Release Notes: Nova 7

Version 7

June 23, 2021

For Nova 7 we decided to focus on something truly important to our editor: syntax and grammars. As a result, this release has a large number of PHP and TypeScript syntax improvements we think you'll appreciate. We also sped up Open Quickly, and fixed a lot of issues. Read on!

PHP syntax improvements

PHP 8 union types; highlighting of complex variables and SQL keywords in strings

TypeScript syntax improvements

Better parsing of type expressions and generics

Improved Open Quickly performance

Up to 7x faster for large projects

New

Added a preference for adjusting letter spacing in the editor
PHP: Highlighting of cURL environment variables in double-quoted strings
PHP: Highlighting of SQL keywords in double-quoted strings
PHP: Support for complex template string expressions
PHP: Autocomplete support for PHP 8
PHP: Support for Union Types
JavaScript/TypeScript: Path autocompletion for ‘import’ statements

New for Extensions

Grammars: Keywords may now be defined using multiple subcategories for better theming:
- keyword.construct: Language construct keywords, such as function, class, interface
- keyword.condition: Conditional keywords, such as
  if, for, and case
- keyword.modifier: Modifier keywords, such as
  public, private, and async
- keyword.statement: Statement keywords, such as
  return, throw, and eval
- keyword.operator: Operator keywords, such as
  and, or, and not
- keyword.self: Internal object reference keywords, such as
  self, this, and super
Added WCAG rating support to the syntax inspector

Improved

Greatly improved the speed of workspace Quick Open queries
Toolbar activity indicator now displays operation type when active
Adjusted vibrancy of certain built-in theme elements for better readability
Adjusted brightness of some characters to better highlight their accompanying contents
Stylesheet theming (CSS, SCSS, etc.) has been updated for visually consistency with other languages
JSX/TSX: Component tag attributes are styled separately from DOM tag attributes
PHP: Variable prefixes are now highlighted separately
Git: The sidebar “Commit” field can be resized

Fixed

Resolved a potential crash when re-parsing nested anchored subscopes
Fixed a potential hang during Git enumeration of large projects
Fixed a crash when lines containing more than 10,000 characters were drawn with invisibles
Resolved a possible crash when deleting text that adjusts arguments of functions near the end of a document
Fixed a potential issue that could cause considerable memory growth during long-running parsing or indexing operations
Images dragged into the editor now add HTML/CSS tag instead of path
Clips with trigger text containing periods now tab-complete as expected
Files with SVG extension now open in XML syntax by default
Fixed an issue with mapping keybindings to Shift+Space
Double-clicking title bar now zooms window as expected
Improved the ability to maintain cursor positions when an extension modifies the entire document
After invoking “Wrap Selection in Tag” typing a space or manually moving out of the tag now removes the trailing cursor as expected
Variables defined within non-contiguous contexts are now exported into the next context automatically
Corrected a potential problem where having no SSH config file can cause host key validation to fail during task execution
Corrected an issue where keys stored in Nova would not be used for SSH Agent Forwarding when enabled for a specific server
When a selection ends in a newline pressing down arrow no longer positions the insertion point unexpectedly
Unified selection of hyphenated text across all language syntaxes
Resolved a potential issue with tab alignment during text changes
Tabbing when using spaces for indentation now aligns to the next tab stop
PHP: Removed outdated completions no longer present in the modern PHP standard library
PHP: Added some missing functions from the MySQLi extension
PHP: Highlighting of globally-namespaced types now works as expected
PHP: Fixed some cases where comments would not be highlighted
PHP: Control structures using the colon syntax now support auto-indentation when pressing Return
YAML: Unquoted strings are now highlighted as expected
YAML: Maps with unquoted values are now parsed properly
YAML: Fixed a potential issue with highlighting of block scalars
YAML: Keys with numbers or dashes are now parsed as expected
Ruby: Added support for parsing endless methods
Ruby: Lambda closures should now parse properly
Ruby: Resolved an issue parsing some block expressions
Ruby: Corrected a problem parsing regular expressions in dictionary literals or after certain keywords
Markdown: Fenced code blocks support aliases to several languages
Markdown: HTML tags within list items are now parsed as expected
Markdown: Fixed an issue causing stand-alone < characters from being parsed as the start of an HTML tag
Python: Syntax detection now works with version numbers
Python: Multi-line strings using a u or b prefix should now parse correctly
CSS: Completing a property name immediately after an opening bracket now works as expected
JavaScript: Added .cjs and .mjs as recognized file extensions
JavaScript: Parsing of async keywords in arrow function expressions
JavaScript: Numbers using e (scientific) notation are properly parsed
JavaScript: Support for parsing computed property and method names within classes and object literals
JavaScript: Fixed parsing of methods defined within an object literal using ECMAScript 2017 syntax
JavaScript: Arguments from anonymous functions should now be offered as auto-completions
JavaScript/JSX: Corrected some issues parsing regular expression literals
TypeScript: Resolved a potential issue with parsing generics
TypeScript: Parsing and symbolicating of arrow function expressions
TypeScript: Type expressions should now highlight more consistently, especially for object, array, and function types
TypeScript: Classes, interfaces, and methods using generics now highlight their generic types correctly
TypeScript: Type expressions which include raw values (such as strings) now highlight more consistently
TypeScript: Properties in interfaces and classes should more consistently highlight their type information
Symbols Sidebar: Fixed an issue parsing TypeScript getters and setters
Terminal: Corrected a rendering issue with tmux multitail
Terminal: Improved performance with URL and file path detection
Terminal: Fixed a potential issue that could cause the view to autoscroll unexpectedly when viewing scrollback
Terminal: Fixed a problem with “Save in Keychain” not working as expected when connecting to servers stored in Nova
Terminal: Resolved a potential issue that could cause high CPU usage after using exit in terminal before URL detection had completed
Git: Resolved issues with SSH configurations that alias the hostname
Git: Sidebar now only reloads its contents if the branch or current HEAD commit of the repository changes
Git: Resolved an issue where service account HTTPS authorization could be non-deterministic when multiple accounts exist for the same service
Clips: Resolved an issue with the editor insertion point not being visible when using contrasting appearance themes
Find: Queries for ß no longer match ss, and vice versa
Extensions: Adjusted the behavior of the LanguageClient implementation to properly normalize the workspaceFolders property
Extensions: Adjusted title bar theming in cases where the active window theme does not explicitly set an active state color or gradient
Extensions: Improved error message when attempting to submit a non-extension project to the Extension Library
Launcher: Fixed an issue where cloning a repo could create duplicate project listings in the Launcher
Launcher: Resolved an issue with the title background of project groups not showing when scrolling via the keyboard