Version .92 Update, 23-Aug-2009

Kind of embarrassed about this, but this is a notice for releases v0.89 through v0.92. Yeah, I know, I've been remiss. Between dealing with the fantastic response we had to the SIGGRAPH promotion, and all the work the team has been doing on new features, I just haven't been putting enough time into communications.

But that is about to change... Starting next week I'll be putting most of my energy into explaining how ShotRunner works, with tutorials, updated web pages, and examples. In the meantime, if you have any questions, be sure to post them at http://support.shotrunner.com.

Two quick administrative notes before we get into the new features:

• Subscription prices are currently heavily discounted due to our Beta status, but will be going up significantly when we hit 1.0. If you lock in a subscription now, you get to keep the beta pricing for life. Something to consider.

• Survey Results from last month indicate that the majority want news and updates to continue to come via email. Twitter and the Blog posts were mentioned by a few, and hardly anyone wanted to hear yours truly in a Podcast. Also, in terms of learning about ShotRunner, the vast majority wanted short video tutorials. Message recieved.

OK, on to the new features -- here's what been released since July 8th:

• Fulltext Search -- You can now search by text across all sequences, shots, elements, assets, tasks, and notes. The index is updated every few minutes, and you can search within a project, or cross-projects. There is even an option for "extended query syntax", which means that you can do complex searches like:

Looking for one word OR another:

hello | world

Looking for one work and NOT another:

hello -world
hello !world

Looking for a specific phrase:

"hello world"

And much, much more. Hope you enjoy this feature, it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to do within the context of a production tracking app.

• API Improvements -- More work has been done on the Python API: All dates are now returned as UTC, better error messages, more objects available and more samples. We have a sample for exporting tasks to a CSV file that Microsoft Project can import, and we also have a sample for mass importing sequences and shots. Oh and the 'find project by ID' function has been fixed.

• Project Pages -- There is a new 'Pages' tab that lets you create project-level documents that include text, images and dividers. If you have ever used BackPack, this is very similar, but with some important enhancements. Firstly, instead of just image thumbnails, you can place images in three sizes to the left of text or to the right. Second, full textile formatting is supported and there is a helpful toolbar to help format your text. Third, pages are organized by category, so you can have pages for reference, procedures, storyboards, rosters, schedules, etc. Fourth, we maintain all the revisions to each page, so that you can go back and review past versions to see how the document has changed over time. I've already used this to create some great looking pages, and I think you will really find this useful.

• Project and Global Forums -- New on the Project Overview page is the ability to add Project notes. So now you can have discussions at the project level. Also new is a Forum tab, which is still beta, but provides forums and posts across projects.

• Image fixes -- We discovered a problem with TIFF images in that they were not always viewable in the browser -- so now all TIFFs are thumbnailed as JPEGs.

• Other small changes and fixes include: SSL enabled on login page. SSL enabled across project on higher plans. We have completed an internal security audit and are strengthening security in a couple of areas. 'New Shot' link on the Shot Detail Page makes it easier to enter multiple shots. We fixed the shot index grouping / ordering. And, dozens of other bugs fixes.

As always, if you have a question or there is anything I can do to help you get organized and collaborate, just ask!.

Thanks,
Cameron