Lunatask v2.1.0 (in beta)

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Lunatask v2.1.0 is an upcoming update that will be released shortly but is not yet widely available. This post serves as a changelog and a set of notes, information, and guidelines for beta testers.

What is Lunatask v2.1.0?

The v2.1.0 update is mainly a complete internal rewrite of our Markdown editor.

It is an initial version that targets improving the note-taking experience in Lunatask and will open exciting new possibilities going forward like deep linking, embedding full tasks inside notes, slash menu, and more.

New features

• Yellow highlight (with Markdown support) was added besides existing bold, italic, and strikethrough basic formatting
• Quote/blockquote element was added, as well as a beautiful horizontal line/divider
• Basic support for simple tables was added – more powerful table operations are not available due to limitations of the underlying Markdown persistence format
• You can now insert images from remote sources (URLs) into notes, task descriptions, and journal entries. Dropbox share links are natively supported, OneDrive embed URLs too, as well as Google Drive share links (rate limits might apply on Google Drive, though).
• Syntax highlighting is now available in code blocks with the ability to choose a programming language
• Smart text replacement as you type was added (double dashes automatically convert to endash, -> into →, 1/2 into ½, != into ≠, and many more)
• Smart text wrapping was added. You can now select text and press ( or " to wrap the selection in parentheses or quotes.
• The editor now supports Markdown pasting

Improvements

• Pressing TAB in code blocks now indents the line, making it easier to write code
• Bullet lists can now be converted to checklists and vice-versa (at least in simple cases)
• There's now a UI for creating/editing links
• Formatting toolbar was redesigned to be clean and minimalist with dropdown menus
• Editor's keyboard shortcuts were redesigned and more standardized with other apps
• Auto-linking was improved and gone are previous issues with links containing underscores, etc
• The editor is now more flexible in how elements can be nested – for example, you can now have inline code inside a heading or a code block inside a quote
• The formatting toolbar is now properly sticky without flickering while scrolling in the mobile app
• Header shadows when scrolling were standardized and fixed in many places in the mobile app
• Improved conflict where a text selection bubble menu on iOS overflowed the formatting toolbar, making it impossible to add formatting to the first line of text
• Improvements to email integration, so incoming emails are displayed much more nicely in the app with the new editor

Known issues

• Dropdown menus of the formatting toolbar do not respect dark mode (on Android only)
• Not available formatting options at the current caret position are not dimmed out or otherwise visually indicated in the formatting toolbar's dropdown menus (on Android only)
• Editing the text of an existing link is a bit clunky in the mobile app due to the editor's default behavior of automatically opening the link on press
• Creating a code block using a "three backticks" Markdown syntax incorrectly inserts caret after the code block and not inside it. It works correctly when a code block is inserted via the formatting toolbar.
• Formatting toolbar options now display keyboard shortcuts but still only use macOS key symbols (will be replaced with equivalents on Windows/Linux before public release)
• The visuals for when an image fails to load are not yet polished and finalized (especially on mobile)
• Note sharing via a public link does not yet support new editor's features now in beta (will be implemented before public release)
• When a text is highlighted and you are creating a link (in the desktop app), the selection disappears visually, but it is still there. When you type or paste the URL into the dropdown for creating links, it will correctly create a link and re-highlight the text.
• There's a very minor issue in Markdown parser where empty checklist items (those without any text) insert additional brackets after the checkbox when the note is reloaded for no reason

Note on new paragraph handling

The editor now handles new paragraphs differently and in a standardized way that is more compatible with Markdown's general approach.

When pressing Enter, a new paragraph is inserted and visually separated from a previous paragraph. If you wish to insert just a line break (i.e. make a new line, not a new paragraph), use Shift-Enter.

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This creates an incompatibility between old and new note storage formats.

Lunatask v2.1 contains a backward-compatibility translation layer, which should ensure notes, task descriptions, and journal entries created using the old editor display correctly in the new editor.

Note on iOS/iPadOS 26 support

Since WWDC25 is behind us, it is worth noting that the mobile app is not yet compatible with iOS/iPadOS 26 as the app uses third-party libraries (for example, for dropdowns in the new formatting toolbar), and those libraries we rely on need to ensure iOS/iPadOS 26 compatibility first.