Tala is rebuilt as a stylus-first, local-first notebook that installs as a web app (iPad Safari, Android Chrome) and still ships as a Windows desktop app. It continues from 1.0.0, not from 1.1.0: the 1.1.0 line was not carried forward (see "Not carried over" below).
Added
- Pages: a note is an ordered list of pages; each page owns its typed text and its handwriting.
- PDF import and markup: the original PDF is kept and pages render on demand, also offline. Export annotated PDF draws ink as vectors over the original pages.
- Pinch zoom and pan, an opaque pen that paints wet ink with no lag, a free-form lasso (recolour, duplicate), and a page strip with thumbnails and drag reordering. Undo survives page switches.
- Snap to shape: rest the pen at the end of a stroke and a line, circle/ellipse, rectangle or triangle replaces it.
- Lecture audio: record while you write. Audio is saved in 5-second chunks so a crash loses almost nothing, a Wake Lock keeps the screen on, and tapping a stroke made while recording plays the audio from just before it.
- Bituin, the star mascot and rule-based study coach: a corner chip after the pen rests, a weekly goal that never resets progress, session wrap-ups, resurfacing of old notes, and a Quiet mode.
- Tasks view: tick tasks across the whole library.
- Phone layout: Notes / Tasks / New / Search / profile tab bar, 44 px touch targets, left-handed mirroring.
- Data safety: persistent-storage request, Add-to-Home-Screen guide, weekly backup nudge, share-sheet backup on phones and tablets, and a copy of a pre-upgrade library kept in a separate database.
- `.tala` backups (zip with
manifest.json, backup.json and blobs). Legacy .json backups from versions 1–3 still import. Backups carry lecture rows and study days but not audio; each lecture has its own "Save audio". - Experimental, off by default: handwriting search using the browser's built-in recogniser (ChromeOS and some Android; not iPad Safari).
- New app icon (star with pencil, pencil on the left) for web, iOS, Android and desktop.
- First-run onboarding and start screens: a two-column welcome on tablet and desktop, three tips at the end of setup, a start list (New note, Import a PDF, Add a folder) when the library is empty, and "Pick up where you left off" when it is not.
- Week constellation in the sidebar: one star per study day this week, joined as the week fills. Missing a day costs nothing.
- Catalogue numbers (№ 001, № 002, …) on every note, and note lists grouped by day (Pinned, Today, Yesterday, This week, Earlier).
- Home shows the tasks still open across notes; tick them there or jump to the note.
- Profile menu in the sidebar (edit profile, change picture, Quiet mode, back up now) with the last backup time.
- Search-engine and social-sharing metadata,
robots.txt, sitemap.xml and a share image for tala.lorenzmalabanan.com.
Changed
- New look, built for tablet and desktop first: colours taken from the app icon (forest-green sidebar, star-yellow New note, white pages on a light green dotted ground, dark mode to match), one typeface (Hanken Grotesk) instead of handwriting fonts, and plain line icons instead of doodles.
- Calmer editor: a Type | Write switch and a Record button in the header; the pen tools sit in a dock on the page's edge (mirrored for left-handed use, a bottom row on phones) instead of a bar above the text. Switching modes never moves the text under your handwriting.
- The note list's density (comfortable, compact, grid) moved into the Sort menu. Pinned and Recent left the sidebar; pinned notes head All Notes and both views stay in the command palette.
- Keyboard hints read ⌘ on Mac and iPad and Ctrl elsewhere.
- Database schema v5 (additive; upgrades from v2 and v3 are tested). One library module is now the only writer of note data, with optimistic updates and rollback on a failed write.
- The service worker now precaches the pdf.js worker, so PDF import works offline.
- Release workflow checks that the tag matches the app version, runs tests, and publishes the changelog section as the release notes.
Fixed
- Opening a note autosaved it (bumping its modified time and wiping a PDF page's text layer).
- Ink on page 2 or later was mistaken for orphaned ink and created ghost notes.
- A note with ink only on a later page looked empty and was never saved; emptying a saved note was not saved.
- Edits are flushed when the tab is hidden or closed.
- PDF import failures now show a message.
- Menus near the right edge of the screen (such as the phone's "You" menu) no longer jump to the left side.
Not carried over from 1.1.0
DOCX/PPTX/DOC/PPT import, the .zip package format (replaced by .tala backups, which can still read old backups but not 1.1.0 packages), editable shape handles, and the Draw popover. Pencil double-tap and squeeze are not available in a browser.