Method Schedule 0.7.0

Method Schedule 0.7.0

Method Schedule makes merging two copies of a schedule easier to follow, keeps each merge's conflicts with the file until someone reviews them, and weighs strip orders by a cost you can check by hand.

Merging two copies

• Conflicts kept for review. Every conflict a merge settles stays in the schedule file, with what each side had and which was kept. File > Merge Conflicts to Review lists them, each a link to its sheet, element or category, with Done for one and All Done for all. Merges run from the command line or by git keep them too.
• What Changed links to each change. A change to a sheet, element, strip or calendar date still in the schedule is a link to it. Merge conflicts show yours, theirs and the earlier value side by side.
• A rename meets a new element. When one copy renames an element and the other adds an element with that new name in the same category, the merge makes them one, instead of keeping two of the same name.
• Merging in the browser. The browser version of Method Schedule can merge two copies when it is given the version both started from.

Strip orders

• A cost to compare orders. Suggest Strip Order adds up a cost for each order: actors' work days, location changes within a day, switches between day and night scenes, and red flag clashes, each with a plain weight. It tries three orders, suggests the cheapest, and shows every one's cost. When none beats the order on the board, nothing moves.

Script drafts

• On the Breakdown tab. Each sheet's header names the newest draft that changed or added it.
• Printed. Plan > Script Drafts prints, a row for each draft and kind of change.

Smaller changes

• Files from this version. A schedule with merge conflicts to review opens in 0.7.0 and later, not in 0.6.0 or earlier; mark them done first to open it in an older version. A schedule that uses call times of its own or script drafts still won't open in 0.5.0 or earlier. Every other file opens as before.
• Security fixes in the connection the app uses to check for updates.

Known gaps

• On an Intel Mac, the app has been tested by the automated tests, run the way an Intel Mac runs them, but not yet by a person on one.
• Windows and Linux builds are made and tested automatically, but nobody has installed them by hand yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• On Windows and Linux, opening a second file while the app is running starts a second copy of the app.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.

Thanks

• Everyone who has tried Method Schedule so far. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.6.0

Method Schedule 0.6.0

Method Schedule gives each person a call time of their own, puts the next shoot days on the call sheet, and keeps a history of script drafts.

Call times of their own

• A call and wrap for one person. Plan > Day Timeline lists who works the day, with a call and a wrap of their own beside each name. Leave them empty to keep the company's.
• Rest checks use them. Turnarounds and Rest measures each person's rest from their own wrap to their own next call.
• On the call sheet too. The cast list shows each person's call and wrap, in bold when it is their own, on the printed sheet and in the exported data.

The call sheet looks ahead

• An advance schedule. Every call sheet ends with the next two shoot days in brief: the date, the call, the pages, and each scene with its cast.

Script drafts

• Each revision remembered. Merging a script revision records it as the next draft color (Blue, then Pink, Yellow and on), with the date and the scenes it changed, added and omitted. Plan > Script Drafts lists them, newest first.

Smaller changes

• Files from this version. A schedule that uses call times of its own or script drafts opens in 0.6.0 and later, not in 0.5.0 or earlier. Every other file opens as before.

Known gaps

• On an Intel Mac, the app has been tested by the automated tests, run the way an Intel Mac runs them, but not yet by a person on one.
• Windows and Linux builds are made and tested automatically, but nobody has installed them by hand yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• On Windows and Linux, opening a second file while the app is running starts a second copy of the app.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.

Thanks

• Everyone who has tried Method Schedule so far. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.5.0

Method Schedule 0.5.0

Method Schedule is ready for scripts with their exact pages from Method Storyteller, merges against any copy of a schedule, and prints the drift since a schedule lock.

Ready for scripts from Method Storyteller

• Exact pages, nothing estimated. File > Import Script reads a script scenes file (.mscenes), the format Method Storyteller's coming export writes. Every scene arrives with the script's own page and length in eighths, so the board adds up to the script.
• More of the script comes with it. Lettered scene numbers and locked pages, story days, the characters who are in a scene without speaking, the episode and act, the scene's title and summary as its synopsis, and the scenes the script has omitted, struck on the board and counting no pages.
• Revisions too. Import Script Revision reads the same file, so once that export is out, a new draft from it updates the schedule you already have.

Working together

• Merge against any copy. When you merge changes from another copy, the version both copies started from can now be any schedule file you pick, not only a backup or the file on disk.
• Print the drift. Schedule Locks prints the drift since a lock, actor by actor, beside the spreadsheet and CSV exports.

Smaller changes

• Plainer names for files. Exports, imports and their settings now name file types, such as spreadsheet (.xlsx), .fdx and .mscenes, rather than other programs.

Known gaps

• On an Intel Mac, the app has been tested by the automated tests, run the way an Intel Mac runs them, but not yet by a person on one.
• Windows and Linux builds are made and tested automatically, but nobody has installed them by hand yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• On Windows and Linux, opening a second file while the app is running starts a second copy of the app.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.

Thanks

• Everyone who has tried Method Schedule so far. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.4.0

Method Schedule 0.4.0

Method Schedule now keeps track of what was shot, and opens schedules from other apps that add their own notes to the file.

What was shot

• Mark a scene shot. Right-click a scene on the board and choose Shot to say how many pages were shot on its day and whether that finished it.
• See it on the board. Scenes shot in part get a thin green edge, and finished scenes are dimmed. Each day break says how many pages its scenes still have to shoot.
• Shot against planned. A new export puts each shoot day's planned pages beside the pages shot and the pages left, with a second sheet listing every scene.

Schedules and other apps

• Room for other apps. A schedule file can now carry notes another app added, and Method Schedule keeps them and writes them back untouched. Older versions of Method Schedule won't open a file that has them.
• Tagged scripts fill your categories. Importing a tagged .fdx script now puts props, vehicles, extras, costumes and the like into the matching categories instead of making new ones.
• Drift as a spreadsheet. In Schedule Locks, the drift since a lock exports as a spreadsheet (.xlsx) or a CSV file.
• What changed since a backup. Revert to Backup has a What Changed button, so you can see what a backup would undo before you go back to it.

The sample

• Pictures in Field Station. The sample's park truck, quad bike, hand radio and paper map now have pictures, drawn for the sample.

Fixes

• Update checks trust only certificates they should. Two problems found this week in the code that checks the update server's certificate are fixed. Updates were already safe to install, since the app checks each download's signature first.
• Keys on Windows and Linux. No shortcut uses a key that Windows or the usual Linux desktops keep for themselves.

Known gaps

• On an Intel Mac, the app has been tested by the automated tests, run the way an Intel Mac runs them, but not yet by a person on one.
• Windows and Linux builds are made automatically, but nobody has installed them yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• On Windows and Linux, opening a second file while the app is running starts a second copy of the app.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.

Thanks

• Everyone who has tried Method Schedule so far. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.3.0

Method Schedule 0.3.0

Method Schedule now runs on Intel Macs as well as Macs with Apple silicon: one app, one download.

One app for every Mac

• Intel and Apple silicon alike. The Mac download holds both kinds of code, so the same app opens on an older Intel Mac and on a new one with Apple silicon, signed and notarized by Apple either way.
• Updates on both. An Intel Mac finds new versions through Help > Check for Updates, and on its own, just as an Apple silicon Mac does.
• The same download link. Nothing changes for anyone already using it: the file has the same name, and an installed copy updates in place.

Known gaps

• On an Intel Mac, the app has been tested by the automated tests, run the way an Intel Mac runs them, but not yet by a person on one.
• Windows and Linux builds are made automatically, but nobody has installed them yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.
• What was shot isn't shown on the board or in the reports yet.

Thanks

• Everyone who has tried Method Schedule so far. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.2.0

Method Schedule 0.2.0

A whole invented feature to learn on, ready the moment the app opens, and downloads you can check before you install them.

Field Station, a full feature to try

• Help > Open Sample opens Field Station. An invented feature of 90 scenes and nine cast, one of whom never speaks, scheduled over 18 shoot days at three locations with a company move to a lake for three days.
• Every part of the app has something in it. Every breakdown category is filled, with background counts. There are lunch and company move banners, call times, a second unit for the drive on the fire road, prep and wrap on the calendar, and red flags, one of them a soft clash the board marks.
• It opens once on its own. The first time Method Schedule starts with nothing to open, it shows you Field Station, untitled, with a line saying what it is. It never does again: open it any time from the Help menu. If you open your own schedule first, or you used an earlier version, you won't see it unasked.

Downloads you can check

• A checksum for every download. Each release now comes with a SHA256SUMS file listing every installer and update file with its SHA-256, so you can check a download is the one we published before you install it.

For other apps and the command line

• Two switches to start with. --check-for-updates checks for a newer version as the app opens, and --open-sample opens Field Station, for a launcher or a shortcut.
• The recent files list is easy to read. Open Recent's list is kept as a plain list of files, each with when it was last opened, so other tools can show your recent schedules.
• Room for what was shot. A schedule file can now hold what was actually shot on each day, and how much of each scene, for a production report to write back. The app doesn't show it yet.

Fixed

• A speech in two paragraphs keeps its length. In a Fountain script, the second paragraph of a speech was counted as action, which made a scene's length come out a line or two short.

Known gaps

• Windows and Linux builds are made automatically, but nobody has installed them yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.
• What was shot isn't shown on the board or in the reports yet.
• A schedule that holds what was shot won't open in 0.1.0: update first.

Thanks

• Everyone who tried 0.1.0. Bugs go to Issues and questions to Discussions, both on GitHub.

Method Schedule 0.1.0

Method Schedule 0.1.0

The first release: a free, open scheduling app for film and TV that keeps your schedule in a plain file you own. It is an early alpha, for trying things out on invented productions before you trust it with a real shoot.

From script to stripboard

• Import a script. Fountain (.fountain) and .fdx scripts come in as one breakdown sheet per scene, with their page lengths, and later drafts merge into the schedule you already have.
• Break it down. Cast, props, wardrobe, vehicles and every other category on each sheet, with quick add and elements you can link, merge and renumber.
• Schedule on a stripboard. Drag strips into days, add banners and day breaks, break the board automatically by pages or time, and keep several boards and sub-boards for different plans.
• Three looks. Paper, the default, follows your computer's light or dark setting; Graphite is always dark; Ledger is a full-color board like a printed one. Choose in Settings.

Counts you can check

• Day out of days. Start, work, hold, travel and finish for every element, with holds, drops and holidays following the rules schedulers use.
• Explain this count. Ask why any number is what it is, and see the reasoning date by date.
• Calendar, conflicts and red flags. Days off, events and holidays on a calendar; elements booked twice and dates an actor can't work are marked on the strips.

Paper and files

• Print and save as PDF. The board, one-line and shooting schedules, the day out of days, element lists, the calendar and a call sheet for any shoot day.
• Spreadsheets. .xlsx and .csv files for the reports that are tables.
• Hand the shoot days to Method Budget. Export for Budget writes the shoot days and each element's work days for the budget to read.
• Your file, safe. Autosave, recovery after a crash, backups you can revert to, and a question when someone else changes the file while it's open, with a merge.

For the command line and coding agents

• The same schedule from a terminal. Check, report, export and merge from the command line, and a git merge driver for schedules kept in git.
• Coding agents. An MCP server lets an assistant read and edit schedules on your computer, only in the folders you name.

Known gaps

• Windows and Linux builds are made automatically but nobody has installed them yet. The Windows installer is unsigned, so Windows shows a warning before it runs.
• Printing uses Letter paper only.
• Updates: this release checks for newer versions, but there is nothing newer to find yet.

Thanks

• masyarakatai, for the contrast check on the Graphite and Ledger looks and for daylight saving in Australia's south-east and New Zealand.