Wait- did you read that right? THIRTEEN years?
Yup! After over a decade, DubScript is finally officially deemed great enough to be numbered 1.0.0 -- on its 300th app package release to the Play store. During its development, DubScript went from a simple fountain screenplay reader to an full-featured editor that includes many more abilities than originally envisioned, from Fountain to Markdown editing to a built-in backup/recovery system, reading scripts "out loud", the ability to find screenwriting 'clams" and potential style problems, and many more features. DubScript started as a Java app in 2011, but transitioned to being primarily Kotlin today.
In 2011, DubScript supported Android 2.1 Eclair (API 7) and up. Backwards compatibility was always a goal, but Google constantly raised its minimum requirements to support modern features, so today DubScript supports API 21 (Android 5.0, released in 2014) but targets Android 15, API 35.
When the earliest version of DubScript was released on July 29, 2011, the Play Store didn't yet exist-- the earliest DubScript versions were released on what was then called Google Market. Development was done on "Eclipse" and the build was managed with a tool called "ant". Today, "Android Studio" is devoted to Android app development, which uses the "gradle" build system.
Over the years, as Google made new features available to apps, such as an advanced permission system, new languages, vector images, theming, material design, file system access, etc. DubScript always strove to adopt such features where appropriate to be on the edge of new advancements. To stay a "modern app". The goal in its design was to make DubScript always feel like it was a program just created.
So what will a user find new in this 1.0 release? Mostly polish, fit, and finish. The new version targets API 35 (Android 15), has improved theming transitions between light and dark mode, updates to the latest available Google library updates, is built with Google's new "K2" compiler, includes accessibility improvements, and offers many new fixes and code refinements.
Many thanks are owed to testers, reviewers, and feedback-givers-- to Google, especially google developer/podcasters like Chet Haase, Tor Norbye, Roman Nurik, to the creator of open-licensed libraries and assets credited in the app-- and a big thanks is owed to the creators and supporters of the Fountain format, incl. developers John August and Nima Yousefi. If you have a Mac, check out their Highland 2 software. John Augusts' "Big Fish" script served as an internal benchmark for DubScript's fountain processing for a decade, and John's a great guy, and the Fountain community thanks you all!
That's it for now. At long last, the 1.0 release is here!