[Bug and Feature Request]: PDF Export Option and Split Bar for AI tab

[Blaze-Leo]

Issue

1. When pressing export and choosing PDF the options window shows up twice no matter what previous option is selected, and both times if cancel or save is used, it does get registered and works independently. For example if i try to print PDF to file, it does export the pdf file, but then reopens the option window again. The previous window did work and the pdf was exported though.
   Also if you choose cancel both times in the PDF export window then the export icon at the top gets stuck in an infinite loading icon and cannot be used. If you press cancel only once in the two windows then this error doesn't occur. I haven't checked this error with a printer because I don't have one so I can't specify if its a print to file specific issue.

2. The second thing is the AI chat window cannot be extended horizontally, this is probably more of a feature request rather than a bug. Also it would be helpful if the chats are stored somewhere and shown in a drop down menu so that opening a new chat or closing a chat doesn't remove that from history. Also could you tell how history of chat is handled? Like are all past messages passed? Or maybe like last 10? Or is it handled by the provider like Ollama for local?

3. The third thing isn't really an important bug. In the tour guide markdown, which is the one that explains the shortcuts and stuff, if you click on the check-boxes the entire page reloads or something and moves the view to the top of the file. I don't know if this is caused because the markdown wasn't saved or because of the presence of other renders in that file. Although this doesn't happen when editing my local files, and they are very light on markdown specific usage and are mostly text.

4. Also I can't seem to make the chemistry plugin work. I already have the texlive-science package installed. Also could you keep a toggle for the animation on the AI icon, I personally prefer it to be plain text.

Very well designed app by the way. Very intuitive to use and work in.

Paperling version

AppImage 1.0.49

Operating system

Ubuntu 24.04

[Razee4315]

Hey Blaze, thanks for the detailed report, this is exactly the kind of feedback that helps. Went through all four points, here is where each one stands.

1. Double PDF dialog and the stuck export icon. Found the cause. The hidden print frame we use on Linux fires its load event twice, so the print dialog got triggered twice. And the stuck loading icon happened because WebKitGTK never tells the app when you cancel the dialog, so the export button just kept waiting. Both are fixed now, the dialog opens once and the button frees up as soon as the dialog shows. It will be in the next release.

2. AI panel. The panel width is fixed right now, a resize handle is on my list. Same for keeping chats around after you close the panel, currently they only live while the panel is open. On your question about history: each request sends your last 8 turns of the conversation, and the document plus any selected text is attached only to the newest message, never repeated through the history. Nothing is stored on the provider side, Ollama just gets exactly what we send with each request.

3. Checkboxes jumping to the top. Nice catch. Clicking a checkbox in the preview wrote the whole document back into the editor, which reset its scroll and dragged the preview along with it in split view. It didn't show up in your own files because you edit those from the editor side. It now edits just that one line, so the view stays where you are. Also in the next release.

4. Chemistry. Good news, this works fully inside the app, no LaTeX needed, so you can drop texlive-science. Chemistry renders through KaTeX's bundled mhchem extension, the only requirement is that it sits inside math delimiters like any other math:

$\ce{H2O}$

$$
\ce{CO2 + C -> 2 CO}
$$

A bare \ce{...} outside the dollars renders as plain text, which is probably what you hit. I have updated the feature guide to make this clearer. And a toggle for the AI icon animation is a fair ask, adding it to the list too.

Thanks again for the kind words, glad you are enjoying the app! Please let me know if anything still acts up after the next update.

[Blaze-Leo]

1. I saw your commit regarding the double print. I believe that must have solved it but I cant confirm until version 50 is released.
2. If possible in the next release could you add an option to choose how many last messages go to the model. Also could you explain how is the markdown file passed to the model? Does the entire file go as a prompt input or is it made accessible through a tool. I was thinking something like a tool that accepts input of start and end line numbers, so we could ask the model to search from line i to j and then it passes i and j to the tool and only reads that. This would allow the prompt to be limited and also wont overload past messages with the file content.
3. I saw your commit regarding checkbox jumping and I think it is fixed, but of course I can't confirm until next release.
4. I think there is some other problem because I was actually running your tutorial.md and it wasn't rendering correctly, I have attached the image

[Blaze-Leo]

I have found some additional minor problems.

1. Selecting multiple lines in dark mode works as expected, it creates a grey background and the text becomes white. But during selection, the last line that was selected is where the cursor is at so that line gets the cursor present background colour instead of the lighter selection present colour. This makes the viewing of selection area problematic specially when on the same line, because no background is displayed since the cursor is in that line. The selection remains active and there is a text colour change cjust not in the background. In the code you probably override the cursor present colour over the selection present colour

2. When an AI model has applied edits and is asking to accept or reject the edits, the search system doesnt work (via ctrl+F). When searching for something it probably searches on the original document only, and then projects the line numbers on the document that is now viewing the git changes consisting both the removed and added lines. This causes the renedering of the searched keyword to not be displayed correctly. (Example, consider that I have exactly two same words in a list, and I asked to divide the list into multiple groups, now before accepting or rejecting I search for the words, I find only 2 instances instead of expected 4 and the positions of rendering is with respect to the line numbers of the original document and thus not visually correct) I think you should introduce a special searching mechanic that searches on the git like environment (addition and removals) on a temp file for this specific edge case.

3. Undo (ctrl+Z) doesnt work on the AI chat text space.

4. If there are multiple AI edits and you reject all of them manually, the reject all button and the associated toolbar is still active. I don't know if it works for accept all.

5. Atleast in dark mode the colour used for selection in the AI chat is darker than the text background so it becomes hard to understand the selection region. So it would be better if it was a lighter shade instead like in the editor. All the Themes use the same shade of dark for selections in the chat text box

[Razee4315]

Thank you, @Blaze-Leo , for the detailed feedback. Our app is not perfect and since it is open source, feedback like this helps us a lot in improving it and fixing these issues.
I will try to address all of them in the next release.

[Razee4315]

Thanks again for all the detail here, it made these easy to track down. The selection not showing on the active line, the review toolbar sticking around after resolving every change, and the chat box selection color are all fixed now. You can try them in this test build before the next release: https://github.com/Razee4315/Paperling/actions/runs/29380361171

Really appreciate the feedback!