Version 2.5 Beta 1

Release Notes

This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups.

Detailed Changelog

General Changes

• novelWriter now requires Python 3.9 and Qt 5.15 as a minimum. That means Ubuntu 20.04 and older are no longer supported for the Debian packages. Users on Ubuntu 20.04 and equivalent Linux distros must use the AppImage. PRs #1826 and #1833.

Major Features

• Status and Importance icons can now be assigned a shape in addition to a colour. Issue #1786. PRs #1810 and #1819.
• Footnotes have been added. They use a modified comment format for specifying the footnote text, and a shortcode for inserting the footnote into the text. They are linked via a key. If the footnote is inserted via the Insert menu, a unique key is generated. Issue #342. PR #1832.
• Comments in general now support formatting, so format tags work just like in regular text. This was needed for footnotes, but has been expanded to include all comments. PR #1832.
• Two new themes have been added. Dracula is available as a set for both the GUI and the editor. Snazzy Light is available for syntax only, but works well with the default light GUI theme. PR #1840.
• Character dialogue highlighting has been completely redesigned. The highlighting rule now specifically relates to dialogue, and not just quoted text in general. To that effect, more rules for detecting what is and isn't dialogue has been added. This is designed to support difference between dialogue conventions in different languages. Issues #1770 and #1771. PR #1864.
• The font settings in Preferences now considers the full range of font options, in particular font style and weight. The changes include the font size in these settings, so the additional setting for font size has been removed. Use the font dialog to pick size as well. Due to this removal, the font size has been reset to default and must be set again by the user. Issue #1733. PR #1881.
• The document viewer and the manuscript preview now uses a completely new class to generate the formatted text. The old method used an outdated HTML format as the go-between, which restricted what formatting could be applied. The main noticeable change to users at the moment should be the size of headings, that now match the size in the editor. Issue #1882. PR #1892.

Improvements

• The default dark theme has been redesigned to match the GUI theme a little better, and is now also consistent with the default light themes. PRs #1836 and #1840.
• Special comments now have a different text colour than plain comments. PR #1836.
• The various Tomorrow themes are now a little more consistent in what colours are used for which components. More variation has also been added. PR #1840.
• The Tango theme has been updated. PR #1840.
• The last cursor position is now always saved when a document is closed in the editor, even if the content has not been changed. PR #1849.
• The settings for first line indent have now been extended to allow setting how deep the indents are and whether or not to indent the first paragraph after a heading or break. The settings have also moved from being Open Document specific to the general formatting tab for manuscripts. PR #1857.
• Preserving in-paragraph line breaks is now a general Manuscript setting that applies to all output formats. PR #1891.
• The Manuscript builds now also uses the full font settings of the selected output font, not just the font family and size option. Since the size option has been merged into the general font choice, the separate font size setting has been dropped and users must set it again. PR #1891.
• It is now possible to disable the usage of the font selection dialog from your operating system. At least on Linux Gnome desktops, the system's font dialog lacks a lot of the selection options available in the font dialog provided with Qt. PR #1891.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where Manuscript dialogs would be left open if the project was closed. PR #1844.
• First line indents are no longer reset after a comment. Issue #1852. PR #1857.

Packaging

• Minimal zip file release packages can no longer be built from the package utility script. The zip file needed for building the Windows installer is still available. PR #1826.
• Added build packages for AARCH64 on MacOS. It seems some dependencies still prevents it from being installed cleanly without requiring some virtualisation feature, but it works. PR #1829.
• AppImages are now released with Python 3.12. PR #1829.

Other Changes

• A new GUI theme setting for error text has been added. It is used when error messages need to be displayed on the GUI. PR #1880.

Code Improvements

• The behaviour of dialogs across various platforms has been unified and improved a little to ensure more consistent behaviour. It is mostly related to modality and z-order. There are still limitations due to platform restrictions, like non-modal dialogs being stuck on top on Linux Wayland. PR #1844.
• Some GUI components have been improved and refactored to rely more on signals and slots rather than reaching into each other's classes and calling methods. This is a little more robust. PR #1849.
• The text tokenizer used to parse the formatting codes in novelWriter has been refactored and improved. In particular, multi-line paragraphs are now processed during the second pass of tokenization rather than when the final format is applied. This allows a much more compact format of the token data, and avoid potential inconsistencies between the various output formats. PR #1885.

Version 2.4.3

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes issues with the document font in the editor, viewer and manuscript preview on some Linux distros, and also fixes a potential crash on Windows when using the spell check dictionary install tool.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix a crash in the dictionaries install tool on Windows if the config folder reported by the third party Enchant spell checker tool didn't already exist prior to adding new dictionaries. The folder is now created when the tool is opened if it doesn't exist. Issue #1874. PR #1876.
• Fix issues setting a different text font for the editor and viewer, and related issues with the preview in the Manuscript Build tool, on certain platforms. Changing the font and setting non-standard font sizes produced unexpected results when reloading. The issue seems to be related to Qt 5.15.3, but that is not fully confirmed. However, the only place so far where the issue is observed is on Mint 21.3. Issues #1862 and #1875. PR #1877.

Version 2.4.2

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes two minor font issues and updates the Dutch and Chinese translations.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Change the preview widget in the Manuscript Build tool to use the document font only for the document itself, not the yellow heading stating the age of the previewed text. PR #1863.
• Fixes the syntax highlighter so that it is re-initialised when the document editor is re-initialised, so that changes to document font size regenerates the heading font sizes as well. Issue #1865. PR #1866.

Internationalisation

• Dutch translation updated by Martijn van der Kleijn (@mvdkleijn). PR #1872.
• Chinese translation updated by @longqzh. PR #1872.

Version 2.4.1

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a number of minor issues with the Manuscript Build tool. The only critical fix is related to a potential crash when deleting a build entry when its settings dialog is still open.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue that could crash novelWriter if a build settings entry was deleted from the Manuscript tool while its settings window was open. PR #1845.

Improvements

• Changed the font used for the document editor and viewer header and footer from the one used for the document text to the one used for the user interface. Issue #1842. PR #1843.
• Added a save document step in the editor before running a manuscript build or a preview job. This ensures that the text in the editor is included in the manuscript. Issue #1835. PR #1846.
• Restore preview panel scroll bar position after updating the preview on the Manuscript tool. Issue #1837. PR #1846.
• Close all non-modal dialogs when a project is closed. PR #1848.

Code Improvements

• Fixed an issue with the Build Settings dialog that blocks the garbage collector from deleting the dialog after it's been closed. PR #1843.
• Remove some deprecated translation entries from the translation files. PR #1850.

Version 2.4

Release Notes

This release adds a new global search feature. The tool is still relatively basic, and will likely be extended in later releases.

Among new text editing features is the ability to highlight text using [m]text[/m] shortcodes. The code [m] is for "mark", which is the equivalent code in HTML.

A second feature added for text editing is the ability to add an alternatively formatted scene heading by adding a ! to the markup, like for chapters and main titles. This allows to distinguish between two scene formatting styles, ### Title and ###! Title, which can for instance be used for soft and hard scene breaks.

The Manuscript Build tool has also been extended with multiple new formatting options.

See the website for complete Release Notes.

Note: This is the last release that will support Ubuntu 20.04 with Debian packages. From 2.5, novelWriter will require Qt 5.15.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed background colour on some widgets on the new Project Search tool. PR #1800.
• Fixed a bug when using bold/italic/strike through toggle on an existing text selection in the editor. Issue #1807. PR #1808.
• An index out of bounds error in the word counter has been fixed. It could only be triggered by a single line only containing a ">" character. Issues #1816 and #1825. PR #1817.
• Fixed an issue where not all theme colours were completely reset before changing theme. PR #1820.
• Shortcodes are no longer passed to the spell checker. PR #1823.

Improvements

• Made placeholder text for search read as "Search for" and "Replace with". PR #1799.
• The initial count for adding chapter and scenes to new project in the Welcome dialog has been changed to 0. The user must now select to add chapters and scenes. Issue #1811. PR #1815.

Documentation

• Updated the documentation for 2.4 features. PR #1818.

Internationalisation

• Norwegian and US English translations updated by Veronica Berglyd Olsen (@vkbo). PRs #1799 and #1814.
• Latin American Spanish translation updated by Tommy Marplatt (@tmarplatt). PR #1814.
• Italian translation updated by Lou Cyper (loucyper1). PR #1814.
• Japanese translation updated by @hebekeg. PR #1814.
• French translation updated by Albert Aribaud (@aaribaud). PR #1821.
• German translation updated by Myian (@HeyMyian). PR #1821.

Version 2.4 RC 1

Release Notes

This is a release candidate of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on writing projects, and make frequent backups.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• A number of issues GUI icon scaling has been fixed. Icons and buttons are supposed to scale relative to the GUI font size, but several of them were not. Issue #1787. PR #1788.
• The persistence of button state for the editor search box has been improved. The present state was only saved when the search box was actively closed, and there were several scenarios where this didn't happen. The button states are now tracked in the central config, and will always be preserved. Issue #1794. PR #1795.

Other Improvements

• A placeholder icon has been added for cases where users have their own icon theme, and icons are missing. Issue #1780. PR #1781.
• The project search now refreshes the search results for the currently open document when it's being edited. PR #1782.
• When activating project search from the editor while text is selected, the search box is populated with this text. Issue #1789. PR #1790.

Packaging

• The project has moved from using a setup.cfg to only using the pyproject.toml meta data file for packaging. This is the preferred file format now. PR #1791.

Code Improvements

• The part of the code related to Qt widgets and flags has been updated and refactored in preparation for the eventual move to the Qt6 framework. Part of issue #1142. PR #1792.
• The Open Document writer class has been refactored and improved. PR #1796.

Version 2.4 Beta 1

Release Notes

This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups.

Please check the changelog for an overview of changes. The full release notes will be added to the final release.

Detailed Changelog

Major Features

• A global search feature has been added to the main sidebar. The search panel replaces the project and novel tree when activated. PR #1775. Issue #894.
• A new shortcode to highlight text has been added. PR #1715. Issue #705.
• A new heading format for hard scene breaks has been added. It uses ###! heading markup. The only affect this has in the GUI is that these headings can be independently formatted in the Manuscript tool. PR #1753. Issue #1050.
• The document editor and viewer now have a dropdown menu in the header listing all headings of the current document for quick navigation. The list is capped at 30 entries. PR #1764. issue #1059.

Build Tool Improvements

• The Manuscript Build Tool now has a word stats section below the preview that shows a number of word and character counts for the previewed text. PR #1717. Issues #1114 and #1116.
• The Manuscript Build Tool now shows an outline of the previewed document as a tab next to the build settings list. PR #1768. Issue #1765.
• Tabs handling in HTML output now has a separate setting from the other format. PR #1723.
• Hard line breaks can now be excluded from Markdown builds. PR #1723. Issue #944.
• It is now possible to control the centring and page breaks of partition, chapter and scene headings. PR #1723. Issues #1117 and #1661.
• Special titles (#!) can now be used in notes as well. PR #1723.
• Meta data categories can be filtered out from the manuscript. PR #1723. issue #1132.
• Any heading in a novel document can now be hidden in the manuscript. PR #1759. Issue #1756.
• First line of a paragraph can now be indented in the manuscript. PR #1761. Issue #906.
• Each meta data entry in HTML builds have a new class assigned to it that matches the tag used in the text. PR #1767. Issue #1134.

Other Improvements

• The percentage progress counter in the editor document footer now counts progress per character instead of per line. This is only noticeable on short documents. PR #1725.
• Some improvements have been made to terms on the GUI and some strings have been simplified in order to be easier to understand and to translate. PR #1727. Issue #1726.
• Dates are now formatted according to the selected locale, if such a locale is available. If not, it falls back to the local system locale. PR #1755. Issue #1739.

Code Improvements

• The tokenization of the novelWriter markup format has been refactored and improved. PR #1724.
• A way to read project documents fast has been added. It is useful many places in the code where only the text is needed, not the meta data. PR #1777.

Version 2.3.1

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes several issues with translations into other languages than the default English, and adds completed translations for French.

Detailed Changelog

Internationalisation

• Fix untranslated text on the "Project Word List" dialog. PR #1744. Issue #1746.
• Fix untranslated text on the dialog that pops up after an upgrade, PR #1754. Issue #1749.
• Fix error in Norwegian translation. PR #1744.
• Allow the translated text for adding chapter and scenes on the Welcome dialog to flow around the number selector since the number is inserted into the sentence, and not all languages will split the sentence around the number like is done in English. PR #1754. Issue #1750.
• French translation updated by Albert Aribaud (@aaribaud). PR #1760.
• Minor updates to other translations for the 2.3.1 fixes by other contributors. PR #1760.

Other Changes

• Bump the revision of the project file format to 1.5 Revision 3 from Revision 2. This should have been done in the 2.3 release due to the addition of the Templates root folder type. PR #1748.

Version 2.3

Release Notes

This release introduces a new Welcome dialog that replaces both the previous Open Project dialog and the New Project Wizard. The Welcome dialog has received a friendly custom art design created by Louis Durrant.

The Preferences, Project Settings, Project Details, and About dialogs have received completely new designs and layouts, and the Manuscript Build Settings dialog has been updated to match.

Among new features is a new Templates root folder where the writer can store template documents to be used when creating new project documents and notes. It is now also possible to include Point of View and Focus character names in chapter titles in Manuscripts. A new feature to ignore text has also been added. It behaves similarly to comments, but is never included in a manuscript even if comments in the manuscript are enabled.

See the website for complete Release Notes.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix an issue where the Tags and References panel below the document viewer was not cleared if a project was opened, closed, and a new project with no tags defined were opened again. PR #1720. Issue #1718.
• Fixed an issue where multi-selecting documents in Trash would give the option to again move items to Trash. The menu now properly offers the option to permanently delete the documents. PR #1728.
• Fixed an issue where multi-select for deletion would only process the item right-clicked, and not all the selected items. PR #1728.
• Changed the error message that pops up when trying to open a project from the Welcome dialog that no longer exists. The error message should no indicate that the project was not found, as opposed to unreadable. PR #1740. Issue #1737.

Improvements

• The build tool no longer inserts a scene separator immediately after a partition heading, and should now behave the same way as for chapters. If there is text before the first scene break, the text flows continuously without a separator. PR #1716. Issue #1704.
• Added one new GUI theme named "Cyberpunk Night" by @alemvigh. Also added a matching "Cyberpunk Night" document editor theme by @alemvigh, and a new Tango theme by @vkbo. PR #1738. Issue #1730.
• When the Welcome dialog fails to open a project, and there is not already a project open in the app, the Welcome dialog appears again. PR #1740. Issue #1737.

Internationalisation

• Norwegian and US English translations updated by @vkbo. PR #1714.
• Japanese translation updated by @hebekeg. PR #1714.
• Italian translation updated by Lou Cyper (loucyper1). PR #1714.
• Dutch translation updated by Annelotte and Martijn van der Kleijn (@mvdkleijn). PR #1714.
• Latin American Spanish translation updated by @tmarplatt. PR #1741.
• German translation updated by Myian (@HeyMyian). PR #1741.

Other Changes

• Removed the novelwriter-cli entry point that was in any case broken. PR #1734. Issue #1732.

Version 2.3 RC 1

Release Notes

This is a release candidate of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups.

Please check the changelog for an overview of changes. The full release notes will be added to the final release.

Detailed Changelog

Improvements

• Redesign the buttons on the new Welcome dialog so that they only show buttons related to the visible page. Drop the additional buttons on the New Project page. Issue #1706. PRs #1707 and #1709.
• Drop the Language setting on the Welcome dialog's New Project page. PR #1707.
• Hide the additional settings for Fresh Projects on the New Project page of the new Welcome dialog. Issue #1705. PR #1707.
• Update the Templates root folder icon. PR #1709.
• Scene separators are now hidden after a new title in manuscript builds, also when there are no chapters. Issue #1704. PR #1711.
• Scene and chapter counters are now reset when a novel title is encountered. PR #1711.