What's new in Shaxpir 4.4.0
Mar 28, 2018
- New Sentiment Analysis features:
- For the first time, this release gives every author the ability to see the Emotional Story Arc of their entire novel, based on a sophisticated sentiment analysis of the positive and negative words in their text.
- By analyzing the balance between positive words (like “home” and “trust”) and negative words (like “disaster” and “fighting”), we can actually show an author the changing emotional intensity of their story arc.
- With tools like this, an author can more mindfully craft the language of their prose to match the intended arc of the characters’ journey.
- We first introduced this chart our on our companion website, ProseCraft.io, where authors can perform linguistic analysis on an enormous library of popular novels, written by thousands of different authors, and compare their writing style with the authors they most admire.
- With the release of Shaxpir 4.4, we’ve incorporated this analysis method into an actual word-processor for professional authors… the first writing platform ever to offer this kind of sophisticated linguistic analysis of fiction. It’s all based on cutting-edge research pioneered by the geniuses at the UVM Computational Story Lab , and now it’s available to any author in the world.
- Fixed a bunch of bugs and annoyances:
- Adding margin comments caused the editor to scroll back to the top.
- The Add Avatar button sometimes had no effect.
- It was impossible to Delete an Avatar, once created!
- Sometimes, when resizing an image thumbnail, the cropping handles failed to appear.
- Automatic insertion of section breaks (after typing “***”) sometimes had unpredictable effects after UNDO.
- The SpellCheck dictionary was missing some very basic words (such as: and, the, of, etc.)
- Other minor layout glitches and bugs.
New in Shaxpir 4.3 (Jan 9, 2018)
- New features and enhancements:
- Based on our analysis of more than three thousand novels in the prosecraft.io database, we added more than 20,000 new words to the bundled SpellCheck dictionary. This makes Shaxpir the only writing platform in the world with a SpellCheck dictionary based on a real-world corpus of prose from a huge library of contemporary fiction, in all genres.
- You can now create folders to organize the books you’ve written, using drag-and-drop to rearrange them into groups, the same way you’ve always been able to organize your manuscript and notebook. (However, if you click a book title, without dragging, the behavior is exactly as before: the navigation panel slides over, revealing the contents of your book.)
- You can now choose an alternate text size (tiny, small, medium, large, and huge), just like setting your theme or typeface. So if you’ve been squinting at tiny text on a huge monitor, this should be a big help.
- We completely redesigned the Shelley theme to give it better contrast and make it more legible. If you’ve never tried it (or if you tried it but didn’t like it), take another look. It’s available to all Shaxpir 4: Pro subscribers
- This release also includes lots of small cosmetic tweaks, as well as fixes for some of the bugs reported by the community:
- Using cut-and-paste was causing the TAB character to be erroneously inserted into the text.
- Some margin comments were not saved after modification.
- Paragraphs with center or right alignment had incorrect indentation.
- Adding an IDEA into one of your existing books was causing the app to freeze.
- The linguistics panel failed to appear, for all books using FOLDERs to organize their manuscripts.
New in Shaxpir 4.1.0 (Jul 14, 2017)
- Enhancements in this version:
- Custom Typefaces: Users with Shaxpir 4: Pro subscriptions can now choose from among nine different custom typefaces to use for their writing, separately from choosing their own custom themes. Previously, each typeface was only available within a specific theme, but now the themes and typefaces can be selected independently of each other.
- Improved Sync-Status: The sync-status toolbar button now shows pending picture uploads and download counts, alongside the time elapsed since last sync.
- Toolbar Buttons for SpellCheck & Sentiment Analysis: SpellCheck and Sentiment Analysis have been part of Shaxpir since version 3.0, but now those features are easier to find and activate, with their own toolbar buttons.
- Picture Download Spinners: While waiting for pictures to download, Shaxpir now shows a spinner, instead of displaying a broken-link icon. Each picture automatically appears when its download completes.
- Bugs fixed in this version:
- Fixed Bogus Insecurity Warning: Shaxpir always uses strong SSL encryption to communicate with our server, but the previous version of Shaxpir sometimes showed a warning message on the login screen about insecure connections. We’ve fixed the warning message, to accurately reflect the secure nature of Shaxpir’s login connections, so you can rest assured that your connection is always safe.
- Fixed Corrupt EPUB Export: The previous version created corrupt ePub export files whenever the user chose to omit the Table of Contents from the export. This version exports a correct ePub file, even when no Table of Contents is included.
- Fixed Unreliable Styles Menu: In the previous release, the Styles toolbar menu sometimes misbehaved, not appearing even after multiple clicks. We’ve fixed it in this version so that it shows up every time.
- Custom Theme Tweaks: The previous version used a few awkward color color combinations (foreground same as background, etc) in the new set of Custom Themes. This version uses better color contrast in those cases.
- Fixed Disappearing Delete Button: In the previous release, the delete button (with a trash-can icon) sometimes disappeared from the upper-right corner of all Chapters and Notes. This version restores the button to its rightful place.
- Fixed Comments Reappearing After Deletion: In the previous release, margin comments would sometimes reappear after being deleted. This version fixes the bug, so that comments are correctly deleted.
- Fixed Confusing Billing Message: The previous version sometimes showed a confusing message on the Billing panel, in some places saying the user is subscribed to Shaxpir 4: Everyone and in another place saying the user is subscribed to Shaxpir 4: Pro. This version resolves the confusion, with an improved message.
- Fixed Crash on First Launch (Macintosh): Previous versions of Shaxpir have suffered from a bug in the PKG installer causing the application to crash on first launch after installation, necessitating complete uninstall-then-reinstall. We fixed this by switching to a DMG installer, which is simpler and more reliable.
- Fixed Broken Logo on Software-Update Screen: Whenever there’s a new version of Shaxpir available, the login screen downloads the new version before letting you login. Unfortunately, the last release has a broken image link for the logo. It also fails to open the user’s Downloads folder on Macintosh when the installer finishes downloading. Oops. Also, unfortunately, you’ll see both of those problems today if you’re updating Shaxpir from within the app (because, obviously, it won’t be fixed until after you update). But it will all look great and work correctly the next time we release an update!
New in Shaxpir 3.0.1 (Nov 6, 2016)
- Provides bugfixes for a variety of minor issues:
- Broken DOCX export when content contains margin comments.
- Missing chapter titles in HTML export.
- Erratic download behavior and application stall during auto-update.
- Incorrect scaling of the Shaxpir user interface on Windows, when the system text-zoom has a value greater than 100%.
- Added a few missing words to the spell-check dictionary.
New in Shaxpir 3.0.0 (Oct 27, 2016)
- Your workspace includes all-new templates for fiction and non-fiction books, as well as short-stories, articles, and ideas.
- You can export your manuscript in Microsoft Word Format, to share it with colleagues, literary agents, and editors.
- Use our brand-new Linguistic Highlighting Engine to analyze the tone of your writing and improve your prose.
- Use our new Spell Check highlighter to find misspelled words, review suggestions, and make corrections.
New in Shaxpir 2.2.3 (Aug 18, 2016)
- Part of the system has been upgraded to be faster, more stable, and more reliable, so that you can focus on your writing.