Hello, darlings,
I have to be honest - these 40 days were quite rough. But thanks to the support of my family and team, I'm here today and I'm excited to present to you the cloud service!
STARCloud
So, starting from Story Architect version 0.2.4 you have the ability to upload projects to the cloud service and work on them together with co-authors in real time!
What can the service do?
The service allows you to upload projects to the cloud and have access to them from all your devices right from the app’s home screen. It will display both local projects (stored directly on your computer) and all the cloud projects you have access to.
You can work with cloud projects either with an active Internet connection (in this case, all changes are immediately sent to the server and received by co-authors), or when the network is not available (in this case, all changes made offline are automatically sent to the server after the connection is restored).
5Gb of cloud storage is available for each account. Within this space, you can create an unlimited number of cloud projects and connect an unlimited number of co-authors to each of them.
How to use it?
To use the cloud service, you need to activate your TEAM subscription in your personal cabinet (you can open your personal cabinet using the topmost item on the side pull-down menu). There you can also activate it for a free trial period of 30 days, if you haven't done so before.
After you activate the TEAM subscription, you can create new stories in the cloud - the switch will appear in the Create New Story dialog box, where you can set the location of the new project.
To add a co-author to a project, you need to open the project co-authors management module, enter the email address of the author you want to send the invitation to, and set his/her role in the project. After you send the invitation, the co-author will receive an email notifying him/her of this action.
In the same module you can delete co-authors or change their role in the project using the context menu by right-clicking on the line with the desired account.
To delete a project from the cloud, you need to call the story context menu on the start screen and select the corresponding item in the menu that appears.
How much does it cost?
You can see the cost of the cloud service directly in the application interface by pressing the "Renew" button in your personal cabinet.
If you are a happy owner of the lifetime PRO version, you will have a permanent 20% discount on the TEAM subscription price.
Answering the popular question “Do all co-authors need a subscription?” - a subscription to the TEAM version is required if you want to host your project in the cloud yourself. If you work with someone else's project as a co-author, then you can use any version of the app to access it. The only caveat is that you will only be able to edit those modules of the project that are included in your current license.
Does it already work as stable as Google Docs?
Of course it does! After all, Google Docs hasn’t been edited at all after it was created in a month by one engineer :)
But seriously, you have to keep in mind that this is the very first version of the service and all sorts of problems may occur while using it. If you run into any problem, we will be happy to solve your case and fix it as soon as possible.
Some more news?
The cloud is certainly not the only thing that I’ve been working on during the last month. In addition, many things have also been improved, for instance:
- When changing one character's name to another, the app now merges characters instead of creating duplicate names (and locations, too);
- Loading of the last edited version of the document when switching between different history documents is improved;
- An ability to choose version on which basis to create a new version is added;
- Bit markers in the Storyboard Editor are now shown only if a color is specified for a bit;
- Tips in the script text blocks will now be displayed as soon as the cursor hits the corresponding block;
- User experience of working with the comic editor is improved;
- Dropdown tooltips for page and frame blocks are added;
- An ability to create frame sequences is added;
- Text input process in page and frame blocks is improved;
- Users' avatars are now displayed in all possible places in the app (if an avatar is set, of course), instead of the simple circles with the letters of the name;
- Color bar is slightly improved;
- Character picture generation is slightly improved;
- Automatic smart quotes are added;
- Extra blank spaces from the generator-made logline are deleted;
- An issue with the app launching on the systems which interface language is not among available translations of the application is fixed;
- An issue with the ability to pull out the red area from one of the application edges in different cases is fixed;
- A issue with the disappearance of the cursor in text editors is fixed;
- An issue with arranging project cards on the start page in some cases is fixed;
- Extra animation of project cards when working with the context menu is fixed;
- An issue with loading the structure of a document version when opening a history is fixed;
- An issue with different appearance of the script text on different systems is fixed;
- An issue with text displacement when exporting a DOCX-file is fixed; now the text of the script and the contents of the exported file should be 99.9% identical;
- An issue with exporting word wraps that don't break a paragraph is fixed;
- An issue with mashing character relations by other characters' data is fixed;
- An issue with the position of the poster generator toolbar, the character relationship editor, and the location map is fixed;
- An issue with saving custom formatting (typeface and font size) for the title page is fixed;
- An issue with deleting scene numbers when importing a script during the creation of a new story is fixed;
- A crash while undoing the last action in the story editor when the first bit header became the scene header is fixed;
- An issue with spontaneous appearance of empty lines when cancelling the last action in the Story Editor is fixed;
- Various problems with importing and exporting fountain files are fixed;
- An application freeze when selecting text within a split page (in double dialogues, or in the dialogues of comics, audio plays and stage plays);
- An issue with downloading updates in Linux distributions is fixed;
- A problem with generating log file paths in WIndows is fixed;
- The color of the window title in Windows now matches the theme of the application;
- MacOS package size is significantly reduced.
Oh yeah, it wasn't easy... but it was worth it!
The next release will include fixes for all the bugs found on the cloud service, as well as one new module. And it will be nothing less than a corkboard with cards!
Download the new version, share your projects with co-authors and send us your feedback and warm smiles :)
See you soon, friends!