Dialogue Stats

Word count and dialogue percentage for the file you are writing, in the VS Code status bar.

Words: 1,694  |  Dialogue: 34%

The dialogue number changes color. Low, target, and high each get a color you choose.

Where to change things

Click the speech-bubble icon in the left Activity Bar. A panel opens with:

• Live stats for the current file and a status bar preview
• Two sliders for the low and high thresholds
• Three color pickers
• A toggle to show or hide the status bar item
• A reset button

Every change saves at once. The same values also appear under Settings › Dialogue Stats.

How it counts

• YAML front matter at the top of the file is skipped.
• Markdown headings and horizontal rules are skipped.
• Dialogue is any text between double quotes. Straight " and curly “ ” both count.
• Words are split on whitespace.
• Dialogue % = dialogue words ÷ all body words, rounded to the nearest whole percent.

Em-dash dialogue with no quotation marks is not counted. Quoted signs, letters, and thoughts are counted.

Works on Markdown and plain text files by default. Change dialogueStats.languages to add more.

Command line

The counting core also runs on its own:

node out/cli.js chapter-01.md chapter-02.md
node out/cli.js --json chapter-01.md

Development

npm install
npm test            # compile + unit tests
npm run package:vsix

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host.