Saturday, February 24, 2024

Notecase Pro v4.7.8 desktop released

 Notecase Pro v4.7.8 desktop has just been released.
Downloads are now available at https://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

This is a bugfix release, fixing a possible issue where notes in .ncdb/.ncde file format can be reordered within the same parent note after save/reload action.

For detailed change list see help file or: https://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

Tuesday, January 02, 2024

Notecase Pro v4.7.7 desktop and v1.2.4 Android edition released

Notecase Pro v4.7.7 desktop and v1.2.4 Android edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at https://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

The major change in this release is file .ncdb/.ncde format change allowing for faster document load (noticeable with documents having hge number of notes). New versions will automatically upgrade the file format, so first load with new version may take a slightly longer, subsequent loads are much faster.
The change is forwards-incompatible, i.e. old program versions can not read new/converted documents, so all editions had to be upgraded simultaneously.

Notable changes in this release for desktop:
- major: .ndcb/.ncde file format merges 3 different database tables (notes_tree, icons and tasks) back into main "notes" table for faster document loading
- add: support to import JPEG image with binary encoding from RTF file (\jpegblip\bin)
- add: new build for FreeBSD 14.0 (backported to v4.7.6 as well)
- fix TLS connectivity when using synchronization feature between Android client and newer sync server (using OpenSSL v3)
- fix: macOS was built without GtkSourceView support because GTK3 stack for macOS switched from GtkSourceView v3 to v4 and build system did not detect new version (backported to 4.7.6)
- fix: crash on startup on macOS Sonoma (backported to 4.7.6)
- additional document loading optimizations, .ncdb test file now loads 45% faster than in official 4.7.6 release
- fix: file format upgrade for .ncdb/.ncde should fail cleanly when the file is read-only (loading now reports an error)
- removed redirection to feedback web page on Windows package uninstall

Notable changes in this release for Android:
- enable automatic capitalization of sentence or new line on note content editor
- map Windows font "Consolas" to a monospace font style on Android
- major: adapt .ncdb document format to changes done in NoteCase Pro for desktop v4.7.7
- add TLSv1.3 to list of allowed protocols
- support pinning files in "recently used" list

Ubuntu 23.04 will reach End of Life on January 25th 2024, so this build has been deprecated. Same goes to FreeBSD v12.1 build. Raspberry Pi armhf build (older build for armhf architecture, not the new AARM64 build) has been removed, because qemu VM can not build the code anymore due to virtual memory allocation error in the compiler.

For detailed change list see help file or: https://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

Saturday, November 04, 2023

Notecase Pro v4.7.6 desktop edition release

Notecase Pro v4.7.6 desktop edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at https://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

Notable changes in this release:
- two new Lua methods to get/set note text wrapping: Nc_App_LineWrap_Get, Nc_App_LineWrap_Set
- load help file on first start
- bundled zlib library updated to latest version 1.3
- new builds for Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora 39 (removed Fedora 36 build)
- fix: remove gstreamer libraries from Windows installer; installer size went from 180 to 53MB
- fix: when creating a hyperlink to a note in a different document, note selection dialog would show current document notes
- fix: opening encrypted file on startup would show its password window twice if the file was also part of "restore last used files" list
- fix: selecting 'Lucida Console' font on Windows returns invalid font string 'Lucida Console Semi-Condensed'
- fix: possible NoteCase Pro (client) crash when syncing document with note custom property changes
- fix: drastically faster comparison of two documents in sync server (~40x on a test .ncdb document)
- fix: use 8x bigger buffer for faster transport when synchronizing files (initial document upload is now >100x faster)
- fix: CSS dropdown widget in "File > Export" window (for HTML export) does not show selected text in GTK3.x builds
- fix: possible loss of font formatting on note contents copy/paste

For detailed change list see help file or: https://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

I am trying to find out how many people use audio recording/playing within NoteCase Pro. If you use any of these, please ping me.

The reason is that I would like to deprecate (and eventually remove) this feature if it is not used by the users too much. GStreamer library had a major interface changes between versions 0.1 and 1.0 and it is hard to support both versions, also it doesn't seem to work as nice on a number of platforms including Windows (Mingw) and it increases installer size by 120MB (compressed) or 700MB on disk (uncompressed).

Monday, June 19, 2023

Notecase Pro v4.7.3 desktop edition release

Notecase Pro v4.7.3 desktop edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at http://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

Notable changes in this release:
- add: new optional parameter for Lua method Nc_GUI_Note_Select to make the window "always on top"
- 33% reduction in loading time for .ncdb/.ncde format
- copy paste of rich text format (with bold/italic/custom font formatting) is almost 3x faster now
- add: clicking the gutter (left margin with line numbers) toggles the selection of the text line
- add: two new optional parameters for Lua method Nc_GUI_Note_Select to specify window width and height
- fix: revert the GTK stack for Windows from gvsbuild to Mingw due to several issues
- fix: running Lua script through command line (--run) reports error in newer GTK3 Linux builds using gtk_application object
- fix: speedup code to auto-generate URLs when pasting text to note (may be noticeable when pasting big texts)
- fix: for faster load file integrity check was moved to File > Documents > Current > Compact menu action
- fix: failed license loading in latest Windows Mingw build (due to new OpenSSL v3.1.0)
- embedded Lua language updated to latest v5.4.6

For detailed change list see help file or: http://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

New build added: Debian 12.
Following builds deprecated in the last cycle are now removed: Ubuntu 22.10,  Ubuntu 18.04 GTK2 build, Ubuntu 16.04 GTK2 build.

Working to fix Raspberry Pi 4 system and create this build...

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Notecase Pro v4.7.1 desktop edition released

Notecase Pro v4.7.1 desktop edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at http://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

Notable changes in this release:
- major: Windows build is going back to GTK provided by gvsbuild
- updated the launcher script for macOS app bundle (fixes the issue with Japanese, Chinese input), updated macOS build to latest GTK version
- disabled the code for collection of statistical telemetry data (data was not as useful as much as I hoped)
- add: document tabs context menu got a new "Copy Document Path" action to put document path to clipboard
- add: Nc_Doc_Load now got optional password parameter to open encrypted documents without prompting for password on screen
- fix: on ncdb/ncde document load, check database integrity, try to rebuild indexes if any issue found
- fix: case where copy/paste of rich text formatted content did not preserve all formatting properties
- fix: some macOS issues, reported by a user, resolved by GTK library rebuild
- fix: opening document in 2nd app instance with "--new-instance" parameter caused the document to be opened in the 1st instance as well
- fix: make "#" column in Script Manager window list auto-sized
- fix: script "059_GlobaSearch.lua" reported an error when searching for something that does not exist in the document

For detailed change list see help file or: http://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

A two builds added: Fedora 38, Ubuntu 23.04.
Following builds deprecated in the last cycle are now removed: Fedora 33-35,  Debian 10,  Mageia 6 32-bit build.

Unless someone needs this, in next cycle I plan to discontinue the following builds (distros becoming EOL soon):
- Ubuntu 22.10
- Ubuntu 18.04 GTK2 build
- Ubuntu 16.04 GTK2 build

FreeBSD build still needs to be built, should hopefully be online in a day or two.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Notecase Pro v4.6.9 desktop edition released

Notecase Pro v4.6.9 desktop edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at http://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

Notable changes in this release:
- add: when exporting document to HTML, make external hyperlinks open in a new tab when clicked (previously this worked only for "Format with tree in separate frame" subtype)
- add: new "Restore 'do not show again' options" option in the General Settings dialog (page "04 Global")
- add: new command line parameter "--password-file" to read document password from the file (to improve security)
- add: new command line parameter "--new-instance" for force opening the new program instance (instead of opening document in already existing one)
- add: new command line parameter "--no-config-update" to cause the program instance not to update config file on exit (useful when starting/stopping multiple instances from a script)
- fix: drop down to select target note in Link Properties window does not allow selecting non-leaf notes in GTK 3.x (rewritten to use popup window selector instead)
- fix: zoom note text using Ctrl+mouse wheel feature was broken in GTK3.x builds
- fix: rare crash when deleting the note while its embedded images are still being loaded in the background
- fix: prevent similar crashes due to loading images while moving the note within the document tree
- fix: opening link with space character encoded as "%20" (imported from Freeplane document) did not work
- fix: hyperlinks to inline targets (anchors) did not export correctly in "HTML with tree in a separate frame" format
- fix: when importing Freeplane links to local files, convert them to absolute links so they keep working in Notecase document as well
- fix: possible crash when redrawing document after being synchronized
- fix: links assigned to note title were not drawn in correct color in Tree Pane
- fix: marked notes may have not been drawn in correct color in Tree Pane in some cases
- fix: copying more than cca 50kB to cliboard in GTK3 Linux build, then pasting the data to a new NoteCase Pro instance blocks for 30sec then fails
  (the fix removed the call to force the clipbard data being stored when app exits)

For detailed change list see help file or: http://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

A number of new builds was added, including Fedora 37, Ubuntu 22.10, Suse Leap 15.4, AlmaLinux 9 (RHEL9).
OpenSUSE Thumbleweed build has switched from GTK2 to GTK3.

As deprecated in the last cycle, Suse 42 build have been removed now.
Additionally, Windows 32-bit build, Mageia 6 64-bit build (replaced by Mageia 8), Ubuntu 21.10 (end of life), Centos 8 (replaced with AlmaLinux 9), Arch 64-bit GTK2 (GTK3 version remains).

Unless someone needs this, in next cycle I plan to discontinue the following builds (distros being EOL):
- Fedora 33 - 35 (end of life)
- Debian 10 (end of life)
- Mageia 6 32-bit build (end of life)

I am currently working to upgrade OpenBSD from 6.8 to 7.2, but the code has some issues compiling with latest version of openssl library, so it may take some time.

Tuesday, August 02, 2022

Notecase Pro v4.6.6 desktop edition released

Notecase Pro v4.6.6 desktop edition has just been released.
Downloads are now available at http://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

Notable changes in this release:
- add: when exporting to Markdown (.md) file format, export note attachments as well
- add: when document load is aborted, make "Operation aborted!" message optional with "do not show again" check box
- add: option "Show password prompt for unloaded document" in "Security" page allows you to skip reloading unloaded documents
- fix: macOS build has the main screen partially black on Retina screens only (reported on M1 Mac), fix required raising the minimal target to macOS 10.12
- fix: use symbolic icon names instead of deprecated stock icons for GTK3.x builds
- fix: revert some custom icons to symbolic ones to better fit the rest of the icons
- fix: when hyperlink and an anchor both start at the same position in the note, no link shows in exported HTML
- fix: when the search matches the note title, "Find next" action gets stuck on that title although there are matches in subsequent notes
- fix: on Linux, selecting "Ubuntu" font shows like "Ubuntu width=255" (issue detected only on that font)
- fix: "find previous" search did not work correctly
- fix: in "General Options" window, color picker for "Link" won't start
- fix: opening the .ncde file from file manager in GTK3 based Linux build will make the password prompt appear twice
- fix: Windows Mingw installer did not contain spellchecker (aspell)

For detailed change list see help file or: http://www.notecasepro.com/history.php

As deprecated in the last cycle, Ubuntu 14.04 and Centos 7 builds have been removed now.


Unless someone needs this, in next cycle I plan to discontinue the following builds (distros being EOL):
- Suse 42