What’s new · Proscenium Guide

Version 1.0.4

1.0.4 brings everything new in 1.0.3, which came out a day before it, so for most writers the two arrive as one update.

Proscenium is on the Microsoft Store. On Windows you can get it as Proscenium: Playwriting from the Microsoft Store, which installs it with no warning and keeps it up to date. See Install on Windows.

Color a scene where you see it. Choose a scene’s color on its Board card, on its row in the Outline, from its row in the binder or in the inspector, from one list of names: No Color, Setup, Turns, Interior, Subplot, Revise and Parked. Cards are bigger, with room for a longer summary, and a card’s Notes are open when it has some. Scene status and labels are gone; a play keeps any it had in its file. See Color a scene.
The Board runs Across or Down. Show each act as a band with its cards left to right, or as a column with its cards top to bottom. Proscenium remembers your choice on this computer. See Across or Down.
Changes counts only what you have not seen. The number on Changes clears as soon as you look, and there is no Keep to press on every change any more: a change from somewhere else is already in your file, and Revert… still puts it back. See Review outside changes.
A run of saves is one change. When another app or a sync service saves a file several times in a row, Changes lists it once, saying where in the play it changed and how many words were added and cut. See Review outside changes.
Changes is a list beside a page. The change you choose is drawn on the page beside the list, and Changes opens on the newest one you have not seen. A note, a character sheet or the outline notes are drawn on their own page too, with their headings and lists as you wrote them, instead of as Markdown. Previous change and Next change step through what changed. See Read a change on the page.
Changes in text shows the newest change. In the script, it draws just the latest change from somewhere else, each cut and addition once, and never marks what you have typed since. See Read what they changed.
Your character sheets live in Characters. Add Notes in Cast puts a new sheet in the binder’s Characters folder, and Cast uses only the sheets kept there, so an old draft’s sheets put away elsewhere stay as they are. See Work with the cast.

Also fixed: the line after a page break starts at the top of the new page, with no blank line above it, and a break before a scene puts the scene’s title first; coming back to the window no longer takes your own saves for changes from somewhere else; a change another app makes while Proscenium is saving the same file is no longer lost from view; plays a sync service brings in are listed on the Plays screen as they arrive; on Windows, plays in deeply nested folders open, a file another program holds open is waited for, and contrast themes show the focus and what is chosen; and in the dark appearance a hovered button in a row of segments is easy to read.

Version 1.0.3

Everything new in 1.0.3 is listed with 1.0.4, above, which brings all of it.

Version 1.0.2

Proscenium for Windows. The same app runs on Windows 11 and Windows 10 (version 22H2), on x64 and Arm PCs. It installs for you alone, with no administrator needed, and updates itself as it does on a Mac. Shortcuts use Ctrl where a Mac uses ⌘Ctrl, and your plays are the same files on either system, so a play can travel between a Mac and a PC. See Install on Windows and Keys on Windows.
Reply to a comment. Every comment has a Reply button, on its card beside the page and in the Comments list. The reply joins the comment it answers, as one card and one row, and Resolve takes the comment and its replies together. Comment (⌘⌥MCtrl+M) at a place that already has a comment opens a reply to it. See Reply to a comment.
Sign your comments. The first time you add a comment, its field asks for Your name, and remembers it, so whoever reads the script can tell your comments from someone else’s. Change it in that field or in Settings › Writing, or clear it to add comments unsigned. See Sign your comments.
A comment is about the words you selected. Select some words and add a comment, and the highlight in the script paints exactly those words, from one word to three speeches. They stay marked as you type in them, cut them or undo. See Comment on the script.
Copy from a comment. Drag across a comment’s words, or double-click one, to select and copy it, on its card or in the Comments list. A click on the words in the list still takes you to the comment in the script. See Review your comments.
The page is calmer. The space between pages is the desk’s own colour, and in the dark appearance the pages no longer glow at their sides.

Also fixed: Comment (⌘⌥MCtrl+M) always opens a field to type in, even in a window too narrow for comment cards, where it now opens the Comments list; a comment of more than one line, a comment on a character’s name and two comments in a row all come back as you left them; typing over the words just before a comment no longer deletes it; comments on act and scene titles and scene headings are shown and counted; the scene inspector counts the comments in its own scene; a character keeps its name, its case and its line however it is spelled and whether or not a speech follows it yet; a sung speech, a stage direction, a centered line, a transition and the first line of a script come back as you wrote them; a title page keeps every line it was given; on the Beta track, What’s new in Settings › Updates opens; and with VoiceOver, opening a play no longer announces that file changes are being checked.

Version 1.0.1

Changes shows your own writing. Choose Versions… in the script-name menu and Changes opens on the document in front of you: each session you wrote, newest first under its day, alongside what arrived from another app or device. Open a session to read what you changed in it, as a whole or one saved version at a time, and restore either. ↑ and ↓, or Newer and Older, step through the list; All, Mine and From Outside choose whose changes it shows. Changes takes the place of the Versions sheet, and with VoiceOver, Versions… says how many sessions it found. See Read an earlier version.
Read a change on the page. Open one of your sessions, a change from another device, or a script someone sent back, and Changes shows it On the Page: the script in your play’s format, the words that were cut struck through, the words that were added underlined, and a rule in the margin beside each line a change touched. Line by Line, in the Changes bar, is the list of added and removed lines it showed before. See Read a change on the page, and Trade edits with a collaborator for sending a script out and reading it when it comes back.
Versions follow your writing more closely. Documents, character sheets and outline notes keep versions as scripts do, a session’s first save keeps the text it began from, and a version is kept once you have stopped for two minutes, so a session ends on what you wrote. See Read an earlier version.
Double-click the Characters page to edit it. With Page View on, a double-click on the Characters page opens Cast with the cursor in the description of the character you clicked. See Write the Characters page.
Numbered lists carry on or start again. In a document, a numbered list keeps counting past a paragraph that interrupts it, and the formatting bar offers Continue Numbering and Start at 1. Type 7. and a space to start a list at 7. See Make a list in a document.
Lists hold together. Backspace, or ⌘⌫Ctrl+Backspace, at the start of an item keeps its words in the list, a line broken with Shift Return stays in its item when you open the document again, and Tab and Shift Tab only indent and outdent. A list lines up at every zoom; the cursor in a document is the height of the type and holds steady if your Mac is set to prefer a cursor that does not blink; and a click anywhere on a document’s page, margins included, puts the cursor in the text. See Make a list in a document.
Panes you can close, at a width you can read. Every pane of several has its tab and close box, View › Close Pane closes the one you are in, and a divider dragged all the way across a pane closes it. In a window too small for every pane, the smallest wait out of sight until there is room. See Write beside the script.
⌘N starts a new playCtrl+N starts a new play. File › New Play… and ⌘NCtrl+N name a new play, from the Plays screen or from inside a play. See Start a play.
On an Intel Mac, Proscenium follows Stable. Settings › Updates shows Stable with no track to choose; test versions are built for Apple silicon. See Stable and Beta.

Also fixed: opening a play no longer saves it or keeps a version nobody made; the inspector’s comment count follows an undo; added lines in Changes are easier to read in the dark appearance; the binder’s row menu shows F2 beside Rename; the tutorial’s export step names Export PDF… and Print…; and the opening pages’ sheet is Edit Opening Pages… in the menu bar too.