Nova Updates & Release Notes

Nova 14 is our huge language server upgrade! Manage servers already installed on your system with one-click installation, automatic updates, pinned versions, and more.

Language Server Detection

Nova 14 adds built-in support for integrating with third-party language servers. Language servers can add diagnostics, hovers, and richer autocomplete to your favorite languages.

Install Tools Directly from Nova

Detect and manage the language servers already installed on your system, or install new servers directly from Nova in one-click.

Powerful Language Upgrades

Nova 14 includes buit-in syntax and debugging support for

C, C++, Swift, and Rust,

as well as customizable language-specific editor settings.

Fixed in 14b3

• Addressed a crash when LSPs return an invalid range for “Jump To Definition”
• File Browser: Fixed a problem switching between the Server List and Quick Connect tabs
• Files Sidebar: The “Get Info” action is now working as expected
• Fixed a potential crash after closing a project
• Improved per-language indentation settings being applied to new documents
• Resolved an issue with publishing to (or reverse publishing from) a child folder
• Syntax modes with enabled language servers are now badged in Settings > Languages
• Vim Mode: r can now be used to replace the last character of a file

Fixed in 14b2

• Addressed an issue that prevented the “Format Document” command from working with certain language servers
• Fixed an issue with vtsls language server initialization due to incompatible locale
• Xdebug / DBGp Debug Adapter: Fixed a an issue with the setFunctionBreakpoints request not working
• Extensions: Addressed an issue that could prevent some extension-provided language servers from initializing
• Fixed an issue where published files would be uploaded to the remote project root directory
• Gitea: Resolved a problem with filtering available remote repositories
• Launcher: Improved visibility of “Back To Projects” button
• Fixed an issue with “Open With” options being unavailable in the Files Sidebar contextual menu
• Resolved an issue with installation of the privileged helper tool
• Sidebar: Project-wide searches now display results within SVG files
• Addressed an issue with Task / Pipeline error messages not displaying their localized variants
• Vim mode: The * command now correctly jumps to next occurrence of word, instead of the previous
• YAML: Fixed a possible issue with auto-detection of file indentation

New

• Integrated management of language servers
  • Nova will automatically detect many well-known tools already installed on your system, including Python, PHP, Ruby, and TypeScript
  • Install tools directly from Nova in Settings → Languages, and updates will be handled for you
  • It’s simple to connect up tools that aren’t yet detected, and easy to submit requests for inclusion in Nova’s registry
• Built-in language and debugging support for C, C++, C#, Swift, and Rust
  • Integration with clangd, SourceKit-LSP, and rust-analyzer
• Added per-language Display, Indentation, and Linewrapping settings in Settings → Languages
• Transform editor text using CLI tools from the Editor menu “Filter Through Command”
• Use the “Languages” panel in Settings to configure language servers and per-syntax options

Improved

• Improved interaction around many common language server quirks
• Updated the underlying Tree-sitter parsing engine to the latest version
• Pulled in improvements for all built-in language grammars from their upstream projects
• The minimap, invisibles, and line wrap can now be toggled on a per-document basis without modifying global settings
• Improved UI metrics and appearance on macOS Tahoe

A note on customizable Dock icons

macOS Tahoe introduced a new design for Dock icons with automatic styling options like “Dark” and “Clear”. To support these new icons, we had to remove an older feature of macOS which Nova relied on to allow choosing custom Dock icons. We are optimistic that a future version of macOS might allow apps to provide multiple icons from which to pick (like iOS does today). Make it happen, Apple!

New

• Terminal: Added support for escape sequences OSC 10 and 11, and displaying half-bright colors

Fixed

• Resolved a crash when using ‘Select Inside Brackets’ in empty documents
• Fixed a potential issue with drawing the minimap when line wrap is disabled
• Selecting symbols from Symbols Sidebar no longer moves document viewport unexpectedly in some circumstances
• HTML: Dragging image and CSS files now inserts tags instead of path on disk
• Python: Improved indentation when toggling comments
• Terminal: Scrollbar is no longer disabled when using certain command-line tools

Fixed

• Improved performance when saving files when “Automatically trim trailing whitespace” is enabled
• Addressed a potential crash when pressing Ctrl+K with multiple cursors
• Fixed a crash when option-dragging through soft-wrapped text
• Using Cmd+W in modified files will now close tab if “Automatically save documents when losing focus” is enabled
• Terminal: Shift+Tab now sends the expected escape sequence
• Terminal: Shift+Return now sends a newline character
• PHP: Addressed a syntax highlighting issue with php_embedded
• SCSS: Highlighting now works as expected when using interpolation
• SCSS: Addressed an issue with @keyframes highlighting
• Fixed a case where “Find Next”, then “Replace and Find Next” could modify document without updating editor view
• Addressed a case where the Issues Sidebar could incorrectly parse file paths
• Resolved an issue that prevented the “Jekyll Serve” extension from running

Fixed

• SCSS: Improved syntax highlighting of new tree-sitter based grammar
• SCSS: CSS property completions are now displayed when appropriate
• Fixed a potential crash when closing windows
• Resolved an issue that could cause some Tasks to fail unexpectedly
• Scroll bar change markers are now displayed when using Comparison View
• PHP: Fixed a possible crash when using “Wrap Selection in Tag”
• PHP: inc.php files no longer open in HTML syntax mode
• Editor: Addressed a potential issue with some keyboard shortcuts when the Find Bar is visible
• Find Bar: Improved label contrast when using a Dark editor theme with Light System Appearance

Nova 13 brings workspace improvements, built-in text manipulation tools, and a brand new help library

where you can learn more about Nova's powerful features.

Open Quickly in Projects

Access to all of your projects is at your fingertips, whether they're saved in Nova's launcher or specific folders you define in Workspace settings.

Case Preserving Replace

Ever tried to replace a word, but it's cased differently throughout your file? Just toggle “Preserve Case”, and Presto! Now your lowercase stays lowercase, camel-case can keep its humps, and uppercase is just as loud.

Text Actions

One of our most requested quick features, Nova now has built-in tools for sorting, joining, and uniquing lines, transforming between letter cases, and more—all without having to move your hands away from your keyboard.

New

• Debugging: Stepping by instruction can now be done by holding Control, when using adapters which support it
• Debugging: Watchpoints are now supported by right-clicking a variable in the Variables list and choosing “Watch”, with adapters which support them
• Documents: Tabs now show an indicator when the underlying file has been modified externally, deleted from disk, or moved to the Trash
• Editor: New text manipulation actions: Sort Lines, Reverse Lines, Join Lines, Unique Lines, Zap Gremlins
• Editor: New letter case actions: Transform between lowerCamelCase, UpperCamelCase, kebab-case, and snake_case
• Editor: Quickly copy both the current file path and line number in one action
• Editor: Issues which provide a reference to another file now include a “Show” button to jump directly there
• Editor: SVG files are now previewable side-by-side with their code, in the same manner as HTML files
• Languages: Jinja and TOML have been added as built-in language modes
• Tasks: Support for stopping the current step and continuing on to the next without ending the overall pipeline
• Workspace: “Open Quickly in Projects” gives you quick and simple access to all of your projects

New for Extensions

• The Syntax Inspector has been enhanced to show Tree-sitter S-expressions and more when developing language extensions

Improved

• Debugging: The JS/TS debug adapter has been enhanced with better variable display and modulemap resolution
• Debugging: Threads and frames now show richer detail from adapters that provide it, including the built-in JS/TS adapter and Icarus
• Editor: Code hovers have improved styling and richer support for Markdown-formatted help text from language servers
• Editor: The macOS “Look Up” action is now accessible from the contextual menu
• Files Sidebar: Invoking “New File” now automatically pre-fills the most common file extension from that folder
• Files Sidebar: After naming a newly created text file, it now automatically opens in an editor
• Files Sidebar: Cancelling the naming of a new file now moves that empty file to the Trash automatically
• Find: The editor’s find bar has been refined, with cleaner UI and speed improved in large documents
• Find: Using “Search in Selection” now highlights which regions are being searched, even if the editor’s selection changes
• JSX / TSX: Added support for the “Wrap Selection In Tag” action from HTML
• Languages: SCSS parsing support has been updated to use a new, custom Tree-sitter grammar
• Languages: Refined syntax highlighting and completions in Bash, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, Lua, Markdown, SQL, TypeScript, TSX
• Languages: Synchronized built-in language grammars with their respective upstream grammars
• Languages: Removed leftover built-in regex definitions which had already moved to Tree-sitter, but remained so extensions had time to migrate
• Language Servers: Improved support for file system change notifications
• Workspace: In-workspace notifications have improved styling, animation, and support for stacking related notifications
• Workspace: File browser tabs are now styled using the workspace theme colors

Fixed

• Debugging: Fixed an issue that prevented breakpoints from triggering reliably when using Chrome debugging
• Debugging: The JS/TS debug adapter has been updated to support changes in Chrome’s security model, present in Chrome 136 onward
• Editor: .mts and .cts files now use the TypeScript syntax by default
• Editor: Closing an unsaved document tab that is also open in another split no longer prompts to save changes
• Editor: HTML entities are now highlighted in Markdown documents
• Editor: Resolved a possible crash when moving up or down with multiple cursors in Vim mode
• File Browser: Fixed a crash when dragging remote files between Nova and Transmit
• Key Bindings: Resolved an issue preventing the binding of menu items to Control-Shift-Command-Space
• Servers: Updated the DreamObjects endpoint
• Servers: Addressed an issue with authentication with Mega S4
• Servers: Resolved a crash when using ed25519-sk resident SSH keys with the verify-required and application options
• Servers: Fixed a potential issue connecting to FastMail-hosted WebDAV servers
• Shell Syntax: Autocompletion of variables no longer inserts a duplicate $ character in some circumstances
• Theming: Condition keywords (if , while , etc.) now use keyword.condition selector once more, instead of just keyword
• Theming: Addressed an issue with the style.selector.pseudoelement selector being overridden by .element in CSS
• Terminal: CSI Parsing now processes parameter characters, fixing rendering issues in the fish shell
• Terminal: Fixed an error when running lnav
• Terminal: Resolved a potential crash when retrying a remote connection when using a jump host
• Terminal: Remote connections which use the 1Password SSH agent with IdentitiesOnly and public IdentityFile should no longer fail unexpectedly
• Terminal: Addressed a case where invalid UTF-8 sequences could result in data being lost
• Terminal: reset now makes the cursor visible if it was previously hidden
• Workspace: The sidebar now remains visible after a relaunch if it was shown by invoking “Show in Files Sidebar”