Elementary v1.2.0-alpha.0

[bogosorter]

Hi there!

Elementary v1.2.0-alpha.0 is out. I've been thinking about the best way to discuss its shortcomings and suggest improvements and have decided to try GitHub's Discussions feature.

Here's what's new:

• New PDF exporter
• New shortcuts for uppercase (ctrl+u), lowercase (ctrl+l) and duplicate lines (ctrl+d)
• Improved file identification in "Open Recent"
• Added an error message when opening a recent file that no longer exists
• Shortened path display for the current file on small screens
• New setting to receive notifications about future prereleases

I'm especially interested in feedback about the PDF exporter. Does the export configuration work fine? Can you find any bugs?

I hope to hear from you soon!
bogosorter

[bogosorter]

@SamejSpenser I've taken the liberty to ping you on this one.

I ran into some trouble implementing the ctrl+shift+u shortcut - one of the libraries I’m using isn’t catching it. I noticed that some other apps use ctrl+l for lowercase, so I went with that for now. I can try to fiddle a little more with the library if you think that ctrl+shift+u is important for compatibility with other apps, though.

Apart from that, shortcuts are very easy to implement. Are there any others you'd like me to add?

[SamejSpenser]

Hey again, @bogosorter, thanks a lot for the ping!

I’ll be able to test the new features a bit later today (it’s 17:12 PM right now) or tomorrow.

About the shortcut for lowercase, Ctrl + L is a solid option, and I can totally use it instead of Ctrl + Shift + U. For now, those are all the shortcut suggestions I have. If I think of anymore, I’ll drop by the GitHub discussions to suggest them (I’m glad you went with this feature! 😉).

Regardless.

[SamejSpenser]

I tried exporting to PDF with the CSS link in the YAML, in the <link>, and inline, and it errored every time. I couldn't get any PDF export to work.

The instructions in the PDF export guide, especially the examples, are pretty confusing because there are CSS parameters in the YAML and HTML in the CSS.

As a suggestion for new features, I noticed that ==highlight== doesn't work in Elementary; and adding callouts would be super welcome. If it could be like in Obsidian, that’d be awesome; if not, then like in GitHub (it's called “Alerts”), that’d be good enough! 😉

It's 11:42 PM now here in Brazil, I'm gonna sleep in a few minutes, and tomorrow I'll keep testing and trying to figure out how to make the PDF export work according to the guide's instructions.

[SamejSpenser]

Does it make a difference how Elementary is installed on my OS?
You seem to be using Ubuntu or another distro with Gnome, which makes me think you're using Elementary in .deb format;

I'm using ArcoLinux with Qtile, and I'm using Elementary in .AppImage format.

Here's the output of the elementary command in the terminal:

[SamejSpenser]

Running just "elementary" returns an error.

[bogosorter]

It shouldn't make a difference how you run it, as long as it's on the terminal. If you run Elementary and export it you should see the export error.

In the meanwhile I've tracked the issue on a friend's computer too. It seems to only happen if you don't have Chrome installed. Which, of course, Elementary users shouldn't need. One of the libraries I use to export to PDF uses Chrome under the hood, but I thought it used a lightweight version included in the library itself, not the real Chrome installed in the OS.

All of this must sound very confusing for you. I'll poke around a little more and see if I can fix it. I have a few more options for exporting, but those will take a while to set up and test.

[bogosorter]

Hi again, @SamejSpenser. I don't think the issue will be easy to solve. This approach has given me too many problems, and I'd better start again using a different strategy. I'll have to focus on other things now, so it'll take some time before I reach out to you again.

I've added Obsidian-style callouts to the roadmap and will eventually get to that. I'll also see what I can do for ==highlight==.

Once again, your patience has been immense, and your feedback has been very valuable. You're the reason many users haven't received a faulty version of Elementary.

See you soon,
bogosorter

[SamejSpenser]

In the meanwhile I've tracked the issue on a friend's computer too. It seems to only happen if you don't have Chrome installed. Which, of course, Elementary users shouldn't need. One of the libraries I use to export to PDF uses Chrome under the hood, but I thought it used a lightweight version included in the library itself, not the real Chrome installed in the OS.

All of this must sound very confusing for you. I'll poke around a little more and see if I can fix it. I have a few more options for exporting, but those will take a while to set up and test.

I actually have Brave and Edge installed on my laptop, but I can't even remember the last time I used either of them. I prefer LibreWolf over the others. 😄

I don't know if you're considering Pandoc; I think it could be a great tool to look into for converting and/or exporting files to other formats.

---

Hi again, @SamejSpenser. I don't think the issue will be easy to solve. This approach has given me too many problems, and I'd better start again using a different strategy. I'll have to focus on other things now, so it'll take some time before I reach out to you again.

I've added Obsidian-style callouts to the roadmap and will eventually get to that. I'll also see what I can do for ==highlight==.

Once again, your patience has been immense, and your feedback has been very valuable. You're the reason many users haven't received a faulty version of Elementary.

Take your time to get back to me; it's always a pleasure to collaborate with you on this project.

I'm really happy to hear that the requests I made were added to the roadmap. I'm sure you'll do your best to deliver a really effective and well-crafted program for all the users.

Talk soon! 😉