Read About The First Novel Written on the iPhone

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Apple Responds (Sort of) IMPORTANT: READ

Day 19 No Fix.

I do have some good news. Version 1.1 now has functional Research Voice Notes. You can record and playback recordings attached to novels or specific to chapters. The UI is pretty bland, but it works.

The Record button changes from Record to Save to Play, depending on what you are doing.

And here is a voice note in the Research List View

So the Research screens are now fully functional. Handling voice recordings is a bit of a pain in the iPhone, which is why it wasn't available in 1.0. You should also note that the toolbars have gone back to light/dark grey (as in the previous screenshot) rather than the light blue/green. This may be configurable in the future.

I've also changed some stuff to make the app a lot more stable. The last major thing I want to finish is the wireless export (wireless import has been working since 1.0). After wireless export is done, I will freeze 1.1 and start testing and debugging it.

Day 17 - Still Not Downloadable

I've also been working on version 1.1. A couple of new features I've implemented include a "scroll-to-bottom" function. As part of my novel writing exercise I really wanted a way to get to the end of a large chunk of text quickly. The way I've implemented this is via a hotspot, similar to the hotspot that allows you to toggle full screen editing on and off. Here is a screen shot:

I still need to clean things up a bit, but you can see the two hotspots (light blocks) along the right edge of the screen. Tapping the top one will take you in and out of full screen mode. Tapping the bottom one will scroll to the very end of the text to allow you to append text to the end. I really like this small feature. It makes editing large chapters much easier to deal with. The hotspots are a lot less intrusive than the button I have in 1.0. I found the button (although very small) distracted from typing text.

The other new small feature is I've rewritten how Auteureist sends emails. In 1.0 Auteureist forces you to exit and launches the built-in mail app. This works fine, but you are no longer in the app. In 1.1 the new code uses the new capabilities of the iPhone's in-app email function. This allows you to export emails from within Auteureist itself. Once that's done you can keep working in the app without having to relaunch it.

I've also cleaned up some miscellaneous bugs along the way. More to come.

Guess When The Problem Will Be Fixed Contest

Well to make waiting more fun, I'm announcing the replacement contest: "Guess When The Problem WIll Be Fixed". This contest is open to people who have or purchase Auteureist prior to the end of the contest.

Guess when the problem is fixed and win an iPod Nano!

Read the rules and contest description here: http://auteureist.com/page1/page1.html

Hope this makes the wait a little more interesting. Keep emailing Apple. Keep Twittering about it. One day it will be fixed.

Some Polish

Today, I just want to show some new minor tweaks for 1.1 I've been working on. I've started polishing the Novel and Chapter Edit Screens. These are the screens that allow you to set the information for novels and chapters. One problem I had with the 1.0 version of the screens is that there were two separate timeline buttons (one for start and another for end) that sent you to the same screen. The timeline is from the perspective of the novel or the individual chapter. What I've done is consolidated them into a single button. This simplifies the flow and reduces confusion. This is really what it should have been like in the first place. The other benefit of this consolidation is that it gave back some screen space, which allowed me to add a feature I've wanted since I started working on NaNoWriMo. Auteureist is now able to track how much time you actually spend on each chapter. This is both typing and thinking time while you are in the editing screen. So I've used the freed screen space to display the actual time you've spent on an individual chapter, as well as the novel as a whole. Here is the 1.0 version of the Chapter Edit Screen. Note the Timeline Start and Timeline End Date labels and buttons.

And here is the new 1.1 version. Note the new labels for Date Started, Date Completed, and Time Worked.

I still need to clean up the formatting a bit but the Time Worked is displayed in yy:mm:dd:hh:mm:ss worked. Similarly, the Novel and Chapter Summary Screens now have the added information. Here is the 1.1 version of the Novel Summary Screen. Note the new Worked label.

As a result of the reformat, I discovered a problem in how I was calculating elapsed time, and that is now fixed as well. So that's what I've been working on along with the promised Voice Note function. There's not much to see with that yet since its all mostly under the covers at this point. I have Auteureist recording, now I have to get it to playback. Surprisingly, recording and playing back sounds is one of the more difficult things to get working right on the iPhone.

So that's it. Tomorrow (unless the app becomes downloadable overnight) I'll announce the new contest.

Stay tuned.

Still No Love, And My Followup To Apple - Please Read

Good morning all. The problem still appears to exist. I have not had a followup from Apple. I understand that I'm a drop in Apple's App Store bucket, but Apple needs to resolve issues in a more timely and personal manner. They need to act on the problem and respond, rather than hope it goes away and then have the developer follow up. It is Apple's responsibility to follow up on internal App Store problems.

I've sent off my own follow up to Apple:
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Hello,

I'm sorry to report that this problem has not been resolved. No one is able to download the app from the App Store, and are still being charged for purchasing for something they cannot obtain. The problem has existed from initial release on 11/03 and tomorrow it will be two weeks without a resolution. I would appreciate rapid resolution of the problem or at a minimum an explanation of why it is taking so long to resolve this issue, and when I can expect my customers to be able to obtain my app.

Thank you for your immediate attention and help in resolving this matter.
Serg Koren
Principal
VisualNewt Software

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So, please keep emailing Apple. I've made a best effort to keep them informed. I hope they make a best effort to resolve this. I'm sure if I were someone like EA, the problem would have been solved a long time ago.

Just my opinion. Thank you all again for your patience, and support.
S

Simplified UI Early Look

I'm busy working on 1.1 and one of the major changes (although not a new feature) is that I have been talking about simplifying the UI and making it more intuitive. Well, I'm well on the way to achieving that goal. I've cleaned up all the bugs I know about and have begun reworking the interface. Once you get 1.0 you'll soon discover it works nicely, but the toolbars are not very friendly to get around in. There are extra taps and the UI isn't as smart as it could be. I won't go into the details, but I didn't like how many taps you needed to go through to get stuff done. So I've simplified the UI and reduced the number of taps required. Just from an aesthetic point of view, Auteureist looks nicer, and simpler.

Here is a before shot of the Chapter-specific Summary Screen:

Here is the new look:

The main difference is that there is now only a single toolbar instead of two. This simplifies the flow a great deal, and removes the confusion the two bars created. Now, using it is very intuitive. The toolbar changes depending on whether you are in novel-wide or chapter-specific mode automatically, you always know what mode you're in. The above screenshot is chapter-specific mode. Here is the corresponding novel-wide mode:

As you can see, the color changes from light-blue to light-green when moving from novel to chapter view and the first button in the toolbar changes (I haven't finalized on the color choices. I am thinking of retaining the light/dark grey of the dual toolbars. Let me know what you think). Before, you either had one or two toolbars depending on the mode. The star button switches you back to novel view. The second button (chapters) returns you back to the chapter list. That's a lot simpler--believe me. The app is also a lot smarter about what you probably want to do next. For example, the new UI assumes that when you create a new Novel, you probably want to create a new chapter and edit it. In 1.0, you had to tap each of these steps, now the number of taps is reduced to a minimum.

That's the major change. There are also a bunch of less important changes, that are however nice. Changing the order of novels or chapters within a novel is convenient. The Novel and Chapter Edit Views now give you the ability to directly enter an exact target word count, rather than using the slider (which can be temperamental for exact values. Selecting between 1999 and 2000 is a bit hard using the slider, typing in 2000 is easy. Also, the Chapter Edit Screen now shows you the actual number of words along with the target word count, so you don't have to edit the chapter to get a word count. Note the "Word Count" label here.

In order to simplify the toolbars into a single one, I have had to redefine what the star button does. It used to mean "Edit the Chapter", now it means "Go back to the Novel Edit Screen". As a result, I've added a new "Edit" button in the Chapter Edit Screen that will take you to the actual text of the chapter. Also, I got rid of the button in the Chapter Text Edit Screen that toggles between full and normal screen modes. This is now a transparent hot-spot. It just looks less intrusive. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, you now have backup/restore progress indicators.

Overall, things just look and feel a lot more polished. I'll continue streamlining the screens and how they look and what they do. This is just an early peek at what's in store for 1.1.

The Next Major Feature

I also said I'd make the first major feature free to everyone that purchased 1.0 to thank you all for the Apple iTunes App Srore problems we are still waiting to have resolved. I've decided on that first feature (I was considering which of five on the list would be the most fun.)

There are two related features that make up what I've been thinking of as "prod mode.". This mode would incent you and motivate you to write more. Basically, it would be a way to force you through weiter's block and stalling. I'll eventually build prod mode, but one key piece of it is going to be the first feature and act as the foundation.

The first new feature will be an achievement system. Auteureist will track your creative output and reward you with virtual points and medals for reaching various milestones. Your achievements will be posted to the Auteureist website where you can see how you compare to others. This would add more of a game/competition element to writing.

There are two issues I need to resolve. First, how do I make sure you are actually writing and not just entering garbage to earn points. Second, and more important to me is that I want to set up a way for you to cash in your points for real stuff, like coupons or software. This would bring a tangible reward for writing.

The real reward part may never come to fruition. It all depends on a bunch of stuff. I'll see what is possible.

So that's it. Achievements will be the next major feature. There is no timeframe at this point. Varsion 1.1 will focus on bug fixes, minor enhancement, and the simplification of the UI. I expect it to be out in 1.2 or 1.3. There is a lot of stuff that I need to work out and set up to support achievements.

Achievements will be integrated into "prod mode" some point after that. Prod mode will be unlockable whereas achievements will be free if you got 1.0. If you purchase Auteureist after 1.0 it will be unlockable via in-app purchase.

That's another thing I have to work on, figuring out how in-app purchases work.

One last point. Monday will be five business days since my email from Apple. I'll wait until Wednesday before I follow up.

Sent from Auteureist™ - http://auteureist.com/

Fixing things and enhancing for 1.1.

I've added a progress indicator to backup and restore:

I've added the ability to enter the target word count directly in addition to using the slider (for both the novel and individual chapters). This allows you to be more precise in the word count. Before:

After (note the difference in the Target Word Count: field area.)

I now allow you to reorder the novels and chapters. In 1.0 they were fixed, so now you can move novels and chapters around in the lists. This is useful if, as I, you are working on one thing more frequently than another. I've move my NaNoWriMo novel to the top of my list. There are some "behind the scenes" things going on as well. I've added code to be able to update the internal database to make it simpler to add new features. So when you upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 your database will be upgraded automatially behind the scenes. I still need to do a bunch of testing with this to make sure I don't lose any writing. Once I'm satisfied I'm going to reword the toolbars at the top. Right now there are two. I'm going to replace this with a single one. This will give you a bit more screen space and make it easier to navigate overall. I plan on smoothing out the flow as well. This will be a major change internally, but will make things simpler overall. I'll also have to update all the screenshots and documentation on the web as well.

Once the new toolbar is in place, I'll start working on the first new major feature. More on what this is, in the next blog update.