Ampersand

Ampersand 0.9.0

Find and replace across a whole project, diagrams in the Editor, printing, and an Editor that keeps your Markdown exactly as you wrote it.

New

  • Find in Project — Press Command-Shift-F to search the text of every document in every open project. Results are grouped by file, with the line number and the matching phrase picked out, and build, dependency and hidden folders are left out.
  • Replace in Project — Command-Option-Shift-F replaces a phrase across your projects. Every match has a checkbox, so you choose exactly what changes, you see how many changes there will be before anything is written, and Undo puts every file back the way it was.
  • Manage files from the sidebar — Control-click a file or folder for New Folder, Rename, Move To, Duplicate, Move to Trash and Reveal in Finder. Open documents follow their file when it moves, and folders you had open stay open.
  • Word and character counts — The toolbar shows the count for the document, and for the selection while you have one.
  • Go to Line and Go to Heading — Command-L jumps to a line number. Go to Heading lists the document’s headings so you can jump straight to a section.
  • Mermaid diagrams — A mermaid code block is drawn as a diagram in the Editor and Split views. The source is still there to edit, and everything works offline.
  • Print and Export as PDF — Print a document, or save it as a PDF, as a clean page with nothing from the app’s window on it.
  • Move around without the mouse — View → Focus puts the keyboard on the project list, the editor, the context cards or the chat (Control-Command-1 to 4). A document you open now has the keyboard straight away.
  • Know when a reply was cut short — When the assistant stops at its reply limit, Ampersand says so and offers to continue. A rewrite that was cut off is never put in place of your whole selection.

Improved

  • Spelling and grammar follow your Mac’s settings — Check spelling while typing, grammar, autocorrect, text replacement, smart quotes and smart dashes take their settings from macOS, and any you change in Ampersand stay changed.
  • Copy from the Editor gives you Markdown — Paste into a plain-text app and you get the Markdown the document holds, not flattened text.
  • Tables line up — Columns are sized to what is in them instead of fixed tab stops.
  • Editing behaves the way you expect — Undo takes back the Editor’s own changes, such as list markers and renumbering. Return leaves a heading, ends an empty list item and starts an unticked task after a ticked one. Numbered lists keep counting 1, 2, 3.
  • Long documents stay fast — Typing in a 100,000-word manuscript costs about the same as typing in a short note.
  • Finder tags survive saving — Tags, comments and a file’s creation date are kept on every save.

Fixed

  • The Editor no longer rewrites Markdown it does not show. Footnotes, reference links, wiki links, math, indented code, nested bold and italic, code spans with more than one backtick, wrapped list items and neighbouring code fences are now written back exactly as you wrote them.
  • A file you cannot write to no longer interrupts you. A bar above the text says the file is locked or read-only, your text stays on screen, and Save As or Duplicate saves it somewhere else.
  • A reply arrives in the document you asked in, even if you switch to another document while the assistant is still writing.
  • The Task List button removes a ticked task’s checkbox instead of unticking it.