Crown + Flint Update Week 11 2024

Although the Instagram account is the official outlet for news on my app Crown + Flint, the image-focused format doesn’t really allow for much nuance in updates. It’s also tedious to add text to an image just to share it there. Also, there are numerous accessibility issues too. So—why not leverage my blog?

Anyway, unless you’re a beta tester, you likely have not heard very much from me lately about the progress on the app. Here’s what has been happening.

Developer notes

Addressing data entry slowdowns. My first priority has been to address the fact that on more than a few Android phones, and some iPhones, the screens for entering data on camera bodies, lenses, and film stocks gets unusably slow for some people. The problem is just widespread enough on Android that it’s seriously impacting the app reviews.

Thankfully, some patient folks who experienced this bug have volunteered to help me find a solution—and I think we have one. The data-entry screens are the most complex parts of the app (believe it or not), and rewriting them from scratch is tedious work. Even so, I am aiming to do a patch release—R3.1—in April that makes this issue go away once and for all.

Home screen widgets. R4 is all about getting to your last roll even quicker, through home screen widgets. I’ve just started research into what these things even are, and how they work. R4 is targeted for release at some point in Q2.

What’s new in the community?

If you didn’t know, Crown + Flint has a strong and engaged community on Discord. You should join the conversation!

Recent topics of conversation have included panoramic photography (especially 6x17), how to get into large format as inexpensively as possible, and the extreme limits of pushing Ilford HP5+ and Kentmere 400.

I will also soon be posting a new poll for the 2024 Q3 and Q4 app roadmap! This is your chance to influence the direction of Crown + Flint. I'm still working hard on the items community members voted for in the last poll in October, but it’s time to do some more planning.

That’s it for this week! There was a lot of catching up to do in my communications, so future dispatches will likely be much shorter, or anyway infrequent. If there’s anything you want to know or add, please reach out in the comments below, or better yet, in the Discord community.