Release 1.5 Beta 1 (#858)
* Bump version to 1.5-beta1 and update changelog and release notes
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# novelWriter Changelog
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## Version 1.5 Beta 1 [2021-08-22]
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### Release Notes
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This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be
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careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you make frequent backups.
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This release introduces a new project file format, which has been given a file format version 1.3.
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The project file and index is updated automatically when you open the project, which means you can
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no longer open it in an older version of novelWriter.
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You may also have to make a handful of changes in your novel documents as these are not updated
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automatically. However, the changes are minimal and in any case only affects the way your
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manuscript looks like when exported via the Build Novel Project tool. The details are described
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below.
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#### Novel Document Layouts
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The main change in this release is the significant simplification of document layouts. Previously,
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there were seven different layouts available for novel documents, in addition to the one layout for
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project notes. The original intention of these layouts were partially to define some default
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formatting behaviour when exporting your project, and partially a way to indicate whether a
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specific document was a partition, chapter or scene.
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With this release, all the seven layouts for novel documents have been merged into a single layout
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called simply "Novel Document". The other layout for "Project Note" remains unchanged. The
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functionality provided by the various novel layouts have been implemented in other ways, and a few
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new formatting codes have been added to accommodate the formatting functionality lost with the
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removal of the layouts. They are all available in the Format and Insert menu.
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The changes you need to make to your project should be limited to altering a handful of titles and
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maybe insert a page break code here and there. The only title formats you need to update are those
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for the main novel title and for your unnumbered chapters, if you have any.
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Novel titles need to be altered from `# Novel Title` to `#! Novel Title` and unnumbered chapters
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from `## Chapter Name` or `## *Chapter Name` to `##! Chapter Name`. That is all. For inserting page
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breaks, you can add a single line with the command `[NEW PAGE]` where you want the break to be
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inserted. As before, page breaks are automatically inserted in front of all partition and chapter
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titles.
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You will find these changes described in more detail the documentation in the
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"[Format 1.3 Changes](https://novelwriter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage_projectformat.html#a-prjfmt-1-3)"
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section.
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#### GUI Changes
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Due to the above changes, the GUI has been altered a bit. The main changes are in the project tree.
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These changes are also reflected in the details panel below the project tree, and to a lesser
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extent in the Outline tab.
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The layouts were previously a way to indicate the purpose of a specific novel document, like
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whether it was a chapter or scene. With these layouts gone, the distinction is instead indicated by
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other visual means.
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The project index will now record the level of the first header of your document, and select a
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different icon for documents with a partition, chapter or scene header. These are colour coded as
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green, red and blue respectively. This only works for the coloured icon themes. The project notes
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have also received a new icon, with a yellow colour code.
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In addition, novel documents with a partition or chapter header will have the document label viewed
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as bold and underlined. This feature can be disabled in Preferences if you want a cleaner look in
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the project tree.
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#### Other Changes
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Several improvements have been made to the project index, which means the index will be
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automatically rebuilt when you open a project for the first time in the new version. You will get a
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notification about this.
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The ODT export tool has also been improved. The code that writes out text paragraphs has been
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rewritten and now conforms more closely to the Open Document standard. Most of these improvements
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will not be noticeable to you as a user, but you may notice that the exported document will now
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allow multiple consecutive spaces. Previously, two spaces, or more, would be concatenated into a
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single space in the exported document.
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### Detailed Changelog
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**Bugfixes**
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* Fix an inconsistency on the minimum required version of Qt and PyQt between the config files and
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the code. PR #846.
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* Ensure that an item's status setting is parsed after its class when parsing the main project
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XML. This is just a precaution as the XML writing function always writes the class setting first.
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PR #852.
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* On Windows, the Python icon is shown on the task bar when novelWriter is run directly from code.
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This has now been fixed by setting a unique application ID. Issue #860. PR #861.
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**Open Document Exports**
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* The ODT file writer class has been improved, and the code that writes out paragraphs and header
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section to the XML has been completely rewritten. The new algorithm is more robust and follows
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the open document standard more closely. It still diverts from the standard in a few cases, but
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these are the same points where Open Office and Libre Office diverts. Issue #783. PR #843.
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* The previous exporter class would sometimes insert additional line breaks in the generated XML
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for paragraphs. This does not break with the open document standard, but it was unintentional and
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trivial to fix. PR #843.
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* Some final clean-up was included in PR #859.
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**Novel Layouts**
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* All novel layouts, that is "TITLE", "PAGE", "BOOK", "PARTITION", "UNNUMBERED", "CHAPTER" and
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"SCENE" have been merged into a single layout "DOCUMENT". The "NOTE" layout remains unchanged.
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The special formatting of level one header on the title page and chapter headers for unnumbered
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chapters is now handled by a modified header formatting code. Issue #835. PR #837.
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* A formatting code for manually inserting page breaks in the text has been added. In the process,
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similar codes were added to insert vertical spaces in the text. Issue #835. PRs #837 and #848.
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* Dropping the layouts also triggered several changes to how project items are now displayed. The
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difference between document types is now indicated with a combination of icons and item label
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emphasis. The last column in the project tree also now only shows the item status or importance,
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not item class and layout. The Item Details panel below the tree has also been updated to show
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a usage description instead of layout as the last entry. Issue #835. PRs #847, #849 and #852.
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**Other Features**
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* A warning will pop up when you launch an alpha version of novelWriter. Since the main branch is
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now also the development branch, people may run novelWriter directly from source without checking
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out a release version. Alpha versions are not considered stable. PR #844.
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* Two new settings have been added to Preferences. One to control how much information is shown in
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the last column of the project tree, and one to control whether emphasis is used to indicate
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which novel documents contain a level one or two header. PRs #847 and #852.
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* The label on the first column of the project and novel trees have been renamed to "Project Tree"
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and "Novel Outline", respectively. PR #852.
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* The Help > User Manual (Online) menu entry sends you to the online documentation, and the local
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documentation is handled by Help > User Manual (PDF), replacing the old Qt Assistant
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implementation. PRs #856, #859 and #862.
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**Documentation**
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* The documentation has been updated and extended to cover the new layout behaviour and to provide
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information and instruction on how to update the project with the new formats. PRs #850, #851 and
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#855.
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* The technical section of the documentation has been updated, and information on how to run tests
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has been added. PR #859.
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**Code Improvements**
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* The loading and saving of user preferences in the config class has been improved a bit and the
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code modernised to the current recommended practice for the ConfigParser module. PR #826.
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* The index class has been improved. Some data fields that were not being used have been dropped.
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In addition, a new function has been added that provides a custom indentation scheme for JSON
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files. The default indentation inserts far too many line breaks. The new function only indents up
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to a certain level. Indenting the JSON files is useful for people who use version control
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software on their projects. The limited indentation scheme reduces the number of diff lines as
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well as reduces the overall file size. PR #840.
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----
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## Version 1.4.1 [2021-07-27]
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### Release Notes
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