Doc: Version 2.9 release post

readme/news/20221216-release-2-9.md

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+---
+tweet: What's new in Joplin 2.9
+---
+
+# What's new in Joplin 2.9
+
+## Proxy support
+
+Both the desktop and mobile application now support proxies thanks to the work of Jason Williams. This will allow you to use the apps in particular when you are behind a company proxy.
+
+![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/laurent22/joplin/dev/Assets/WebsiteAssets/images/news/20221216-proxy-support.png)
+
+## New PDF viewer
+
+The desktop application now features a new PDF viewer thanks to the work of Asrient during GSoC.
+
+The main advantage for now is that this viewer preserves the last PDF page that was read. In the next version, the viewer will also include a way to annotate PDF files.
+
+##  Multi-language spell checking
+
+The desktop app include a multi-language spell checking features, which allows you, for example, to spell-check notes in your native language and in English.
+
+## New mobile text editor
+
+Writing formatted notes on mobile has always been cumbersome due to the need to enter special format characters like `*` or `[`, etc.
+
+Thanks to the work of Henry Heino during GSoC, writing notes on the go is now easier thanks to an improved Markdown editor.
+
+![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/laurent22/joplin/dev/Assets/WebsiteAssets/images/news/20221216-mobile-beta-editor.png)
+
+The most visible feature is the addition of a toolbar, which helps input those special characters, like on desktop.
+
+Moreover Henry made a lot of subtle but useful improvements to the editor, for example to improve the note appearance, to improve list continuation, etc. Search within a note is now also supported as well as spell-checking.
+
+At a more technical level, Henry also added many test units to ensure that the editor remains robust and reliable.
+
+To enable the feature, go to the configuration screen and selected "Opt-in to the editor beta". It is already very stable so we will probably promote it to be the main editor from the next version.
+
+## Improved alignment of notebook icons
+
+Previously, when you would assign an icon to a notebook, it would shift the title to the right, but notebook without an icon would not. It means that notebooks with and without an icon would not be vertically aligned.
+
+To tidy things up, this new version adds a default icons to notebooks without an explicitly assigned icon. This result in the notebook titles being correctly vertically aligned.
+
+Note that this feature is only enabled if you use custom icons - otherwise it will simply display the notebook titles without any default icons, as before.
+
+![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/laurent22/joplin/dev/Assets/WebsiteAssets/images/news/20221216-notebook-icons.png)
+
+## Improved handling of file attachments
+
+Self Not Found made a number of small but useful improvements to attachment handling, including increasing the maximum size to 200MB, adding support for attaching multiple files, and fixing issues with synchronising attachments via proxy.
+
+## Fixed filesystem sync on mobile
+
+This was a long and complex change due to the need to support new Android APIs but hopefully that should now be working again, thanks to the work of jd1378.
+
+So you can now sync again your notes with Syncthing and other file-based synchronisation systems.
+
+## And more...
+
+In total this new desktop version includes 36 improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes.
+
+As always, a lot of work went into the Android and iOS app too, which include 37 improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes.
+
+See here for the changelogs:
+
+- [Desktop app changelog](https://joplinapp.org/changelog/)
+- [Android app changelog](https://joplinapp.org/changelog_android/)
+
+## About the Android version
+
+Unfortunately we cannot publish the Android version because it is based on a framework version that Google does not accept. To upgrade the app a lot of changes are needed and another round of pre-releases, and therefore there will not be a 2.9 version for Google Play. You may however download the official APK directly from there: [Android 2.9 Official Release](https://github.com/laurent22/joplin-android/releases/tag/android-v2.9.8)
+
+This is the reality of app stores in general - small developers being imposed never ending new requirements by all-powerful companies, and by the time a version is finally ready we can't even publish it because yet more requirements are in place.
+
+For the record the current 2.9 app works perfectly fine. It targets Android 11, which is only 2 years old and is still supported (and installed on millions of phones). Google requires us to target Android 12 which only came out last year.