back from it.” The Due field says the same. |
Once the due date has gone by, or the target is reached, your own daily goal applies again. To set your own goal while the due date stands, clear the due date: the daily goal you had before is still there.
Chapter targets
A chapter can have a target of its own. In the Manuscript, right-click the chapter and choose Set Word Target… (or Change Word Target…), as Chapter 3 describes. Chapter targets show on the By Part and Chapter page.
By Part and Chapter
This page lists the book’s parts, with their chapters inside them, and each chapter’s scenes inside it. Parts start open and chapters closed; click a part or chapter to open or close it, or use Expand all and Collapse all at the top. A book without named parts lists its chapters straight away.
Each row has a bar and its words, unsaved writing included:
- A part’s bar is measured against the longest part.
- A chapter’s bar is measured against its target, if it has one, and turns green when the target is reached; its words read “2,950 / 3,000”. A chapter without a target is measured against the longest chapter.
- A scene’s bar is measured against the longest scene in its chapter, and a dot shows its status.
Growth lines
Beside each part and chapter is a small line of its words at the end of each day over the last 30 days, with a dot at today and the change over the period beside it, such as “+3,120”. To see further back, set Growth over to “the last 90 days”.
Hover over a line to see any day’s count, or over the change to see the words at the start of the period and today. Each day’s figure comes from the last version saved that day, and today’s includes unsaved writing. Days before the history began are left blank, and the change is counted from the first day there is a figure for.
A chapter’s line adds up the scenes it holds now, whatever chapter they were in before. Move a scene to another chapter, and its past moves with it.
By Status
This page shows the book’s words in scenes of each status, Outline, Draft, Revised and Final, with how many scenes each, and a bar measuring each against the whole book. As the book moves through revision, its words move down the list. Scenes in the Stash aren’t counted.
To change a scene’s status, right-click it in the Manuscript sidebar and choose from Status; see Chapter 3.