Changelog

Ask Assistant 2.0

Core Changes

• The interface is completely redesigned to function more like a chat system for long-form conversations.

• Ask Assistant now opens a sidebar on the right when activated, replacing the original dialog within the editor.

  • Multiple chat conversations can occur while using the note context.
  • Each note maintains its own chat history for easy access.
  • A "chat" can consist of multiple messages that follow the previous context, or you can initiate a new chat to start over.
  • Each message can utilize different models.
  • The title of the chat auto-generates based on the first response to the user prompt for better historical recall.
  • A Help Dialog is available, offering tips and tricks for adapting to the new design.

Context Switching

• By default, the current note provides context for the chat. Hovering over the context in the chat prompt box displays the text sent to the AI provider.
• You can select a small portion of text in the editor and press Cmd/Ctrl + J or use the Add to Chat icon in the Bubble menu to add that text as context (indicated by the line range).
• To change the context to another note in the workspace, press the “@” icon or type @ as the first character in the chat. This opens a search box to select any existing note.

URL Context

• You can provide a URL in the @ context selector, in addition to using existing files as context.
• Octarine attempts to extract readable content from the URL to facilitate chat, although some JavaScript-heavy sites may not work due to data not loading.
• Once content is extracted, hovering over the context title reveals the content. You can then Copy Content, Save it to a new note (using the URL title as the file name), or Go to the link.

New Themes!

• Pro Users now have access to 18 new themes, bringing the total to 33 themes:
  • Dark Palettes: Vesper Dusk, Monokai Series (Original, Spectrum, Machine), Forest Dark, Xcode Series (Dark, Midnight, Sunset, Dusk), Synthwave, Catppuccin Series (Mocha, Macchiato, Frappe)
  • Light Palettes: Vesper Light, Forest Light, Xcode Light, Synthwave Light, Catppuccin Latte

Improvements

• Sidebar widths and open/close states are saved and restored on app restarts or refreshes.
• A Sync Now command is added to CMDK to force sync git changes (if set up).
• Performance for data storage and retrieval from the local database has been improved.
• Icon colors now correctly change to brighter versions when hovered.

Fixes

• Resolved an issue where saving would cause the cursor to jump to the last position on Windows.

Fixes

• Resolved an issue that allowed the creation of a new note in the daily note folder using wikilinks, which caused an error.
• Implemented validations to ensure only valid named files can be created in the Daily and Weekly folders for the calendar.

Editor Performance

• Improved loading times for the editor.
• Replaced the code block syntax highlighting framework with a more efficient option.
• LaTeX/Math rendering is now disabled by default; it can be enabled in Settings → Editor → Render Math Equations if needed.

Improvements

• Graph — Daily and weekly notes now have different colored nodes for easier distinction.
• Graph — A legend has been added to explain the meaning of each node color.

Fixes

• Resolved an issue where linked note titles were not formatted correctly in the meta sidebar for daily and weekly notes.
• Windows — Fixed a problem where adding doc links resulted in an incorrect format, preventing recognition.
• Windows — Corrected an issue where the Graph would fail to load if a daily or weekly note was linked to another note.

Fixes

• Windows — Fixed a bug where Graph would fail due to incorrect date-time conversions.
• Windows — Fixed a bug where error toast would show up when clicking on dates without data in them.

Big changes! A little change here, a big refactor there, and we got ourselves a performance improvement patch!

Performance

• The Notes file tree implementation has been rewritten to efficiently manage extremely long lists.

• Using Cmd/Ctrl + P for file navigation now instantly updates the tree, centering on the selected note.

• The file navigation architecture has transitioned from using unique IDs to file names, ensuring more reliable note navigation.

• Updating a note no longer triggers unnecessary file tree recalculations, reducing CPU usage.

Graph View

• The Graph View has been completely rewritten with a custom solution for improved performance.

• Nodes with more outgoing links are now larger, with their size increasing exponentially based on the number of connections.

• Hovering over a node dims the rest of the graph, enhancing focus on the hovered node and its connections.

Daily Desk

• Calendar navigation is now possible using shortcuts, which are listed below the calendar.

• Changes to the Migrate Incomplete automation:

  • A Migrated from <date> line is now added above incomplete todos in the transferred date note, helping to identify their origin.
  • A property (front-matter) indicating where incomplete tasks were migrated is added to the extracted date note.

• Performance improvements have been made to finding incomplete todos.

Meta Sidebar

• Note stats now display Characters and Lines.

• Selecting text in a note updates the stats for the selected text.

• Linked Notes and Attached Media headers now reflect the number of items they contain.

• External reference calculations have been optimized for better performance.

Reacting to Outside File Changes

• Octarine now reacts to in-note changes made outside the app, in addition to detecting directory-level changes (creating, deleting, moving notes/folders).

Improvements

• The Ask Assistant now fetches models compatible with your OpenAI server (defaulting to OpenAI) for the model selector, allowing the use of Deepseek, Grok, or any OpenAI API-compatible server without errors.
• Navigation buttons have been removed from breadcrumbs.
• The notes breadcrumb now adjusts to the app's size, truncating folder names as necessary.
• The note name in the breadcrumb now features a background around its input.
• Pinning or locking a note now updates its status in the note's property (front-matter) instead of the local database, preserving its status across devices or workspaces.
• LaTeX equations now support chemical equations — See ref.
• A Yesterday option has been added to the slash command.

Fixes

• Resolved a bug that prevented proper recognition of Chinese characters in word count.
• Fixed an issue where moving a note containing a . would result in a renamed file with missing characters.
• Corrected a bug where an error message regarding the existence of a note/folder during renaming would be obscured by other note items in the list.
• Relaxed the math equation regex to accommodate spaces between characters.
• Fixed an issue where pressing enter in the command bar while the editor had the cursor on a tag, would cause the tag to be entered incorrectly.

Breaking Changes

• Due to database changes, the following will be reset:
  • Your recently viewed notes list.
  • Any pinned or locked notes.
• A dialog will appear on load to inform you about the breaking changes and perform a fresh database cleanup for using Octarine.

Improvements

• GitSync — Toggling Backup Periodically off, now shows the warning sign in Global Breadcrumb to notify you of it.
• GitSync — Added files to ignored folders setting.
• GitSync — Replaced toggles with radio groups for Including or Ignoring folders while syncing.

Fixes

• GitSync — Fixed an issue where sync would fail on Windows.
• Recently Viewed — Fixed an issue where occasionally on refresh, clicking on an item in recently viewed would take you to a dead path.
• Fixed an issue where pressing CMD + N to create a new note when not in the Notes tab or when pressing Create New Note in the workspace splash screen would not focus the file name for quick rename.

Improved Tagging Experience

• Tags have been completely redesigned. They now appear as regular, visible text instead of as a separate node. This change makes them easier to search for within the file, editable, and non-blocking.
• Additionally, the tag design now uses the theme's accent color and no longer includes a background.
• Tags can now be added to existing text by placing # before them or using the find and replace function.

Improvements

• Creating a new note, automatically focuses the file name in the breadcrumb for quick editing.
  • If the Settings → Editor → Show File Name Input is toggled on, then the focus would be on the file name inside the editor.
• Ignore the d, do, dd error if one of P, PP, PPP or PPPP is typed in the date format setting.
• Improve selection colors for Dark and Dim themes.

Changes

• Sidebar is now NOT resizable for daily desk. It is fixed to fit the calendar (resizes automatically with zoom). Switching to search / notes / templates will still allow resizing.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where invalid characters pasted from a migration tool (evernote) caused the app to crash.
• Fixed a bug where single replace would replace it with <blank> and not the actual replace term.
• Fixed an issue where typing /<character> in ask assistant to filter the common prompts would not allow keyboard navigation using arrow keys.

Improvements

• Pressing Cmd/Ctrl + A inside a code block now selects all text within that code block only.
• Week numbers in the calendar now display with the accent text color.
• Text selection colors for Dark and Dim theme have been changed to blue for better visibility.
• Added a Paste Raw Markdown shortcut to the Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet.
• When creating a new folder, the rename process now begins instantly, with the text highlighted for quicker renaming.

Ask Assistant

• No longer requires OpenAI configuration if Ollama is setup and running.
• Instant server check for Ollama, eliminating the need for a refresh.
• Improved text copy for the Taking Context and Starting Fresh help options in Ask Assistant.
• Displays a warning if neither OpenAI is configured nor Ollama is running.
• Includes a copy button next to the entered prompt.
• Fixed a bug preventing up/down arrow functionality in the text area.
• Added support for the o1-mini and o3-mini models.
• Shows a no model selected warning if the last selected model is unavailable.
• Improved auto scroll for AI responses.

Fixes

• Resolved an issue where pressing up when a code block is the first element in a note did not function. It now creates a new paragraph above.
• Fixed a problem where the selected background color would not display for pinned file items in the tree view when a pinned file was being viewed.
• Addressed an issue where images and videos would not appear on Windows.
• Fixed a bug where switching between workspaces sometimes caused incorrect data to display or data from the last workspace to show if the new workspace lacked attachments or weekly notes.
• Fixed a bug where switching workspaces would sometimes wipe out the pinned notes.

Focus Mode (Pro)

• A new Focus Mode has been introduced, which dims everything except the currently edited text or sentence. This feature enhances concentration and reduces distractions.
• Focus Mode also hides the global breadcrumb, the note breadcrumb, and collapses any open sidebar.
• While in Focus Mode, CMDK remains accessible, but all other actions (e.g., Workspace Search, Recently Viewed) are disabled until you exit Focus Mode.
• To enable Focus Mode, use: CmdK → Focus Mode
• To disable it, use the CMDK bar or click the eye icon at the top.
• Available to users on the Pro License.

Custom Date Formatting

• Settings → Preferences now includes an option to modify the date formatting throughout the app.
  • The following areas will be impacted: CMD + D, Graph, Doclinks, and Daily Desk Breadcrumb.
  • Note storage will remain unchanged, continuing to use the format Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md.

Improvements

• CMDK — Daily and Weekly notes display available commands in the command bar.

Changes

• App — Call to action buttons across the app now have consistent design.
• Graph — Increased zoom threshold before showing node names.

Fixes

• Editor — Resolved an issue where pasting links containing # in the title caused them to be treated as tags upon refreshing or reloading the note.
• Sidebar — Corrected a problem that caused the meta and tags sidebar to appear on the left when the screen width was less than 768 pixels.
• Workspace — Resolved an issue that caused the creation of a workspace to fail when a folder with the same name as an existing path was already present.
• Attachments — Include a condition to identify local image links on Windows.
• CMDK — Fixed Lock Note command not showing up for a note.

Ask Assistant - Ollama Support & Custom Servers

• Local LLMs (with Ollama) are now supported for Ask Assistant.
• In Settings → AI, you can —
  • Change the BASE_URI for both OpenAI and Ollama integration.
  • Edit the system prompt if the default setting isn’t helpful.

Note — You must set up ollama and have it running to use it in Octarine. Ask Assistant will notify you if Ollama is not running.

Improvements

• Ask Assistant — The text area now automatically focuses for typing after the response stream ends.
• Ask Assistant — The system prompt has been refined for more precise responses.
• Search — Debounce timing has been increased to prevent spamming the results list.

Fixes

• Daily Desk — Resolved a bug that caused the app to crash when the searched text appeared in a weekly note.
• Ask Assistant — Fixed a bug where APIs were not whitelisted for Windows/Linux, rendering the assistant unusable.
• Ask Assistant — Corrected a bug preventing the error toast from displaying.
• Editor — Fixed syntax highlighting issues in several pro themes.