John August

Apps

Making the App Store better

Apps, Bronson, FDX Reader, Highland, Weekend Read

Roughly this time last year, I wrote about how the App Store encourages [topping the charts and racing to the bottom](http://johnaugust.com/2013/topping-the-charts-and-racing-to-the-bottom), and how that hurts both developers and users.

David Smith has compiled a list of recommendations for [making the App Store experience better](http://david-smith.org/blog/2014/04/16/towards-a-better-app-store/). I especially agree with several of his suggestions:

> 1: Apps should be required to pass approval on an ongoing basis.

I’d go further and say that if an app has had no activity for a set number of months, it automatically gets de-listed. I suspect more than half of the apps in the store are effectively zombies, abandoned by their creators. These apps’ only function is to clutter up search results.

> 6: Make the process of applying for a refund clear and straightforward.

> Right now you go to reportaproblem.apple.com and then fill in a form. I’d love to see this integrated into the App Store app itself. Perhaps even into the Purchased Apps area.

Roughly 10% of our support emails are from people who really should just get a refund because they bought an app without really understanding what it did. We have a boilerplate email that walks them through the process of applying for a refund, but there’s no reason it needs to be so complicated.

I think prices for some apps could easily and appropriately rise if customers understood they could get their money back if unsatisfied.

> 11: Make the rating scale a rolling, weighted average rather than just current version, at least soon after updates.

We update our apps very frequently, sometimes twice a month. Each time we do, our ratings drop back to zero, effectively punishing us for improving the app.

A rolling, weighted average would better reflect not only how satisfied users are with the current version, but with the product overall.

In the iOS App Store, our products are [Weekend Read](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8) and [FDX Reader](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fdx-reader/id437362569?mt=8). FDX Reader is old — it hasn’t been updated in a year — but we’re keeping it around until the iPad version of Weekend Read.

By my criteria, should FDX Reader be dropped from the store? I don’t know. It still sells, and we haven’t gotten a support email for it in months, so users are apparently satisfied with it. But if we got a warning email from Apple saying it needed to be updated or face de-listing, we’d pay attention. More than anything, that’s what a regular review process would achieve: making developers take another look at their old apps.

For iOS, we also have the [Scriptnotes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scriptnotes/id739117984?mt=8) app, but it’s made by [Wizzard Media](https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/wizzard-media/id318848960?mt=8). We release it under the Quote-Unquote label only so we can track downloads.

In the Mac App Store, our products are [Highland](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12) and [Bronson Watermarker](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bronson-watermarker/id481867513?mt=12). If you look at the current Bronson reviews, there’s a one-star review from a customer who couldn’t figure out the app. He didn’t write us for support; he didn’t check any online documentation. He’s exactly the kind of user who should have been able to click a button and get a refund.

I hope at this year’s WWDC, we’ll see Apple taking some of Smith’s suggestions to make the App Store experience better.

Weekend Read knows what page you’re on

Apps, Weekend Read

screenshotJust in time for the weekend, we have an update for Weekend Read. It’s [free in the App Store](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read/id502725173?mt=8).

Version 1.0.4 adds a page count in the footer of the reader view, so you’ll always know where you are in the script. Both Rian Johnson and Aline Brosh McKenna asked for this, and I do as I’m told.

Actually, the page counter is really helpful. I don’t know why we didn’t do it in the first place. Obvious in hindsight, and so forth.

Weekend Read 1.0.4 also improves parsing of some FDX and PDF scripts. If you have a file that didn’t work right in an earlier version, delete it and reload it. There’s a good chance it’ll work. ((To keep things snappy, Weekend Read does the bulk of its processing magic as it’s first importing the script. When we change out the parsing engine, it doesn’t retroactively go back and try to reinterpret file already in your library.))

Finally, Weekend Read now properly hides Fountain notes [[in brackets like this]].

We have a lot more in the works for Weekend Read, but we didn’t want to hold back these small-but-useful improvements.

logoIf you’re looking for something great to read this weekend, we have six episodes of Party Down available as our Featured Show, along with an introduction by showrunner John Enbom. Trivia: The Valhalla catering company, introduced in the gay wedding episode at the end of season one, was inspired by the ridiculously good-looking cater-waiters at my wedding.

Highland 1.7: faster, leaner, smarter

Apps, Fountain, Highland

highland iconHighland, our [award-winning screenwriting app](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/) for the Mac, has a major update available in the [Mac App Store](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12).

While Highland looks largely the same on the surface, we’ve rebuilt quite a bit under the hood and added features for screenwriters who want to use Highland for all their daily writing.

Highland 1.7 — already updated to 1.7.1 — offers:

**Better pagination, particularly with dialogue.** Unlike a certain company, we don’t regard our pagination as the One True Way. But our pagination is now pretty damn great. I turned in a script last week written entirely in Highland. Without any tweaking, the pages flowed exactly how I wanted. No split sentences, no orphaned transitions.

**Markers to help you find your way in long documents.** I’ll often find myself scrolling back to look at something earlier in the script, then losing my place. So now I hit Control-M to leave a marker [[%]]. You can hop between markers with Control-Option-M. (If you’re used to markers from timeline-based apps for music or video, you’ll probably find this particularly natural.)

**Improved stability and file-handling.** Highland is much smarter (and less aggressive) about auto-saves, which were a leading cause of crashes. The version in the Mac App Store today (1.7.1) addresses launch issues some users were having with our revised code base.

**Search via integrated Find bar.** Faster, and one less window to close. If you have’t tried Find Again (⌘G), give it a shot. It’s always ready to search for the last thing you looked for.

**Better syntax highlighting.** By making it really clear what prints and what doesn’t, you can focus on your words, not the syntax.

**Much faster PDF parsing.** Highland 1.7 is better at both melting and building PDFs.

We [update Highland frequently](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/changelog), but 1.7 is a significant upgrade in actual functionality.

When people used to ask if someone could write a script in Highland, my answer was generally, “Well, you *could.* But that not really what it’s for.”

Now it is. Highland 1.7 is the first version I’ve used to write an entire script from outline to delivered draft, and I loved it. Highland is fast and lean and distraction-free.

So if you haven’t checked it out lately — or only use it as a converter — give it another look as a daily writing app.

Fountain for coders, or the joy of writing

Apps, Fountain, Geek Alert, Highland

Charles Forman, whose company OMGPOP developed Draw Something, is [writing a screenplay in Fountain](http://setpixel.com/writing/writing-a-screenplay-in-fountain/):

> I don’t work at a bank. However, I’m sure that on the first day of orientation, they teach you how to use an application written in 1999 in Visual Basic. It hasn’t been updated since 2001, it doesn’t work very well, everyone hates it, but it’s the way it is, and if you trick it, you might be able to do what you want, or wait until it’s 5 PM. It’s probably exactly what it’s like to use Final Draft.

> The joy of writing shouldn’t feel like working at a bank.

Forman offers a detailed look at writing in Fountain from the perspective of someone who’s written a lot of code. For his screenplay, he used both [Slugline](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slugline/id553754186?mt=12) and [Highland](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highland/id499329572?mt=12), but also built his own tools based on the libraries available on GitHub.

>”How many scenes do I have?” It’s a pretty simple question. Normally, in order to do this, you have to go through the whole script and count the sluglines. I used Javascript to parse my Fountain script. I looped through the sluglines and counted them. Then I was curious about the unique locations. How many times did person A talk vs. person B? I generated some basic stats and spit it out in the console by creating a tool in 20 minutes.

He also built a tool that [generates a word cloud](http://playground.setpixel.com/wordcloud/) based on a screenplay.

Here’s Big Fish:

big-fish-wordcloud

Forman listens to the podcast, so he’s heard us discussing the possibilities of a new screenplay format. He argues that we already have it in Fountain.

> Because Fountain is pretty flexible, you could add metadata for anything you might want to extend the screenplay with. In my case, I have included storyboards. You could add metadata for the song that is playing. You could add metadata about which characters are in the scene, if its not totally clear. You could add metadata about what the purpose of a scene is. You could add anything. If I could make a small ask to the Fountain team, I would love a specific way to insert metadata. I am using notes. I’m thinking about putting curly bracket objects inside of notes going forward.

This kind of thinking is why I’m so bullish Fountain: not just what it can do today, but what it can be repurposed for in the future.