vkbo/novelWriter v1.0rc2

Version 1.0 RC2

on GitHub

Release Notes

This second release candidate for 1.0 comes with only minor changes and improvements, and a handful of minor bugfixes.

Among the improvements is the addition of all the possible @-keywords for tags and references to the "Insert" menu under the sub-menu "Tags and References". The "Help" menu has also received a few improvements and additional links to useful webpages. This release also adds a "Release" notes tab to the "About novelWriter" dialog. The release notes are displayed automatically the first time you launch novelWriter after updating to a new version.

Among the fixes is better support for high resolution screens. A few elements on the GUI did not scale properly, among them the document editor and viewer header and footer. These were clipped on high res screens due to an underlying issue with the Qt widget underestimating how much space it required to accommodate the text. Unfortunately, dragging the novelWriter app between screens of different scaling factors is not currently supported. However, the GUI should scale properly to the scaling factor on the screen it is opened on.

The work leading up to this release has mostly been focused on improving the test coverage of the source code of novelWriter. This helps to ensure that the code does what it is intended to do, and is able to handle corner cases and unexpected external errors and user actions that may occur. While writing these tests, a number of minor potential issues have been uncovered and handled. Most of these are corner cases that may not even be reachable by unexpected user actions.

Hopefully, these changes have resulted in an even more stable version of novelWriter. If no more issues are discovered, the next release will be the final version 1.0 release.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• The headers and footers of the document editor and viewer would be clipped on high DPI monitors. This was due to the QWidget holding these did not automatically scale in the layout. The proper height of these are now calculated and enforced instead of relying on automated scaling. Issue #499, PR #502.
• Fixed a few inconsistencies in scaling of toggle switches, the form layouts, and the margins of the Item Editor when viewing on a high DPI screen. PR #502.
• Switching syntax theme live would not update all colours in the editor and viewer. This has now been fixed. PR #516.
• Using the Tools menu to move items up or down in the project tree, without selecting an item to move, would cause a crash. The move actions are now quietly rejected if no item is selected. Issue #521, PR #522.

User Interface

• Added all the possible keywords for tags and references to the Insert menu. Since the list was growing long, the Insert menu entries have been split up into four sub menus according to the previous grouping. Issue #501, PR #503.
• A "Release Notes" tab has been added to the "About novelWriter" dialog where the latest release notes can be displayed. PR #508.
• Menu entries that will open the "Releases" and "Discussions" pages on the novelWriter GitHub repo has been added to the Help menu. PRs #509, #511 and #520.
• The help text of many of the Preferences options have been clarified and rewritten. PR #516.
• Added two greyscale syntax themes. These will match with the greyscale icon themes to produce a GUI without colours. PR #516.

Other Changes

• The Windows installer now properly sets up the mime type for novelWriter, meaning novelWriter project files can be opened from the Explorer directly into novelWriter. PR #511.
• It is now possible to create new files in the Outtakes root folder from the context menu. Issue #517, PR #519.

Test Suite

• The tests for the core classes of novelWriter have been completely rewritten. Every class or source file of the core functionality (everything handling the actual project data and documents, as well as the meta data) is now covered by its own testmodule with a 100% coverage for each module. PR #512.
• Likewise, the base tests have been rewritten to cover the Config class, the main function that launches the app, and the error handling class. The structure matches the core tests from #512. PR #514.
• The GUI tests have been reorganised to match the new test structure, and somewhat improved, but some parts still need additional coverage. PR #527.