Version 0.8.2 & 0.8.3 Beta, builds on top of the changes introduced in version 0.8 beta, by refining existing features and adding a few new ones.
Version 0.8.2 beta is the first version of Scrite built with Qt 5.15.7. As a direct consequence of that, you may find that the app now works a tad faster than before.
You can simply head to the Downloads Page to download and install the latest update, although we recommend that you take some time to read what’s in store.
Key Changes
Preview PDFs within Scrite
Previously PDF files generated by Scrite, whether they were Screenplay PDFs or Reports, would get stored into a folder and you would have to open those PDFs in a separate viewer app, like Adobe Reader or macOS Preview or KDE’s Okular.
Starting with Scrite version 0.8.2 beta, PDF files are directly shown within the app and you can optionally save them to your local disk.
Even if you generate a report, it is first displayed within the app and you can optionally save it to disk later.
Print Preview is now PDF Preview
PDFs can be thought of as “preview” of the printed screenplay. Rather than have a separate print preview workflow, we have now replaced the print-preview option with PDF-preview.
You can click on the PDF icon in the toolbar to simply generate a PDF of your screenplay and preview it within the app. Once previewed, you can then optionally save the PDF.
Quick Access to Statistics Report
Ever since we introduced the statistics report in version 0.8 beta, it has become the most used report across close to 600 users who are now using 0.8+ version of Scrite.
With version 0.8.2, we have made it even more easy to generate the statistics report. Simply click on the stats report icon in the toolbar and quickly generate a statistics report directly within the app.
You can optionally save the statistics report to the local disk from here.
Watch this 10 minute video and hear Prashanth explain the statistics report feature in detail.
Stats within Notebook
Since its now possible to embed PDFs within the app, we have featured a new Stats tab in the Notebook against Screenplay. Switching to that tab generates a stats report and shows it there.
You can click on the reload button on the floating toolbar within the PDF area to refresh the stats report.
Screenplay Editor Options on Toolbar
With previous versions of Scrite, users were finding it difficult to get to the screenplay options sub-menu within the Settings menu.
With version 0.8.2, we have now moved screenplay editor options to its own menu on the toolbar, making it easy to find.
Rename Characters
This was a pending feature request from several months and its finally here.
If you have “Show Scene Characters and Tags” turned on in Screenplay Editor options, then you can click on a character name in the character list shown under scene heading and select “Rename Character” option.
Scrite will then present a dialog box for you where you can provide a new name for your character.
Once renamed, the changes cannot be undone. However, you can rename the new name back to its original name.
Scrite not only changes the name in character paragraphs, but also in scene headings and other paragraphs, including references to the name in scene synopsis and notes.
NOTE: Character renaming works best with English names written in Latin charset. If you have written your entire Screenplay in other language(s), then Scrite can’t properly rename your characters unless an entire word is found with the character name in it.
Tagging Characters and Marking Priority
In the Notebook, you can now tag characters and mark priority. Doing so will make it easy for you to select characters while generating reports.
For instance, let’s say you have a screenplay where some of the characters are Primary, few others are Secondary and rest are Supporting. You can switch to Notebook, add your characters and then tag them as such.
A single character can have more than one tag. Just type a tag name and hit Enter to add it to the tags list associated with your character.
You can change priority on the slider and mark your characters as High, Normal or Low priority. Scrite will then use this information to sort your characters by priority whenever it shows character lists, on report dialog boxes for example.
Additionally, with the these dialog boxes you can click on the Filter option next to the search bar to filter characters by their tags.
Then you can use the “Select All”, “Unselect All” buttons to quickly alter your character selection for the report in question.
This process dramatically reduces the time you spend on selecting characters while generating reports in which character-lists are configured.
For example, you can easily select all Primary characters while generating a statistics report.
Range Selection in Timeline
For several versions, Scrite allowed multi-selection on the timeline view. You could hold the Control key (Command key on macOS) and click one or more cards on the timeline to select them together.
With 0.8.2 beta, you can click on a card to select it and then hold down the Shift key while you click on another card at a distance. This will cause Scrite to select all cards in between.
Once a range of cards are selected, you can then move the entire range to another part of your timeline by simply dragging them.
This is especially useful if you are refactoring your screenplays.
Transliteration Fixes
Several users complained that they are noticing funny circles and zombie characters in their screenplays while writing in non-English languages. We have identified the source of this issue, but we cannot fix it fully just yet.
In Version 0.8.3 beta we have slightly improved transliteration, but there is still work to be done. In the meantime, we have turned off custom font formatting while displaying screenplay text.
What this means is that the language specific fonts you configure in Settings will only be used in PDF and HTML exports by default, but not while displaying the screenplay text. You can explicitly enable display of custom fonts in Settings, but you may notice funny circles and zombie characters popping up again.
In a future update we plan to overhaul the entire language support module to address this issue permanently.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed title page alignment issue: https://github.com/teriflix/scrite/issues/272
- Fixed an issue that caused an empty field to show up in login screen with no explanation as to what’s needed in there.
Download/Update Now!
As always, please leave your feedback on the Forum. But from now on, you can also reach out to us on Discord. It is because of all the feedback that the app is improving with each update.