Novelwriter

Release Notes

This patch release fixes a minor bug sometimes encountered when running novelWriter from command
line on Windows. In addition, the Solarized Dark and Solarized Light themes have been added to the
selection of GUI and syntax themes by a user contribution.

The main change in this release is to the install scripts and the documentation related to
installing and running novelWriter. The primary change is a different method of packaging the app
for Windows. Instead of building an `.exe` file, the new setup instead builds a runnable zip file
`.pyz`. The executable would often be mistakenly flagged by virus control software due to the
packaging tools. This is a known problem with pyinstaller and similar tools, but such warnings are
always concerning even if they are false positives.

Detailed Changelog

**Bug Fixes**

* Fix crash when starting novelWriter from command line on Windows from a different mounted drive
than where it is installed. This was caused by a relative path lookup that defaulted to the wrong
current directory. This works on Linux/macOS which have a common root path, but not on Windows.
Issue 581, PR 587.

**User Interface**

* Added Solarized Dark and Solarized Light GUI and syntax themes. PR 578 by nullbasis.
* The Typewriter Scroll Mode now works better in combination with the Scroll Past End feature. The
scroll mode still only works when there is actually any document to scroll into, but previously
it would also not work until the total length of the document reached 40% of the height of the
editor window. This was quite confusing. This limit is now reduced to 10%, which means that as
long as the Scroll Past End option is enabled, the Typewriter Scroll will always work according
to its settings. Issue 589, PR 593.

**Installation**

* Merged the `make.py` script into `setup.py`. PR 584.
* Added a second way to build distributable packages of novelWriter for Windows. The new method
does not use any of the current package tools that produce a Windows executable of the app. These
packages tend to cause false virus warnings. This new method uses the Python tool `zipapp` to
bundle novelWriter as an executable `.pyz` file, and adds Python embeddable and library
dependencies into the same folder. The folder itself can be distributed as-is, or a Windows
installer executable can be generated with `setup.py setup-pyz`. Issue 580, PR 584.

**Documentation**

* Updated documentation, main README and Contribution Guide to make them more consistent and to
improve installation instructions. Based on issue 586 and input from mgrhm. PR 592.

**Other Changes**

* The HTML generator now adds line breaks after `div` blocks used to wrap tag/reference lines. This
makes the output easier to process by scripts, but has no impact on browser rendering and import
into other applications. PR 597.

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Release Notes

This patch release fixes a few minor cosmetic issues, a minor issue with the indexer, and a bug
when adding words to the user's own spell check dictionary. Additionally, the documentation has
been updated based on user feedback, and some install issues resolved.

Detailed Changelog

**Installation**

* The dependency list was missing in the setup configuration for PyPi due to a bug in the
`setup.cfg` file. The dependencies have been moved to a different section where the setup tool
now picks them up properly. Issue 570, PR 573 by stranger-danger-zamu.

**Bug Fixes**

* Fixed an issue with note files being moved between a non-novel root folder and a novel root
folder without clearing its index entry in the former note or novel index. This would cause
duplicate entries for such a file. PR 558.
* Fixed a cosmetic issue where the meta data panel below the project tree was not cleared when the
project was closed. PR 559.
* Fixed an issue where the main window title would not be cleared when a project was closed, and
the new title not set when a new project was first created. Issue 560, PR 561.
* The editor context menu option to "Add Word to Dictionary" should also be visible when there are
no spell checker suggestions. The entry was erroneously added under an if-condition that excluded
it in those cases. Issue 574, PR 575.

**Documentation**

* Fixed some typos and spelling mistakes in the documentation, and reworded parts of the text that
were unclear. The technical page has also been extended with more information on project folder
structure. PR 557.
* Clarify install instructions, and remove the duplicate instructions in the README file and
replace them with a brief section. The full instructions are in the documentation. Issues 566
and 570, PR 576.

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Release Notes

This release is mainly to bring the documentation up to date, as I forgot to update the install
instructions in the original 1.0 release. I also forgot to change the various settings and help
texts that describe novelWriter as under initial development (beta state).

Some minor improvements have been made to the "Edit Project Item" dialog and some restrictions on
the settings available for documents created in the "Outtakes" folder relaxed. A few minor issues
with the document and project changed icons on the status bar have also been resolved. The
indicators were previously set to changed status even if no actual change had been made to the
project.

Detailed Changelog

**User Interface**

* Added the Outtakes folder to a list of root folders that will allow the setting of file layouts
otherwise only permitted under the Novel root folder. It makes sense to permit the files in this
folder to have the same extended settings that Novel files have. PR 552.
* The text input and dropdown boxes of the Edit Project Item dialog box now extend when the dialog
window is resized. Previously, the space between the label and the box would stretch instead,
which isn't very useful. PR 552.
* The document and project changed status icons on the status bar are now set to unchanged status
when the project is opened. In addition, an issue with the status being set to changed on various
events that were not actual changes to the document or project has been resolved. For instance,
changing the size of the document editor would flag the document itself as changed. PR 554.

**Documentation**

* Updated the install instructions of the documentation and the main readme file, as well as the
current development status as listed on PyPi. PRs 550 and 551.

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**Bugfixes**

* Not technically a bug, but the clearing of the document editor footer bar, both during start-up
and when a document was closed, would print two ERROR messages to the terminal window. These were
benign, but are now prevented from occurring by a slight change in the logic. Issue 418,
PR 420.
* Fixed spell check highlighting for words separated by a forward slash, which was treated as a
single word. Issue 427, PR 428.

**New Features**

* A new root folder has been added. It is named "Outtakes" by default, and functions as an archive
folder for any file that the user wants to take out of the main project tree. The file retains
its meta data, is editable, and is always excluded from builds. It is not possible to create
files in this folder, but you can create subfolders for organising them. PRs 415, 416 and 419.
* Support an alternative apostrophe. There is a unicode character defined for this, but the regular
right hand single quote symbol is the recommended character. However, sometimes this confuses the
syntax highlighter. The alternative character bypasses this, and may also be useful for languages
that don't use the same type of symbol for these. PRs 429 and 430.

**Feature Improvements**

* The way the enter and tab keys work in the document editor have been improved. If the search or
replace text box has focus, the tab key switches between them, and the enter key always triggers
the button that is to the right of the box with focus. If the editor has focus, the tab and enter
keys work as expected for a text editor. PRs 412 and 413.
* The keyboard sequence `Ctrl+Shift+Z` is now again an alternative to `Ctrl+Y` for the redo
functionality. PR 413.
* It is now possible to drag and drop files into the Trash folder. PR 415.
* Files moved to Outtakes or Trash are now cleared from the index, except their word counts. All
tags and references are thus out of the project. They are automatically put back in when the file
is dragged into the main project tree again. PR 416.
* Tabs and tab stops are now rendered properly in the document viewer. Since the `setHtml` function
of the Qt widget used here strips tabs, they were previously just converted to eight spaces. This
prevented the tabs from aligning vertically like they do in the editor. The stripping of tabs is
now bypassed by replacing them with a placeholder text, and reverting the replacement after the
document content has been set. This change also applies to the preview in the Build Novel Project
tool, and therefore also the print and print to PDF functions. PR 419.
* The syntax highlighter is now better at detecting what is a single quoted string and what is an
apostrophe in a word. PR 430.

**Other Changes**

* A hard maximum project tree folder depth of 30 has been added. Level 28 is the last level where a
folder can be created, to allow for one more level of files. There is no particular reason for
the number 30, it was mostly a matter of picking a number. 30 is assumed to be excessive. It is
hard to navigate a project tree with that many folders. The value was set because many places in
the code there was a soft limit of 200. If you created more, various parts of the code would stop
working. PRs 416 and 421.
* The dialog for reporting unhandled errors has been changed and a new custom Qt subclass written.
It does essentially the same thing as the standard QErrorMessage box did, but adds the feature of
a clickable link to the issues tracker on GitHub, and a monospace formatted traceback for the
issues ticket. In addition, a crash that pops this dialog will now trigger an attempted
controlled shutdown of novelWriter. Before, it would try to keep running, but often leave
novelWriter in a half defunct state. PR 417.

**Test Suite**

* Added better test coverage of the Project Load dialog and the Project Outline tool. PR 423.
* Switched from Travis-CI to GitHub actions for running Python tests. PRs 424, 425 and 426.
* All tests can now be run independently of other tests on a function level. Before, this was only
possible on a test file level. Issue 431, PR 432.

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**Bugfixes**

* Some of the insert menu functions were broken due to a left-over comma in the insert source code
converting the insert text from a string to a tuple. This is a quirk of the Python language and
unfortunately not caught as a syntax error. Issue 409, PR 410.

**Feature Improvements**

* The Select Paragraph feature in the Edit menu now selects only the paragraph itself, without the
leading line break. This was previously handled entirely by the Qt library, which does this for
some reason. Issue 395, PR 405.
* A chapter heading in a file with a different layout than `Unnumbered` can now also be flagged as
an unnumbered chapter heading by adding an asterisk to the beginning of the title text. This
only affects the number assignment and counter when running the Build Novel Project tool. The
rest of the app ignores the asterisk. Issue 402, PR 406.

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**User Interface**

* Added a New Project Wizard that can, in addition to create the previous minimal new project, also
create a project with pre-defined root folders and chapter and scenes. It is also possible to
create a copy of the example project from the source code. Either from the `sample` folder in the
source, or from a `sample.zip` file generated by the `setup.py` script and saved to the
`nw/assets` folder. PR 366.
* When the user clicked cancel on the colour dialog in Project Settings, the icon would be reset to
black. Instead, the colour should remain unchanged. A check that the user actually selected a
colour has now been added. Issue 395, PR 403.

**Other Changes**

* Cleaned up code using `flake8` tool and added it as a permanent check on pull requests. The tool
filtered out a number of unused variables and imports, which wastes CPU time and memory. Every
bit helps. PRs 394, 397 and 401.
* Added contributing guide, code of conduct and issue templates. Direct push to main, and PR 398.

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