Outerline Outerline

Outerline 1.0-1499

Summary

Build 1499 is a wide-ranging update across Mac and iPhone. The headline addition is comments: select any text on Mac or iPhone and leave an anchored note, with inline markers, popovers, and an inspector list on both platforms. Accounts are now fully native on iPhone, including Continue with Apple, in-app sign-up, and six-digit email verification. Outerline Publishing becomes a real subscription with a native purchase and restore flow, and publishing access now lives on your Outerline account so it stays in sync across iPhone and Mac. Existing testers keep their access. Alongside that, Mac gains Remember Position, a unified Copy menu, keyboard navigation in Quick Open and Advanced Search, and per-surface word count controls, while iPhone gets a Force Sync action for iCloud and a substantial fix for typing lag in longer documents.

Comments

Improvements

  • Added comments on selected text across both platforms. On Mac, use Format > Add Comment… (Shift-Cmd-C); on iPhone, use the comment action in the editor toolbar for any non-empty selection.
  • Comments are composed inline, anchored to the text they describe, with the commented range briefly emphasized in accent blue while you write.
  • Commented text keeps a persistent inline marker. Select it to open a popover with edit, delete, copy link, and jump-to-text actions.
  • Added a Comments section to the inspector on both platforms — the macOS inspector and the iPhone Markup inspector — listing every comment in the document.
  • Comments stay editable and deletable even when their original text can no longer be resolved.

Anchoring and undo

  • Deleting all of the text a comment covers removes the comment, and undo or redo restores or removes the text and its comment together.
  • Multi-range deletions, stale anchors, and transient save failures are handled quietly in the background and never block text editing.

macOS

Improvements

  • Added keyboard navigation to Quick Open and Advanced Search: use Up and Down Arrow to highlight results, then press Return to open the selection. Advanced Search opens directly to the matching line.
  • Added Remember Position under Settings > Editor, on by default. Each document reopens at its saved selection and scroll position across document switches and app relaunches, while deep links and outline jumps still take precedence. Turn it off to always start at the top.
  • Unified document copy actions under a single Copy submenu with Copy Link, Copy Prompt, Copy Markdown, and Copy Text, available from the file list, Starred, and the editor. The editor Share menu keeps its copy glyphs and gains the same submenu, plus Edit Title alongside Publish and export.
  • Grouped word-count visibility under Settings > Editor > Word Count, with separate Show in Library and Show in Document controls. New installations start with the document status bar hidden after onboarding.
  • Made Move to context menus clearer by naming the parent-folder action after its destination instead of the generic Move Here.

Fixes

  • Fixed unreliable drag-and-drop reordering in the Starred sidebar. Any starred document can now be moved to the top, middle, or bottom, the new order persists, and documents can still be dragged into Starred from the file list.
  • Fixed Recently Deleted so entering the scope clears the stale live editor, selecting a deleted document loads the correct content, and the document stays genuinely read-only. Leaving the scope restores the prior selection.
  • Prevented MCP bridge startup and shutdown from freezing Outerline while stale connection files are cleaned up.
  • Fixed the Share a Link panel’s top highlight appearing as a second rounded layer. The shimmer now clips to the panel’s full chrome for one clean silhouette.
  • Removed the estimated reading time from the editor status bar, leaving the more useful live word and character counts.

iOS

Improvements

  • Added a Force Sync action under Settings > Advanced > iCloud. It rescans iCloud for the active library and re-requests downloads for anything still remote — useful when files look stuck in the cloud or changes from another device haven’t appeared. The sync readout on the same screen updates live while it runs.
  • Renamed the Settings Diagnostics section to Advanced, with simplified iCloud and Metadata page titles.

Fixes

  • Fixed severe typing lag and hitches in longer documents by preventing the keyboard formatting toolbar from repeatedly rescanning the whole document as the caret moves.

Accounts

Improvements

  • Added fully native iPhone Outerline Account sign-in and account creation. Email entry, profile details, agreements, verification, loading, and error states now all stay inside the app.
  • Added native Continue with Apple for both new and returning users, including support for Apple private relay addresses and for linking Sign in with Apple to an existing Outerline account by verification code or secure email link.
  • Added six-digit email verification alongside secure sign-in links. Verification links return directly to Outerline, including when they are opened after the app has been closed.
  • Added Apple authorization lifecycle handling, so a revoked Apple session is securely signed out and clearly explained the next time you return to Outerline.
  • Native account creation respects invite-only registration when it is enabled, and presents the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy agreements in-app.
  • Refined the account screens with native outlined fields, clear blue primary actions, improved hierarchy, and button sizing consistent with Publish and onboarding.
  • Separated account verification from publishing access. Newly verified accounts stay signed in across iPhone and Mac without automatically receiving a publishing entitlement, and existing entitled accounts continue to work unchanged.
  • Established app.outerline.so for account management, administration, and authenticated publishing traffic, keeping s.outerline.so focused on public shares.

Fixes

  • Account verification URLs are now recognized as authentication links rather than document links, so they are no longer reported or routed as broken publishing links.
  • Existing accounts are directed back to sign-in during registration instead of creating duplicate account state.
  • Fixed Sign in with Apple loading state so the Apple system sheet completes cleanly without leaving a stalled spinner.
  • Fixed existing-account Apple linking incorrectly rejecting newly issued verification codes and magic links, and fixed relinking an Apple identity after its previous authorization had been revoked.
  • Fixed universal-link routing that could open Outerline without completing a pending Apple account link.
  • Removed the redundant Apple action from the dedicated email sign-up sheet and standardized the primary label as Continue with Apple.

Publish & Subscriptions

Improvements

  • Added the native Outerline Publishing subscribe and restore flow. Purchases are bound to your signed-in Outerline account, with explicit loading, cancellation, pending, retry, authentication, validation, and ownership-conflict states.
  • Added the Publish Plan screen with an outlined plan card, a full-width primary action, a consistent Restore action, structured status messaging, and renewal disclosure.
  • Added Subscription Required messaging when a signed-in account does not yet have publishing access — a full-height sheet on iPhone, a lightweight alert on Mac.
  • Publishing access now belongs to your Outerline account rather than a device, so activating a subscription is reflected immediately on both iPhone and Mac. Existing tester access is preserved.
  • Apple subscription lifecycle changes are handled end to end: renewals, cancellation, expiration, billing retry and grace period, refunds, revocation, and refund reversal. Cancelling turns off renewal but keeps publishing through the paid-through date.
  • If an update from Apple is delayed or missed, Outerline re-checks subscription status within 15 minutes so access stays accurate.
  • Verified purchases stay recoverable until the Outerline server accepts them, so a dropped connection mid-purchase doesn’t cost you the subscription.
  • Unpublishing, share removal, and account deletion remain available regardless of subscription status, and pending or lapsed accounts can still open existing published shares to copy their links or stop sharing.
  • Added Settings > Documents > Publish on iPhone, listing every shared document with native Copy Link and Unpublish controls.
  • Added Publish plan status and a Subscribe to Publish entry to both Account and Publish settings. Inactive accounts see the subscription action directly, and active accounts see their current plan state.
  • Unified Publish… across iPhone and Mac around the newspaper symbol, so the command no longer changes icon based on cached publication state.
  • Refined the subscription presentation and copy around Outerline Publish, including a shorter plan description, clearer feature language, renewal disclosure, and the existing-link guarantee.
  • Added identifier-safe subscription monitoring, incident and recovery alerting, integrity audits, and an external health endpoint, so publishing infrastructure can recover safely without exposing account or transaction details.

Fixes

  • Fixed registration and verification unintentionally activating publishing access.
  • Publish create and update requests now recheck the account’s current entitlement on the server, so a saved token cannot bypass suspended or inactive access, and suspended accounts can no longer open the purchase flow.
  • Made subscription updates from Apple safe to replay and reorder: already-processed events are ignored, interrupted events can retry, delayed or out-of-order events can’t overwrite newer state, and mismatched or unsigned data is rejected.
  • Preserved immutable ownership of an Apple purchase, so a subscription cannot silently move between Outerline accounts.
  • Fixed successful purchases briefly flashing a false Your Outerline session expired warning while the subscription sheet dismissed. Genuine authentication failures still ask you to sign in.
  • Fixed expired or otherwise non-active verified transactions getting stuck on “Purchase received” or “Finishing.” Outerline now finishes the stale transaction and returns to the normal Subscribe or Restore state.
  • Fixed Restore Purchases so an existing Apple subscription is updated cleanly instead of failing or producing duplicate entitlement state.
  • Dismissing the subscription sheet now clears its originating publish request and transaction session, preventing stale purchase state from leaking between accounts or documents.
  • Fixed inactive accounts opening only the Settings root when managing an existing shared document. Publish… now routes directly to the Publish settings page.
  • Made the server authoritative when reconciling shared-document status. iPhone refreshes publishing records when Publish settings opens and Mac reconciles at signed-in launch, removing stale entries for shares that no longer exist.
  • Hid the redundant Publish · Inactive status row when the actionable Subscribe to Publish row is already present.
  • Kept the Subscribe to Publish row blue while sign-out is in progress instead of briefly turning its text white.