Release Notes
This is a beta release 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.
Note: There are no longer any Mac releases produced for novelWriter. See #2618.
Detailed Changelog
Bugfixes
- The URL highlighting now also works if the URL has an exclamation point. Issue #2693. PR #2695.
- The margin settings in Manuscript Build settings now correctly shows icons to indicate margin type. PR #2647.
Features
- The novelWriter version number is now year-based. Instead of the next release being 2.9, it is now 26.1 or 2026.1 as shown in the app. Discussion #2667. PR #2669.
- Added the Lucide icon theme as a user-selectable icon theme. Issue #2605. PR #2632.
- It is now possible to split a document via text selection, or at the cursor position, from the right-click menu in the editor. Issues #1486 and #2571. PR #2688.
- The shortcuts
Ctrl+UpandCtrl+Downnow move the cursor between paragraphs in the editor. Issue #2635. PR #2679. - The size of the different heading levels can now be adjusted in the Manuscript Build settings tool. Issue #2439. PR #2650.
- Added a setting for manuscripts to use blank lines instead of margins in manuscript document formats. Issue #2648. Discussion #2646. PR #2649.
- A new "Heading Format" sections is available in Manuscript Build settings. The settings for bold and colourised headings have been moved there, and a new setting to make them uppercase has been added. PR #2647.
Improvements
- Added word or character units to count tooltip labels in project tree and novel view. PR #2698.
- The note document associated with a reference can now be opened in the editor from the right-click menu. Issue #2448. PR #2697.
- The
Shift+Entershortcut now also works in the project search, and opens the document in the viewer. However, it cannot show the actual search result since the search itself is performed on the raw plain text document and doesn't apply to the generated document in the viewer. Issue #2661. PR #2697. - Backward searches in the editor can now also iterate backwards in project documents if the option to continue search in the next document is enabled. Issue #1451. PR #2696.
- Error handling when encountering file system issues has been improved and hardened. It should further prevent application crashes when encountering such issues. Issues #2529 and #2671. PRs #2675 and #2683.
- The document header in the editor and viewer panels have been improved. An issue with clipping of the descending characters have been fixed, and each part of the path can be clicked to highlight it in the project tree. Issues #2664 and #2674. PR #2677.
- Added a setting in Preferences that turns off scaling of headings in the editor, which is more consistent with plain text where all text is the same size. Issue #2636. PR #2670.
- Improved the way version numbers are shown in the Welcome dialog, allows the selected project to be opened with the Enter key, and using the arrow keys will move the selection up and down without first having to switch focus to the recent projects list. PR #2668.
Accessibility
- Improved screen reader support for remaining buttons, and improved reading of settings pages in various dialogs. Issue #2338. PR #2698.
- Two new light colour themes for colour blindness has been added. They are "Today Deuteranopia" for red/green colour blindness, and "Today Tritanopia" for blue colour blindness. Issue #2689. PR #2694.
- Added an option in Preference to show dotted lines under formatting codes in the editor. This is a visual aid in addition to highlighting colours. Issue #2691. PR #2692.
Internationalisation
- Updated translation files with some new translations since the 2.8 release. PR #2699.
Other Changes