What's New in v2.0.0
This major release brings significant improvements to BookCatalyst, including new themes, enhanced performance, and comprehensive bug fixes.
✨ New Features
- 13 Professional Themes: Two new beautiful themes added - Nord Light and Tokyo Night Day for daytime writing
- Advanced Style Analysis: Compare your writing against legendary authors including Hemingway, Orwell, and Stephen King
- Enhanced Readability Metrics: Six industry-standard readability formulas provide comprehensive text analysis
- Improved Version History: Faster version comparison and better diff visualization
- Writing Goals Dashboard: Track daily, weekly, and project goals with visual progress indicators
- Batch Import: Import multiple documents at once to speed up project setup
🚀 Performance Improvements
- 50% faster project loading for large documents (10,000+ words)
- Reduced memory usage by 30% through optimized caching
- Smoother scrolling and typing in long documents
- Improved spell check performance with background processing
🐛 Bug Fixes
- Fixed theme switching issues that caused UI elements to not update properly
- Resolved crash when opening projects with corrupted metadata
- Fixed word count discrepancies in documents with complex formatting
- Corrected timezone handling in version history timestamps
- Fixed spell check not recognizing hyphenated words correctly
- Resolved issues with document export losing formatting
💎 Quality of Life
- Improved auto-save reliability with better error handling
- Enhanced backup system with 30-day retention and compression
- Better keyboard navigation throughout the application
- More informative error messages with actionable solutions
- Faster search across project with improved indexing
System Requirements
Minimum Requirements
- Operating System: Windows 10 (version 1903 or later) or Windows 11
- Processor: 1 GHz or faster, 64-bit
- RAM: 2 GB
- Storage: 250 MB available space
- Display: 1280 x 720 resolution
- .NET Runtime: .NET 8.0 (automatically installed via Microsoft Store)
Recommended Requirements
- RAM: 4 GB or more
- Storage: 500 MB for application + project files
- Display: 1920 x 1080 resolution or higher
- SSD: For faster project loading
Installation Instructions
- Click "Get from Microsoft Store" below or search for "BookCatalyst" in the Microsoft Store app
- Click "Get" or "Buy" to download and install
- Launch BookCatalyst from the Start Menu
- Create your first project and start writing!
Benefits of Microsoft Store: Automatic updates, trusted installation, easy uninstall, and secure payment processing built right into Windows.
Upgrade from v1.x
Upgrading from BookCatalyst v1.x is seamless:
- All your projects are automatically migrated
- Settings and preferences are preserved
- Custom themes are compatible
- Version history is maintained
- Updates are delivered automatically through Microsoft Store
We recommend backing up your projects before upgrading (File → Backup Project).
Known Issues
- High DPI Displays: Some UI elements may appear slightly blurry on high-DPI displays at certain scaling levels. We're working on improved DPI awareness for v2.1.
- Large Projects: Projects with more than 100,000 words may experience slower search performance. Optimization is planned for v2.1.
- Import Limitations: Complex Word documents with embedded objects may lose some formatting during import.
What's Next?
We're already working on v2.1, which will include:
- PDF and ePub export
- Custom theme editor
- Improved performance for very large projects
- Additional writing templates
- Dark title bar support for Windows 11
Support
Need help with installation or have questions? Check our documentation or contact support.
Previous Releases
- v1.2.0 - September 2024 - View changelog
- v1.1.0 - July 2024 - View changelog
- v1.0.0 - May 2024 - Initial release