A little more than 3 months after the 1.0 was released, we are now happy to announce the general availability of version 1.1. In this post, we outline the key changes since version 1.0, including the changes that were introduced in the three minor updates we have released since.
Table Of Contents
New Features
Two Column Report
Ever since we introduced paid subscription plans for Scrite, we’ve been gathering one-on-one feedback from many (though not all) of our subscribers, especially those based in India.
One feature request that stood out during these conversations was the need for support for non-standard screenplay formats. In particular, we learned that certain regional film industries in India don’t always follow the traditional Hollywood-style screenplay format, especially when it comes to the shooting draft. Instead, they often use a two-column layout (commonly referred to as the “left and right” format), similar to what was used in Minnal Murali and several other scripts.
While this format isn’t widely adopted, it’s preferred by quite a few writer-directors because it offers greater flexibility during pre-production. The challenge, however, is that screenplays written in the standard format often need to be manually reformatted by the writer or someone on their team before they’re production-ready. With this feature, it will save hours of manual work for the team to prepare a shooting draft that suits the requirement of their industry.
Many of our users told us that they currently export their scripts from Scrite to ODT, and then have someone reformat the file into one of the following layouts:
- A/V format: with visuals on the left column, audio on the right column
- Two columns with everything on the left
- Two columns with everything on the right
With the new version of Scrite, its now possible to generate an output of your screenplay in one of these three layouts.
Click on Reports > Two Column Report option …
… to pull up the configuration dialog for this report. Switch to layout and select one of the three layouts offered.
You can head to the Options tab and configure more options in the report, or just click on Generate to generate the PDF.
Note: PDF generation can take a while, so please be patient.
Once generated, you will notice a two column layout of your screenplay.
Paid subscribers who have purchased for one year or more, will also be able to save the output as PDF or ODT.
When the two column report is exported to ODT, you will be able to open the resulting file in Microsoft Word or Libre Office, and further edit the file.
Take this new feature for a spin, and let us know what you think on Discord.
If you have purchased a subscription for one year or more, and are unable to save this report – reach out to us on support@scrite.io and we will have it resolved for you.
Report – Export Progress Bar
We understand that reports and exports can take a while and that a simple wait-message that freezes the UI can be disconcerting. From this version of Scrite, you will see a progress bar informing you about the work progress.
Paragraph Spacing in Synopsis
While generating PDF from Scrite with synopsis included, there would be no spacing between paragraphs of the synopsis text. This has now been addressed.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Avoid Synopsis while Exporting to Final Draft
While exporting to FDX, you can now choose whether or not you want to export scene synopsis from Scrite. Previously, scene synopsis would get exported by default and there was no way to remove it without manually editing the FDX file.
Linux OS Version Captured Properly
As identified by a user of Scrite, previously the OS version of Linux would get captured as -1.-1.-1. They now get captured properly based on what uname returns on that platform. Additionally, we now differentiate between Windows 11 and Windows 10 systems.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Capturing Invisible Characters
Each scene in Scrite would automatically get tagged by characters who had atleast one dialogue in the scene. Additionally, users could tag mute characters who were present in the scene but not necessarily speak any dialogue. This feature was used to pull out scene-character-matrix report, which would summarize characters present across scenes in the whole screenplay. This report was especially useful for scheduling in post-production.
A few users felt that it was important to distinguish between characters with dialogue who may be visible or invisible in the scene. For instance, a character speaking on phone has dialogue but is not visible. This is important to capture because the scene-character-matrix should not report the character as present in the scene, and thus cause schedule overload for the actor who plays that character.
Its now possible to toggle an option to capture characters with parenthesis (like VO, OS etc.) as invisible characters. Simply head to Settings > Screenplay > Options and toggle the “Capture Invisible Characters” option.
From then on, characters who have a dialogue but in parenthesis will be captured as invisible characters and are displayed distinctly.
When this option is toggled on, the scene character report will no longer include invisible characters against the scene.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Delink Scenes while Copy-Pasting in Screenplay Editor
When scenes are copy/pasted in the screenplay editor, they are linked by default. This means that both the original and the copy refer to the same internal scene – which means editing the scene in one place, modifies the other. There are historical reasons for this which can be looked up in this Discord conversation.
However, it is now possible to configure Scrite to not link scenes while pasting, but rather paste them as a complete separate copy. Just head to Settings > Screenplay > Options and uncheck the “When possible, link scenes while pasting” option.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
First Line Indentation
A subscriber of Scrite from Brazil asked for the ability to indent the first line in Action paragraph, because for him its an important feature to write for Brazilian TV series.
It’s now possible to configure the first line indentation of any paragraph. Just head to Settings > Screenplay and Formatting Rules, and configure the indentation for any paragraph type you want.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Strikeout option in Markup Tools
Markup Tools always sported options to format selected snippets of text in bold, italics, underline and even color them. Version 1.1 adds the ability to strikeout text (keyboard shortcut for this being Ctrl+R on Windows ⌘+R on macOS).
Markup Tools is a floating dock, whose visibility can be toggled on and off using an option in the screenplay editor options menu.
Icon for Empty Scenes on Scene List Panel
One of our users requested for the scene list panel in screenplay editor to visually differentiate scenes that have no content.
We now show an empty scene icon against scenes which may have scene heading, synopsis and other attributes, but no actual scene content.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Hyperlinks in Notebook
One of our users had requested for hyperlinks in the Notebook, to help link relevant material from the Internet, in addition to being able to attach files to notes.
You can now select text, and then click on the new “link” button in the rich text editor’s toolbar to get a popup where you can key in the URL and then click Save. From that point onwards, whenever you click on the linked text a popup will appear from which you can either edit or visit the URL.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Text Rendering Engine Options
Qt always sported two options for rendering text. One was native (which would use text-rendering capabilities offered by the native OS), and another was custom (which would use accelerated graphics APIs like OpenGL, DirectX etc.) While we always used custom type, because that was the recommended default, we realize that on certain systems the texts seem to appear in an unknown language.
It’s now possible for users to switch to native text rendering to make use of OS specific text-rendering engines. This might makes the text render properly, although they may not look as crisp as we would like them to.
Just head to Settings > Application > Options page and toggle the Use Native Text Rendering option.
Two Line Synopsis on Scene List Panel
The scene list panel on the left now sports two lines of synopsis, when available. This makes it so much more easier to get an overview of scenes and also to quickly move to a scene.
More info: Discussion on Discord about this feature request.
Select-Unselect All in Statistics Report
One of our users requested on Discord for Select All and Unselect All buttons while selecting locations in the statistics report.
We now have that, and they work exactly as advertised. They allow for selecting all locations or clearing selection at one shot.
Additional Help Tips
Help tips are popups that are shown along the top edge of the Scrite window, when users discover a feature for the first time.
These popups typically offer links to a video and article from where additional information can be dug up.
We have now added additional tips to help users understand how to configure watermarks, when they first generate a PDF file. We now also have a help tip to help users discover ways to sync their files across devices, without relying on a cloud backup service from Scrite.
Bug Fixes
Version 1.1 packs a more bug fixes and stability improvements than what’s mentioned below.
Change File Name in Export and Report Dialog Box
Fixed an issue that caused changes in file name to not be used while actually generating the file.
Page Counting is Disabled by Default
Estimating page count and time while working on the screenplay is a computationally intensive operation. This causes the app to appear slow and sluggish while working on large screenplays. We are working on building new algorithms to make this process optimal and fast, however until then we figured its best to disable page counting (and time estimation as well).
Whenever you open a Scrite document, you will notice a tooltip like this along the bottom left corner of the screenplay editor.
You can always toggle page counting on by clicking on the page icon pointed to here.
Please note that page counting will be disabled if you happen to close and reopen the same or another document, even if you have toggled it on in the current session. To preserve you preference across sessions, head to Settings > Screenplay > Options tab and toggle the “Remember Time & Page Count Settings” on.
Importing from Final Draft 13
FDX files created using Final Draft 13 were not imported by Scrite. Infact, it would report an error that the format was not supported. This issue has now been fixed.