Curio 32 Release Notes 📖

Improvements

"Composition" → "Tabloid"

Throughout the interface we've renamed the old "Composition" collection, introduced in Curio 29, to "Tabloid" which better reflects its tabloid-like layout of rows and columns. The term composition will be used more generally to define collections that can contain other collections. Thus Curio now includes two composition collections: tabloid and matrix.

Compositions are an important component within Curio's toolbox since they can dynamically lay out contained items allowing those items to shrink and grow via external mechanisms such as style updates, synced figures, file-backed figures, query-backed collections, and more.

The tabloid composition, shown below, supports complex layouts with each row supporting an independent number of columns. In contrast the new matrix composition supports a table-like grid where columns extend down through all rows.

Tabloid Horizontal Alignment of Items

Tabloid compositions now support setting a selected figure's horizontal alignment within its column of figures.

Table Row/Column Drag Insertion

New drag handles now appear when you hover near the edge of a row or column. Click to select a row/column, ⌘-click to add a discontinuous row/column to the selection, or ⇧-click to add a continuous range from the current selection to the clicked item.

With rows or columns selected, you can now drag the handle or the items themselves to rearrange their ordering, allowing you to insert them in a new location. If you hold ⌥ while dragging you will insert a copy of the selection into the new location.

Improved Markdown List Rendering

Markdown list rendering has been significantly improved to match popular renderers such as Obsidian and Github-Flavored Markdown apps.

(1) If spaces are used for indention Curio now dynamically determines the number of spaces instead of assuming 4. For example, ChatPT outputs lists with 2 spaces. Note that tabs are also supported, of course.

(2) List items can now have subsequent following lines that are rendered with "soft returns" directly under the current item.

(3) Lists will now be rendered with gaps between list items if any item has a blank line between them.

Smart Paste Markdown URL

Curio 31 introduced Smart Paste URL where pasting a copied link on selected text instantly turns it into a clickable rich text link. Curio 32 adds support for the creation of markdown links [selection](link), as well. Copy an URL to the clipboard, select some text and paste and it will turn into a markdown link.

So when does a paste create a rich text link vs a markdown link? Obviously if a text figure has markdown explicitly disabled (via the inspector bar) then a rich text link is created, and if explicitly enabled then it will create a markdown link.

But what if markdown hasn't been explicitly enabled or disabled and Format > Default Figure Settings > Detect Markdown is enabled? It still unclear if you want a paste to create a rich text link or a markdown link. This is solved with a new Prefer Markdown Formatting option. If enabled then Curio will create a markdown link, otherwise a rich text link.

Ask Markdown Detection

The first time you edit a text figure and use markdown syntax Curio will ask if automatic markdown detection should be enabled. This makes Curio more friendly to those who don't use markdown.

Set Default Style For Level

There's a new Set as Default for Hierarchical Level button in the mind map and list inspectors (and right-click context menu item) so you can set a new default style for a level, without changing the styles of any existing figures on that level. It would only be used for new figures added to that level.

The reason for this new addition is Curio no longer tries to determine a suitable "de facto" style for a level on-the-fly as you made changes. It just wasn't reliable enough and happened without the user knowing what was going on. So now you're in full control of this default.

In addition the other related buttons and menu items have been re-titled to clarify what will be done to immediate siblings under the same parent, to all figures at this level (siblings+cousins), or to all figures at this level recursively (siblings+cousins+children).

Stack, List, Mind Map Query Typing Menu

The query field in the stack, list, and mind map inspectors now have a typing button menu which helps you to put together more complex searches for your query-backed collection.

By Default Show As

The menu allowing you to choose the default icon vs preview mode for a dragged-in file type is now more clear by specifying the type of figure (image, PDF, document, etc) in the menu title.

Copy As Figures Only ⚡️

You can now choose Copy As > Figures Only which copies the selected figures but doesn't put an exported image version of the merged figures on the clipboard as well. This can dramatically speed up copying lots of very large image figures.

Restart Trial

If you've trialed Curio in the past, you can now restart a trial of a newer major version via the License dialog.

New Custom App Icons

For Curio sustainers we added some fun new app icons plus renamed a couple of others and removed some old ones.

More Improvements

• Tabloid Compositions: Resize More Contained Figure Types
  Like in the new matrix compositions, within tabloid compositions you can now vertically resize most types of contained figures including images, tables, mind maps, index cards & stacks (if not set to auto size). For images, resizing vertically will resize its width proportionally. If an image is narrower then it is centered horizontally, still top-aligned so other figures can be stacked underneath it (in contrast they are centered vertically in a matrix cell).
• Tabloid Compositions: Smarter Logic When Inserting Figures
  

  Select a figure in the tabloid composition and use the Insert menu, the Insert toolbar button and gallery, or a specific collection's toolbar button (like the List toolbar button), to insert the figure after the currently selected figure as a sibling within the same column. If more than one figure is selected then it will place the figure in a new next row under the selected figures.

  Note the trick with using the Shift key on a collection toolbar button, like the List toolbar button, to create an instant default styled collection bypassing the gallery also works with the composition. For example, click Shift-List to get an instant list in the same column.

• Tabloid Compositions: Smarter Logic When Inserting Figures
  

  Drilling down into figures nested within layers of collections and compositions is now more obvious and consistent. Click to select a composition or collection figure, click again to select item within, click again to select figure within that figure, etc.

  If you've selected a figure deep within a nested composition-collection hierarchy then clicking items within that hierarchy also makes more sense.

• Matrix/Table Move Cells via Keyboard
  In matrix and table you can now move cells and even entire rows up/down via Arrange > Move Above/Below Siblings (^⇧↑↓).
• Insert Popover Shortcuts
  Press I to bring up the Insert popover, then press C to show the tabloid composition gallery or X to show the matrix composition gallery. Notes these mirror the shortcuts in the Insert > Collection main menu where tabloid is ⌃⌘C and matrix is ⌃⌘X.
• Table Sizing
  Following Keynote & Pages’s example, when resizing columns and rows in a Curio table the overall table size stays the same. If you want the table to change size while resizing the column or row then hold the Shift key down. The same trick holds when adding columns and rows in the inspector.
• Change Layer Menu Items
  The ability to change to the layer above or below the current layer is now under the Arrange menu, still with the ⌥] and ⌥[ shortcuts.
• Equation Editor
  The Insert/Update button in the equation editor now has a keyboard shortcut of ⌘⏎.
• Selection Glow
  Tweaks to the glow so it's less opaque (so you can more clearly see the figure's border color) and a bit wider (so still obviously glowing).
• JPEG Extension
  Previously when exporting figures and idea spaces, Curio wasn't using either the jpg or jpeg file extension consistently. Apple seems to prefer jpeg so now so does Curio.
• Auto Size Context Menu Item
  Index card, stack, pinboard all have a new right-click context menu item so you can easily toggle auto size.
• Font Size Popup
  Added a few more font sizes to the text inspector and inspector bar popups.
• Start/Due Date Increment Buttons
  The start/due date increment buttons like +1 Day have been tweaked. Hold Option to subtract instead of adding. Hold Shift to abide by set work schedule, skipping weekends for example.
• Window Menu Cleanup
  macOS 15+ adds several default items to Curio's Window menu such as Center and the Move & Resize submenu, so Curio now longer includes its own duplicate versions of those menu items on macOS 15+. This is shown in the screenshot above for the New Window feature.
• Change Advanced Setting️
  There's a new menu item under the main Curio menu so you can change an advanced setting. The dialog's help button brings you to the online documentation detailing all the advanced settings. That documentation has also been tidied up to separate the defaults from the link (now indicated with a little 🔗) so defaults links are easier to copy.
• File Thumbnail Images
  Tweaks were made to several file thumbnail pickers (like idea space background images inspector, the Library>Project tab's file icon rendering, and the asset figure's preview rendering) to make them more robust, like with occasional corrupted thumbnails embedded within Apple's iPhone's HEIF→JPEG images.
• Dimmed Grid When Search is Active
  If the idea space has a background grid then when a search is active the grid is dimmed so items that match the search query will stand out.
• Image Title ⇆ Caption
  

  If you rename an image figure while in icon mode, then if the image figure also has a caption that matches the previous old title, then the caption will be updated to reflect the new image title. That way they can stay in sync. If you change the caption to something different then they will no longer sync.

  Note the opposite does not happen by default: changing a caption doesn't sync to the image's title, since the caption can be a paragraph, and the image title generally matches the underlying asset file's title. However, if you wish, you can enable syncing caption changes to the figure's title (if it matches the previous old caption) and thus the underlying asset's file title. Just be mindful of the length of your captions.

• Intego False Positive
  Made a slight edit to the bundled Meeting idea space template so its generated __Preview.pdf preview file had a slightly different binary so it didn't falsely flag as a trojan using NordVPN or Intego VirusBarrier.
• Project Gallery Images
  The project gallery and Status shelf now have a smarter, more thread-safe, and more robust mechanism to grab project images.