Novelwriter

Release Notes

This patch release is a bug fix release addressing some inconsistencies and issues with the
document header buttons when Focus Mode is active. The keyboard shortcuts for search and replace
should now also work in Focus Mode. In addition, the setup script for novelWriter has been improved
when installing on Windows.

Detailed Changelog

**Bugfixes**

* The way Focus Mode worked when activated through the menu and through the document header button
were inconsistent. The header button would deactivate the edit, search and close buttons, while
the menu entry would not. These two methods now call the same set of functions to ensure the
behaviour is consistent. PR 717.
* Closing the document while in Focus Mode now ends Focus Mode. Previously, the editor would be
left stuck in Focus Mode with no way to exit. PR 717.

**User Interface**

* The keyboard shortcuts for the search and replace tool now also work in Focus Mode. Previously,
the menu entries and their shortcuts were deactivated in this mode. Issue 716. PR 717.

**Installation**

* The setup script command do build minimal install archive files now also generate SHA 256 sum
files. PR 724.
* The setup script will now copy the `novelWriter.py` file to `novelWriter.pyw` if it doesn't exist
when the `win-install` command is run. Issue 727. PR 728.

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Release Notes

This patch release is a bug fix release addressing issues with the document editor's search and
replace tool. Due to some recently added restrictions on when various tools are active, depending
on which part of the main window has the user's focus, the search tool keyboard shortcuts and
buttons were blocked when they shouldn't. This release resolves these issues.

Detailed Changelog

**Bugfixes**

* Fixed an issue with the search bar where the button and shortcut actions would be blocked unless
the document itself had focus. This focus check was added for all the text altering functions,
but should not affect search and replace. The search and replace actions now bypass the regular
action pipeline with the focus check. Issue 708. PR 709.

**Documentation**

* Improve the instructions for setup on Linux when manually installing using the `setup.py` script.
Previously, the documentation wasn't very clear on the difference between a user space install
and a system wide install. Neither did it explain how to install `setuptools` if the package is
missing. Issue 714. PR 715.

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Release Notes

_The Release Notes have been moved and merged into the 1.2 RC 1 notes._

Detailed Changelog

**New Features**

* A full Open Document exporter has been written and added for the Build Novel Project tool. This
replaces the previously used Qt Save to ODT which just saved the content of the preview window to
an ODT file. The Qt pathway was very limited and didn't generate proper formatting classes. The
new export class can generate both full `.odt` and flat XML `.fodt` files. The formatting support
of this exporter is equivalent or better than the HTML5 exporter, which was previously the best
supported option. Solves issue 611. PRs 607, 652, 660, and 654.
* A full Markdown exporter has been written and added for the Build Novel Project tool. This too
replaces a Qt feature that was used to save the content of the preview window into a markdown
file. The exporter allows for both standard markdown and GitHub flavour markdown. The only
relevant difference being that the latter allows strike through text. Issue 617. PR 650.
* The Build Novel Project tool now has a "Line height" property that is applied to the preview, and
to the HTML5 and Open Document export formats. Discussion 653. Issue 654. PR 660.
* The Build Novel Project tool now has an option to convert Unicode characters to HTML entities on
export to HTML5. Previously, some symbols were converted while others were not. This option
provides a more consistent "all or nothing" option. PR 660.
* The last file or folder move in the project tree can now be undone from the Project menu or by
pressing `Ctrl+Shift+Z`. PR 632.
* When a document header level is altered in a novel file of layout type Scene, Chapter,
Unnumbered, or Partition, and that document is saved, the document's layout setting as seen in
the project tree is updated to reflect the new level of that heading. This helps reduce the
duplication of effort by the user to keep this information in sync. See discussion 613. This is
an acceptable solution to 614. Issue 618. PR 620.
* The session timer now records the amount of time the user is idle. Idle is defined to be when the
application window does not have focus, and when the user hasn't made any changes to the document
open in the editor for a specified amount of time. The default is 5 minutes. The idle time is
recorded to the session log and can be shown in Writing Statistics. Optionally, the status bar
session timer can also be set to pause when the user is considered idle. Issues 606 and 651.
PRs 656 and 661.
* It is now possible to tag a character as the focus character for a give section of text. This is
useful for cases where the point-of-view character differs from the main character of the story,
or the part of the story. Issue 605. PR 662.

**User Interface**

* A document's class and layout is now displayed next to its status or importance in the document
editor footer bar. PR 628.
* When a new document is created, the header of the file is automatically generated based on the
document's tree label, and the level determined by the selected layout. Issue 530. PR 628.
* On the Build Novel Project GUI, the PDF option has been moved from the "Save As" button to the
"Print" button. This more accurately reflects what it actually does: print the content of the
preview to a PDF using the printer pathway. This also means that all remaining items on the "Save
As" dropdown list now can be executed regardless of the content of the preview window. They all
run their own separate build process. This resolves 611. PR 650.
* Export to plain text has been dropped. PR 617.

**Code Improvements**

* The index class now scans every element of the loaded index cache before accepting it. This means
that any unrecognised content will trigger a full re-indexing. This is particularly useful when
opening an index that was saved by a later release. Every entry that requires a lookup is checked
to avoid potential key errors for instance. All values are also checked for correct data type.
The new check is extensive, but still fast enough that it only adds a few milliseconds to the
startup time. PR 619.

**Code Maintenance**

* Cleaned up some redundant code after PR 637. PR 638.

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Release Notes

This patch makes a couple of minor improvements to the GUI. The keyboard shortcut for deleting
entries in the project tree has been changed from `Ctrl+Del` to `Ctrl+Shift+Del` to free up that
shortcut for the document editor. It is now possible to use the shortcut for deleting the word in
front of the cursor, a common and useful feature of many text editors.

The way the negative word count filter option works on the Writing Statistics tool has been changed
to be more intuitive. Enabling this filter now appears to remove all negative entries without
altering the other entries. Previously, the removed negative counts would be included in the
following entries to make it consistent with the total word count. In addition, writing sessions
shorter than five minutes, and with no change in the word count, are no longer recorded in the
session log file.

Other changes include improving the speed of the internal spell checker, used when the Enchant
spell check library isn't available. The internal spell checker is no longer significantly slower,
but is still lacking in functionality compared to Enchant.

Detailed Changelog

**User Interface**

* The default GUI font on Windows is now Arial. It works better with the Qt framework than the
default system font. If Arial is missing, it falls back to the bundled font Cantarell. PR 655.
* The way word changes are calculated on the Writing Statistics tool has changed when the option to
exclude negative word counts is active. Previously, the entries with negative counts were
filtered out, but the change in count was still applied to the next line, altering the value.
Now, the GUI will instead just drop the lines that are negative and keep the other lines
unchanged. This is more intuitive, but it also means that the total count now longer matches the
sum of the lines. PR 659.
* The keyboard shortcut for deleting entries in the project tree has been changed from `Ctrl+Del`
to `Ctrl+Shift+Del`. The `Ctrl+Del` shortcut is thus free to be used exclusively by the editor to
delete the word in front of the cursor. Having the same shortcut do different things depending on
which area of the GUI has focus is a bit confusing. Related to 529. PR 666.

**Other Improvements**

* The internal spell checker, which is used when the Enchant library isn't available, has been
given a significant speed improvement by caching the imported dictionary as a Python `set`
instead of a `list`. The `set` has a hashed key lookup algorithm that is significantly faster.
PR 668.
* Sessions shorter than 5 minutes, and with no word count changes, are no longer recorded in the
session stats log file. PR 685.

**Installation**

* The PyPi packages now include the `setup.py` file, which makes it possible to install icon
launchers for novelWriter on both Linux and Windows after installing with `pip`. PR 655.

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Release Notes

This is a preview and test release for version 1.1.

A few new features have been added. The primary change is that the project tree on the left side of
the main window now has two tabs. The regular project tree is now on a tab named "Project", while a
new tab "Novel" displays a simpler version of the information on the main "Outline" page. It lists
all the headers of the novel part of the project, as well as the word count and point-of-view
character of each section. This is an alternative way to navigate the novel part of the project.
The various tree views are now also kept better in sync when the user selects various documents and
headers.

In addition, a new information dialog named "Project Details" has been added. It replaces the
"Details" tab in "Project Settings", and adds more information about the novel part of the project.
In particular, a "Table of Contents" in the "Contents" tab displays a summary of the main parts
and chapters of the project, their total word counts, and an estimated page count. This was made in
response to users asking for ways to estimate the total page count of the project. The page count
is estimated based on the word count, and can be changed on the dialog window.

Since the tabs below the project tree now adds some extra room on the GUI, some convenient buttons
have been added, with direct access to "Project Details", "Writing Statistics" and "Project
Setting".

A few other minor changes have been made as well. The Preferences dialog has been improved with
clearer categories and hopefully better help text. Some new options have been added too. They allow
syntax highlighting of multi-paragraph quotes. The highlighter can now optionally accept quotes to
be left "hanging", that is, no closing quote in the same paragraph.

Detailed Changelog

**User Interface**

* Added a Novel tab under the project tree where the user can navigate the novel's layout of
chapters and scenes, similar to the Outline view, but next to the document editor. The Outline
view and Novel/Project trees now also behave more in cooperation. When files on one are selected
or moved, the other will follow and update. Issues 541 and 185, PR 538.
* Added a Project Details dialog that lists project details (moved from Project Settings' Details
Tab) and a Table of Contents tab where details on chapter level is displayed. This table also
shows an estimated page count and estimated page location of each chapter. Issue 528, PRs 555,
598 and 603.
* Added three buttons below the project tree that connects to Project Details, Writing Statistics,
and Project Settings. PR 555.
* The settings and tabs in the Preferences dialog have been re-arranged into more tabs with less
options on each tab. PRs 577 and 624.
* Minor changes to margins and alignments of widgets on the main GUI. PR 565.
* Added a keyboard shortcut to change focus to the Outline tab. The focus change now also ensures
that the main GUI also switches to the tab where the focus is shifted. Issues 609 and 612,
PR 615.
* The cursor should now also be visible when opening a blank document and the editor has focus.
Issue 608, PR 621.

**Text Editor**

* Added support for multi-paragraph quote (dialogue) highlighting. This feature is optional, and
can be enabled/disabled in Preferences. Issue 546, PR 577.
* Add several new symbols to the Insert menu/ Issue 602, PRs 603 and 604.

**Other Changes**

* Trigger a save document call before the Build Novel Project tool starts the build. This ensures
that unsaved changes in the editor are included in the build. Issue 610, PR 616.

**Code Maintenance**

* Reformatting of source file headers and adding license headers to all test source files. Test
source files are now also organised into subfolders. PR 563.

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Release Notes

This patch release fixes a couple of minor issues with the Preferences dialog and the behaviour of
one of the keyboard shortcuts.

Aside from these fixes, the main point of this patch is to add new setup features for novelWriter
on Windows. A Windows installer will no longer be provided for the foreseeable future, and instead
functionality has been added to the main setup script to create desktop and start menu icons.

Detailed Changelog

**Bug Fixes**

* Fixed an issue with the Preferences dialog where the setting for justified text was mixed with
the setting for fixed text width. This meant that the justified text setting could potentially
get overwritten when the Preferences were changed and saved. Issue 623, PR 625.
* Fixed an issue with the Open Project dialog where the list of recent projects would contain
duplicate entries if the dialog was opened multiple times. PR 627.

**User Interface**

* The `Ctrl+Del` keyboard shortcut is now only active when the project tree has focus. Since this
is also a common shortcut in many applications for deleting the next word ahead of the cursor,
the activation of the delete file function when the editor has focus is unexpected to some users.
Issue 629, PR 631.

**Installation**

* A new command has been added to the `setup.py` script. The new command, `win-install`, will
create a desktop and start menu icon for novelWriter when run in the source folder. A windows
batch file, `setup_windows.bat`, has also been added. Running this file from the source folder,
either by command line or by double-click, will install dependencies from PyPi and set up the
icons and file association with novelWriter project files. This should make it easier to run
novelWriter from the source folder on Windows. PRs 634, 641 and 642.

**Documentation**

* The documentation on how to setup and install novelWriter has been extended and reorganised into
one file per operating system. Some of the other documentation files have also been moved to a
different section. PR 634.

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