Bear 2.4.5 Beta update

Announcement
1

Hello everyone,

A new TestFlight version of Bear will be heading your way shortly, and it brings a colorful new feature we’re excited for you to try.

Highlights

Bear 2.4.5 introduces Callouts, a simple and beautiful way to help highlight important parts of your notes. There are 5 types of Callouts:

  • Note – Useful context worth noticing
  • Tip – Smart advice to do things better or more easily
  • Important – Essential info to help you stay on track
  • Warning – Alerts that help you avoid big mistakes
  • Caution – Points out potential risks or negative outcomes

Bear Callouts
Bear Callouts1380×960 77.4 KB

Check this post for more information about Callouts.

Full Changelog

ursOS (ursos, means bears in Portuguese, also known as coreOS in Bear Changelog)

  • Callouts support
  • New Shortcuts action for setting a note into read-only mode
  • Added the ‘Pinned’ option for the open location Shortcut action
  • Corrected undo behavior for read-only actions
  • Fixed wiki links autocomplete panel entry duplication
  • Improved copy and paste from chatGPT and other pasteboard minor fixes

macOS

  • Corrected erroneous search state inside the editor

iOS

  • Fixed issue causing unwanted scrolls when switching to another app and back
  • Fixed sharing extension for the x.com URLs
  • Added Copy As > Markdown in selection menu
  • Solved issue causing the delayed appearance of the share menu inside a note
  • Horizontal documents now produce horizontal PDF when scanned

Feedback welcome!

Let us know how you feel about Callouts, and don’t hesitate to share any feedback with us!

The Bear Team

8 Likes
2

How can i get into the testflight beta? :smiling_face_with_tear:

3

Much better than using tables, which is what I have been doing. :+1:

Screenshot 2025-06-12 at 05.42.48
Screenshot 2025-06-12 at 05.42.481184×646 123 KB

Styles bar or keyboard shortcuts? Or is this only available in menu bar?

Edit: Oh, missed this post.

2 Likes
4

The beta is currently closed: BETA - Welcome Testers! - #4 by zowiewho

5

Callouts are good. Thanks. But please fix the lost scroll position bug. Having to scroll down long notes several times a day is exasperating.

1 Like
6

any beta spots opening any time soon?

7

I’m excited to try this out! How long does testing usually last before it hits retail?

8

can I join the beta please ? thanks

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@zowiewho I cannot find “Callouts” on the BIU formatting bar on iPadOS (I am on the latest beta version). Can someone please tell me how to invoke it? thx!

10

Looks nice and it will be useful.

Sup with 2.4.5? Callouts doesn’t deserve 2.5?

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I was really excited to see how you will be able to enter your own titles. Quite an elegant solution that the default title disappears as soon as you have the cursor in the title bar. The selection field that appears when you either click on the icon, delete your own title or enter the markdown syntax manually also makes input much easier. Very well done!

However, there is perhaps one critical point: within a callout, a further callout can only be inserted manually. Using the style bar or the main menu only causes the current callout to change. In my opinion, this is counter-intuitive, especially as the callout can also be quickly selected via the selection field. I know that you are always thinking of those who mainly want to use the keyboard. But why not just add a command in the main menu to open the selection field where to make the change?

I’m in the process of creating a legend for alternative titles and how to assign them to which colour. I can’t help but repeat myself that the choice of these 5 areas is quite limited. I would especially like to use a ‘Questions’ area with a nice question mark icon for many purposes. If you think you’ve run out of colours, I’d be more than happy with a subtle grey.

Last but not least, here’s a glitch/bug: create a checklist in a callout and then simply click on a task. The whole callout becomes broken.

12

Has anyone use Callouts successfully on the iPad? If so, can someone please tell me how to use/invoke it? Thx!

1 Like
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Ok, with the help of @ffmich I’ve confirmed that the ability to “invoke or use it” is missing on the iPad version. @zowiewho @matteo @trix180 - the button appears to be missing in the iPadOS version. It is there on iOS. Thx!

14

That’s right. I didn’t even notice it. I had not looked at the iPad since the update only the phone and Mac.

15

Yes, the icon is missing in the iPad’s BIU with a keyboard attached. Thanks for reporting this.

2 Likes
16

image
image1039×1881 150 KB

:eyes:

1 Like
17

For me that’s not callout but either admonition blocks or in GitHub wording alert panels. (Possibly en en in Confluence wiki)

So please please avoid confusion.

Call outs are more like this for me to point at specific part of a content

```
Code {
  Line1; <1>


  Line N; <2>
}
```
<1> about line 1
<2> about line 2

Or also text bubble pointing to some place.
But clearly not panel.

18

I feel like the header for the callout should follow the colour of the callout. It would make for a more cohesive viewing experience. Obviously this would only render in Bear, as such no additional metadata would be required :smiley:

19

Your feature is alert panels not callouts !

Here’s what I expects when I read “callout”, notice the numbers in the source code.

image
image2122×2156 470 KB

Or this (exerpt from searching “callout”)

image
image1300×1390 168 KB

20

Seriously, why are several of you complaining about the name of the feature? It is not a standard recognized UI component. GitHub calls it an alert, IBM’s design system calls it a notification or fallout, and obsidian calls it a callout (Obsidian docs).

6 Likes