Notecase Pro v4.8.1 desktop release

Notecase Pro v4.8.1 desktop has just been released.
Downloads are now available at https://www.notecasepro.com/download.php

This is a maintenance release, adding two new builds, and fixing some minor issues:
- updated Lua to a latest version 5.4.7
- updated Bodhi distro, this build now uses GTK3.x instead of GTK2.x
- new builds for Fedora 41 and Ubuntu 24.10
- fix: app startup got stuck for 45 seconds on recently updated Windows 10 PC inside DDEConnect() Windows API call.
  Added .ini file key support "SkipDDE=1" (in "[Startup]" section) to skip DDE system usage completely (will disable single app instance).
- fix: upload debug/crash log files (Help>Send Activity Log window) using https instead of http protocol

The following builds are now deprecated and will be removed in the next cycle (unless someone objects in the meantime), either due to distro's "end of support" or "end of life" status: Fedora 38, Fedora 39, Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 11.

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

NoteCase Pro v4.8.0 desktop edition released

Minor release again, mostly released to fix the "Check for updates" feature errors due to changing the web hosting provider. Additionally, as announced a long time ago, audio (gstreamer) support was removed.

Additional fixes:
- major: as announced a while ago, support for audio operations (recording, playing) has been removed, this code had issues due to uneven Gstreamer support over platforms (v 0.1 vs 1.0; lack of quality recording codecs on Windows, huge distribution size with Gstreamer bundled on Windows/Mac
- fix: "Check for Update" stopped working in June after changing hosting provider (https protocol is now required instead of http)
- fix: Lua method Nc_GUI_SelectionDlgTbl returns wrong data in multi-selection mode
- add: replace all the references to old address virtual-sky.com (not used anymore) to notecasepro.com
- add: Lua API Nc_Doc_SendViaEmail now accepts -1 value for parameter nSelection (meaning nothing to export, i.e. mail with no attachment)
- add: "No title decoration" option when exporting to .txt format (avoids prefixing title with "*" character)

As previously deprecated, Ubuntu 23.10, Fedora 37, Mageia 8 were removed now.

NoteCase Pro v4.7.9 desktop edition released

 This is a small release, featuring two new builds to address Fedora 40 and Ubuntu 24.04 releases.

Additional fixes:
- fix: selecting "Calibri" font in Style Manager actually applied as "Calibri Light" (similarly, "Arial" mapped to "Arial Condensed")
- fix: search function did not cycle through notes in correct order when starting the same search the 2nd time

As previously deprecated, Ubuntu 23.04 and FreeBSD v12.1 builds were removed now.

The following builds are now deprecated (having End-of-life being reached or coming soon) and will be removed in the next build: Ubuntu 23.10, Fedora 37, Mageia 8, Suse leap 15.4 (will be upgraded to 15.6), RHEL8.

Additionally, I plan to upgrade Bodhi (from 32-bit to 64-bit), Solus, OpenIndiana (Solaris) and OpenBSD (if the build issues with OpenSSL are resolved).

Let me know if you need some of the deprecated builds.

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

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

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).

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...