Update Notes for Dramatica Story Expert 5.3

RELEASE NOTES FOR DRAMATICA STORY EXPERT 5.3

1. All-New Activation System
2. Changes in 5.3 / 5.2 / 5.1
3. Compare Documents Command
4. Newer File Format
5. Known Defects
6. Reporting Issues

CLICK HERE FOR DIRECTIONS ON UPDATING FROM DRAMATICA STORY EXPERT v5.0 TO v5.3

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD v5.3 UPDATE (requires new serial number beginning with DRAM- available at Screenplay.com for free to those with Dramatica Story Expert 5.0 -- see link above)

1. ALL-NEW LICENSE MANAGEMENT / ACTIVATION SYSTEM:

MacOS High Sierra required new license management. There is now an "Activate & Register Dramatica Story Expert" application, but in practice you don't need to run it: when you run an unactivated copy of Dramatica Story Expert, the Activate & Register Dramatica Story Expert app will run automatically, and you will be prompted to enter your serial number and create a registration, complete with a password.

Subsequent installs require you to provide the same email address and password. However, this information is only requested during the install process.

The serial number looks different: version of Dramatica Story Expert prior to 5.3 had serial numbers that began with "DRSE0500". Version 5.3 moving forward has serial numbers that begin with "DRAM".

There is no more "manual activation" -- you MUST have an internet connection to activate the software. After activation, internet connection is not required, however without an internet connection you won't be notified of free updates.

There is no "Trial period" -- in order to use the software you must activate and register over the internet.

Install count is still 3: You can't lose them and you can always move them. This new system we've developed and tested is very reliable. Multiple installs are for your personal use, so you can install the software on three of your machines (e.g. a laptop, and a desktop, for example). At any time you wish to "move" an install from one machine to another, you simply install on the new machine. If you have already used your three installs, you will be asked which of your older activations should be automatically deauthorized. You do not need to uninstall from the old machine before installing on a new machine.
Once activated, the Activate & Register Dramatica Story Expert app allows you to view your activations and registration information. Run the app, or from Dramatica Story Expert's Help menu, select "Activations and Registration...":

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Just enter the email you used when you activated the serial number, and the password (or press the "Forgot your password?" button):

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…you get this nice, detailed window that lets you edit your registration details, change your account email, request a password change email, and deactivate any of your activations for any of the serial numbers associated with your account:
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2. CHANGES IN 5.3 / 5.2 / 5.1:

NOTE: version 5.3 was a rebuild to support installation on High Sierra 10.13. This version supports installation on MacOS 10.10 Yosemite through 10.13 High Sierra.

Version 5.3 introduces a powerful new feature: the ability to compare the storyforms of multiple documents -- dozens, if you wish. (see documentation, below, on compare documents window).

- Corrected issue where Dramatica Help wouldn't open, or would confuse Safari / Chrome.

- Dictionary Window completely rewritten. Now text looks great, and topics can be search!

- New Story Example: "Lord of the Flies" (thanks, Mike Wollaeger!)

- Corrected #0000500: There is a text entry field under "Create a Character" instead of an informational field.

- CORRECTED: #0000299: Create characters link (in kDQSSG3OSChar)

- Installer updated to fix problem with copy operation wiping out user's myGist.gst file.

- CORRECTED 0000487: Typo > Story Guide

- CORRECTED 0000497: Typo > Gist for Issue of Permission (which also has a correction for the context example for Concern of The Future).

- Removed some quotes from Instant Dramatica throughline titles in "Star Wars.dr5" example file.

- CORRECTED instances where / had been converted to ∞2 in the example files.

- Fixed a potential crash when scrolling in the Font Preferences pane.

- plus many, many minor corrections in example files and reports.


3. COMPARE DOCUMENTS COMMAND

The FILE > Compare Documents command brings up a window that lets you select what documents you wish to compare, using the Add popup menu (see below). Each document you select displays in a column and shows the rows that are similar, different, or both similar / different to the FIRST COLUMN:

Clicking on the document title at the top of the column moves that document into the FIRST column, and all the other documents are compared in relation to that document.

The percentage beneath to document title tells you how similar a specific document's storyform is to the document in the first column (the first column always displays 100%).

The percentage next to a row title, which is the Dramatica stoiypoint, shows how much similarity there is amongst all documents for that storypoint.


Add Popup Menu:

Selects Dramatica documents, or Compares all the documents you presently have open:

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Remove Popup Menu:

Similarly, you can remove a document from the comparison by clicking on the name of the document at the top of the column, and selecting:

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Differences / Similarities Option:

Sometimes you want to see only those storypoints that are the same amongst all the compared documents; other times it's better to see the differences. These first two options are most useful when comparing two documents:

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If you request differences, and all the documents are the same for a specific storypoint (row), then that row is hidden -- thus showing you only documents that have differences.

If you have more than two documents, and the comparison results are mixed, you will see differences in red and similarities in green. If you select Both you will always see every storypoint, no matter how similar or different the documents are on that row.


User Choice vs Implied Choice:

The user choice reflects explicit choices the user made when creating the storyform. The implied choice is the choice Dramatica inferred. Implied choices are shown in italics.

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Usually, selecting both will be what most users should start with.

Comparison Preferences:

The comparison preferences pop-up menu allows you to select what type of storypoints you wish to see in the comparison:

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Hide Non-Matching Rows allows you to control if a row should be hidden if it does't match the Differences / Similarities option. For example, if all the documents you are comparing have a storypoint Growth of "Change", then enabling the Hide option will hide that entire row. This allows you to best focus on the differences or similarities.

Auto-Size Columns allows you to take up the least amount of horizontal space, by reducing the column size to the minimal width needed. Turning off this option lets you resize each column to whatever width you desire.

Sort by Most Similarities always puts the most similar documents in a left-to-right order. Turning off this preference leaves documents in whatever column they opened in.

StoryPoints / Storyform Similarity %:

Shows / hides the percentages at the left of each row and the top of each column.


4. NEWER FILE FORMAT

IMPORTANT: Dramatica Story Expert 5.0 saves its files in a newer file format, identified by the .dr5 file extension. Presently, you can OPEN pre-5.0 files, but you cannot export back to Dramatica 4.1. (we expect to provide an export back to Dramatica Pro 4.1 .dsf file format in the near future).

When saving older Dramatica documents, you will be prompted to save as a new document -- so you will always be left with a copy of your original (pre-5.0) document.


5. KNOWN DEFECTS:

- Occasionally scrollbars may not scroll a long text field all the way up or down, by about a half line. If this happens, slightly resizing the window or clicking and dragging in the text field will adjust the view.

- SPELL CHECKING: highlighting of misspelled words can disappear.


6. REPORTING ISSUES

Please contact our Technical Support department by going to:

https://techsupport.screenplay.com

Please use the request technical support form on our support site. DO NOT send email directly us.

However, theory support can still be obtained by sending email to: Dramatica@screenplay.com

TAG: Download Dramatica Story Expert 5.3