Veronica Berglyd Olsen
80911af4d2
* Bump version to 1.5-beta1 and update changelog and release notes
72 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
72 lines
4.7 KiB
HTML
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<h2>Release Notes for 1.5 Beta 1</h2>
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<p><i>Released on 22 August 2021</i></p>
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<p>This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please
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be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you make frequent
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backups.</p>
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<p>This release introduces a new project file format, which has been given a file format version
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1.3. The project file and index is updated automatically when you open the project, which means you
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can no longer open it in an older version of novelWriter.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<h4>Novel Document Layouts</h4>
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<p>The main change in this release is the significant simplification of document layouts.
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Previously, there were seven different layouts available for novel documents, in addition to the
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one layout for project notes. The original intention of these layouts were partially to define some
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default 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.</p>
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<p>With this release, all the seven layouts for novel documents have been merged into a single
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layout 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.</p>
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<p>The changes you need to make to your project should be limited to altering a handful of titles
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and maybe insert a page break code here and there. The only title formats you need to update are
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those for the main novel title and for your unnumbered chapters, if you have any.</p>
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<p>Novel titles need to be altered from "<span class="alt"># Novel Title</span>" to
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"<span class="alt">#! Novel Title</span>" and unnumbered chapters from "<span class="alt">##
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Chapter Name</span>" or "<span class="alt">## *Chapter Name</span>" to "<span class="alt">##!
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Chapter Name</span>". That is all. For inserting page breaks, you can add a single line with the
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command "<span class="alt">[NEW PAGE]</span>" where you want the break to be inserted. As before,
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page breaks are automatically inserted in front of all partition and chapter titles.</p>
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<p>You will find these changes described in more detail the documentation in the
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"<a href="https://novelwriter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage_projectformat.html#a-prjfmt-1-3">Format
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1.3 Changes</a>" section.</p>
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<h4>GUI Changes</h4>
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<p>Due to the above changes, the GUI has been altered a bit. The main changes are in the project
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tree. 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.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>In addition, novel documents with a partition or chapter header will have the document label
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viewed as bold and underlined. This feature can be disabled in Preferences if you want a cleaner
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look in the project tree.</p>
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<h4>Other Changes</h4>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p><i>See also the <a href="https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/releases">Releases</a> page.</i></p>
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