CineLog Release Notes: Cast & Crew & Call Sheets

(Feb 25, 2026 - April 9, 2026)

This massive update entirely overhauls how productions are organized in CineLog. By introducing deep structural systems for Cast & Crew hierarchies, highly sophisticated Call Sheet generation, and a powerful new granular Access Control system, this release transitions CineLog from a shot-planning utility into a robust project management platform.

👥 Cast & Crew System

The Cast and Crew feature is now the central hub for managing team members, organizing production roles, and controlling project access.

The navigation rail now provides two distinct ways to manage your network:

Cast and Crew View: A deeply organized UI visualizing groups, departments, and role slots (e.g., Camera -> Grip -> Key Grip).
Contacts View: A flat Rolodex-style list of your contacts, natively scoped to the workspace (one unique contact per email per workspace) but filterable by individual projects.

Intelligent Role Planning (Vacant Slots)

You no longer need to know who is doing a job to start planning.

You can create Vacant Slots for roles you need to fill (e.g., adding an open “Director of Photography” slot).
Once hired, simply assign a contact from your Rolodex to that slot. This assignment seamlessly propagates down into all Call Sheet workflows.

Industry-Standard Hierarchies

The system introduces a strict, predefined 3-level hierarchy (Group → Department → Role) encompassing hundreds of standard industry roles. This ensures every production communicates via universal standards, whether assigning a Best Boy Grip or a VFX Supervisor.

Mobile-First Bottom Sheets & Dual Layouts

Dual Desktop Layouts: Choose between a Horizontal Kanban-style board (grouped by department) or a dense Vertical Table Layout depending on your screen size and preference.
Batch Selection Architecture: Integrated dedicated selection_notifiers to power a new batch-selection mode, allowing you to execute simultaneous bulk actions and edits across your roster.
Phone-Adaptive UI: All major forms—from adding a role (AddRoleBottomSheet) to editing a contact (ContactFormBottomSheet)—have been mapped to smooth modal bottom sheets that trigger seamlessly when operating CineLog on a smartphone.

🔐 Project Access Control & Invitations (ACL)

Adding someone to a Call Sheet doesn’t automatically mean they can access your CineLog script or shot list. We have introduced a highly granular, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system.

The “Intent” Toggle Invitation System

Inviting a user to collaborate is now handled entirely through an asynchronous Access Intent Toggle inside the Role Details dialog:

Flipped ON: The system evaluates if the contact has an existing CineLog account. If yes, it transparently auto-assigns the user and bypasses the invitation limit (thanks to intelligent backend short-circuiting). If no, it dispatches an email invitation with a robust callback token.
Flipped OFF: Access is instantly restricted, updating local clients immediately via optimistic UI updates and CineSync push.

”Merge-at-Resolution” Permissions

Permissions are no longer confusingly tied to individual users. They are tied to Roles:

Every Department has a broad baseline (e.g., all Production staff can see the Team).
Roles refine that baseline (e.g., modifying the Casting Director template).
Project Overrides: The Project Owner can toggle specific access switches explicitly inside the Cast and Crew UI (e.g. allowing the specific Gaffer to view Scripts) and it strictly overrides everything else for that role in the current project only.

ACL Test Suite Validation: Added exhaustive unit and integration testing (acl-enforcement.spec.ts) functionally validating the complex priority overrides of this “Merge-at-Resolution” model, ensuring zero permission bleed.
Dedicated Invitations Service: Implemented specialized backend REST routes and associated HTML email templates seamlessly intertwined with the deep-link authentication ecosystem.

Real-time Re-Bootstrapping

When a user accepts an invite or has their permissions expanded from “View” to “Edit” mid-session, the client utilizes a new AclRebootstrapHook. This hook seamlessly intercepts the new permissions and re-downloads authorized project chunks seamlessly while the user works.

🎬 Call Sheets Module

The Call Sheets feature effectively turns CineLog into a production office. It is modeled strictly against Tier 1 industry layouts (utilizing the “Precision Ledger” aesthetic) with zero-compromise typographic integrity.

Live-View Schedule Engine

The Schedule section of a Call Sheet is NOT a static text box. It is a live, bidirectional viewport into your Production Shot List:

Cascading Recalculation: The new ScheduleTimeEngine calculates running times for your entire day. If you enter an explicit start time (e.g. 08:00), it cascades the schedule down using the estimatedTime of your scenes and banners.
Conflict & Gap Warnings: It visually highlights impossible schedule bottlenecks in red and warns you with yellow alerts when gaps exist.
Changes made on the Call Sheet instantly reflect in the Shot List via CineSync.

Overlays & Smart Integrations

Google Places & WeatherAPI: Setting a location using the new Google Autocomplete overlay triggers the backend to securely fetch targeted forecasts from weather API, permanently caching them in the call sheet.
Company Branding: Upload global production company logos (cached securely in company_profiles) which automatically populate the headers of your PDF exports.
Mobile Workflow: Built a bespoke PhoneCallSheetBottomNav replacing horizontal sub-menus with an accessible bottom picker, mapping standard navigation paths perfectly for mobile users on-set.

PDF Export & Intelligent Sendouts

Multi-Language PDFs: Server-side PDF export guarantees exact pixel-matches to the app UI. Critical layout improvements were made to prevent row trancation (drawCrewSection, drawExtrasSection), while implementing fallback font systems to successfully render Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari, CJK, and Thai characters correctly without box-artifacts.
Anti-Threading Emails: When you blast 50 Call Sheets out via the Sendouts flow, the system injects unique tracking markers per email to prevent email clients (like Gmail) from threading daily call sheets into a massive, unreadable chain.

Call Sheet Confirmations (CineLog Links)

Call Sheets are accompanied by external confirmation links (links.cinelog.com/confirm-call-sheet). Recipients tap the link on their phone, arriving at a fast CineLog-themed portal to hit “Confirm”. This triggers a real-time CineSync event that puts a green checkmark next to their name on the sender’s “Sendout Status Dashboard” inside the app.

🛠 Core Improvements & Utility Updates

Media Explorer

File Downloads: Added a vital quality-of-life improvement allowing users to directly download assets and exported files straight out of the Media Explorer without utilizing outside links.

Native Infrastructure & Workflows

Universal App Links (iOS & Android): Fully configured Apple App Site Association (apple-app-site-association) and Android App Links (assetlinks.json) via Firebase Hosting. Tapping an invitation or call-sheet confirmation link will now instantly route you directly into the native CineLog app if installed.
Keyboard-Aware Overlays: Introduced the custom KeyboardAwareOverlay mixin universally across the app (Call Sheets, Storyboards, Contacts). This intelligently adjusts floating UI panels when mobile virtual keyboards appear, completely eliminating obscured text inputs.
E.164 Phone Formatting: Implemented native structural parsing for international phone numbers inside the Cast & Crew and Contacts system, ensuring Call Sheets explicitly output standardized, professional dialing patterns.
Unassignment Hook Detection: Added new background safety rules enforcing immediate access revocation if a user is actively removed from a project while working within it.

Backend & Core Systems

Connectivity Resiliency: We rewrote macOS internal baseline internet checks (migrating away from superficial device-level checks to raw DNS packet probing). This permanently fixes a notorious false-negative outbox disconnection bug on laptops.
Adaptive WebSocket Healthchecks: Rebuilt the active WebSocket engine to aggressively reduce battery usage. It dynamically scales ping times out up to a maximum interval of 5 minutes during idle usage.
Cross-Platform Storage Isolation: Safely migrated internal app data caching into native ApplicationSupportDirectory implementations enforcing strict cache isolation across production app flavors.
Database Backward Compatibility: Successfully deployed a legacy data-layer transformer for Workspace Contacts. This automatically injects required project_id bindings for legacy un-updated App clients during live WebSocket propagation.

# CineLog v1.2.0 - Cast & Crew & Call Sheets