Changelog

Another catchup of improvements and fixes from May that haven't been covered in larger updates, we're always working on making the app faster and more reliable…

• Lots of backend performance improvements to improve loading speeds, particularly for large collections
• When importing a document a revision is now written immediately so that it can be restored to the imported state
• Suspended users are no longer shown as collaborators on documents they've previously edited
• The submit button is now focused by default in confirmation dialogs
• We improved the user matching of searches from Slack
• Links with in-page anchors are no longer broken when a document is renamed
• Emoji's and embeds are now copied to the clipboard correctly when copying document text
• Formatting toolbar now appears only once the mouse is released
• Improved search indexing for publicy shared documents
• Secondary clicking a link in the editor no longer causes it to open

This week brings two new security settings. It's now possible to restrict all sign-ups to your team to a specific domain name through "Allowed domains". This setting applies in addition to SSO and will disallow users from creating accounts that do not have a confirmed matching email domain.

We also added the ability to restrict sign-ups through SSO completely, so that users must first be invited by an admin. Both of these new settings can be found under Settings -> Security.

Here we go – a big grab-bag of other improvements and fixes from April that we wanted to make sure the community is aware of…

• Dropping files into a document now works more reliably
• It's now possible to manually resend outstanding invites
• Link previews and search now work inside collection descriptions
• cmd+n browser shortcut to open a new window no longer creates a new document
• It's now much easier to create inline code marks
• Fixed an issue that meant you could not share a search results page
• The disabled state of document embeds now persists between reloads
• It's now possible to fetch a document from the API without knowing its full slug
• Fixed an issue where collection names with slashes would produce an invalid export

Thanks to a community member Emir this week brings application-wide Turkish translations 🇹🇷. If your system is set to this language we'll automatically suggest switching Outline's language to match, or you can go to Settings -> Profile -> Language to update.

Thanks to an open source contributor Limezy, we now have support for interactive tldraw embeds. These look really fantastic inside Outline and allow multiple people to draw together inside a document.

To get started head to tldraw.com, click on the cursors icon in the top left and select "Create a Multiplayer Project" – paste the url into an Outline doc.

This week brings three new integrations – just paste a share link in any document to get a rich, interactive, embed.

• JSFiddle – an online IDE for writing and testing code snippets ("fiddles") in the browser.
• Gliffy – an enterprise diagramming tool for creating flow charts, database diagrams, and wireframes.
• Otter.ai – allows interactive annotated meeting notes to be embedded in documents.

If you publicly share a document with nested document sharing enabled we'll now display a search input at the top of the sidebar to allow searching the contents of all of the nested documents.

This is particularly great when sharing documentation and other larger collections of docs.

We added some new slash commands to insert the current date, time, or both into a document you're editing – and importantly these commands also work in document titles and are locale-aware! These are the new handy shortcuts:

• /date – Insert current date
• /time – Insert current time
• /datetime – Insert current date and time

Just like documents, collections can now be starred – once starred you can also re-order all of your stars with drag and drop to create your own custom sidebar. Star the things that are important to you and have them available for one-click access.

Tip: Did you know that adding an emoji in front of a document title will show it in the browser favicon and in the sidebar when starred?

Admin's now have a new option to disable creation of new collection by members, for more curated knowledge bases or larger teams this can help prevent documentation sprawling unchecked.

It's now possible to access all the settings screen directly from the command bar. You can access the command bar anywhere in the app using Cmd + k, or Cmd + Shift + k if you're in the document editor.

If you've not used the command bar yet, it's a fast way to access lots of functionality without taking your hands off the keyboard!

We're excited to finally add one of our most requested features – file attachments in documents. You can now upload arbitrary files and embed them directly into a doc for your teammates to download, file attachments work on publicly shared links too.

This months shipped improvements are lots of small details, alignments, bug fixes, and editor improvements. In the background we have been busy building long-awaited file attachments and search for publicly shared documents, both of which will be shipped in the next month.

Fixes & Improvements

Editor

• Table of contents is now available on mobile
• Improved positioning and editing around images in documents
• We improved the default paragraph spacing
• Pasted content from Dropbox Paper is now more accurately preserved
• Document title no longer allows eronuously pasting rich text
• Improved the behavior of links and link editing
• External links now show an icon
• Added support for domain-restricted Vimeo embeds
• Fixed a bug that caused todo items to not show as checked in Firefox
• Tabbing no longer escapes the editor

Platform

• Collections can now be expanded and collapsed independently
• It is now possible to move a nested document to the collection root by drag and dropping onto the collection
• Fixed a number of bugs with import and exporting of documents
• Fixed a bug where virus scanning software would scan magic links and make it impossible to sign-in
• It's now possible to choose a default "Home" collection for your team
• Performance, design, and various "fit and finish" improvements
• Fixed a bug where some buttons would display unstyled in Safari
• Collections with only drafts no longer show as empty
• It's no longer possible to see "Never viewed" on a document you created
• Dangerous menu items now display in a different color
• Reduced code loading on publicly shared links

This month pinned documents got some love – a visual refresh to help them stand out, the ability to reorder, and also you can now pin documents to the home screen for everyone in the team to see. This year we'll be focusing more on improving the options to customize and theme Outline and so this is a first step in that direction.

Fixes & Improvements

• Drafts are now displayed in the sidebar while viewing and editing
• Added ability to "follow" another user in a document by clicking their avatar
• Added "full width" option for documents display
• Added recent searches to search screen
• New icons for collections
• It's now possible to replace images in editor
• You can now choose which events publish to Slack
• 🇻🇳 Vietnamese added as a language option
• Lots of fixes in the editor and mobile support particularly

This release also includes new cmd+k functionality which you might recognize from other productivity apps. Type cmd+k anywhere in the app to quickly move around your knowledge base!

We'll be building all of the possible actions into this menu over the next few months, but try searching for docs, collections, or changing the theme to see how fun and easy it is to use!

Fixes & Improvements

• Added Perl language support in editor code blocks
• Public share links now include an option to change light/dark theme
• It is now possible to set a default role for new users in Settings -> Security
• Warning when dragging doc between collections with different permissions
• Zooming images now possible while editing
• Several new icons for collections
• It is now possible to delete previous exports in admin
• 🇵🇱 Polish added as language option

The editor gained a new emoji picker this month, just type ":" and a search term to quickly find relevant emojis for your document!

It's now also possible to set a "default role" for new users that join your knowledge base. For example, new signups can now have viewer priviledges by default. You can find this setting under Settings -> Security.

Fixes and improvements

Editor

• Fixed home key/keycombo not working correctly in headers
• mailto: links are supported in the editor again
• Fixed issue where documents beginning with an emoji would overlay the table of contents
• Clicking outside the editor will now always close an open toolbar
• Creating newlines from a collapsed heading now behaves more predictably
• Performance improvements to the editor

Platform

• Customers that have a custom domain no longer show a "Back to website" link on the login screen
• It's now possible to change the light/dark theme on publicly shared documents
• You can now delete previous export data. By default these are still removed after 30 days.
• Creating an API key no longer reloads the entire app
• Context menus can no longer extend out of the available window space
• The collection icon picker is now closable on mobile

The collaborative editing beta has been progressing well and we continue to let it new teams. The last few weeks have largely been spent fixing and improving this functionality for a broader launch, but some other things snuck in too…

Fixes and improvements

• Moving a document out of a private collection will now warn you of the new permissions
• We added 6 new icons for collections
• You can now also zoom images when editing a document, click once to select and again to zoom once selected
• 🇵🇱 Polish added as a user interface language option
• Fixed active starred documents being highlighted twice in the sidebar
• Fixed some occurances where a formatting toolbar could appear for an empty selection
• Headings and code blocks are now togglable in the editor
• The formatting toolbar now includes list options
• Lists can now start at numbers other than 1 🙈

This week we’re beginning to accept teams into the beta of collaborative editing, this feature will allow multiple team members to edit the same document at the same time, opening much wider range of use cases! It also lays the foundation for all sorts of new features such as commenting.

If your team would like to participate please reach out to [email protected].

Other fixes and improvements

• Starred documents are now displayed in the sidebar
• It's now possible to choose a user permission up-front when inviting
• Exporting data no longer emails the result and is much more reliable
• Lists can now start at numbers other than 1.
• Improved compatability of Google Drive integration
• The "Share" button now always appears, even when public sharing is disabled
• There is a new menu for switching between signed in teams
• Added Google Calendar embed support
• Added Diagrams.net embed support
• Added 4 new collection icons
• Fixed a race condtion in image upload that could result in errors
• Fixed single row tables breaking on reload
• Lots of new translations

Task lists

You've been able to create a task list or a checkbox list in Outline for a while, but this week brings a nice improvement - we added task summaries so you can see how many tasks a doc contains and how many are completed without even opening it!

This is great for simple checklists such as new employee onboarding or a release checklist that you wouldn't neccesarily put in an issue tracker. You can also create repetitive task lists in templates.

Document history improvements

The history sidebar was rebuilt to shows more than just edits, it now also includes archive, delete, publish, moves, and other events that happen during the document's lifetime.

You can find the new sidebar by clicking on the last edited timestamp or under "History" in the document menu.

Other fixes and improvements

• We've made a number of server-side performance improvements
• The "Home" tab now defaults to show recently viewed documents
• Fixed an issue that potentially suppressed email notifications for document edits
• Fixed the templates page erroring when scrolled

Wow, another month has passed, here's a quick update on what's changed since June, as is often the case as well as the big stuff we've been working on a lot of "little details"
that make the daily experience better but aren't always immediately visible.

Improved search abilities

We're now tracking all the previous titles that a document has had to improve search results and increase the liklihood of surfacing the right document, even if you can't quite remember what it's latest title is.

Collapsible headings

We brought back the ability to collapse sections of a document under headings – simply hover over any heading to see a new control to collapse the contents. Your preference is stored locally and is not seen by other team members that view the document.

Drag and drop to archive or delete

You can now drag and drop documents from the sidebar directly into the archive or trash, similar to how you would move or reorder. There's a cute animation included to let you know what will happen too.

Other fixes and improvements

• Lots more translation hooks were added, we're very close to 100% coverage so that the entirety of the UI can appear in the language of your choice.
• Added access to the Table of Contents on mobile
• Fixed an issue where the star option would appear for templates
• Fixed the "publish" button being disabled on drafts when not editing them
• Added new language options – Persian and Japanese 🌏
• Added support for Google DataStudio embeds