Changelog
Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.
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new
improved
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Chat
Plan
Write
Prompts
AI
May 10, 2025: New Prompting System
You have probably been wondering what we’ve been cooking up lately. Well, today we’re proud to announce one of the largest updates to Novelcrafter yet:
A total overhaul of the prompting system - and a bunch of extra goodies!
Here’s a TLDR version:
- All sorts of chapters/snippets/outlines/whatever can now be added as contextwhen talking to the AI
- Create customprompt presets (think GPTs!)without having to clone things first and custom personas (think shared memory)
- You can create custom model collectionsif you get tired of the current list
- Define default promptsfor each of the areas (beats, chat, …)
- Use personasto have cross-project memory for the AI (like your pen name, likes/dislikes and more)
- Much improved performance of the app, no more “assembling manuscript”
For a deep dive into every new feature and the full details, check out our complete blog post: https://go.novelcrafter.com/update/2025-05
fixed
improved
Chat
Plan
Write
Codex
AI
March 11, 2025
We have made several changes since the last major update. Here is a list of most of them:
Codex
- The codex matching will no longer consider a period between letters to be optional (e.g. "S.T.A.R" doesn't also match for "stars"). This does not affect the optional periods after titles and such (like "Dr Smith" also matching for "Dr. Smith").
AI
- Added Claude 3.7 Sonnet to all system prompts
- Updated the model list for the "Detect characters" feature on scenes
- The model list for Google AI Studio connections no longer needs to be added by hand. We're now grabbing the list from Google directly!
- Added some model fallbacks for people integrating with Google AI Studio. Some of the system prompts should now work without modifications
- Fixed incorrect cases of the "no codex entries found" warning in scene beats
Other changes
- Fixed some modals not being able to be closed by clicking on the background overlay or hitting ESC key (for some, like error alerts, we don't allow this on purpose)
- Fixed some HTML markup showing up in the text extraction results. Those should now show up just fine
- Fixed some layout issues with the codex preview card
- Fixed some layout issues for scene cards that had a lot of labels/references on them
- Fixed some visual scrollbar issues in lists when on iOS/Safari
- Various other bug fixes and improvements
We also published another Monthly Muse issue, this time all about the "Cozy" genre! Check it out here: https://monthly-muse.com/8
new
improved
fixed
Chat
Plan
Codex
AI
February 28, 2025
This update took a bit of time, but we implemented further internal changes that now made the following possible:
- You can now enroll for experimental features.We have a new system where you can try out things we're still tinkering with, or need a lot more feedback on. Check it out in the general app settings!
- The update banner will not show right away.Previously, we bundled a lot of changes together which prevented quick and easy fixes. Going forward, we're doing incremental updates and changelogs will be more along the lines of "what we did this week".
New: Tip of the Day! 📅
As our first experimental feature, we're introducing a "Tip of the Day" that shows up when you start Novelcrafter in a new window/tab.
Maybe you'll learn about cool features that you've missed so far!
Organizational
- Added a way to create codex entries from scene summaries (helpful when you're working on your outline first, before filling the codex)
- Added a way to collapse or expand all codex categories at once. We also updated the overall layout of the codex settings menu itself.
- Add a new "slim" style for the codex - for those that have hundreds of entries, this means a lot less scrolling!
- Changed relations on codex entries to use the more compact styling, same with codex preview cards now using the slim styling.
- Fixed archived codex entries still appearing in the Matrix view
- Fixed Tags from archived codex entries still appearing in suggestions
- Various other tiny visual fixes in Matrix and Outline plan views
AI
- Improved handling of "provider returned error" messages. The actual cause should now be displayed when available
- Fixed overload errors deleting partial chat messages
- Finger's crossed, that we fixed the "model (not found)" error inside of chat when retrying a previously broken message
Other changes
- Fixed a rare novel loading error that occurred right after you created/imported a new novel. This was basically a timing thing, as the system hasn't caught up yet
- Added support for comma-like separators in Tag fields - this should help with people writing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK)
- Fixed codex preview cards not being interactable when shown inside a modal
- Various other bug fixes and improvements
Along with this update, we also updated our Privacy Policy to reflect our addition of early access features and changes in the product metrics.
improved
fixed
AI
January 29, 2025
This update is more on the technical side, but we updated some internals to stream the data in when loading a larger novel project. Previously, projects that have gotten too big (usually by having too many chat messages), would no longer load.
With this change, this should no longer be an issue - but we still recommend cleaning up chats you no longer need and continue to advise against having chat threads with hundreds of messages (or even more).
Other Changes
- Improved error handling around the "provider returned an error" messages that sometimes happen when using OpenRouter
- Other fixes and improvements
improved
fixed
Codex
AI
January 20, 2025
AI & Prompting
- Added the total word count (all messages combined) to the prompt preview
- Fixed an error when trying to save empty OpenRouter routing settings on a model
- Fixed sending a frequency and presence penalty of zero when not specifying a custom value.
Other changes
- Added a little tooltip to custom codex details in the sidebar. That way you know exactly what they are!
- Fixed the floating codex/snippet/chat panel being a bit narrow on smaller screens
- Fixed incorrect order of custom codex details in rare cases
- Various other bug fixes and improvements
fixed
Write
Codex
January 8, 2025
- Fixed being unable to copy/paste model settings via clipboard
- Fixed the editor formatting bar flickering when dragging the mouse cursor
- Fixed custom codex details shown in the sidebar not being in the right order
- Other bug fixes and improvements
improved
fixed
Write
Codex
Prompts
January 6, 2025
Happy New Year everyone! Here's our first release of 2025, packed with fixes for all those bugs you helped spot over the holidays:
Custom Codex Details
- Added "show history" option for text line details as well
- Fixed some details on brand new codex entries disappearing until page reload
- Fixed some scene beat warnings being incorrect when custom codex details were used
- Fixed visual duplication glitches around custom details
AI and Prompting
- Added an alert when trying to use a prompt that has no models assigned to it
- Fixed clearing of "last used prompt" when opening the prompt preview
- Fixed some issues when copying prompts to clipboard that resulted in corrupted instructions
- Fixed some issues around adding custom prompts when not having a novel open
Other Changes
- Added support for importing highlighted and strikethrough text
- Fixed word count in sections not updating properly
- Selecting all text in a scene will now include any scene beat/progression boxes at the start and end as well.
- Other various bug fixes and improvements
new
improved
fixed
Write
Codex
AI
December 29, 2024
New: Search in Codex entry selectors 🔍
Those with (really) large codices can rejoice: even though the menu already had search (by just entering the start of the name), it wasn't obvious (all menus actually have this feature, actually!)
As such, there's now an easy-to-reach search box up at the top:
AI and Prompting
- Progressions are now included in the current scene when summarizing (and the summarization prompt includes the codex)
- Allow summarizing scenes without content (in case they have an existing summary already)
- Upgraded the Ollama AI integration to use newer APIs
- Fixed syntax errors in chat prompts not allowing to go open the original prompt
Other changes
- The Codex search (in the sidebar) now also looks into text area and text line custom details.
- The marker timeline in Write mode will now merge consecutive highlights (e.g. if you highlight a couple paragraphs in a row)
- Fixed certain long novel titles overflowing in your novel shelf
- When copying text from text areas (e.g. codex, snippets, ..) into the clipboard, they'll now be in Markdown
- Various other bug fixes and improvements
new
fixed
Codex
December 22, 2024
New: Codex references as custom details!
This one needed a bit more testing, but you can now also have a custom codex reference as a codex detail!
Some examples include:
- Picking a race/species entry (no need for custom dropdown options!)
- Selecting the vampire sire of a fledgling
- Associating an entry with a faction/country/home town
Other changes
- Added a handy "sort labels" button to novel labels and dropdown details
- Fixed a couple overflow/layout issues with the new codex entry design
- Fixed the tags input not closing the first time you go out of it
- Fixed some inconsistencies with the codex settings and details in read-only novels
- Other various bug fixes and improvements
2nd update (hotfix):
- Fixed an issue with the prompt editor where keyboard interaction got blocked
- Fixed copying prompts with many components
new
improved
Codex
AI
December 21, 2024 🎁
We've been hard at work these past months, and finally have a little holiday present that you all have been waiting for:
New: Custom Codex Details!
Forget about splitting a codex into many pieces, or cramming too much detail into the description box. With custom details, you can now have more control over the individual pieces that make up your story!
For example:
- Specify a story role (protagonist, antagonist...)
- Which faction someone belongs to
- Autopsy reports (that only NSFW models get as detail)
- Contents that should be invisible to the AI (e.g. personal notes)
Special thanks to our dedicated community of testers who spent months helping us debug and refine codex details!
Furthermore:
- You can also have your custom categories only collect entries for when a specific detail has been set
- You can have details only show up in NSFW prompts, or exclude them from the AI completely (useful for private notes)
- Additions have evolved to Progressions! You can now target a specific detail(not just the description), and even say if it should replace the full text. This is helpful, if you want to change the interior design of a place after renovation.
There are a couple things we haven't managed to finish in time, but will be added soon:
- Support for custom details in Chat Extraction
- Support for importing your codex (including any details)
- Support for codex details in novel templates
Other changes:
- We moved tags on the codex entry to the top, below the entry name, since that's a more natural place.
- We also reorganized the tabs a bit: Notes and external links are now under "Research", the "Appearances" tab has been renamed to "Mentions" and we got a new "Tracking" Tab to consolidate all the options. The "Relationships" tab has been shortened to "Relations"
- You can now decide to never have a codex entry included in the AI context (no need to archive them anymore), even if you use custom prompts
- Labels no longer require a color
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