Changelog

Today’s release includes Quick Note. On mobile devices a button appears at the top of the home page. That button will open a streamlined form to add a Resource. The two fields displayed are audio recordings, and text notes. Once you save it, a full Resource is saved.

This is designed to give you a very quick way to jot down an idea you have, or record it as audio.

Today we released the huge 1.1 update.

We don’t look at anyone’s work, but we do run reports as to the number of items created by each person, and if they sign up after the free period. What we found is that 85% of people create an account, go to the site, and create a couple things and never come back.

We started asking authors we know to go to the site, and tell us how difficult is it to start. We got a lot of feedback that was disappointing. They said if they could see an exiting project and mess around with it, instead of expecting them to enter stuff, it would make all the difference.

Well now we are rolling out an example WIP that will be added to all accounts, new or existing.

We have been fortunate enough to be able to allow a previous WIP from the best selling author J Lehman-Köhler to be used as an example for a substantial (but totally worth it) fee. We are thrilled and very grateful such an amazing and gifted author would allow us to use a WIP of his. You can find out more about the author here: https://j-lehman-kohler.com/

Mood boards are here! A few weeks ago we posted on X asking authors if mood boards are important. We got a lot of feedback that they are.

Your wish is our command! Today we are rolling out mood boards. A mood board can be added to any:

• Project
• Section (e. g. chapters)
• Character
• Location

They are in the form of a three by three grid of images. You can change the order they appear in as well. You don’t have to add all nine images.

You can see a mood board any time you are looking at an item with one, or if you are writing and click on a Character or Location, it will appear in the overlay under the item’s image (if any).

In addition to a bunch of bug fixes and display tweaks, today we are introducing a new feature. When you log into Word Weaver Pro, you will immediately be sent to the last item you have viewed. That was you don’t have to try and remember which thing you viewed, worked on, or completed. From there you can continue editing, or jump to the next item you want to work on.

Also, if you go to the home page, a message appears at the top with the name of the item you last modified, and a link to go to that item.

Significant visual improvements. We got some feedback the site looked clunky, so we made our first pass at improving it. Much more to come.

Also, some feedback said once someone goes back into the site after a bit, they are confused how to get back to where they left off. Now an alert at the top of the home page will display what you worked on last and provides a link to it.

Revamped the session reservation system for one-on-one support. Nicer now, and you can download an iCal entry for your calendar. It supports Google, Outlook, and regular iCal (like the Apple Calendar app).

Trash! Now in Word Weaver Pro when you delete an item it goes into your trash. If you suddenly regret deleting something, you can go to /trash and restore it to just like it was before deleting it.

Picking through the trash on Word Weaver Pro smells much better than picking through a real trashcan.

The Reader feature has gotten some enhancements. It also supports dark mode. You can use the reader mode any time. If you see something you want to change, select it and it will take you directly to that item for editing.

Added a right-side sidebar on the homepage so you can get to everything you create without digging into the “All items” menu at the top.

Also got some recent performance tests done.

Our official production release is ready to use! We have made a ton of user experience improvements. Just about every page has seen improvement.

The export function for manuscripts is fully operational and remarkably versatile. It will produce a complete and ready-to-send Microsoft Word document with a single click. You can select options for including the synopsis and if you want smart-quotes.

We are very excited by this release, and hope you find it helpful in your writing journey.

We have improved the display when you click on a character or location while writing. Without changing page, a small window appears with the item’s image, summary and description. Now you can refer to any character and location without interruption.

Significant enhancements have been made to key areas of the user experience. In all the edit screens, the way references were handled was confusing. Renaming things there might have seemed like a piece of cake, but in reality, it created a brand new empty item, causing the previous item to disappear from the screen. Poof! Gone! It was also unclear how to add and remove items such as Characters, Locations, and Notes. Not good.

Now, adding, removing, and renaming things have specific buttons to perform each action. This has gotten a lot of good feedback from our beta testers.

The edit icon has been added next to each item on the All Items page. That’s handy. The spacing is much nicer, too.

When you are looking at a Section, the way a Subsection will flow in that Section is displayed next to the title. This acts as a reminder if the title will show and indicates if a dinkus is used to indicate a scene change.

To simplify account management, we are removing usernames and using email addresses on login. Account usernames no longer hold much meaning, as email addresses are unique. Almost 50% of the login problems reported to us occur when individuals use their email address as their username.

On the subject of reporting issues, a new feature has been added. On all pages, in the very bottom left, there is a tiny link with a picture of a bug. This link will open a bug report form in a new window or tab (so as not to close whatever you were working on).

Using Subsections as scenes gives you a lot of flexibility for quickly trying out changes in the order of events by making them individual items in the outline. For using a Subsection as a scene, you now have three options concerning how it flows in your manuscript. While you must give each Subsection a title, those titles do not have to be displayed in the manuscript. By default, they will appear as subheadings. The titles can also be excluded from the manuscript, so there is no indication to the reader of a break in the text. The dinkus (* * *), a scene-change signal, can also replace the title.

The Dinkus has arrived! Inserting a horizontal line can show a scene change using the world-famous Dinkus. This line, in HTML, serves the same purpose as a Dinkus. Since we are creating novels, not web pages, it will display as a Dinkus!

Some UX goodness coming your way! These are in response to feedback from an author. She now gets a “Founder” designation and will never have to pay for site use!

You can now click a small edit icon next to most items. This allows you to go directly into edit mode for that item.

Next, we switched the site to a fluid mode. This means the site will always use all the space in the browser and eliminate the margins on high-resolution displays.

How about some Halloween fun? The site is adorned with glowing jack-o’-lanterns in celebration of this spooky day! 👻 🎃

In today’s release, there are also a ton of behind-the-scenes that are making the website even better and scary fast.

We made a lot of changes on the back end to improve performance. We are very happy with the results.

We have a new name and domain! After getting a lot of “So what does this do?” questions, the headlines on the website have been revised to make them more straightforward. Also, we are now at https://wordweaver.pro, which makes more sense.

There are a lot of enhancements in the 1.0 Beta1.53 release!

The Reader mode has an exit button. That helps when you want to exit the reader mode (oops).

The action buttons on an item (edit, save, revisions, and delete) are much larger and easier to see.

We have added an area for links that writers find helpful. You can get to them via the footer menu. We only have a couple, but that will grow.

A list of upcoming convention appearances by Word Weaver Pro staff is available. It is also accessed via a menu item in the footer.

And last but not least, the site now features testimonials from people who have been testing the site. We are honored and grateful for their input and time spent using Word Weaver Pro.

We have added a “lightbox” feature so you can click on the characters and view their picture for inspiration without leaving the page.

There is a new layout for the sidebar. Pictures of the characters there was excellent, but having to click on them to see any info is a pain. Now, the sidebar shows characters and locations with their respective summaries.

Dark Mode! Woo Hoo! No longer will the bright and cheerful glare of Word Weaver Pro offend those who sit in a dimly lit room and have their computers on dark mode (like us).

In addition, we worked with the developer of Entity Reference Trimmer to solve an underlying problem in the CMS where when you reference an item (like Referencing a Character in a Project), it will stick the ID number of the reference next to the title. No one cares about the ID, and it wasn’t very clear. Now, it’s gone!

We added a quick video on the home page to show how the system works. It runs well. It may be longer in the future, but it gets the basics across as to what Word Weaver Pro can do.

You can now book time with one of the Word Weaver Pro staff! If you want a personalized demonstration or have questions, go to the calendar and pick a session to sign up for! If you don’t have one, you must register for a free account, and select “Need help?” in the main menu.