Version 2.4

[vkbo]

Release Notes

This release adds a new global search feature. The tool is still relatively basic, and will likely be extended in later releases.

Among new text editing features is the ability to highlight text using [m]text[/m] shortcodes. The code [m] is for "mark", which is the equivalent code in HTML.

A second feature added for text editing is the ability to add an alternatively formatted scene heading by adding a ! to the markup, like for chapters and main titles. This allows to distinguish between two scene formatting styles, ### Title and ###! Title, which can for instance be used for soft and hard scene breaks.

The Manuscript Build tool has also been extended with multiple new formatting options.

See the website for complete Release Notes.

Detailed Changelog

Bugfixes

• Fixed background colour on some widgets on the new Project Search tool. PR Fix stylesheet bug #1800.
• Fixed a bug when using bold/italic/strike through toggle on an existing text selection in the editor. Issue Toggle markdown format on selected text clears selection #1807. PR Fix format toggle issue #1808.
• An index out of bounds error in the word counter has been fixed. It could only be triggered by a single line only containing a ">" character. Issues Text line with only a > on it will crash word counter #1816 and Out of Cheese Error: string index out of range #1825. PR Fix index error in word counter #1817.
• Fixed an issue where not all theme colours were completely reset before changing theme. PR Update default theme #1820.
• Shortcodes are no longer passed to the spell checker. PR Fix shortcode spellcheck #1823.

Improvements

• Made placeholder text for search read as "Search for" and "Replace with". PR Update translations #1799.
• The initial count for adding chapter and scenes to new project in the Welcome dialog has been changed to 0. The user must now select to add chapters and scenes. Issue New Project Wizard Options #1811. PR Update minor issues #1815.

Documentation

• Updated the documentation for 2.4 features. PR Update documentation for 2.4 #1818.

Internationalisation

• Norwegian and US English translations updated by Veronica Berglyd Olsen (@vkbo). PRs Update translations #1799 and Update translations #1814.
• Latin American Spanish translation updated by Tommy Marplatt (@tmarplatt). PR Update translations #1814.
• Italian translation updated by Lou Cyper (loucyper1). PR Update translations #1814.
• Japanese translation updated by @hebekeg. PR Update translations #1814.
• French translation updated by Albert Aribaud (@aaribaud). PR Update translations #1821.
• German translation updated by Myian (@HeyMyian). PR Update translations #1821.

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This discussion was created from the release Version 2.4.

[vkbo]

Note: This is the last feature release that will support Ubuntu 20.04 with Debian packages. From 2.5, novelWriter will require Qt 5.15. Ubuntu 20.04 comes with Qt 5.12. I've had a lot of modified parts of the code to support Ubuntu 20.04 for a while, but now I need Qt 5.15 features.

Qt5 in general has reached end of life, so I will soon switch to Qt6 altogether. Which will leave more Ubuntu releases behind. AppImages should still work, and hopefully Flatpak will be available too soon.

[ahoythedinghy]

Thank you!

[tmarplatt]

Great job!

Ubuntu jammy and downstream OSes package qt6 in their stable repos, so you should be good going forward. People will upgrade regardless.

Yes, I upgraded my distro as well 😁 No more bogus bug reports. For now, at least!

[vkbo]

22.04 has Qt6, but not PyQt6, so it will not be able to run it. 24.04 has it at least. Haven't checked 23.10.