Crank releases Storyboard 6.1 update focused on internationalization of embedded GUIs.

OTTAWA, ON, October 24, 2019 - Crank Software is pleased to announce their commitment to helping organizations deliver a brilliant touch screen experience to their global customers with the release of its latest version of Storyboard. Crank Software, an innovator in embedded GUI design and development software, created Storyboard to enable R&D teams to more quickly and collaboratively develop rich and dynamic graphical displays while optimizing hardware performance.

When it comes to the rendering of text for the internationalization of products, the process for handling more complicated strings that use glyphs or for characters that change shape based on their context, become an important and critical part of the GUI development process. This is where Storyboard’s recent version 6.1 comes into play.

In addition to the many workflow-enhancing capabilities that were added to Storyboard's latest release, some of the core enhancements introduced focus on making the handling and rendering of non-Latin-based text easier for UI developers, when there is a focus on taking their product global.

“Storyboard is being increasingly relied upon by major international brands like GE Appliances and John Deere who want to ensure a consistent user experience across all of their products, including those in different languages” said Jason Clarke, Crank Software's VP of Sales and Marketing. “With our latest update, we focused on making it easier for our customers to take their products to more customers, by improving their ability to internationalize their UIs for non-Latin-based languages."

With Storyboard's latest release, organizations benefit from:

• Added flexibility for text wrapping of simple Chinese/Japanese/Korean (CJK) languages
• Precise obtainment of the bounds of wrapped text through breaking and wrapping algorithms that the render extension uses
• Text-shaping of complex glyphs using FreeType fonts removing the need to use third-party commercial-based options to help lower the overall project costs
• Text-overflow option that enables developers to easily determine the ideal location for spacing to occur when text needs to be wrapped within a menu list or event-driven button

Storyboard is a platform-agnostic GUI development tool that was built exclusively for embedded, by a team of experienced GUI designers and software engineers who recognized that there had to be a better way. Designing, then validating, then going back to the drawing board was wasting too much valuable time, effort and money. Innovation was critical, and going to market with a semi-sufficient embedded touch screen was no longer acceptable. Storyboard's unique parallel workflow allows designers to be focused on perfecting a UI that help drive an exceptional user experience, while developers concentrate on achieving the best hardware performance for the design - all without compromising the other team's progress.