Introduction > New Features in WhisperReporter Ascent

New features in WhisperReporter Ascent (vs the original WhisperReporter):

Video

•Capture video using our built-in video camera tool for inclusion into a PDF report.

•Load videos you may have already captured using another method other than our built in video camera tool.

Images

•Image placeholders that you can add and pre-size for a template to make is easier to place frequently taken photos consistently in new reports without needing to go directly to the topic itself.

•New powerful image editor that supports image cropping, re-editing of previously added annotation objects, object rotation, polyline drawing for sketching property borders for termite inspection diagrams, and more.

•Image captioning. You can chose to add a caption when loaded into the database so they are numbered automatically. You can also add them individually, or even batch add/replace image captions that have already been added to a report. Image captions are added to the image itself so they stay with the image at all times. The captions can also be referenced in the topic comment or in a user bookmark for inclusion in a user Table of Contents. The caption reference also means that if you update or resequence image captions, the caption reference will automatically get updated as well.

•Image timestamps. You can have WhisperReporter Ascent add the photo's internal creation timestamp to the footer of a photo as it is loaded into the database.

•Image file name. You can have WhisperReporter Ascent add the image name to the footer of an image as it is loaded into the database.

•When generating a PDF report, you can have it include a second copy of each image so that a user can double-click an image to view the image in a larger window.

•Supports the ability to associate images to specific chapters or topics so that they only appear in the unused images panel if you are in one of those topics. They can be manually associated or they can be automatically associated based on the folder you are importing images from.

•Find operation can now find images in both a report or in RapidRemarks.

•Quick Image load feature to load all images from a consistent folder location, including its subdirectories.

•Ability to Insert small images that bypass any scaling, customizations such as border, captions, etc, or image display sizing. This simplifies adding small glyphs in order to add additional emphasis to specific comments.

Table of Contents

•Unlimited User Table of Contents are available. This means you can create separate TOCs for photos, images and diagrams for example.

•TOC options can now be ReportView specific so that each report layout type can have a difference format for TOCs.

•Now you can choose between logical page numbering or physical page numbering.

User Interface

•Panels can be pinned, unpinned, docked, undocked or moved to different docking locations. For example, the navigation panel can be moved to the right side, or the image panels can be undocked and resized while working on images. Each panel can also be pinned or unpinned where it is collapsed to a slide out panel.

•Save and manage unlimited desktop layouts you create by the above panel pinning and docking. Recall a specific layout depending on the current situation, such as having a large unused image panel while adding images to a report, or a layout that maximizes the topic comment area while you add your findings on a tablet.

•Multi-monitor support. You could have one layout specific to your tablet, and another when docked with an external monitor, splitting panels between monitors as one example, such as images on one panel and the main app on another.

•Improved tablet support for things such as pinch zooming, portrait vs landscape orientation awareness, image panel scrolling and more.

•High DPI monitor support so that text and icons are sharp and clear at any Windows display scaling.

•A Dashboard has been added to get a quick overview of inspections performed and revenue generated by various date ranges. It also contains a list of the last five modified reports, making it easy to switch between recent inspection reports.

•Custom toolbar buttons to be able to set up to 10 toolbar buttons to perform a variety of functions that may only otherwise be available using menu options.

•The look and feel can now be customized using Styles, Themes and color options for the toolbar and editor. This enhances the user experience, and includes dark themes for those who prefer white on black text.

Scheduling Services

•Enhanced support for Inspection Support Network (ISN) which uses their latest API to pull more information.

•Added support for ISN's Repair Request Summary.

•Added support for NxtInspekt and iGO Keystone.

RapidRemarks

•Descriptions can have color coded icons, such as red for deficiencies, green for recommendations, blue for instructions, etc.

•Descriptions can have basic HTML based markup (bold, italic, color, etc) to make some entries stand out over others.

•Added Find/Replace functionality.

•Image search

Writing the report

•Spellchecking now includes popular languages other than just English, such as Spanish, French and others.

•Formulas can now include conditional expressions.

•Topic Checkbox References can be added in topic comments to show the state of any topic checkbox. Useful for a summary table to indicate which topics have been marked as deficient without have to flip through the whole report.

•Image captioning and referencing. Image captions can be added directly to an image and that caption can be referenced elsewhere in any topic and user table of contents.

•Videos can be added to any topic for viewing from a PDF report.

•Image placeholders for reserving and pre-sizing frequently taken images for quick insertion of photos that will be added to a report later. Useful for use in templates for photos always taken, such as the front of the house, A/C compressor, water heater, etc.

•Footnotes can be inserted into topic comments which adds additional commentary or citations without disrupting the flow of the main narrative.

•Vertical text can be added to table cells.

•Comments can now contain Radio button groups.

Other Enhancements

•Enhanced ReportView and WorkView Managers, making the creation of different report formats much easier.

•Chapter Layout Manager can now specify the page numbering format (numeric or Roman Numerals)

•Linked Text layouts can now be ReportView specific.

•Enhanced report merging capabilities when multiple inspectors are working the same property.

•Email now supports multiple templates and can use HTML formatting.

•Support for accessing a free remote database server such as in a shared office environment.

•New Export Data functionality withing the Data Manager. It now uses scripts to export data and we can provide needed scripts by request.

•Additional Formatting Wizard capabilities: Reset table margins and/or borders, update linked text, picklist replacement or removal, and change individual characters.

•Picklist Manager now includes a cleanup feature so you can easily remove unused picklists.

•Enhanced the service fees/discount section.

•You can now configure to toggle cloaked text with either a single or double click, and separately for desktop or tablet modes.

•Watermarks can be set to print either behind everything (standard watermark) or on top of everything (as an overlay to mask out areas of the page). Overlaid watermarks can also include tags.

•In addition to diagram sketching from Apex Sketch and Utilant RapidSketch, Ascent added ElevenWorks TouchDraw integration.

Miscellaneous

•Summary Report feature, aka Realtor Summary. You can now create a separate Summary Report based on specific linked text that can be provided to the realtor as a PDF report or as an editable RTF document.

•Template Store access to find, preview and install available templates.

•Attribute cloning (Clone Stamping). This allows you to copy the attributes of text and apply the same attributes to other selected text.

•Added a Watermark Manager for managing watermarks used for Chapter Layouts and report generation.

•Added the ability to convert a report's colored text to Grayscale when creating a PDF (does not affect images or included PDFs).

•Added a Database Statistics and Maintenance dialog to help keep the database a more manageable size.

•New database technology.