Version 2.5 RC 1

[vkbo]

Release Notes

This is a release candidate of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• The Status bar LEDs are now properly updated when the theme changes. Issue Saved/unsaved indicators not refreshed when switching theme #1893. PR Refresh StatusLEDs when theme changes #1906.
• All HTML tags are now properly closed at the end of each paragraph in HTML output. After shortcodes were introduced, it was possible to leave formatting tags open. Issue Incomplete shortcodes cause issues in HTML output #1919. PR Ensure HTML tags are properly closed in output documents #1926.

Improvements

• Move the first line indent setting from being an Open Document feature to a general build settings feature that also applies to HTML, and make it visible in the Manuscript build tool preview. Issue Build Tool Output Settings and Preview #1839 and Add first line indent to HTML #1858. PR Update first line indentation #1898.
• Make sure the document in the editor is saved before the same document is opened in the viewer. Issue View unsaved document #1884. PR Make some improvements to the viewer and test coverage #1902.
• The project name now appears before "novelWriter" in the main window title, which improves the task bar label on at least Linux Mint Cinnamon, and Windows. Issue Remove string "novelWriter" from taskbar button. #1910. PR Move project name first in window title #1911.
• Dialogue highlighting now only applies to novel documents, not notes. It is also possible to apply it to HTML and ODT manuscripts, and it also shows up in the preview and in the document viewer. Issue Extend dialogue highlighting #1774. PR Extend dialogue highlighting #1908.
• The Welcome dialog and other tools that use the project name to generate files of folder names are now less restrictive on what characters it allows in the file or folder names. Issue Project folder name should be less restrictive #1917. PR Allow more characters to be used in file names #1922.
• Last used folder paths are now remembered individually for each tool or feature that requires path input from the user. Issues Setting a default writing project directory #1930 and Idiots are me. I made a new 'novel' and it went somewhere else in Linux #1933. PR Remember last used path for each tool individually #1934.
• The Manuscript preview will now show line height as set in build settings. Issue Add line height to build preview #1920. PR Support line height in build tool #1935.
• Global search now refreshes if any of the search option buttons are toggled, and the search result will show the complete word if the search term only matches part of a word. Issue Global Search Enhancements #1830. PR Update global search #1936.
• When a new note is created from a reference tag in the editor, the syntax highlighting is properly updated to indicate the tag is now valid. Issue Refresh syntax highlighting on note creation #1916. PR Rehighlight tags on note creation #1938.
• The Ctrl+E shortcut now toggles focus between editor and viewer instead of just going to the editor. The header text colour changes to indicate which panel has focus. This should make it easier to scroll the content of the viewer without having to click it with the mouse first. Issue Add shortcuts to scroll the Viewer up and down #1387. PRs Add focus widget hinting #1940 and Revert font setting in custom class #1941.

Code Improvements

• Change how dialogs are handled in memory, and drop the calls to deleteLater for the underlying Qt object as it caused problems in some cases. Instead, the dialog is disconnected from the parent object, which seems to let the Python and Qt garbage collectors to kick in. PRs Improve dialog memory handling #1899. Improve memory handling and fix a few variables #1913 and Fix multiple tools dialog issue #1921.
• Overload the reject call for dialogs rather to call close, which the default implementation does not. This simplifies the logic when closing dialogs, as reject() is also a slot, which close() is not. Issue Edit label save on enter #1915. PR Refactor dialog closing #1918.
• Processing of dialogue highlighting has been added to the Tokenizer class, and the RegEx handling moved to a separate factory class. PR Extend dialogue highlighting #1908.
• The progress bar widgets have been moved to a single module, and test coverage added. PR Refactor custom widgets #1937.

Packaging

• The Windows installer is now built with Inno Setup 6.3, and uses zip compression rather than lzma. It also properly sets the undelete icon, and the undelete process is better at cleaning up files. PR Update Windows packaging #1932.

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This discussion was created from the release Version 2.5 RC 1.

[caojunnan11]

Hello I'm a writer and I like your software very much.
But one feature that often bothers me when writing is that there is no line spacing distance setting in the software settings.
I use machine translation, and I don't know if the expression is correct.
It's the distance between each line of text, which would be perfect if it could be set like Word.

[vkbo]

The plain text editor doesn't support custom line spacing unfortunately, so it isn't currently possible. You can only set line spacing for the manuscript output.

[vkbo]

Here is the relevant Qt bug: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-51891

It's been unresolved sine 2016, but if that changes, I will add the setting.