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Zavala - An open source outliner for Macs, iPads, and iPhones
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Posted by Maurice Parker
Jan 8, 2024 at 08:05 PM
I feel like Focus was the last big missing feature for Zavala. At least when I compare it to other outliners that is. There are plenty of other features to add, but I’m trying to keep Zavala as beginner friendly as possible. I don’t want to overwhelm the UI with a kitchen sink approach. Looking forward to the next release, I’m trying to decide what to implement.
I’d be interested in hearing what show-stopper features are missing from Zavala. What feature is missing that would prevent you from ever using Zavala because it isn’t there or is implemented wrong?
Posted by Maurice Parker
Jan 13, 2024 at 07:25 PM
Zavala v2.2 is now out. Check it out on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zavala/id1546457750
I’m pretty pumped about this release. Focus is a major feature addition and I think Automatic Link Title Changing is something original in the outliner / PKM field (I’m probably wrong). I updated the online help too for new features and some other areas that needed better documentation. https://zavala.vincode.io/help/Zavala_Help.md/
I didn’t include a starter outline in this release. I have thought a lot about it and am warming up to the idea. I just want to make sure I execute it right. I’ll probably do this in the 2.3 release.
Zavala is free and always will be. Zavala respects your privacy and will never track you. Because of this, I have no idea who or how many people are using it. The project basically runs on dopamine. Drop me a line to tell me about your experiences with Zavala, even if you hate it. I need some kind of motivation to keep these releases coming out in a timely manner.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 15, 2024 at 03:00 PM
Outstanding! Thanks, Maurice, I’ll take a look.
The only thing that still seems peculiarly variable is the insertion/removal of backlinks. But I’ll write to you about that separately.
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by Maurice Parker
Jan 29, 2024 at 05:21 PM
Zavala version 2.3 Beta 1 is now up in TestFlight for both macOS and iOS. https://testflight.apple.com/join/iFbND23m
There are some new settings in the 2.3 release. I really try to keep the number of settings to a bare minimum, so adding this many is a big deal to me. Some users had to work at it to get me talked into these, but I happy with them now that they are added.
You can now set spell checking preferences on a per-outline basis. That allows you to completely disable spell checking and autocorrect for an entire outline, which wasn’t possible before. Before, it was on a row by row basis and was non-persistent.
There are now a couple of different max editor width options. The Normal option is about 44em, which is considered by some to be the widest readable width for text. The Wide option is around 30% wider than that. There is also a Full Width for those who like to hold a ruler up to their 27” monitors to be able to read stuff.
I got a couple of requests about font color that I rolled together. One was for color theme support and one was more of an accessibility issue. The accessibility issue was that the user was having trouble seeing the Notes fields because they are too dim. I take accessibility very seriously, so I knew that was something I needed to work on. Since I had to do that, I added some theme-like functionality with it.
You can now specify what color you want your font to be in the Font Settings. The number of colors is limited to a set that will self adjust based on if you are in dark mode or light mode. Still, there are enough of them now that you can absolutely make your eyes bleed rainbow tears if you want.
One new suggested option that I just made as a default is autocompleting parent rows. If a row has children that are all completed, it will complete itself with out a user needing to do anything. The opposite also happens to completed parent rows that have uncompleted children. They become uncompleted. I’d appreciate any feedback on if I got the behaviors correct. It works how I expect it too, which means I probably missed something. :-)
The document Find function has also been rewritten to use the new native Find Interaction controls. On iOS that means the Find area is attached to the keyboard instead of at the top of the outline. You can also do whole word or case sensitive finds. Since I was in there mucking around, I also added the Replace functions as well.
I also spent some time trying to make Zavala feel snappier. Creating new empty rows is one area that is noticeably quicker.
All-in-all this is a pretty solid minor release.
Posted by Maurice Parker
Apr 3, 2024 at 07:01 PM
Zavala 2.5 - Beta 2 is now available in TestFlight. https://testflight.apple.com/join/iFbND23m
I continue to make frequent, smaller releases. The 2.4 release had a lot of enhancements around Collaboration. The big change was that the Collaborate functionality was moved to the Share Sheet instead of being a separate function. 2.4 was also a very big bug fix release. Lots of stuff got fixed.
The 2.5 release adds the ability to enter Outline Mode to select and deselect rows. It also adds keyboard shortcuts (the up and down arrow keys) to do selection with. I also changed how the ^- keyboard shortcut works. If a note has already been added this keyboard shortcut will jump the cursor back and forth between the Row’s Topic or Note fields.
Bill, I fixed a couple things based on your feedback. It should be faster to switch between Outlines now. I have a hard time telling on my newer computer, so let me know if you still see an issue there.
I also figured out why sometimes when using Search and then selecting an Outline, it would deselect that Outline. That was happening when the field was auto correcting something, like capitalizing a word. The act of auto correcting would execute the search again which deselects the current Outline. I just disabled auto correct on the Search field and this doesn’t happen anymore.
I expect to release 2.5 next week unless I encounter any problems or get feedback on recent changes. Thanks to everyone who has reported a bug or provided feedback on Zavala!