FramePath 1.2 — Your whole project, in one file

There's a moment in nearly every small production involving more than one person when someone asks to see the whole plan. Not a summary of it: the plan itself. The shots, the order you've been thinking in, the frames you sketched over the location photos. And the honest answer, for most of us, is that you export a PDF, screenshot a frame or two, and apologise for everything the file can't carry. The plan was complete. The thing you sent wasn't. It has happened to me, so I built

FramePath 1.2 is the release where that starts to change. It's also the release where I started asking you, inside the app, what to build next.

One file, the whole project

Every project can now be exported as a single file. Choose Export on a project card, and FramePath writes one .framepath package holding the script, scenes, shots, characters and storyboard frames, and tells you what's in it before you send it: scenes, shots and size. Then it's just a file. AirDrop it to your iPad, mail it to your DP, drop it in Dropbox or Files. On the other end, open it and FramePath imports it as a new project; on a Mac, double-clicking it in Finder does the same.

I made this free for everyone, because moving your own work between your own devices, or handing it to a collaborator, shouldn't sit behind a subscription.

One honest limit for now: a package doesn't yet carry a project's logline, thumbnail or archive state (more on those below). The shots and the storyboard travel; the decoration doesn't.

A face for every project

Once you have more than a handful of projects, a list of names stops helping. So every project can now have a logline of up to 140 characters and a thumbnail, picked from one of your storyboard frames, from a photo, or from a file. The card turns into something you can recognise at a glance, and the four counts underneath (scenes, actions, dialogue, shots) still tell you how far along it is.

Finished projects can be archived, so they leave the main list without being deleted, and come back whenever you want them. The project list also finally has sorting (by date modified, by date created, or by name) and a search field, both remembered on each device. And the cloud icon no longer turns into an error just because a big project is still working its way up to iCloud; it tells you it's syncing, and for how long.

Long shot lists, within reach

Open a scene's shots and you can now show one scene at a time and clear the filter again when you want the whole list. You can select every shot at once, or select a range by tapping the first and the last; on a Mac, Command-A does it from the Shot List menu. Small as it is, it makes a long shot list far less fiddly to work through.

The smaller things

Fountain = synopsis lines now land in the scene description when you import a script. The scene browser scrolls to the scene you're on when you switch stages, and typing in a long scene is faster. On Mac, Shift-Command-S shows and hides the Script panel, and the main window finally has a sensible minimum size. The User Guide inside the app was refreshed to cover all of it.

I'd like to ask you something

Starting with 1.2, a short survey can appear on the project list a few days after you begin using the update. It's five questions and about two minutes. A few things I'd rather say plainly: your answers are posted as public issues in FramePath's open support repository, so please keep personal details out; an email address is optional and stays private; and you can dismiss the banner and nothing happens. I read every answer, and when the survey closes I'll publish a summary and tell you what I'm doing about it.

There's also a Rate FramePath row in the Help and Info sheet (in the Help menu on Mac), for when you feel like it. Not before.

What's next

Packages should carry a project's logline, thumbnail and archive state; that's the first thing I want to fix. Deleting your account from inside the app is on the list too. Beyond that, I'd rather let your answers decide.

If something in 1.2 is broken or missing, I'd genuinely like to hear it. The feedback form is in Help and Info on iPhone and iPad, and in the Help menu on Mac.

— Miikka