New beta version 2.1 - Quick Open!

Good Morning testers,

update 2.1 is available via TestFlight for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. With this update, we added the Quick Open (⌘O) for quickly jumping to notes and tags without leaving the keyboard. The Quick Open is currently available on macOS only but we are working on a version for iPad too. Please try it, we are very curious about your feedback.

We have also worked on improving the performance of the macOS Note List Search for large note collections, let’s us know if you still experience lags while writing the search term. Notes search is a central part of Bear so please test it regardless of the size of your library.

Bear 2.1 for Mac also includes 2 new importers: Obsidian and Markdown folder. The latter is built to provide a way to import markdown files with attachments by selecting the folder containing both, overcoming some macOS Sandbox limitations.

We also added some QOL improvements for the editor and the app, bug and crash fixes.
Here is the complete change log for release 2.1, as usual, thanks for all the feedback provided so far!

2.1 Changelog
macOS

  • Quick Open! Hit ⌘+O to quickly search notes and tags. Hit Enter to open the note and ⌘+Enter to open an external window
  • Note list Search performances improved for large notes and attachments library
  • Obsidian vault Importer: File > Import From… > Obsidian
  • Importer for markdown files with attachments: File > Import From… > Markdown Folder
  • ⌘+left and ⌘+Del now follow the behavior of the system for wrapping text
  • Added the ability to end editing on the detached windows via ⌘+Enter and start editing with just Enter
  • Restored ‘note from selection’ right-click menu item

iOS

  • Fixed layouting error causing the images to be misplaced in some particular conditions
  • Involuntary tags present in web pages are now stripped when imported via sharing extension

core

  • Fixed RTL-aligned wikilinks and tags
  • ToDos can now be written as * [ ] along with - [ ]
  • Improved Header text operation for some edge cases
  • Improved list indentation when backspacing
  • Fixed pasteboard management error concerning markdown references
  • Better handling of non-breaking spaces when pasted inside a code block or imported from HTML
  • Various crash fixes
  • Some small theme color fixes
  • Various localization fixes
12 Likes

This is awesome!!

Please consider adding the ability to open Notes Views [Untagged, Todo, Today, etc] :crossed_fingers:

4 Likes

The Quick Open looks very nice. This was one of my most needed features, so I’m very pleased!

I’m not sure if the Obsidian Importer is working properly. I imported some files with the Obsidian syntax: [[Note Title#Heading 1]]. I expected them to be imported into Bear as [[Note Tittle/Heading 1]], which is the Bear syntax for linking to a heading, but that didn’t happen.

1 Like

Quick Open is a great addition to Bear’s note search and retrieval features. In particular, the combination of ⌘+O to search for a tag followed by ⌘+F to quickly search for a string within that tag is great.

Note list search performance feels faster but I only have a few thousand notes with mostly image attachments (i.e., I don’t store many PDFs in Bear).

Obsidian importer - I don’t link to headings much but, yes, the importer doesn’t catch this.

3 Likes

Hey, how can i get access to the bear beta? :slight_smile: (either macOS, iOS or iPadOS, but would prefere iPadOS)

Thanks!

Thanks I’ll check header link imports as soon as possible and provide a fix.

What’s the difference between cmd+o and ctrl+shift+f? Maybe one should be consolidated to the other?

CMD+O is for the Quick Open panel and CMD+SHIFT+F is for the note search and move the sidebar selection to Notes. They are two different functionalities.

It only currently displays 5 results. It would be nice if it had the option for more. Also, I have a note that has the term “R9” in it. However, when I search for R9, it actually returns results of r and separately a 9, rather than together. When I search the normal way, it returns the corrects results.

This is a great feature and I look forward to using it and seeing it refined a bit more.

Thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting into this app, it’s great to see all the new features and bug fixes. I was just curious what the rough time frame for 2.1 going from beta to actually getting released might be… is that kind of update usually a few week(s) or month or more? I obviously don’t need a specific date or anything, I’m just asking because I’m getting ready to finally hit the go button on transferring all my 2k notes from Evernote to Bear, but ideally wanted to wait until the laggy search bug had been addressed since I did notice that being an issue in some of my initial testing.

Looks like I got out of the beta testing. Are there any more seats in Testflight right now? My old link doesn’t work, unfortunately.

I’ve used it several times, and has worked great so far. No issues!

One request for this, if possible could you include the option to change the shortcut? I would like CMD L, as the muscle memory from Safari for going to the URL bar, would work well here in Bear…

I have a tag like “#ddd/DDD-Dddddddd-ddd-Ddddd-Dddddddd/dddddddd/DDDD-7105” and a page with that tag that is also titled “DDDD-7105 …”

For Command+O:
— When I type “7105”, I get one result that lists only the page (no listing for the tag).

— When I type “#…” it seems that it at least filters on tags only, but when I type “#7105” or “#DDDD-7105” there are no listings.

How can I get my DDDD-7105 tag to show up in the results?

Loving quick open! Any chance something similar is coming to iOS soon?

The quick open search the notes using only their title and uses the a fuzzy search meant to provide results in case of typos. For example searching for cmmon will show matches also for title including common.

I suspect this is an issue with the “score” we are giving to or matches. The tag has most likely a low score and is not showed but it should if no other results are available. We’ll adjust the algorithm for this scenario.

1 Like

Yes, We are working on a version for iOS. Are you interested in triggering the Quick Open on iPad with a keyboard or an iPhone/iPad with touch controls only?

Awesome to hear! For me, it’s primarily iPhone. I’m curious what you’re thinking to trigger it? Other apps use pull down but that currently triggers search.

My preference would be for this to override search (in note and global) as I use the quick open more often. But use the symbol next to search to quickly change search type between quick open, in note, and global. So quick open is the default.

2 Likes

+1 for this suggestion

Just commenting on the “end editing” portion right now as I’m still collecting my thoughts on the quick open feature.

Thank you for adding the ability to end editing on a detached window. I’m curious though, why not add this ability for the main window while both side bars are closed and only the editor is showing? It would be very much appreciated!

2 Likes