Version 2.0.5

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a number of minor bugs and usability issues.

The Project Details dialog now properly updates when another project is opened, and the "Total editing time" value has a less ambiguous time format. The editor no longer inserts blank lines if block formats are applied to an empty line. The optional last column in the Novel Tree will now show all items of the selected type, not only the first, and the column size can be adjusted from the same menu where the column content is selected. The Open Document build output has been updated to ODF 1.3 extended format, and passes validation.

An Italian translation has been added, and Russian is currently available for project builds. A full translation into Russian is on its way.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where the Title, Project Name and Author values of the Project Dialog would not refresh when a project was closed and another opened. The issue is with the Qt library and caching of the dialog, but novelWriter forces a refresh of the labels. These three were previously missing though. Issue #1336. PR #1339.
• Add a check to the data storage class that a path exists before it is returned to other classes that uses them for file I/O. Issue #1317. PR #1342.
• Fixed some issues with the Open Document build format as the produced document wasn't compliant with the standard. It is now compliant with ODF 1.3 extended format. Issue #1359. PR #1360.

Usability Fixes

• The "Total editing time" label on the Project Details dialog now uses the same time format as the status bar. That is, HH:MM:SS for times less than 24 hours, and D-HH:MM:SS for times from 24 hours and above. Issue #1335. PR #1339.
• Fixed an issue where applying block formatting to an empty line would insert a blank line before it. This is a consequence of the change from #1175. The line break is now only added if the line is not blank. Issues #1349 and #1350. PR #1354.
• The optional third column in the Novel Tree now shows all references for the selected category instead of just the first one. The maximum width of the column can also be selected from the Novel Tree config menu. Issue #1351. PR #1355.
• The Open Document produced by the build tool now has the necessary title and author meta data set so that it can be used in LibreOffice. Other meta data has also been added. Issue #1359. PR #1360.

Internationalisation

• Existing translations for US English, Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, and German have been updated. French and Dutch are partially updated. PR #1341.
• Russian project variables have been added. Full translation is forthcoming. Contributed by Aleksey (@SKYnv). PR #1341.
• A complete Italian translation has been added. Contributed by Riccardo Mangili. PR #1341.

Packaging

• Added App Bundle and DMG packages for MacOS. Contributed by @Ryex. PRs #1276 and #1340.

Version 2.0.4

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a bug where novelWriter would crash if PyQt5 version 5.15.8 was installed and imported.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix an issue with the version check against PyQt5, which was imported from the wrong package when running novelWriter with PyQt5 version 5.15.8, released 2023-01-28. Issue #1324. PR #1325.

Version 2.0.3

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a few bugs and usability issues. The editing of status and importance labels in Project Settings should now be a bit more intuitive. Opening a document from the Outline View that is already open in the editor should now switch to the editor view. The convert folder to note or document feature in the project tree has also been fixed. Some icons have been updated and a renderring issue with one of them fixed. Chinese, Norwegian, US English, German and Spanish translations have been updated as well. A new credits tab has been added to the About dialog box, replacing the Credits section on the main About tab.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix an issue with one of the active icons for the project tree. The SVG paths were not properly joined. Issue #1297. PR #1299.
• Fix an issue where the new open project routine for 2.0 would not check that a project exists before trying to open it. This resulted in the open process creating all the expected folders in the designated location before realising there was no project there. Issue #1300. PR #1301.
• Fix an issue with the convert folder to document or note functionality was no longer working. The context menu entries were actually just calling the function for converting a file. Issue #1305. PR #1306.
• Fix an issue where the app may crash if an item is added as a child of an item that exists, but has invalid settings such that it is rejected by the project tree builder function when the project is opened. Now, only items with a parent item that has already been added will be allowed into the project tree. The issue was caused by an invalid project file, and is not likely to occur during normal use, but such events should still be handled rather than crash the app. Issue #1283. PR #1309.

User Interface

• The CREDITS.md file has been updated, and its content is now also available in a "Credits" tab in the About dialog in the app. The old credits section of the "About" tab has been removed. PR #1298.
• Fix a usability issue where double-clicking an entry in the Outline that belongs to a document that is already open in the editor does nothing. Now, the app switches view to the editor when the heading is clicked. Issue #1291. PR #1306.
• Change how the editing of status and importance labels work in Project Settings. The form at the bottom of the tabs is now always active when a label is selected, and always inactive when none is selected. Issue #1290. PR #1308.

Internationalisation

• Update Chinese translation. PR #1298.
• Update Norwegian, US English, German and Spanish translations. PR #1311.

Other Changes

• An icon theme can now be loaded from the user's data folder alongside a custom user theme. Issue #1297. PR #1299.
• Some Inkscape format SVG files have been converted to Plain SVG. PR #1299.

Version 2.0.2

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a minor issues with syntax highlighting not updating when the highlighting preferences were changed. It also fixes an issue that broke the FreeBSD release.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix an issue where changing the Highlighting Preferences for highlighting quotes, emphasis, and multiple or trailing spaces would not reload the syntax highlighter in the editor. The changes would only take effect after restarting the app. Issue #1274. PR #1278.

Packaging and Installation

• The 2.0.1 release was broken on Linux, but was fixed and the packages rebuilt. However, the FreeBSD port was still broken. This release fixes this issue. Issue #1277. PR #1272.

Version 2.0.1

Release Notes

This is a patch release that fixes a minor issues with loading custom GUI themes that haven't been updated to include the icon theme setting. The patch also updates the French translation.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix an issue where starting the app with a custom GUI theme enabled would not load any icons at all if the icontheme setting isn't specified. The app now loads the typicons_light theme by default if no icon theme is set. Issue #1263. PR #1264.

Internationalisation

• The French translations has now been completed by @aaribaud. PR #1265.

Version 2.0

Release Notes

This release includes a major update to the way your project is managed. It also modernises the user interface. The project file format has also been updated, and your projects will be upgraded the first time you open them in this release.

There are some major changes under the hood in this release. A lot of the code has been rewritten and split up into smaller components. A lot of this is to make it more efficient, but also to make it more modular in preparation for planned future additions. Most of these changes don't affect you as the user, but there are also a number of big feature changes that you will notice.

User Interface Changes

The tabs used to switch between the Project Tree and Novel Tree, as well as between the Editor and Outline views, have been replaced with a side bar. The side bar is located on the left side of the main window, and gives you the option to select between "Project Tree View", "Novel Tree View" and "Outline Tree View". They correspond to the previous tabs.

The side bar also includes a shortcut to the "Build Novel Project" tool. The "Project Details", "Writing Statistics" and "Settings" buttons that were previously below the project tree are now located at the bottom of the side bar.

All three views have also been given updates. They each have a label and a toolbar. The Project Tree View has a dropdown with quick links to all your root folders, which should make it easier to navigate a large project tree. You can activate the link menu by pressing Ctrl+L while in the Project Tree, so you don't need to move your mouse.

A dropdown menu with all the options for adding new items to your project has also been added to this toolbar. This too can be activated directly with a shortcut, Ctrl+N. More options are available under the menu button, and there are also a set of move up and down buttons for moving items.

The Novel Tree View and Novel Outline View have also received toolbars and controls that let you select which data to show, and customise the view.

Changes to Project Structure

A number of changes have been made to how you organise your project in the Project Tree View. For instance, you are now allowed to add as many root folders as you want, and as many of each kind as you want. Several users have asked for the ability to add multiple Novel folders, so the old restriction of only one of each has been removed.

You can now also move documents freely between all folders. The Status or Importance values will switch place depending on the type of root folder your document is in, but the other value should be preserved if you move the document back. Previously, they were saved as the same value in your project, so moving them would imply they were overwritten. The new project file format introduced with this release has no such restriction.

Your documents are now also able to have other documents as child items. This is another feature added based on feedback. You no longer need to make a chapter folder and add chapter files inside it together with the scene documents. You can add the scene documents directly under the chapter document and drop the folder entirely. If needed, you can convert an existing folder into a document at any time. However, you are not allowed to convert a document into a folder.

The check mark icon that previously indicated whether a document was included or not in a manuscript build has been replaced with an active/inactive flag. This was done in preparation for changes to the Build Novel Project tool which will come in the next release. The active/inactive flag is now primarily just an indicator to you as the writer whether the document is to be considered a part of your project or not. That said, an inactive setting still causes it to be excluded from the Novel Tree View and the Novel Outline View.

The context (right click) menu for the Project Tree has also been updated. You can make nearly all changes to the item directly from this menu, with the exception of editing the item label, which still requires a dialog box.

The Split and Merge tools have been rewritten from scratch. You should now have multiple options on how to structure the resulting document or documents. You can access the new tools from the "Transform" submenu when right-clicking a project item that supports splitting or merging.

Novel and Outline View

The Novel Tree View and Novel Outline View panels have been given a new design. The heading level is now shown as an indent with a coloured bar that uses the same colour coding as the document icons. They are technically no longer tree views, but rather a Table of Contents of a specific novel root folder. If you have multiple novel root folders, you can select which one to view.

In the Novel Tree View, you now also have the option to hide or show a third column of data. Currently, you can chose between "Point of View Character", "Focus Character" and "Novel Plot". If you referenced more than one in the document, the column will only show the first entry, so make sure the most important one is listed first in your document if you use this feature. An arrow icon is also visible at the end of each row in the tree, and if you click on it, a tool tip should pop up showing you all the meta data collected for that specific heading in your text.

Other Changes

There has been a lot of changes under the hood as well, especially in regards to how the project structure is handled and saved. The project index has also been almost completely rewritten, and now collects information about your project more efficiently. This improves the way the project tree determines which document icon to show you, and it also makes the Novel Tree View more informative as the data there is updated a lot more frequently.

The New Project Wizard has been updated with some new features, and simplified a bit. The Project Settings dialog has been updated to reflect some of the same changes.

These Release Notes also include the changes from 2.0 pre-releases.

Detailed Changelog

User Interface

• The novel tree now updates items that have meta data changes, including for the optional third column. Issue #1240. PR #1241.
• When the editor opens or moves on a specific line, the line is now scrolled to the position in the editor defined by the typewriter scrolling setting in Preferences. Previously, lines were scrolled to the bottom of the editor. Issue #1239. PR #1243.
• When a document is requested opened, but is already open, it is no longer re-opened. Previously, this was treated as an implied refresh request, but there are a number of other cases where this may be triggered. The main issue here is that it would reset the undo history, which can be annoying. Issue #1242. PR #1243.
• The third column in the novel tree now has a max width, and will only display the first reference of the list of references for that item. Issue #1238. PR #1245.
• The label at the top of the novel tree becomes a dropdown box when there are more than one novel root folder in the project. Issue #1250. PR #1252.
• The author setting in the New Project Wizard and Project Settings is now a normal text box, instead of a multi line input box. Only one author value is now saved in the project XML file. The field is anyway free text, so the user is free to add multiple authors in the box. For projects that already have multiple authors set, the value needs to be set anew. PR #1258.

Internationalisation

• German translation has been added by @HeyMyian. PR #1033.
• Other translations have been updated from Crowdin for 2.0. PRs #1251, #1253

Documentation

• The documentation has been updated to reflect 2.0 changes. Issue #1070, #1158 and #1181. PRs #1248 and #1255.
• Add project XML file format specification. Issue #1012. PRs #1249 and #1254.

Code Improvements

• Fix an issue with circular imports mainly triggered from the test suite. PR #1166.
• Instead of assigning headers in a document a key by its line number, the headings are now assigned sequential keys. This makes it easier to detect actual meta data changes, which would otherwise be triggered by a change of line number as well. PR #1241.
• Cleaned up the closing project process. Issue #1237. PR #1247.
• The combo boxes to select which novel root folder to display in various locations have been merged into a special novel selector class to avoid duplication of code and inconsistent behaviour. PRs #1252 and #1253.

Version 2.0 RC 2

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.

For install instructions, see the documentation.

Detailed Changelog

Note: This release introduces a new Project XML format with version number 1.5. When the project is opened, a request to update the file format will show up.

Bugfixes

• The custom folders for user defined themes and syntax were not created properly when the app was first launched on a new computer. The folders were successfully created on a second launch. The error was handled, but reported. This was caused by the folder creation process being in the wrong order. Issue #1180. PR #1184.
• Fixed context menu entries for split and merge having inconsistent labels. Issue #1199. PR #1197.

User Interface

• The exported status for document items have been renamed to active/inactive. Their icons have also been updated. Issues #1196 and #1198. PRs #1200 and #1216.
• The status/importance context menu now shows which label is the current. Issue #1202. PR #1207.
• The status/importance context menu now has a "Manage Labels" action that opens the Project Settings dialog at the correct place. Issue #1203. PR #1207.
• Both GUI theme and syntax theme can now be updated without restarting the app. Issue #1171. PR #1212.
• The GUI theme now determines which icon theme is to be loaded. It is no longer a separate setting. The icon theme can also be reloaded without restart. Issue #1172. PR #1212.
• The block formating features in the Format menu now also works on empty lines. Issue #1178. PR #1214.
• There is now a Format menu entry and shortcut code for synopsis comments. Issue #1177. PR #1214.
• The split document dialog now has the option to move teh source document to trash. Issue #1179. PR #1217.

Other Changes

• Archived documents are now partially indexed. This mainly means that the item will have the correct document icon in the project tree corresponding to its main heading. Issue #1176. PR #1183.
• The option to add notes files in the Project Wizard now automatically switches off if there are no notes categories enabled. Issue #1192. PR #1201.
• When a project is opened for the first time, the first document in the project is also opened. Issue #1219. PR #1223.
• When there is no project open, the toolbars on the Project Tree, Novel View and Outline View are disabled. They are enabled only when a project is loaded. Issue #1220. PR #1230.

Installation and Packaging

• The AppImage release now has version information in the package name. Issue #1182. PR #1218.

Code Improvements

• The main heading of a document is now stored in the item class instead of the index. PR #1183.
• The common module checker functions no longer allow None values. The only one needing it was the string checker. A new string checker that allows None has been added for those cases. This makes type discovery in the code editor easier. Issue #1185. PR #1188.
• Verbose logging has been removed. The lowest severity level is now DEBUG. Issue #1186. PR #1191.
• Added a number of None checks in the code where especially Qt calls could potentially return None, even if they were unlikely to do so. PR #1197.
• Renamed the status bar attribute in the main GUI class as it conflicts with a Qt method. Issue #1190. PR #1197.
• The data access methods for the custom config file parser have been improved to better report correct type information. PR #1197.
• Saving and loading of XML data is now handled by a separate set of reader and writer classes. The reader class is capable of reading all file formats that have been used thus far. The various data classes have been improved, and a new XML file formart version 1.5 added. Issue #1189. PRs #1221 and #1232.
• The index is now automatically rebuilt when the project file format is updated. Issue #1235. PR #1236.
• The project folder on disk is now wrapped in a storage class that the project accesses files through. It also handles lock files and archiving used for backup. The change is in preparation for adding a potential single file format. Issue #1222. PR #1225.
• The Project Wizard now creates the project on disk, and then opens it. This replaces the old method where the new project was built directly into the current session. This caused a few inconsistencies from time to time, and was a duplicate way of getting a project into the session. Issue #1152. PR #1225.
• The Config class has been refactored extensively and now also uses pathlib for all paths. Tests are also switched to using pathlib. Issue #1224. PRs #1228 and #1229.
• The updating of tree order method of the project tree class has been updated for better performance. PR #1236.

Version 1.6.6

Release Notes

This is a bugfix release that fixes a minor issues with following tags in the editor. It is now possible to also follow tags that contain spaces.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug where only the word under the cursor would be looked up when the user tried to follow a tag in the editor. The lookup function now uses the same parser for the @-line as the syntax highlighter does, so they should behave consistently. Issue #1195. PR #1209.

Version 2.0 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.

Note: As of the 2.0 release, novelWriter requires Qt 5.10 or higher and Python 3.7 or higher.

Detailed Changelog

Note: This will no longer be release 1.7, but 2.0 instead due to the major changes to the User Interface. PR #1146.

Features

• The add new documents feature has been made a little smarter and now tries to choose whether the added document should be a sibling or a child to the selected document. Issue #1107. PR #1110.
• A folder in the Project Tree can now be converted to a Novel Document or Project Note from the item's context menu. This makes sense now that documents can have child items. Issue #1071. PR #1128.
• All child elements of an item in the Project Tree can now be collectively expanded or collapsed from the context menu. The same action can be triggered on the entire tree from the menu button at the top. Issue #1122. PR #1129.
• If using the auto-insert feature for spaces next to punctuation designed for for instance French, any existing spaces are first stripped before the correct space character is added. Some users find it hard to unlearn the reflex to type the space. Issue #1061. PR #1131.
• The Project Tree now has Quick Links for navigating directly between root folders. This is convenient for very large projects. Issue #1137. PR #1165.
• It is now possible to filter out entire root folders on the Build Tool. Issue #1138. PR #1168.

Bugfixes

• Fix a typo in the Lorem Ipsum tool and set a max width for the views bar. PR #1065.
• The language set in the Build Tool is now properly exported to Open Document files. Previously, it would be set to English regardless of the user's selection. Issue #1073. PR #1077.
• Since the text editor cursor extends to the right of its position in the window, it would disappear under the right-hand margin if it reached the edge. A minimum margin of the width of the cursor has been added to the editor, and the same value subtracted from the margin of the viewbox. Thus, the cursor no longer disappears. Issue #1112. PR #1113.
• The Shift+Enter key combination no longer inserts a Unicode line separator in the text editor. Issue #1150. PR #1151.
• Fixed an issue where idle time would not be properly reset when a new project was created. Issue #1149. PR #1153.
• Removed the context menu that would appear on the Views Bar, from which the bar could be hidden. This is some feature imposed by the Qt library, and it is not wanted. Issue #1147. PR #1153.

Known Issues

• An attempt has been made to fix the missing mime icon for novelWriter projects on Linux. The newer versions of Nautilus don't seem to display the correct icon due to some changes in the way icons are extracted from the theme. The icon displays fine in other places. PR #1068.

Internationalisation

• Norwegian and US English translations have been updated. PR #1170.

User Interface

• The New Project Wizard has been updated based on user feedback. The "Working Title" setting is now called "Project Name". The number of root folders one can create on the options page has been reduced to the standard ones. An option to add sample notes has been added, and the option to generate chapter folders has been removed. The "Minimal Project" option also no longer creates folders. An Archive root folder is automatically added to all new projects, and a Trash folder is added to custom projects. PR #1067.
• The border around a lot of Widgets on the main GUI have been removed. PR #1069.
• The Views Bar has been updated since the beta re;ease with better icons, tooltips, and an expanding menu on the Settings button. The Build Tool can now also be accessed from the Views Bar. PR #1069.
• The editor theme setting in Preferences has been moved back to the General tab where users seem to expect to find it. PR #1069.
• A toolbar has been added to the Outline View where the user can select which Novel folder to view. A refresh button for a forced reload of the selected Novel folder has been added, and the menu to select which columns to show has been added to a new button. This makes it easier to find for users instead of having to right-click the table header. Issue #1105. PRs #1063, #1094, and #1111.
• The Rebuild Outline and Auto-Update Outline options have been removed from the Main Menu. PR #1063.
• The Project Tree has been redesigned. The header is now hidden, and the columns resize automatically. A toolbar has been added with buttons for moving items up and down in the tree, a button for adding new files, folders and root folders, and a menu button for further options affecting the whole tree. These features have mostly bee removed from the Main Menu. PR #1079.
• The context menu of the Project Tree has been rewritten completely. It is now possible to set importance and status directly from this menu. Part of issue #973. PRs #1079 and #1105.
• The Edit Item dialog has been replaced with a simple Edit Label dialog. Most of the features handled by the old dialog have been moved to the Project Tree context menu. PR #1082.
• The Novel View has been redesigned to match the new Outline View and Project Tree. The header is now hidden, and the columns auto-size. The third column can be selected from a set of options, or be hidden entirely. A button with a menu can be used to select which Novel folder to show. Issue #1041. PR #1084.
• An arrow icon has been added behind each item in the Novel View. Clicking it, will pop up a tooltip showing the collected meta data for the heading the item represents. PR #1088.
• The Project Details dialog now supports multiple novel folders. Issue #1078. PRs #1130 and #1167.
• The Split and Merge tools have been rewritten to work with the new feature of allowing documents to have child documents. The tools have also had more options added to them. The feature is now accessible through the Project Tree item's context menu, and is no longer available from the Main Menu. Issues #1072 and #1032. PRs #1148 and #1154.

Installation and Packaging

• AppImage distribution has been added by @Ryex. Issue #1091. PR #1092.

Code Improvements

• A new test project generator function has been added to replace the dependency on the New Project tools in the app itself. This ensures that changing the in-app feature doesn't affect the entire test suite. Over time, this generator function should also replace the minimal sample project saved in the test suite. PR #1067.
• The index class has been rewritten. The index data is now stored in a hierarchy of objects rather than a set of nested dictionaries. The itemIndex holds all the data collected from the project, and the tagsIndex is a reverse lookup index for linking tags back to where they are used. The reading/writing of the index to disk between sessions is now handled by pack/unpack functions in each object. The index will be regenerated when the user first opens a project as it has been completely restructured. PR #1074.
• The index instance is now an instance of the project class, not the main GUI. PR #1074.
• The Outline View has been restructured into a single parent widget in the same manner as the Novel View was in the previous pre-release. Related to #1041. PR #1063.
• A lot of main GUI objects have been given new names in the code to better represent what they do. PR #1081.
• The converter for the old 1.0 project structure has been simplified. Mostly to reduce the amount of code and number of translation labels needed for it. It now produces a single error if something went wrong. PR #1083.
• A number of unused icons have been removed from the code base. PR #1164.
• All checks for Qt versions below 5.10 have been removed. PR #1174.

Not Implemented

• An idea to make the indexer run in the global thread pool was not implemented. Issue #1076.
• Feature #997 is now obsolete due to the changes made to the Edit Item dialog in #1082.
• Feature #1106 is not implemented. It proposes to hide the option to select Novel folder if there is only one. We will see if this is really needed based on user feedback.

Version 1.6.5

Release Notes

This is a bugfix release that fixes a few minor issues. The idle time for new projects would be artificially inflated as the clock was not reset when the project was first created. This only affects the first entry in the writing statistics. A scaling issue for the Preferences dialog has also been fixed. It only affected screens with UI scaling enabled. Lastly, typing Shift+Enter in the text editor now creates a regular line break instead of a special line separator. The line separator serves no purpose in plain text, and was producing inconsistencies in how text is processed and displayed.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the idle time was not properly zeroed when a new project was generated after the wizard was closed. The idle time would be calculated from the time the previous project closed, thus inflating the value. Issue #1149. PR #1159.
• Fixes an issue where the window size of the Preferences dialog would have the GUI scaling factor applied twice when the dialog was closed, resulting in the dialog growing in size each time it is opened. Issue #989. PR #1159.

Other Changes

• The text editor no longer creates a Unicode line separator (U+2028) when the user presses Shift+Enter. The line separator serves no purpose in a plain text editor, and the code in general treats them as regular line break. This caused the line separator to display differently before and after saving. The line separator character is now automatically replaced by a paragraph separator. Issue #1150. PR #1159.