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Update on version 1.5

With version 1.5 almost done (yes, we are working till late hours every day, including weekends), I would like to update you on what is coming, and when.

Well, let’s start with the when. Our expectation is to deliver beta bits to a few customers next weekend. The moment they receive it, we are going to start to write the first Kwik Manual. This little baby is growing faster than we expected and we cannot keep using just the tutorial videos as the only learning tool anymore.

With the bits being tested, we are going to send the newsletter, and end the introductory price – meaning you still have this week to buy Kwik with the introductory price.

So, let’s talk about the new features. If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook you are already receiving bites of info every weekday. Let’s detail the ones we have shared already, leaving a few other for the next posting.

New Interface

You read already about it last week. However, for the first time you can see the final interface:

First of all, we replaced all colored icons to gray scaled ones, eliminating the distraction (your project is the art, not Kwik’s panel).

Now, the features are divided in categories (more on that later in this post), to facilitate the access and the addition of new options in the future.

The project part was modified to. Now, it is clean and brings the information of your project in a much better way. The previous device icon was replaced by a big Preview button.

The Project tree was split in two. Being the first only for pages (no more expand/retract buttons annoying when you have a large page project). The second tab contains the elements of the current page.

The Status bar, as highlighted in this video, enables a quick access to preview options, get updates, or simply delete items (by the way, no more drag and drop to delete pages and elements, simply click the trash icon or press the DELETE key in your keyboard. Also, no more confirmation window bothering when you delete a component).

Categories

The six categories of features are:

Project: which contains the features applicable to all project pages (in this version Bookmark and the new Enable/Disable Page Swipe), plus the New and Open Project buttons;
Page: brings the options for the current page. They are Add New Page, Add Page Audio, and the new Enable/Disable Page Swipe. The last one is interesting when you have a particular page (an activity, for example) that you need to remove the auto swipe code;
Interaction: is the place for Add Button and Enable Drag. Both features brings new options (described later);
Animation: enables the use of a totally re-designed animation system;
Widgets: more on that in the next posting;
Tools: the toolbox brings the know Show/Hide Layer, plus 3 new tools, as you can see in the image above.

The 3 new buttons in the Tools category are:

Actions: in my opinion this is the most important feature of this release. It allows you, like the button system, to create a list of commands that can be triggered by other events, like an animation, a drag, a button or a timer;
Timers: more on that on the next posting;
Shared Asset: this is a nice option for projects with the same background or same images used as, for example, next/previous navigation buttons in multiple pages. You select a layer, click this button, and Kwik will handle the export of only 1 image asset for all pages;

Lastly, besides the Play Action, the button system offers a new action called Record and Play Audio. You set the duration of the recording then, when the user clicks the button, it dims the page, as a visual aid, and records the user voice until the defined duration ends. After that, it plays the recording back. This is a very nice feature for activity pages. Check how simple is the configuration window for this action: