v1.14.0: Clean code copies, hot exit, files kept as they were, safer documents

Work that can't be lost, files kept exactly as they were, and a preview that keeps documents in their place

1.14.0 is the result of a full review of FATE: every problem it found is fixed, and the features it suggested are in. The complete list is in the changelog; these are the ones you'll notice.

Copy code and paste it straight into a terminal. Every code block in a Markdown document has a Copy button that copies its exact text, without the trailing newline that ran a pasted command straight away. Copying a selection no longer brings the theme with it: code copies as plain text, prose as clean text that Word, Outlook and Teams format their own way, and maths as its TeX source. The LaTeX repair pass also left tab-indented code and My\ Documents rewritten in what you copied; it now touches only maths.

Nothing you type is lost. Unsaved changes, Untitled tabs included, are backed up as you type and come back after a crash. Clicking a relative link in a document, or pressing Ctrl+R, used to replace the whole app and every tab with it; neither can now. Unsaved Markdown edits survive switching between Edit and the reading view and changes to the file on disk, where a bar now offers Reload, Keep mine or Compare. Saves are atomic, and a clean Ctrl+S writes nothing.

Files keep their line endings, encoding and indentation. CRLF stays CRLF, UTF-16 and Windows-1252 files open and save as themselves, and tabs stay tabs. The status bar shows all three and changes them in a click. UTF-16 files, such as PowerShell 5.1's output, used to be refused as binary.

Documents stay in their place. A document can't restyle or cover the app, navigate it away, or load images from the internet until you allow it (per document, or always in Settings → Markdown). An image written as //server/share/x.png could make Windows send your sign-in hash to that server just by opening the file; FATE now treats it as a web image. On Linux, FATE no longer downloads a spell-check dictionary from Google on first launch.

New: an application menu (press Alt) with Open Recent and the Windows Jump List; right-click menus for text and for tabs; command palette modes (: go to line, @ symbols, # search all open tabs); find in the reading view; links between documents that open in tabs; an Edit mode whose preview scrolls with you; a Follow mode for logs; spell check while editing Markdown; and highlighting for PowerShell, batch and Dockerfile code blocks.

Fixed, among many others: square roots and vector arrows in maths, Mermaid diagrams that vanished when the window regained focus, diffs that were never syntax highlighted, Escape closing the document you were typing in, and duplicate tabs that multiplied on every launch.

Smaller and safer to install. Every package is much smaller: the app's own archive inside each one shrinks from 211 MB to 13 MB. Uninstalling the .deb no longer breaks apt update, upgrading the .rpm no longer removes the FATE command (this upgrade puts it back), and uninstalling on Windows removes FATE's file associations for your account too. The Microsoft Store package opens .markdown, .txt and code files as well.

Install

• Windows: FATE-Setup-1.14.0.exe. Existing installs update themselves.
• Ubuntu / Debian / Mint / Pop!_OS: FATE-1.14.0-amd64.deb, or add the repository once:

  sudo curl -fsSL -o /usr/share/keyrings/fate-archive-keyring.gpg https://github.com/VagueDustin/FATE/releases/download/apt/fate-archive-keyring.gpg
  sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fate.sources https://github.com/VagueDustin/FATE/releases/download/apt/fate.sources
  sudo apt update && sudo apt install fate
  

• Fedora / RHEL: FATE-1.14.0-x86_64.rpm, or:

  sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/yum.repos.d/fate.repo https://github.com/VagueDustin/FATE/releases/download/repodata/fate.repo
  sudo dnf install fate
  

• Arch / Manjaro / EndeavourOS / CachyOS: build fate-editor-bin from aur/ with makepkg -si.
• Snap Store: sudo snap install fate: snapd keeps it updated. Add sudo snap connect fate:removable-media once to edit files on USB sticks and other removable drives.
• Any Linux: FATE-1.14.0-x86_64.AppImage: chmod +x and run; it updates itself. AppImages need FUSE 2 (sudo pacman -S fuse2 on Arch, sudo apt install libfuse2t64 on Ubuntu 24.04 and later).