StoryMaker™

StoryMaker’s website has been having a spam issue for the past couple of months that has dramatically expanded in the last two weeks. While trying to fight this off and keep our database clean, resetting all user passwords was the action we thought that would most effectively block the spam users. Upon review by the rest of our technical team, we’ve decided to reverse this action. Please ignore the previous email, titled “Password reset for https://storymaker.cc”, we have restored a previous database and your password you’ve had as of a 6 hours ago will work again.

We are taking the following steps to improve the security of https://storymaker.cc to ensure this doesn’t happen again and provide additional protection for your stories from spammers and other bad actors:

1 - Returning your original passwords
2 - Adding a captcha to the profile creation page on the website
3 - Locking accounts created after July 17th*
4 - Locking other suspicious accounts

These changes will be happening over the next few hours, so please be patient as this change works through.

• If you have created a StoryMaker account on or after July 17th then please contact us with your account so we can unlock it for you.

If you have changed the reset password to a new password, this new password will no longer work. To ensure the StoryMaker app will continue to publish to http://storymaker.cc you will need to return to using your previous password, or you can reset your password yourself if you like.

If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to email us at support@storymaker.cc.

We apologize for this rather large inconvenience,
StoryMaker Team

With a renewed energy after StoryMaker Camp and seeing the sites of Jordan the StoryMaker team has been hard at work tracking down and squashing bugs. We're happy to announce a new build we're publishing today, but we wanted to also provide some background on the rest of the updates that rolled out this month.

Download Now!
Google Play | Guardian Project | FDroid (coming soon!)

In the beginning of March we put out version 0.0.7, build 95. In that build we fixed export crashes that happened due to editing and audio cross fades. Clip thumbnails were missing inside of stories on devices with android 4.3, but those will now be visible in your stories. On older 2.3.x devices we had issues interacting with the photo gallery, but that's been fixed. Android 4.4 was released and with it came some new exciting issues that caused StoryMaker to not open, but we're now up to date for android 4.4.

Today we've released version 0.0.8 build 96. This past week at a training we found a potentially very helpful bug. StoryMaker would fail to export a story only if it was set in arabic mode. We've tested this on a few devices and it seems to have fixed the problem. We hope that this is going to help resolve a significant number of the media export fail bugs which have been reported. Additionally, we have also removed the "Delete Clip" option on the edit screen. You can still access this feature on a clips individual screen. We intend to add the delete clip feature to the edit screen, but a few other issues need to be addressed first.

April is going to be an exciting month, we're finishing up a significant round of updates to the way StoryMaker uploads and connects to all of your favorite social networks.

We look forward to hearing about how this new build is working for you.

Download Now
Google Play | Guardian Project | FDroid (coming soon!)

StoryMaker.cc Make your story great.

We're adjusting how we're using the Guardian Project tracker, and in the interest of stream lining a lot of the content on here I will be closing the feature requests we have and adding them to group cards in the Product Backlog on trello.

To follow along, you can see them here:

https://trello.com/b/SgSjAXCR/storymaker-product-backlog

Features that are requested through the tracker will still be reviewed, but they'll be developed on trello from now on.

We have now declared "Beta", and begun releasing builds of StoryMaker on Google Play. This will simplify the installation and upgrade process immensely. Just remember to enable "auto update" for the StoryMaker app when you install it.

REMEMBER: BETA still has BUGS, so even though it is on Google Play now, we aren't yet announcing it to the world. The goal was to simplify the process of installation and upgrade for the next round of trainings.

The latest "beta1-build55" has the following improvements:

• improved audio sync for video export
• fixed clip reordering and preview in "Order" tab
• fixes inability to connect to StoryMaker.cc server for loading lessons and publishing
• fixes story export/render bug
• adds more detail for lesson loading status

To install just search "StoryMaker" in Google Play, or visit this link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.mrapp

You can also still find the direct APK for beta1-build55 here:
https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/662/StoryMaker-release-0.0.5-beta1-build55.apk

• Audio and Video story crossfading should work now (uncheck "fast render" on the publish screen)
• Improved slideshow rendering
• New project file folder structure: /sdcard/storymaker/(projectid)
• Many other fun fixes!

APK: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/648/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-12.apk

SHORTURL: http://goo.gl/lCU51

QRCODE:

APK SIG: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/647/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-12.apk.asc

This is primarily an interim build to showcase the new audio crossfading on both Audio and Video stories. There was been a lot of code changes in those areas, so if you want something stable this may not be the build for you. That said, we will have another update soon that is a bit more tested.

APK: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/646/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-11.apk

Shorturl: http://goo.gl/AhEV9
QR Code:

GPG APK Sig: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/645/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-11.apk.asc

Steve and Bethel continue to have very troublesome devices that do not like to authenticate against YouTube. This build supports an entirely new way of doing this, and I am very hopeful they will be able to start joining Brian, Mustafa and myself in publishing amazing stories to the site.

HOW TO ENABLE

1) In the Home screen, go to menu->Settings, scroll to the bottom and look for "YouTube Login" and click the "enable web authentication" check box.

2) When you go to publish a video or photo essay, a window should open with a web browser login prompt for you Google/YouTube account. You may have to login here, or you may just be prompted to allow StoryMaker to access you YouTube account.

3) CLick "allow" and the form should close, and return to the rendering/upload process.

4) Report back on the outcome!

This build also re-enables photo uploading directly to StoryMaker site.

APK: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/641/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-10.apk

APK Shorturl: http://goo.gl/OLtmf

APK qrcode:

GPG SIG: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/640/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-10.apk.asc

Aside from a number of important bug fixes, this build includes of the final major features - the ability to trim video and audio clips within the scene "Order" tab. Just click on the scissors icon the top of the screen (see screenshot below), and you can set the IN and OUT points of any clip. This is a non-destructive trim, so you can easily change it later.

Summary of all build updates

• trip climming in scene editor
• small changes to rendering, upload, publish workflow for more stability
• fixes YouTube auth debug setting option (set 0 to 4 in Settings for debug YouTube signin/auth issues)
• added HTTPS cert notification, updated OnionKit library = better network security
• title edit in publish form now saved
• special HTML characters in title, description now properly formatted

APK: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/639/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-9c.apk

APK short: http://goo.gl/Eo3XH

APK qrcode:

This 9b build addresses the upload/publish crash

APK: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/632/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-9b.apk

apk shorturl: http://goo.gl/1OIE1

apk qrcode:

We've been making great strides knocking down the last of the urgent/high and even quite a few normal open issues on the project tracker.

If you want to see what is left, you can view a query here:
https://dev.guardianproject.info/projects/wrapp/issues?query_id=11

Resolved in this build

• Continued work on YouTube authentication and upload across different variations of Android
• Debugging (and fixing/resolving) Arabic lesson content to properly handle slideshows, images, etc (updated AR lessons pushed shortly)
• Bug #640 (Resolved): Single Photo simple story should publish only a single clip (the single shot...
• Bug #907 (Resolved): audio recording stops if phone screen goes to sleep/locks
• Feature #614 (Resolved): Quick Capture Screen
• Bug #692 (Resolved): No thumbnail on publish page
• Feature #598 (Resolved): First Start Screen
• Bug #804 (Resolved): Slide shows not working in AR version,
• Feature #536 (Resolved): media guid needed in

... and there is also one new easter egg feature in this release - can you find it?!

APK:
https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/627/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-9a.apk

APK Shorturl: http://goo.gl/yuAmM

GPG SIG: https://dev.guardianproject.info/attachments/download/626/StoryMaker-0.0.5-alpha-9a.apk.asc