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Three Little Buttons. Three Big Improvements.
For give us Creators, it’s been five months since our last release…
What took you so long, you ask?
Well, for one thing, we decided to transform Celtx in to what we always hoped Celtx would become - a new platform for the Pre-Production of Media.
This is a major release for us, and while the interface may look only slightly different it masks what can only be described as an entire overhaul in the way Celtx works – from the bottom up. A completely new data model.
This means that existing users will need to convert any existing projects over to the 097 format – which is done automatically for them once they tell Celtx where to find the 095 Project. There are detailed directions at the bottom of this post. You can also access our new video tutorials to see how this is done.
So, without further delay, here’s why it was worth the wait…
Improvement #1
Multi-Document Capability - The Digital Three Ring Binder
Existing users will immediately notice the changes that we’ve made to the Celtx Splash page (the one you see right after Celtx is launched…(more on that below). However, on first glance, many of you may miss the three small buttons we added to the top of the Document Navigator.
What do these magical buttons do?
For starters, they allow you to add any kind of document from any application to your Celtx Project folder – PDFs, Spreadsheets, Storyboards, even Scripts written in other applications. Each document will open in its requisite application where it can be modified and then saved back to the Celtx folder. That way you’ll always know that you have the latest version of a particular file in your Celtx Project making it easier to Collaborate with team members.
You can also use this feature to add multiple scripts to your Project, or to split a long script in to several shorter scripts to better facilitate co-writing.
In fact, these three small buttons allow you to add an unlimited number of versions of any document to your Celtx project, including the pre-loaded Celtx forms (Scene Details, Characters, Actor Profiles, Locations, Props and Wardrobe).
You can also create folders that can be used to organize your documents.
In other words, these three buttons allow you to gather together – IN ONE PLACE – all of your project related material. Think of it as your digital three ring binder.
Oh, and we’ve enabled drag and drop for all of this too.
And allow you to rename any file or folder that you create (Windoze users will access a standard right click contextual dialogue, Mac users can ctrl+click).
Improvement #2
New Writing Tools!
We’ve added a new Plain text mode so you can use Celtx for writing pretty well any kind of document you want to write – Outlines, Treatments, Poems, Song Lyrics, Short Stories, or for the truly brave - a Complete Novel.
The Plain Text document supports nested bullets so it can be used to make Outlines. We’ll be advancing the capabilities of the Outline tool in subsequent releases.
Streamlined Editor!
We’ve also made over 30 changes to streamline the Script Editor, making it easier for you to write that award winning story. Improvements include a more fluid Tab and Return system, better Printing support, Pagination, Page numbers, Inline spelling…
In summary, the Celtx script editor now includes:
• Inline Spell Checking
• Context Menu while in Editor
• Enhanced keyboard functionality
o On Tab, the following transitions take place:
Scene heading -> Action
Action -> Character
Dialog -> Parenthetical
[any other] -> Action
o On Enter on a non-blank line, the following transitions take place:
Text -> Text
Character -> Dialog
Parenthetical -> Dialog
Dialog -> Character
[any other] -> Action
o On enter on a blank line, the following take place:
Text -> Text
Parenthetical -> Dialog
Action -> Sceneheading
[any other] -> Action
o TAB key functionality
move backwards via SHIFT + TAB
Shot and Trans removed from sequence
• Auto-complete - the first item is selected by default
• Raise text to uppercase
• Drop text to lowercase
• Save cursor location
o On save of project save location of script cursor
o On open of project place cursor in last saved position
• Pagination (page breaks, page numbering)
• Scene Navigator - drag and drop of scenes
• Show /Print Scene #s
o will support options (LEFT, RIGHT, BOTH, NONE) for:
- Script editor (visible when writing the script)
- Local print output
- PDF print output
• Enhanced PDF options
o page # and scene #
o dialog breaks (Mores and Cont'd)
o scene breaks (continued)
Improvement #3
New Forms and Media – Everybody in the Pool!
We got a lot of good feedback from users when we introduced the Scene Details and Character Forms so we thought we’d take it a step further and add new forms for some other members of the crew.
The new Forms Include:
• Locations
• Actor Profiles
• Wardrobe
• Props
• Scene Details (Revised)
• Character Details (Revised)
We’ve also added some new functionality to the Scene Details and Character Forms. The forms have ‘Pick Lists” that can be used to quickly associate a form with a relevant Scene or Character element from the script.
These new forms can be intelligently tied to the script, allowing you to associate locations or props or wardrobe items to specific characters or scenes.
So for instance, the Scene Details pick list would appear like this:
Note though that we haven’t hardwired the forms so you can use them whether you have a script or not.
More!
OK, so that’s the three big changes we’ve made. But there’s a host of other changes that we can brag about – like better Reports and the introduction of the open standard *.celtx file format.
Reports
We’ve added a raft of new Reports.
Driven by the script, Reports can be generated on the fly to slice and dice through the information in your Celtx Project.
You can now use the Reports function to isolate any element of a script. For instance, view only dialogue by a single Character or multiple Characters, or isolate the Action sequences, or look only at Shot directions. You decide what’s in your Report.
You can also now use Reports to view all the Script Notes in one place.
Splash Page
We redesigned the Celtx Splash page to make it easier to access commonly used features.
A new Tab system provides one click access to “Recent Forum Discussions”, “Recent Projects Posted to Project Central” and “Help”.
The Opening Tab provides direct access for Starting a New Project, Opening an Existing Project, or the four most recently accessed Projects.
Schedules
We’ve switched to Lightening for our Calendar. The Lightening project uses the same code base as Sunbird, which was the previous calendar so your dates should transfer over nicely.
You can now keep multiple schedules in a Celtx Project, each of which will now be included in the Collaboration sync, allowing you to share calendars with team members.
License Change
We took this opportunity to clean-up the Celtx Public License, so you may notice that it is now at version 1.2
The terms are the same. Just some house cleaning.
Default Browser
Clicking on any URL link will now launch your default web browser.
So, if you use Firefox, the link will open in Firefox. If you use IE, it will…(hopefully
open in IE.
Menu Changes
We’ve made quite a few changes to the Celtx menus, which hopefully are self-explanatory and improve matters.
One change is the addition of a ‘Script’ menu that is used to access anything to do with the script – PDF printing, importing and exporting, reports generation etc.
We’ve also added a ‘Project Settings’ dialogue under ‘File’ that can be used to change the name of your Project (just the name of the Project not the Folder it is located in).
You can also use the Project Settings dialogue to look at the Server Status of your project.
*.celtx file format
Celtx projects are stored in a Folder that Celtx creates when the Project is created. Initially the Celtx Project Folder will have the same name as the one you gave your Project at the start.
Each 097 Project has a *.celtx file located in the Project folder. Double click on the *.celtx file and the relevant project will launch Celtx and open.
NOTE - 095 Project Conversions
The *.celtx file format is new to 097.
Projects created in 095 use a more arcane *.rdf file format – which although is also open standard is not peculiar to Celtx – meaning that there was no way to open a Celtx Project except by accessing it through the Celtx application. This was a bit awkward, so we decide to move towards a file system that was closer to the norm – which is what *.celtx achieves.
So, the thing is, 097 Projects use a different data model then 095 Projects. Therefore, Projects created in 095 need to be converted in to the 097 data model. This is done automatically by opening a 095 Project in the new version of Celtx.
Follow these steps to Convert your 095 Projects:
1. Open Celtx
2. Select ‘Open Existing Project’
3. You’ll get an ‘Open file’ dialogue
4. Change the file filter located at the bottom of the dialogue from “Celtx 0.9.7 Projects” to “Celtx 0.9.5 Projects”
5. Use the Open file dialogue to locate your 095 Project Folder.
6. Click in to the 095 Project
7. You should see a “project.rdf” file. Highlite it and select ‘Open’.
8. Your 095 Project will be automatically converted to the new data model and open in Celtx
[NB. Celtx will automatically make a back-up of your 095 Project during the conversion in case you’re not happy with the result and want to revert to 095.]
If you not sure about all of this, or have some questions, try out our new video tutorials to get a first hand demonstration of this and many of the other features of the application.
Video Tutorials
In direct response to user feedback we completely redid the video walk-thrus – adding sound (voice!) and expanding each so that they address features in sets. We hope this more conceptual approach makes them easier to watch.
Wiki
We have also re-written the Wiki Tutorial. It mow reflects the 097 Features. The Wiki has no equal for providing the nitty gritty details on how to use Celtx
So, that’s about it for the major changes. There’s a pile of minor changes that I haven’t listed here – some of which you’ll notice and some of which will be invisible to you.
We hope you like the effort!