Bear 2 beta update (9803)

Today we have a smaller private beta update for all our testers and we think we’re getting closer to a public beta. No migration changes this time as it looks like we’ve gotten that critical part of the new version pretty solid now (knock on wood).

For this release, it’s lots of small additions and fixes including toolbar hiding when editing, new keyboard shortcut options for wiki and header links, search improvements, and you can now import your .panda files from the alpha into Bear!

Use Bear > Check for Updates to grab the new hotness.

Editor

  • ⌥⌘⇧K can be used to open wiki and header links in a new window
  • When pasting a list item into another, the Editor now avoids duplicating the actual list dot
  • Added right-click Open With and Save As options for attachments (please test this, see note below)
  • Restored the copy code right-click option on code blocks
  • Fixed a tag autocomplete panel bug that displayed the wrong TagCon
  • Fixed an issue with folding not working as expected in some scenarios
  • Fixed a crash generated by inserting the code block language
  • Fixed a crash generated by clicking on footnotes with a folded definition
  • Fixed a rendering issue with block quotes
  • Fixed a tag rendering glitch when it’s preceded by a link

UI

  • The Note’s toolbar now fades away when you start typing

Search

  • Improved search highlights for quoted searches

Others

  • You can now import .panda files into Bear (Panda was our alpha test of many new Bear 2 features, and we plan to ship it after Bear 2 as a standalone, document-based editor)
  • /create API no longer moves the sidebar selection to Notes if the generated note is displayed in the note list

Note: When using Open With to open an attachment in an external app, saving changes from that app should update the attachment in place in the Bear note. But not all apps support this. For example, changes to Numbers spreadsheets should update in place in your Bear note, but changes from Preview, strangely, will not.

2 Likes

Seems to be a limitation of Preview. I tested with Upnote (that also supports in-place editing), and it also doesn’t work there. However, editing the same PDF with Acrobat Reader works in-place both in Bear and in Upnote.

I tested with a couple other apps: Numbers, Excel, some text editors (embedding a .md document and editing it in various apps), and everything other than Preview seems to work. Great job. :slight_smile:

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Minor: When the note’s toolbar is visible, some of the themes could stand a little UI tweak to subdue text.

B1

B2
Screen Shot 2022-11-07 at 10.02.35

:pray: grazie

This may not be new in 9803, but some initial testing shows a small UX issue with the kabob icon when creating a table (pressing T) if the mouse cursor happens to be sitting where a cell of the table appears. The kabob icon incorrectly appears on the left side of the cell; moving the mouse moves it to the right side:

Bear 2 (9803) glitch

Screenshot 2022-11-07 at 6.03.12 PM
Receiving this error when trying to grab the new update. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I think you want to be moving Bear to your Applications folder rather than leaving it in Downloads :relieved:

2 Likes

In this version, I can not get right-click to work at all. Have looked for external causes and found none. Right-click works fine on same note/attachment in Bear v1.9.6.

We though about having the same dimming effect on but looks very odd because of the icons on the note list.

Thanks for reporting this glitch!

Hi Steve,

You mean right click doesn’t open a panel at all? Please tell me more about the problem you are experiencing.

I see that. I’m curious about why the icon contrast levels in the Editor and Note List are different in B1. If consistency was your goal, then the B2 UI looks more unified with the icon dimming off.

This is just preference (minor), really. The fade action of the toolbar is more noticeable with contrasting icons. Depending on how often you go in and out of edit mode, it can draw your attention to it. In B1, you hardly notice the hiding action. Having said that, it’s theme-dependent, so themes like Nord and Gandalf don’t exhibit it like others.

Still crashing it in 9803 for me

Correct. Right-click does not open a panel at all, regardless of attachment type (doc, image, spreadsheet, etc). Refreshed the Beta App download and then did a cold reboot, no change.

As noted, panels are working fine in regular app v1.9.6.

Ventura 13.0 on M1 MacBook.

Thanks, can you please send me a markdown test code for simulating the crash?

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Version 2.0 (9803) works fine for me. I thought the CMD-OPT-SHFT-K shortcut didn’t work, but I forgot you need to select the link first :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:

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Sorry if this has been covered before - I may be misunderstanding something.

When I first installed Bear 2 I was able to run Bear 1 simultaneously alongside it. Now when I open Bear 1, it opens Bear 2 … and when I open Bear 2, it opens another instance of Bear 2! Is this expected? I’d love to still be able to work with Bear 1 on my Mac if possible.

Solved: apologies, I’ve just realised what the issue was.When I first tried the beta, I set a different theme to Bear 2 so I could always be sure I knew which version I was using. I think because I already had Bear 1 open, it retained its original theme at that point so I assumed that would remain the cae. But having closed both apps and reopened them this morning, Bear 1 has applied my chosen theme from Bear 2 on opening. This sent me into a panic and to this forum before I’d really looked at my notes list - they are indeed different databases! :person_facepalming:t2:

1 Like

Outstanding!! Thanks so much. :heart:

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Is there a way to clear out Bear 2 and re-do the migration from Bear 1?

Yes, check the instructions here

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