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4 | 4 | Pre-Release 2.8 Beta 1 |
5 | 5 | ********************** |
6 | 6 |
|
7 | | -| **Release Date:** In Development |
| 7 | +| **Release Date:** October 29, 2025 |
8 | 8 |
|
9 | 9 |
|
10 | 10 | Release Notes |
11 | 11 | ============= |
12 | 12 |
|
13 | 13 | .. attention:: |
14 | 14 |
|
15 | | - The 2.8 Beta 1 release is the next release and in development. |
| 15 | + This is a beta release of the next release version, and is intended for testing purposes. Please be careful when |
| 16 | + using this version on live writing projects, and make sure you take frequent backups. |
16 | 17 |
|
17 | | - You can follow the development progress on the `2.8 Beta 1 Milestone <https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/milestone/89>`__. |
| 18 | + You can follow the development progress on the `2.8 RC 1 Milestone <https://github.com/vkbo/novelWriter/milestone/104>`__. |
18 | 19 |
|
19 | 20 |
|
20 | | -Planned Features |
21 | | -================ |
| 21 | +Theme Revamp |
| 22 | +------------ |
22 | 23 |
|
23 | | -Here are some planned features for 2.8. The plan is subject to change. |
| 24 | +The major change in 2.8 is that the colour theme is now uniform for the entire application. You no longer need to select |
| 25 | +a separate theme for the app and the documents separately. Instead you can now select your preferred light and dark |
| 26 | +theme, and switch between them using a new button on the side bar. You can also set the theme to automatically follow |
| 27 | +the light or dark mode choice of your operating system. |
24 | 28 |
|
25 | | -* Revamped theme system: The GUI and document themes will be merged. |
26 | | -* Quick dark/light theme switching. |
27 | | -* Writing session progress counter and progress bar. |
28 | | -* EPUB export format. |
29 | | -* Character dialogue statistics for the manuscript. |
| 29 | +In addition to a redesign of the colour theme system, a large number of new colour themes have been added. There are |
| 30 | +many new choices for both light and dark themes, and a lot of them come in matching pairs. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +Icon and Button Consistency |
| 34 | +--------------------------- |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +All buttons now use icons from the selected icon theme, and no longer inherits any icons from your operating system. |
| 37 | +This helps keep the icons consistent. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +You can also select standard theme colours for your **Status** and **Importance** labels. The **Project Settings** tabs |
| 40 | +for these have been redesigned with these additional options. This means that when you switch between light and dark |
| 41 | +theme, or to a different colour theme, the **Status** and **Importance** label icons will update too. |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +.. note:: |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | + Since the **Status** and **Importance** labels have had fixed values in the past, once your project has been opened |
| 46 | + in novelWriter 2.8, you have to go and change the colour for each label icon from "Custom" to your standard theme |
| 47 | + colour of choice. You still have the option to set a fixed colour for these icons if you wish to. |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +New Features |
| 51 | +------------ |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +**Markdown Highlighting** |
| 54 | + You can now use Markdown highlighting tags in the text, like this: |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | + .. code-block:: md |
| 57 | +
|
| 58 | + Some text with ==this part highlighted==. |
| 59 | +
|
| 60 | + This does the same as the shortcode ``[m][/m]`` tags, but the difference is that the text is visually highlighted |
| 61 | + also in the editor. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +**Current Line Highlighted** |
| 64 | + A new setting is available in **Preferences** under **Text Editing** which enables highlighting of the current line. |
| 65 | + That is, the line where the cursor is will have a different background colour. |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +**Repeatable Annotated Comments** |
| 68 | + Specially annotated comments, like Synopsis, Short Description, Story Structure, and Story Notes, can now be repeated |
| 69 | + under a heading and all comments preserved in the outline and its export. |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +Other Changes |
| 73 | +------------- |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +* You can now switch to the Project Tree or Outline View using keyboard shortcuts while in Focus Mode. |
| 77 | +* When creating a new document from a template, the main title of the template document is replaced with the label |
| 78 | + chosen for the new document. |
| 79 | +* The auto-replace feature in the editor is now better at detecting opening and closing quotes when used in relation to |
| 80 | + Markdown style markup. |
| 81 | +* The application window is now blocked from resizing itself to a size larger than the screen when opened on a smaller |
| 82 | + screen than it was previously opened on. |
| 83 | +* Trailing spaces are no longer highlighted in the editor with an error underline. |
| 84 | +* A switch on the **Manuscript Build Settings** dialog now allows for automatic preview of the build when the Apply or |
| 85 | + Save button is clicked. |
30 | 86 |
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31 | 87 |
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32 | 88 | Download Links |
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