Dialogue Branch News & Updates

Dialogue Branch v0.10.0: Core Java API updates

2026-11-13T00:00:00Z

Just in time for the weekend, we released v0.10.0. This update focuses on the core Java library, making it easier to integrate Dialogue Branch into a Java application. Specifically:

A dialogue in a few lines. Load a project, start a dialogue for a user, and each step comes ready to show: the speaker, the text and the replies. Choosing a reply gives you the next step. The home page has a short example, and the core library documentation has more.
Replies into other dialogues just work. When a reply leads into another dialogue, the library follows it by itself, in the same language and with the same variables.
Logs, going back and resuming. Your application can keep a log of the conversation, go back a step, cancel, and pick up a dialogue later from its log, just as the Web Service does.
Clearer errors. All parse errors in a project are reported together in one exception, and choosing a reply that isn't on offer, or continuing a dialogue that has already ended, gives a clear error. Dialogues can be looked up by name and language, falling back to the source language when there's no translation.
The command-line tool plays a dialogue in the source language when it isn't translated, and keeps variables from one dialogue to the next.
Web Service and Studio. An unknown step or reply now gets a 404 Not Found instead of a server error, also in test sessions, and Studio's workspace follows the conversation into the next dialogue.

If you already use the core library directly, a few methods have changed: ActiveDialogue now needs to know where to find other dialogues, and choosing a reply is now a single selectReply(...). The release notes list what to change. The Web Service, Studio and the JavaScript client need no changes.

Speakers, gendered translations and safer testing: Dialogue Branch 0.8 and 0.9

2026-11-12T00:00:00Z

We released v0.8.0, v0.8.1, v0.9.0, v0.9.1 and v0.9.2 over the past two weeks. Here's what's new.

Speakers. A project can now define its speakers, each with a name, a gender and an optional default, and Studio checks the nodes against them. Renaming a speaker renames it in every node and translation, after showing what will change, and a node with an unknown speaker gets a warning (never an error). See speakers.
Translations that follow gender. In languages where a sentence changes with the gender of the speaker or of the person addressed, a translation can now follow both. The end user's gender is set through the reserved variable $dlb.userGender, the Translation Editor has Female user and Male user translations, and Studio can test a dialogue as a female or male user. See translation files.
Testing never touches real data. A test session runs against its own copy of the user's variables. Admins can simulate a user to look into a problem without changing anything, and acting for real as someone else is clearly marked. A new Users page erases everything stored about a user.
A sturdier External Variable Service. The Web Service now authenticates to it with a Keycloak token, a slow or unreachable service no longer stalls a dialogue, and Studio shows whether it is running, with the hints it gives for its variables (type, allowed values, read-only). See the External Variable Service.
Simultaneous requests are safe. Two requests from the same user at the same moment, such as a double tap or two open tabs, no longer overwrite each other.
A security update. v0.9.1 moves the Web Service and Studio to Spring Boot 4.1 and current libraries, and the Docker images have no known critical or high vulnerabilities.
Variables per dialogue. The list of a project's variables now says which dialogues read and write each one, so a client can show the variables of a single dialogue.

Two of these releases contain changes that can break existing setups: variable names with a dot in them ($settings.theme is now one variable), the reserved dlb. prefix for variable names, the new node colour tag, and the new authentication of the External Variable Service. Before you upgrade, read the notes of v0.8.0 and v0.9.0, which list what to change. Every release, with its notes, is on the releases page.

Catching up: one platform, Studio, and a new website

2026-11-12T00:00:00Z

It's been quiet on this page since early 2024, but not in the code. Here's what has happened since:

One repository. The language, the core Java library, the Web Service, the example scripts and everything else now live together in dialoguebranch/platform, and are versioned and released together.
Dialogue Branch Studio. The Web Client from the v1.2.0 post grew into Studio: a web app where you edit dialogues as a graph of nodes, play them through, translate them, and publish them when they're ready, with drafts kept apart from what your users see (about Studio).
A JavaScript client on npm. @dialoguebranch/client-js lets your own app play dialogues from a Web Service, and is published with every release (connecting your app).
New version numbers. Because the platform is still finding its final shape, its versions were reset to 0.x in September 2026, to say so honestly; the old 1.x release tags were renumbered with them. Full stability promises start at 1.0. Releases now come every few weeks; the latest is v0.9.2.
A new website and documentation. You're looking at it: this website was rebuilt, and the Documentation Hub now lives right here on it, generated from the platform's own repository.

Code Release v1.2.0!

2024-02-01T00:00:00Z

We have created the v1.2.0 GitHub code releases for all of the Dialogue Branch software repositories: the Core Java Library, the Web Services and the Example Scripts. (These repositories have since been merged into one, and their releases renumbered; see the catch-up post.)

The major element of this release is the first version of the Dialogue Branch Web Client application (see image below). The Web Client serves a couple of different purposes:

First, it's a quick and easy entry point to start experimenting with Dialogue Branch. Once you have a running Web Service, this tool allows you to easily interact with that web service by logging into an account, selecting a dialogue from the Dialogue Browser to start, using the Interaction Tester to run through the dialogues and seeing how variables are updated in real-time through the Variable Browser.
Second, the Web Client is the quickest and friendliest way to test your dialogues before deploying them to a real application. Additional features are being planned to easily manipulate variables, so that different dialogue routes and corner cases may be tested with ease.
And finally, the Web Client is the best starting point for making your own dialogue-driven web applications. It is a template for creating any type of web app that includes Dialogue Branch dialogues and consists of a neatly organized set of JavaScript classes that you may easily extend and use freely in your own applications.

So, go check out the code, and start exploring this new addition to the Dialogue Branch toolsuite!

Code Release v1.1.0!

2023-11-13T00:00:00Z

Over the past days we have created the GitHub code releases v1.1.0 of the Dialogue Branch software packages: the Core Java Library, the Web Services and the Example Scripts. In order to simplify the version numbering between the different repositories, we will simultaneously release code versions for all Major and Minor updates (i.e. vX.Y.*), which also includes a release of the "Example Scripts" repository.

In this release, the focus has been on improving code readability of the core Java library (and thus each package that uses it). In the previous library version, almost all Class names were prefixed with "DLB" — a convention that grew over time, but ultimately led to awkward code. Almost all of these references have now been removed. So, where previously we would talk about a "DLBParser" parsing "DLBNodes", consisting of "DLBNodeHeaders" and "DLBNodeBodys", now we refer to a "DialogueBranchParser" that parses "Nodes", consisting of "Bodys" and "Headers".

New Examples Script Repository

2023-05-15T00:00:00Z

We've added a new repository to the Dialogue Branch GitHub page, containing example .dlb scripts that are useful to learn the concepts of the Dialogue Branch language, or to test any software you're building that uses a Dialogue Branch parser. (Today, these examples live in the examples folder of the platform repository.)

Documentation Hub Online

2023-05-12T16:00:00Z

Our Documentation Hub is now online. This should help new users navigate the software released earlier today. As a starting point, check out the Language Documentation explaining the .dlb language format that can be parsed by the core Java library, or look at the Web Services section if you're interested in using Dialogue Branch in a client-server setup.

Code Release v1.0.0 for Core Library and Web Services

2023-05-12T10:00:00Z

On our Dialogue Branch GitHub page, we have created the v1.0.0 Release Tags for the core Java library and the web services. This marks the first official stable releases of the Dialogue Branch Platform Components.

dialoguebranch.com Website Launch

2023-04-13T00:00:00Z

Welcome to Dialogue Branch, the new open-source branching dialogue platform!

Over the next weeks and months, we will be releasing updates to the platform and its documentation. For now, we are working on getting our Documentation Hub up-and-running, releasing the source code for the Dialogue Branch Web Service, and preparing for an official platform launch!

If you want to stay up to date, drop us an email at info@dialoguebranch.com.