Friday, November 23, 2007

Hello again. It has been two weeks now since we first disclosed some information about the PropertyPoint feature. Work is still going on it and will probably take a week more for completion. The PropertyPoint feature lets the user add what is called as a "Property Point". A property point is an entry in a character's Roles list that enables the user to alter the properties of the character such as the TTS Engine being used, the font of the balloon, the position etc. A Property Point is an instruction meant to be understood by the DE. When the DE reads a property point, it analyzes it, decodes it and depending on the instructions, changes the properties of the character.

As the Screenshot above shows, the property point is a point where many properties of the character are changed simultaneously. You may ask: Why not use a different way of achieving this? Why to use a single point for all properties? Why not use different points to represent different kinds of property changes? For instance, why don't we have a separate point for "Visibility" and "Sound Effects"? That way will it not be better since the user will not have to enter a huge Property Point for just changing the character's TTS Engine.

We thought about it and realized that if we have different points, the user will not be able to track on the character's properties. Having a single PropertyPoint lets you achieve this. At any point in the drama, the character's properties can be monitored just by clicking on the last property point and clicking Edit. Also, while adding a property point the dialog initializes itself so that all the properties of the character at that property point are seen.

With all that said, the next obvious question that comes up is: "When will DC 2.0 come out?"

Its a tough question to answer. We don't know yet! Well... the PropertyPoint is just one of the many features waiting to be added. It has already taken us a very long time to make this work and we are not yet finished. Other features such as TextModeEdit, PowerPoint Integration etc. are far more harder to implement. Not a good news at all since that would take more time. Also we'll be inserting little features like Cut, Copy and Paste and will redesign the Roles list so that it displays multiple lines of string. Actually, we have already done that. Also, a few more publishing options have to be included and background and music settings have to be implemented as well.

It definitely will not be able to make it before the end of this year. Thats all we can say. Hey! Atleast it will remain free!

We are considering a pre-release version just like DC 1.8.08 after PropertyPoint is successfully implemented.