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markdown-converter/UPDATES.md
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amitwh c4dcbd8caf feat: v4.6.0 — AI assistant, collaboration, knowledge base, and 15 more features
- AI Assistant plugin: multi-provider chat (OpenAI/Anthropic/Ollama/LM Studio),
  summarize/improve/translate commands, proofread via ai:analyze; calls
  proxied through main so API keys stay out of the renderer
- Collaboration plugin: anchor-based comments in .comments/ sidecars with
  drift detection and F8 navigation
- Local knowledge base: [[wiki-links]] with click-to-create + Backlinks panel
- Crash recovery: debounced session snapshots with restore prompt on launch
- Version history: pre-save snapshots, History panel with restore/diff/delete
- Real PDF encryption: swap pdf-lib for @cantoo/pdf-lib (probe-driven UI)
- XLSX export (native workbooks via JSZip), ODT headers/footers + page size
- Offline KaTeX (bundled CSS+fonts), local-first PlantUML rendering
- Editor: vim mode toggle, snippet Tab-expansion, zen word-goal setter,
  writing heatmap, writing-studio panels wired with rail icons
- Quick Note global scratchpad (Ctrl+Alt+Q), markdownconverter:// deep links,
  REPL first-run confirmation
- Fix: Ctrl+Shift+P collision, pandoc converter availability check, CLI
  dangling --css/--reference-doc flags, dead converter button

8 new test suites; 613 tests green; lint clean
2026-09-05 20:48:39 +05:30

12 KiB
Raw Blame History

PanConverter - Updates & Changelog

Version 4.6.0 (2026-09-05)

New Features

AI Assistant Plugin (multi-provider)

  • Chat sidebar panel with rolling conversation history and insert-reply-into-document
  • Providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, LM Studio, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
  • All provider traffic proxied through the main process — API keys never enter the renderer and the CSP stays closed to AI endpoints
  • Commands: AI Summarize / Improve / Explain / Translate selection
  • Answers the writing-studio ai:analyze contract, finally enabling the Proofread panel

Collaboration Plugin (inline comments)

  • Anchor-based comments stored in .comments/ sidecar files (never exported, never committed)
  • Comments sidebar panel: add at cursor, list, resolve, delete, jump to anchor
  • Drift detection flags moved/edited anchors; F8 navigates to the next open comment
  • [[Note]], [[Note|alias]], [[Note#section]] render as links in the preview (code blocks excluded)
  • Clicking a wiki-link opens the note or offers to create it
  • Backlinks sidebar panel scans the folder (bounded BFS) for documents linking to the current one

Crash Recovery / Session Restore

  • Open tabs (paths + unsaved buffer content) snapshotted to localStorage, debounced on edits, on tab changes, on unload, and once a minute
  • Restore prompt on launch with per-tab restore, clean-fresh option, and 2MB content budget

Document Version History

  • Every save snapshots the previous on-disk content to <userData>/versions/
  • History sidebar panel: list, restore (with safety snapshot), unified diff vs. current, delete, manual "save version now"
  • Per-document pruning (20 versions), path-hash storage, id-validated reads

Editor

  • Vim keybindings (View → Vim Mode, persisted, live toggle via CodeMirror Compartment)
  • Snippet Tab-expansion: type a snippet name and press Tab to insert it
  • Zen Mode word-goal setter (the HUD progress bar finally has UI)

Export / Conversion

  • Real PDF encryption: pdf-lib swapped for @cantoo/pdf-lib — encrypt/decrypt/permissions now actually work (UI auto-enables via the capability probe)
  • XLSX export: markdown tables → native Excel workbook, one sheet per table (no Pandoc needed)
  • ODT headers/footers + page size: real ODF styles.xml patching replaces the empty stub
  • Local PlantUML rendering: diagrams render on-machine via the plantuml CLI when installed; plantuml.com stays as fallback
  • KaTeX bundled locally (CSS + fonts): math renders offline, no CDN calls
  • Writing heatmap (GitHub-style 30-day grid) in the writing-studio Goals panel

Platform

  • Quick Note global scratchpad (Ctrl+Alt+Q, works when unfocused; appends to notes/quick-notes.md)
  • Deep link protocol markdownconverter://open?path=…
  • REPL confirmation dialog before first code execution per language per session (unsandboxed-execution guard rail)
  • Writing-studio's four sidebar panels (Manuscript/Goals/Snapshots/Proofread) are now actually wired with rail icons
  • Plugin sidebar panels get automatic rail icons via registerPanel({icon})

Bug Fixes

  • Ctrl+Shift+P collision: PDF (Enhanced) export now Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P; Command Palette keeps Ctrl+Shift+P
  • Universal Converter's Pandoc tool no longer always reports "not installed" (checkConverterAvailable gained a pandoc case with bundled-binary check)
  • CLI headless export: removed dangling --css / --reference-doc flags that made pandoc exit with an error; --self-contained replaced with --standalone (Pandoc 3.x)
  • Removed dead "Open Export Options Dialog…" button from the converter dialog
  • Removed duplicate styles-zen.css include

Security

  • AI provider requests carry size caps (200KB prompt), timeouts (120s), and user-safe error surfaces
  • Version-history reads validate ids against traversal; history listing requires a valid document path
  • PlantUML local rendering removes the diagram-text exfiltration path when a local CLI exists (CVE-MC-007 follow-up)

Tests

  • New suites: OdtStyling, AiProviders, ai-assistant prompts, collaboration comment-store, wiki-links/backlinks, session-store, XlsxExporter, VersionHistory
  • PDFOperations encryption tests rewritten for the real-encryption reality

Version 4.0.0 (2026-03-04)

Major Changes

  • CodeMirror 6 Editor — Replaced textarea with CodeMirror 6 featuring syntax highlighting, code folding, bracket matching, multiple cursors, and auto-indent
  • Sidebar Panel System — Collapsible sidebar with File Explorer, Git, Snippets, and Templates panels
  • Command Palette — Ctrl+Shift+P to search and execute all app actions
  • Code Execution (REPL) — Run JavaScript, Python, and Bash code blocks directly from the preview

New Features

  • Print Preview dialog with paper size, orientation, margins, scale, and page range controls
  • Image paste from clipboard and drag-drop support with auto-save to assets folder
  • Document templates library (10 templates: blog post, meeting notes, tech spec, changelog, README, project plan, API docs, tutorial, release notes, comparison)
  • Markdown extensions: footnotes, admonitions (note/warning/tip/danger/info), and toc table of contents
  • PlantUML diagram rendering alongside Mermaid
  • Welcome tab with onboarding and "What's New" feature showcase
  • System spell checking with context menu suggestions and dictionary support
  • Enhanced status bar with word count, character count, line/column, encoding, and language mode
  • Grouped toolbar with visual section separators
  • Breadcrumb bar showing current file path

New Export/Import Formats

  • Reveal.js slides (.html)
  • Beamer slides (.pdf)
  • Confluence/Jira wiki markup (.txt)
  • MOBI e-books (via Calibre)
  • Developer formats: JSON, YAML, XML, TOML

Security

  • Content Security Policy (CSP) meta tag
  • File size validation (50MB limit)
  • Error message sanitization (stripped file paths)
  • Conversion rate limiting (2-second debounce)

Dependencies Updated

  • marked: 16.x to 17.x (with marked-highlight extension)
  • pdfjs-dist: 3.x to 5.x (new worker model)
  • html2pdf.js: 0.10 to 0.14
  • pdfkit: 0.14 to 0.17
  • dompurify, docx, and others updated to latest

Testing

  • 80 tests across 7 test suites
  • New tests for sidebar manager, command palette, print preview, markdown extensions, and utility functions

Breaking Changes

  • Editor is now CodeMirror 6 (replaces textarea)
  • marked API changed to use marked.use() instead of marked.setOptions()
  • pdfjs-dist upgraded to v5 with new worker model

Version 2.1.0 (December 14, 2025)

🎨 UI/UX Improvements

Subtle & Small Preview Popout Button

  • Redesigned popout button with minimalist aesthetic
  • Removed border for cleaner appearance
  • Reduced size: 11px font, 2px×6px padding (previously 14px font, 4px×8px padding)
  • Added opacity transition: 50% when idle, 100% on hover
  • Subtle background effect on hover instead of heavy border styling
  • File: src/styles.css:195-211

Simplified Table Headers in Preview

  • Removed gradient background from table headers in modern theme
  • Changed from var(--primary-gradient) (purple gradient) to simple light gray (#f0f0f0)
  • Updated text color to dark (#333333) for better readability
  • Clean, professional appearance matching standard themes
  • File: src/styles-modern.css:445-449

📥 Enhanced Import Capabilities

Comprehensive Format-to-Markdown Conversion

Dramatically expanded the "Import Document" feature to support 30+ file formats:

Supported Formats:

  • Documents: DOCX, ODT, RTF, HTML, HTM, TEX, EPUB, PDF, TXT
  • Presentations: PPTX, ODP
  • Markup Languages: RST, Textile, MediaWiki, Org-mode, AsciiDoc, TWiki, OPML
  • E-book Formats: EPUB, FB2
  • LaTeX Formats: TEX, LATEX, LTX
  • Web Formats: HTML, HTM, XHTML
  • Wiki Formats: MediaWiki, DokuWiki, TikiWiki, TWiki
  • Data Formats: CSV, TSV, JSON

Format-Specific Optimizations:

  • PDF text extraction with XeLaTeX engine
  • CSV/TSV automatic table conversion
  • JSON structure handling
  • Improved error messages with format hints

Access: File → Import Document (Ctrl+I) File: src/main.js:1933-1994

🎨 Exhaustive ASCII Art Generator

5 New Text Banner Styles

Complete alphabet (A-Z) and numbers (0-9) support for all styles:

  1. Standard - Classic ASCII art with slashes and underscores
  2. Banner - Large format using # characters (7-line height)
  3. Block - Modern Unicode block characters (█ ╔ ╗ ═ ║)
  4. Bubble - Circular bubble letters (Ⓐ Ⓑ Ⓒ)
  5. Digital - Digital display style (▄ ▀ ▐ ▌)

File: src/renderer.js:3397-3537

19 Professional ASCII Templates

Organized into 4 categories with expanded options:

Arrows & Flow (4 templates):

  • Arrow Right - Horizontal flow indicators
  • Arrow Down - Vertical flow indicators
  • Decision - Binary decision diagrams
  • Process Flow - Multi-step process visualization

Diagrams & Charts (6 templates):

  • Flowchart - Advanced flowchart with decision branches and loops
  • Sequence - Sequence diagrams for User-System-Database interactions
  • Network - Server-client network topology
  • Hierarchy - Organizational tree structures
  • Timeline - Milestone visualization with dates
  • Table Simple - Basic table template with borders

Boxes & Containers (4 templates):

  • Header - Section header with decorative borders
  • Note Box - Important notes with rounded corners (┏━━┓)
  • Warning Box - Warning messages with bold borders (╔═══╗)
  • Info Box - Information boxes with subtle styling (╭───╮)

Decorative Elements (6 templates):

  • Divider - Horizontal section separator (═══)
  • Separator Fancy - Elegant rounded divider
  • Brackets - Japanese-style brackets 【 】
  • Banner Stars - Star-bordered banners
  • Checklist - Task lists with ✓ checkmarks
  • Progress Bar - Visual progress indicators

Features:

  • All ASCII art automatically wrapped in code blocks for proper rendering
  • Preserved formatting in markdown preview and all export formats
  • Categorized template selection interface
  • Real-time preview generation

Access: Tools → ASCII Art Generator Files: src/renderer.js:3513-3671, src/index.html:427-466

📝 Technical Improvements

  • Enhanced ASCII art detection in Word template exporter
  • Improved monospace font rendering across all export formats
  • Better code block preservation in PDF and Word exports
  • Optimized template categorization and organization

🔧 Files Modified

  • src/styles.css - Preview popout button styling
  • src/styles-modern.css - Table header simplification
  • src/main.js - Enhanced import function, version update
  • src/renderer.js - ASCII art generator enhancements
  • src/index.html - ASCII template UI organization
  • package.json - Version bump to 2.1.0

Version 2.0.0 (Previous Release)

Major Features

  • Export Profiles - Save and reuse export configurations
  • Mermaid.js diagram support
  • Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
  • GitHub Light/Dark preview themes
  • Table Generator
  • ASCII Art Generator (basic)
  • Resizable Preview Pane
  • Pop-out Preview Window
  • Configurable page sizes (A3-A5, B4-B5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Custom)
  • Custom Headers & Footers for exports
  • Enhanced PDF and Word export with templates
  • 22 beautiful themes

Core Capabilities

  • Cross-platform markdown editor with live preview
  • Universal document conversion (30+ formats)
  • PDF Editor (merge, split, compress, rotate, watermark, encrypt)
  • Batch file conversion
  • File association support
  • Advanced export options
  • Multi-tab interface

Installation & Usage

Prerequisites

  • Pandoc - Required for document conversion
  • Optional: LibreOffice, ImageMagick, FFmpeg for universal converter

Download

Get the latest release from: https://github.com/amitwh/pan-converter/releases

Supported Platforms

  • Windows (x64)
  • Linux (AppImage, .deb, .snap)
  • macOS (planned)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CLAUDE.md for development guidelines.

Author: Amit Haridas (amit.wh@gmail.com) License: MIT Repository: https://github.com/amitwh/pan-converter