DramaQueen 2.0 – Update-Report

This update contains the NOVEL extension as well as numerous improvements:

NEW FEATURES

• DramaQueen distinguishes between novel and movie documents. For new documents, the desired type is selected on the start panel. Existing documents can be converted from the File menu.
• In novel documents, DramaQueen does not offer script-specific features and usability. The layout templates and available text elements differ. The vocabulary of concepts is adapted. The text-levels are called synopsis, concept and novel. The elements are named part and chapter instead of step and scene.
• The Smart Import is available for all text-levels. The separation into steps and scenes – respectively parts and chapters – happens by detecting headings or empty lines. When no structure formatting is detected, element separation happens between each paragraph.
• EPUB is now available as export format. Options exist for the EPUB export to include a title image and generate a table of contents.
• There is a new page ‘Document’ available in the Document settings. The option ‘Language of texts’ has been moved there. The symbols used for replacing quotes while typing can be defined as well as any number of contributors with their respective roles and any number of additional titles with their respective type. This information is used when generating the title page and specifically when exporting to EPUB.
• In movie as well as in novel documents, paragraphs may be formatted as headings.
• The display of Outlines may be configured in the gear-menu. The options include: Prefer manual outlines, Only manual outlines, Only automatic outlines, and Headings only.

IMPROVEMENTS

• The synopsis now consists of parts, the treatment and novel consist of chapters. In the novel text-level, each chapter may contain subchapters. These will be shown as their own hierarchy level in the Outline panel. This means, a chapter may be expanded to show the contained subchapters. The Outline is more tidy, since less elements share the same hierarchy level. These changes apply also to the script in movie documents. The
  numbering is adopted to the new hierarchy.
• The texts may be reduced to the active part or active chapter. This option is located in the gear-menu of the Texts panel. Exporting and printing adhere to the activated focus on a specific part or chapter.
• In the script DramaQueen now offers the text element “Shot”.
• The text element shortcuts for the script text-level now follow the standard established in many other script writing software.
• In the document and program settings dialog there are now several auto correction settings.
• The gear-menu of the Texts panel has been cleaned up and the toolbar has been reworked. The selection of paragraph styles in movie as well as novel documents and in all text-levels equally happens via a new drop-down. It only shows those text elements that are available at the current caret position. For the script, there is the option in the gear menu to switch back to displaying the text element selection as individual icons in the toolbar.
• The Texts panel has now two arrow buttons to navigate between chapters respectively scenes. This also allows to reach another chapter, when the text is currently reduced to show only the current one and no Outline panel is open.
• The layout template for new documents no longer specifies a spacing between paragraphs or headings.
• In the gear-menu of the Outline panel there are now functions to remove the outline texts of all steps/parts respectively all scenes/chapters.
• Steps or chapters may be displayed as additional structure elements independently from any chosen structure model. This is achieved with the check-mark in the gear-menu of the Outline panel -> Structure -> Steps resp. Chapters.
• The automatic outlines of scenes now depend on the text level which is being displayed in the Texts panel. When the treatment and script (resp. concept and novel in the new novel documents) are both activated, the automatic outlines have been generated from the treatment (concept) only until now. To improve the overview in the Outline, they will now switch with the currently displayed text.
• If the automatic backing up of open documents does not work properly for whatever reason, there is now a warning, together with the option to send a program-log.
• In the script the paragraph style of scene headings can be changed (which will delete the scene and merge its text with the preceding scene). Analogous to that, any paragraph may be switched to a scene heading, which will create a new scene accordingly. This option is only available if the text element selection is displayed as drop-down.
• We have improved the behavior which paragraph style is applied where when deleting ranges of text or inserting text.
• The integrated Help panel has been reworked and updated for novel documents.

BUG FIXES

• When working with scripts, the smart-type popup for character names was no longer shown instantly when switching to Speaking character via Command-2 or the TAB key.
• When copying a text range, there could be a crash when the selection started within a scene heading and the scene was other empty or almost empty.
• A number of smaller memory leaks have been fixed which could lead to crashes after an extended and intensive period of writing.
• A crash without crash dialog (immediate program termination) due to a bug related to the management of used fonts has been fixed. The crash occurred mainly when resizing a Texts panel or when switching between document windows.
• A rare crash has been fixed that could happen when editing an outline and using Undo.
• When exporting/printing the characters the alias names were missing.
• In the Texts panel and when exporting texts several rendering issues could be observed with respect to numbered or bulleted lists. Sometimes the numbers or bullets were missing, would be rendered with the wrong font, or the numbers would not be updated correctly when editing the list.
• Shortly after inserting a scene or step in the Outline panel the input prompt would be deactivated again.
• In the Texts panel setting the text style at the beginning of a numbered element didn’t work at all or the style wouldn’t be applied to the first character.
• The Final Draft import ignored paragraphs with an unknown style.
• New paragraphs entered in the synopsis or treatment could have the wrong indentation.
• Page headers and footers did not work since DramaQueen 1.8 when the layout template referenced another template (e.g. “like General”).
• Text formats that can’t represent a text with annotations won’t be offered in this case anymore.
• In many instances, the text caret was not placed after inserted text, when the fragment inserted a new element (a new scene for instance).
• “Find next” didn’t control the selection correctly. Inserting text didn’t insert at the correct place for instance.
• Repeatedly pressing ENTER shall alternate between opening the formatting popup and inserting an empty line. This only worked in the script.
• In certain situations several locations or characters were automatically created where only the capitalization of the name was different.
• The scene heading detection handles the situation better, when there are two locations where the name of first is exactly the beginning of the name of the second.
• The shortcuts given behind the entries in the formatting pop-up work again.
• The separation between two steps or scenes can be dissolved again with the BACKSPACE key when the caret is placed at the beginning of the second element.
• Several problems are fixed with a scaled UI (e.g. 4K screens under Windows. Especially the start panel was not really functional and scrolling in the text could feel too slow.
• Fixes a crash during Undo where a new scene had been inserted before a split scene in the script.
• Fixes a problem where applying a paragraph style at the end of an element would set the style also on the first paragraph of the next element.
• The storyline column in the Outline panel is automatically shown also when a new storyline is created via context menu and directly assigned.
• In the Texts panel previously unsupported symbols (like Emojis) are now handled and, if supported by the chosen font, displayed correctly.