Veronica K. B. Olsen
73 lines
5.0 KiB
HTML
73 lines
5.0 KiB
HTML
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<h2>Release Notes for 1.2 Beta 1</h2>
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<p><i>Released on 11 February 2021</i></p>
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<p>This release is a beta release of 1.2. The release is intended for testing of new features.
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There is a higher risk of encountering bugs in a beta release than a final release, so be extra
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careful with backups if used on active writing projects.</p>
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<h3>The Build Novel Project Tool</h3>
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<p>The main changes in this release are to the Build Novel Project tool. The Open Document export,
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as well as the Markdown export, is now handled entirely by code written for novelWriter.
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Previously, these export features depended on the underlying Qt library's save routines connected
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to the preview document shown in the build dialog. Using this method of export both meant that the
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content of the document was dependent on the preview being generated, and that the exported
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document had limited support for novelWriter-specific features and custom formatting. The new
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export tool should generate a much better result, especially for the Open Document formats. The
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Open Document standard is supported by Open Office, Libre Office, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and
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probably a number of other applications too. The Markdown export hasn't changed a lot, but should
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be a slight improvement on the previous export feature.</p>
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<p>These changes to the build tool also imply that the saving process is now independent of the
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content of the preview window, meaning you don't have to rebuild the preview before saving, which
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was previously the case. To make this more consistent, the PDF export option has been moved to the
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print button as it is actually a print-to-file feature under the hood, not technically a proper PDF
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export format. It is exactly the same as printing to file from the print preview dialog.</p>
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<p>In addition to the changes to the export features, the Build Novel Project tool now also has
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controls for line height, which applies to all rich text export formats, and the option to replace
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unicode characters with appropriate html entities for html export.</p>
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<h3>Document Layout Automation</h3>
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<p>Among other changes in this release are a few improvements to the process of creating and
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changing documents. When a new document is first created, the header is generated from the assigned
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label and layout. For some document layouts, when the user changes the header level of the first
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header of the document, the document layout setting is updated accordingly. This should reduce the
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need for the user to maintain two ways of assigning the role of a given document. This automation
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only applies to combinations of header level and current document layouts where there is no
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ambiguity. For instance, changing the header level in a "Scene" document from level 3 to 2 changes
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the document layout automatically to "Chapter". But changing the first header of a "Book" layout
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document from 1 to 2 does not change the document's layout as the "Book" layout is a generic
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document layout.</p>
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<p>Keep in mind that novelWriter treats documents with layout "Book", "Chapter" and "Scene" exactly
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the same during exports. The distinction is only meant as a way to indicate the purpose of a
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document in the project tree. This new automation is meant to assist in keeping this information up
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to date. The other layouts do have an effect on formatting during export and are generally left
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alone.</p>
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<h3>The Session Timer and Idle Time</h3>
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<p>Another change that has been requested by a couple of users is to have the session timer in the
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status bar stop counting when the user is inactive. This feature is optional, and can be controlled
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from Preferences. The definition of idle here is either that the user is active in a different
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application than novelWriter (loss of focus) or that the user has not made any changes to the
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document open in the editor for a given amount of time. The time threshold is by default five
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minutes, but can be altered in Preferences.</p>
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<p>In addition, the idle time is also recorded in the session log, and can be viewed in the Writing
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Statistics dialog and exported with the rest of the information. The idle time is recorder in the
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logs regardless of whether the status bar clock displays this information or not.</p>
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<h3>Other Changes</h3>
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<p>A small additional feature added is also the ability to undo the last move of an item in the
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project tree. The keyboard shortcut for this is <b>Ctrl+Shift+Z</b>, or it can be accessed from the
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menu. The feature can only undo the last move, but it includes both documents moved to trash, moves
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by up/down keypress or menu entries, and drag and drop moves.</p>
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<p>Lastly, a new keyword has been added to mark characters in the story. The new keyword is
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intended to tag a character as the focus character for a chapter or scene. This is useful for
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stories where the point-of-view character and the focus character are different.</p>
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<p><i>The full changelog is available
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<a href="https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md">here</a>.</i></p>
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</body>
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</html>
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