Author Archive | DramaQueen

The first analysis of our questionnaires reveals a relatively clear picture regarding which features are most on demand. With BETA 14 we’ve tried to meet some of those wishes already.

These are the new features of DramaQueen BETA 14:

The possibility to start writing and working from scratch on a ‘blank canvas’:
To do this we’ve expanded and transformed the former notes-panel into an ideas-panel with additional features. Your previous notes are now called ideas! It is now possible to start with an idea when opening a new document.

Overall the ideas-panel now offers versatile applications:
• as collection of ideas at the beginning of story development
• as ‘blank paper’ to sketch out first story ideas
• as collection of notes and comments for a certain story

Continue Reading →

Here a quick update about what we’ve been up to and what’s going to happen in the next weeks:  10 days ago we’ve launched our English Version of DramaQueen. DramaQueen adapts to the system language on your computer – if you have a non-English computer system DramaQueen will automatically download the English version. Our release date is not fully confirmed yet, but it will likely happen in April. That’s why the BETA 11 version carries already the renewed validity until the 31 March 2013. We’ve received many requests to offer not only the free-of-charge version and the pay-version DramaQueen PRO, but also a lower-cost starter version. We’re working on realising this through our DramaQueen PLUS version. More information will follow.
Until the end of the beta-phase in a couple of weeks our to-do-list consists of the following 3 tasks: 1. To split up DramaQueen BETA into 3 different release-versions. This will enable you to compare and choose between 3 versions before the actual purchase (there will be a switch-button in the free 30-day-test-version). 2. To design a roadmap of the upcoming features. 3. To finalise the technical requirements for purchase and subscription on our website.

It was planned for some time that I would contribute a post here from the development division, but then there was always the next important feature to implement.

I would like to tell a bit about what was an interesting challenge, the text rendering in DramaQueen. Text rendering? Everyone might imagine some different meaning. What I mean is: In the beginning there is a white area, DramaQueen wants to display certain glyphs, and some mysterious software module takes care of some pixels in that white area turning black, others staying white, and yet others turning out a shade of gray. From a distance this all becomes readable text.

But there are some important expectations on text rendering. Most software just uses a ready made module which is made available by the system itself (Mac OS, Windows, etc.). DramaQueen did just the same in the beginning. Later, though, we did run into trouble with that.

Screen plays follow a strict set of rules, so that they may be comparable against each other. Continue Reading →

Our international beta-launch now includes an English-language version! The software adapts to the computer’s system language. If your computer runs in English, DramaQueen will run in English as well. (The download contains the English and German DramaQueen translations, other languages are not yet available.)