Working on a new scheduling software

[El Director]

I've been using ChatGPT and Claude (free versions) to build my dream film shoot scheduler called CineSched. Currently it's Mac only and only for my own use, but I might make it available once it's more refined. I'll say it up front - I don't know how to write code. I tell the AI what I want, it builds it, and I copy and paste. If there's an issue, I upload the full code, tell the AI my problem, and it makes changes. My role is really just that of a project manager.

This grab is from my latest version last night when I had a few more features working. The video below this is from earlier in the day.


Check out this demo:

 

[El Director]

I posted about this before, but now I have a full working version - and I only used the free versions of ChatGPT and Claude. To pull something like this off, you really just need to know how to communicate. I found that I became a project manager, simply telling the AI tools what features I needed, or what wasn't working properly.

It was a bit frustrating at times. I first started the project two years ago and got nowhere. I'd ask ChatGPT to help me make a film shoot scheduling app and it would tell me what the process was and what features to add, but that was it. Eventually I did hear about people using AI to create full apps, so I went back to ChatGPT and tried again. This time, I was honest. I told it that I knew nothing about coding and would appreciate if it could create the code for me to copy and paste. It did! It also suggested a coding app (Xcode) to build this.

Unfortunately, the initial code it gave me refused to run, but little by little I troubleshooted it. Eventually I came to realize that a lot of app developers love Claude, so I uploaded my code to it, told it that it wouldn't run, and asked it to fix it. It did, and I was off and running! Although I started knowing nothing about coding, I'd say I now know about 1%. I know that a "ContentView.swift" file is where the magic happens, and I know that if I put // DESCRIPTION that it doesn't affect the code, it merely acts as an organizer or marker.

Another snafu that I kept running into started after about a week of this. By now, the app was coming along and I was adding features left and right. Claude started to inform me that I'd reached the limit for a chat length and would have to purchase a subscription or start a new chat. I always just started a new chat. Eventually I would also be maxing out the amount of AI that I was allowed to use and would often have to wait five hours for it to reset.

In any case, this has been a really fun exercise for me and I finally have the scheduling app that I've always wanted. I used Movie Magic Scheduling on my last film, but there was a lot of the program that I just didn't use and really couldn't justify the cost again. I was honestly surprised that nobody had made a good scheduling app that was calendar based, so I finally decided to do it.

I'm considering making the app available as-is for anyone that thinks it might be useful to them. It's currently MacOS only and designed for Sequoia and Tahoe. Here's a demo of it in action:

 

[El Director]

I had a chance to make some much needed tweaks to this today. I cleaned up the header, improved the scene strips, and got the PDF exports to span multiple pages! Super stoked for that I experimented with Grok and Gemini first, but they weren't doing what I needed, so I went back to Claude, and after about nine revisions to the code we were up and running.
I'm tempted to put this on GitHub and see if anyone else can contribute, but I have no clue how to do that.

I'll add that this is just a sample schedule I threw together to test functionality. An actual film will have the scene numbers first, then INT/EXT and location. Time of day is indicated by the coloring. White is day, shaded is night.

 

[Paul F]

Cool beans.

 

[El Director]

Overview of this app, plus a new one for budgeting!

 

[El Director]

Here's a download link to the apps. Mac only. Built for Tahoe, should work on Sequoia. Not signed, you will have to do that with the Terminal the first time you run them.

CineSuite.zip

drive.google.com

 

[El Director]

Made another update yesterday that allows me to import a .fdx file! I'm still testing it before I decide to release that version, but so far it's great! I'm also working on an update to CineSpend that will allow for calculation of costs based on how much and how many days are needed.