Introducing an Exciting New Way to Navigate the Celtx Studio (And Improve Your Work)
The Celtx Studio is always evolving.
The ways in which our users go about their work in creative fields like video production, film & TV, and game design have changed over the years, and they will continue to as time goes on. The scriptwriting and pre-production tools that we use need to change with us as well.
Change For the Better
Today, there’s a major update to the look and layout of the Celtx Studio. We’re incredibly excited to bring you these changes that will allow you to have even easier access to all of the pre-production tools that the Celtx Studio offers. Our goal with this update was to provide you with a cleaner, more intuitive navigation system to get you from one area of your project to another. Also, we want to make it easier for you to focus on some of the most important aspects of your workflow: writing and collaborating with teammates.
We know change can be scary. Many of our users know and love the layout of a typical Celtx project inside and out. So making any alterations when it comes to this stuff takes a little getting used to. One of our priorities in designing this new Celtx Studio update was to make it not only unobtrusive to the user, but also to make it feel incredibly natural, as if it reflected all the things you already prioritize in your own workflow and creative process. We think you’re really going to love working with this new Celtx navigation system, and we’d like to give you a first-hand look at what’s new and how it all fits together.
The Navigation Menu
When you first log into Celtx, you’ll be greeted with the typical studio view, where you see all of your current projects. Once you click on a project to open it, however, you’ll see the first of the changes we’ve made with this Celtx Studio update. Previously, upon opening a project you would be greeted with the project menu, which would give you access to your script as well as all of your different pre-production tools, organized into the categories of ‘Write,’ ‘Plan,’ and ‘Shoot.’
Now, however, you’ll be taken directly into your script. For many of our users, the script is the centerpiece of their project and the area that they’ll spend the majority of their time working within, either writing or sharing feedback using the comments system. With this new Celtx Studio update, we’ve reduced the ‘friction’ that existed to bring you into your script. When the creative spark hits you and you’re in a writing mood, this makes it easier than ever to jump into your project and get to work.
So, you might be wondering where all of the navigation options that the project menu offered can now be found. All of the functionality of the old project menu is present in the brand new navigation menu, found within your Celtx project, instead of separate from it.
With this new menu, you have access to almost all of your pre-production tools (as well as the ability to return to your script) with less of a need to leave your project. At the top of the menu, you’ll also see a new item called ‘Team.’ This is an entirely new section that’s been added to your Celtx Studio, but we’ll get back to that one in a bit. There’s so many new things to talk about!
Less Back and Forth
We mentioned before that this new navigation menu exists within your Celtx project, meaning it’s always accessible from wherever you’re currently working. If you’re adding line items to the budget, you can pull up this menu and jump quickly over to your catalog, schedule, etc. Clicking on the arrow at the top left corner will bring up the navigation menu when you’re ready to navigate elsewhere, and clicking away from the menu will slide it out of view, giving you a clean Celtx workspace that fills the window.
We think you’ll find this Celtx Studio update makes getting around your Celtx project easier than ever, with this new system cleaning things up for users who are working primarily in one section of the project, and simplifying life for users who spend a lot of time bouncing from one section to another.
Growing the Team
We mentioned that there’s a new dedicated space for our users who work collaboratively in teams, so let’s take a look at what’s new. In your navigation menu, clicking on ‘Team’ will bring you to a new menu giving an overview of your team members (meaning anyone you’ve added as a collaborator by sharing your project). If you don’t yet have any team members other than yourself, here’s the perfect time and place to add them! Using the share button found here makes it easy to send an invite to a coworker or fellow creative mind to collaborate on the script, with whatever permissions you set for them.
Permission to Come Aboard
Speaking of permissions, with the new Celtx Studio update there’s new options for setting and managing those as well. Clicking the ‘hamburger’ menu on the right side (or the three lines, if you’re not hungry) will bring up the option to edit permissions for a team member. You can also remove them, if necessary. Opening the permissions options will allow you a new level of customizability to the access you allow a certain user to have. It’s your choice if you want to share your entire project or only certain sections of it, such as the budget if you had someone working solely on that section.
As well, clicking on the ‘edit’ dropdown menu form here allows you even more options, such as script-specific permissions like the ability to tag breakdowns and shot lists, read-only options, and full edit permissions. From this page, you can choose exactly what you want to share with who and how. You might say you can ‘have it your way’ (hey, we did put this in the hamburger menu, after all.)
Focus on Collaboration
Knowing that so many of our users are part of a team-based workflow, it was only natural to evolve the Celtx Studio to allow for more robust collaboration options.
You can rely on the Celtx Studio to continue to evolve in order to better suit your needs. We always welcome your feedback, so let us know how this new navigation system, and the new options for team collaboration, are working for you. If you’d like to see the new Celtx Studio updates in action, we’ve prepared a short walkthrough video to guide you through them.
We hope these new updates make your Celtx workflow even better, so expect more updates in the future allowing for even more creative possibilities.
If you haven’t already it’s a perfect time to try out the new and improved Celtx!
