Drafts v33 Release Notes

Updated 09152022-025853


Highlights

Shortcuts - Drafts User Guide

Set Theme

Update themes and theme mode active in Drafts.

Public Beta - Drafts User Guide

Flags & Tagging - Drafts User Guide

Scoped Tags

COMING SOON!

Scoped tags use special markup to limit assignment to only one tag in the scope, and can be a useful tool in creating workflows in Drafts.

Scoped tags are in the format prefix::tag. Drafts will automatically limit any single draft to having only one tag with the scoped prefix assigned at a time. For example, if a draft is tagged status::new, and you assign it the tag status::in-progress, the status::new tag will be removed from the draft. This applies whether the tag was assigned via the user interface, automatically by an action, or even in scripts.

To create a scoped tag, simply assign a tag with the :: (two colon) separator. A couple example use cases:

Note that when filtering with workspaces, you can filter by scope prefix, so, for example, a workspace with the tag filter status:: would find any drafts with any of the scope’s subtags assigned, like status::new or status::complete.


Updated System Requirements

The minimum system requirement for the Public Beta:

It is highly recommended you use the latest version on all of your devices if you are syncing data. If you have an older device which cannot support these operating system requirements, and you wish to run an older version of Drafts, please disable iCloud sync on that device.

Support for New OS Features

Lock Screen Widgets

iOS 16 added the ability to have widgets on your iPhone Lock Screen. Drafts provides a Lock Screen widget with the same functionality as a small-size Grid Widget on the Home Screen. Each Lock Screen widget can be assigned to run a common command, display information about your inbox or a workspace, or even run an action! Learn more

Focus Filters

Drafts offers a Focus Filter which allows you to configure aspects of the app when your Focus mode changes at the system-level. Focus Filters are configured in the OS Settings app. If you add the Drafts' Focus Filter to your Focus mode configuration, you can use it to apply a workspace, change themes, change loaded action groups, and other options.

Shortcuts & App Shortcuts

iOS 16 & macOS 13 introduce an entirely new way to build integration with Shortcuts. Drafts extensive array of Shortcuts actions have all be updated to use this new "App Intents" system. Mostly this should be seemless to you, the user, but it does add some nice new abilities, like the ability for Drafts to automatically provide a variety of shortcuts without any need for configuration on your part. These include quite a few Siri trigger phrases. A few examples to try:

New Find-Replace UI on iOS

iOS 16 introduced a new native text find-and-replace interaction. Drafts has adopted this as the default find interface in the editor, so if you trigger find (magnifying glass in Action Bar selector, or via action) the system find will appear. Drafts advanced find is still available on iOS 16 by tapping for options in the find view which appears above the keyboard, if you need advanced regular expression or other options.

Note that you can tap and hold on the quick search magnifying glass above the editor to get to "Find in Draft", or directly to advanced find.

iOS 16 introduced new ways to configure popup menus, and Drafts takes advantage of these throughout the app where menus are used. Primarily a cosmetic improvements, it does make menus more readable in many cases.

Scoped Tags

Scoped tags provide a special markup to have multiple tags treated as members of the same scope, and only allow assignment of a single tag in the scope at a time. Scoped tags are in the format prefix::tag. Drafts will automatically allow only one tag in a given prefix to be assigned to a draft. For example, if you a draft is assigned the tag status::new, and you later assign the tag status::completed to the draft - status::new will automatically be removed. This is a great tool for creating workflows tracking status or priority. Learn more

Image OCR

The heading pretty much says it…must like Drafts can already do document scanning, or transcribe text from audio and video files, it now registers itself to handle images, and if you open an image in Drafts, it will offer to use OCR to transcribe and text found in the image into a new draft. Learn more

Action Aliases

Action aliases are quick way to create an action that references another action. If you have an action you want to appear in multiple action groups, but don't want to duplicate it and have to worry about maintaining both if you make changes - aliases are a simple solution.

Create action aliases in the context menus on actions in the action list (right-click on Mac, tap and hold on iOS). Learn more

Library Summary

The Library Summary is a quick overview of library statistics, with charts of workspace draft counts, and tag counts. The summary is vailable only on iOS 16 or macOS 13 (Ventura). To access the summary:

Other Additions, Changes, and Updates