Added release notes

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,6 +4,76 @@
 
 ### Release Notes
 
+This release is a beta release of 1.2. The release is intended for testing of new features. There
+is a higher risk of encountering bugs in a beta release than a final release, so be extra careful
+with backups if used on active writing projects.
+
+#### The Build Novel Project Tool
+
+The main changes in this release are to the Build Novel Project tool. The Open Document export, as
+well as the Markdown export, is now handled entirely by code written for novelWriter. Previously,
+these export features depended on the underlying Qt library's save routines connected to the
+preview document shown in the build dialog. Using this method of export both meant that the content
+of the document was dependent on the preview being generated, and that the exported document had
+limited support for novelWriter-specific features and custom formatting. The new export tool should
+generate a much better result, especially for the Open Document formats. The Open Document standard
+is supported by Open Office, Libre Office, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and probably a number of
+other applications too. The Markdown export hasn't changed a lot, but should be a slight
+improvement on the previous export feature.
+
+These changes to the build tool also imply that the saving process is now independent of the
+content of the preview window, meaning you don't have to rebuild the preview before saving, which
+was previously the case. To make this more consistent, the PDF export option has been moved to the
+print button as it is actually a print-to-file feature under the hood, not technically a proper PDF
+export format. It is exactly the same as printing to file from the print preview dialog.
+
+In addition to the changes to the export features, the Build Novel Project tool now also has
+controls for line height, which applies to all rich text export formats, and the option to replace
+unicode characters with appropriate html entities for html export.
+
+#### Document Layout Automation
+
+Among other changes in this release are a few improvements to the process of creating and changing
+documents. When a new document is first created, the header is generated from the assigned label
+and layout. For some document layouts, when the user changes the header level of the first header
+of the document, the document layout setting is updated accordingly. This should reduce the need
+for the user to maintain two ways of assigning the role of a given document. This automation only
+applies to combinations of header level and current document layouts where there is no ambiguity.
+For instance, changing the header level in a "Scene" document from level 3 to 2 changes the
+document layout automatically to "Chapter". But changing the first header of a "Book" layout
+document from 1 to 2 does not change the document's layout as the "Book" layout is a generic
+document layout.
+
+Keep in mind that novelWriter treats documents with layout "Book", "Chapter" and "Scene" exactly
+the same during exports. The distinction is only meant as a way to indicate the purpose of a
+document in the project tree. This new automation is meant to assist in keeping this information up
+to date. The other layouts do have an effect on formatting during export and are generally left
+alone.
+
+#### The Session Timer and Idle Time
+
+Another change that has been requested by a couple of users is to have the session timer in the
+status bar stop counting when the user is inactive. This feature is optional, and can be controlled
+from Preferences. The definition of idle here is either that the user is active in a different
+application than novelWriter (loss of focus) or that the user has not made any changes to the
+document open in the editor for a given amount of time. The time threshold is by default five
+minutes, but can be altered in Preferences.
+
+In addition, the idle time is also recorded in the session log, and can be viewed in the Writing
+Statistics dialog and exported with the rest of the information. The idle time is recorder in the
+logs regardless of whether the status bar clock displays this information or not.
+
+#### Other Changes
+
+A small additional feature added is also the ability to undo the last move of an item in the
+project tree. The keyboard shortcut for this is `Ctrl+Shift+Z`, or it can be accessed from the
+menu. The feature can only undo the last move, but it includes both documents moved to trash, moves
+by up/down keypress or menu entries, and drag and drop moves.
+
+Lastly, a new keyword has been added to mark characters in the story. The new keyword is intended
+to tag a character as the focus character for a chapter or scene. This is useful for stories where
+the point-of-view character and the focus character are different.
+
 ### Detailed Changelog
 
 **New Features**