SheetPlanner 5.2 Release Notes

Posted by SheetPlanner
Mar 10, 2026 at 01:15 AM

All,
For those of you interested, please download and try SheetPlanner 5.2.

5.2 is a huge update in terms of performance improvements, bug fixes, new features and Liquid Glass UI polish.

Release notes below:

Peter

# SheetPlanner 5.2 Release Notes #

SheetPlanner 5.2 is a big update to this spreadsheet-like project planning tool. Major enhancements in version 5.2 include:

- Major usability improvements across Outline, Timeline, Board, and Year views, including better editing behavior, safer multi-row pasting, improved column resizing on Mac, and multiple visual and interaction fixes.
- Significant Inspector improvements across platforms, including smoother updates, restored group states, improved layout behavior, and better integration with Outline editing.
- Sidebar enhancements on iPad and Mac, including inline sidebar display by default on iPad, improved folder handling and drag behavior, document title controls in the sidebar, and better keyboard navigation.
- Modernized toolbar and menu system with a cleaner unified Mac toolbar, adaptive toolbar controls on iPad and iPhone, improved menu organization, and additional keyboard shortcuts.
- Enhanced Smart Filters with a redesigned popover editor on Mac, support for naming and detaching the editor, improved focus handling, and better restoration of focus and filter state.
- Improved focus-based filtering, including hierarchical topic selection, automatic sidebar expansion to show focused rows, and better preservation of focus state when filters are cleared.
- Date picker enhancements in the Outline view, including support for parent rows with calculations, additional value options, and improved reliability.
- Expanded live sync support to cloud providers such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, with improved coordination between devices to avoid cloud-drive conflicts.
- Reliability improvements to live sync, including fixes for missed sync starts, and multiple stability improvements.
- Added sync diagnostics logging tools to help trace and debug syncing and publisher behavior.
- Major performance improvements throughout the app, reducing unnecessary reloads, layout work, logging overhead, and view refresh churn.
- Updated completed button styling with a new circular style, customizable colors, and consistent appearance across views.
- Added a new single-view mode option on Mac, allowing each tab to show either a single view or multiple views.
- Added a new About window on iPad and iPhone.
- Added new settings for spacebar behavior in the Outline and default font and color for notes.
- Plus many other improvements; see the full release notes on the SheetPlanner website for details.

Read on for a detailed list of changes:

* Outline view fixes and improvements:
- Double-clicking Outline column dividers now sizes the column to fit the visible values. [Mac]
- Added a Resize to Fit Content command in the column menu, that does the same as the above.
- When a single cell is selected, pasting multiple rows will now insert extra rows after the selected one, rather than overwriting subsequent rows, to avoid the risk of data loss.
- Fixed Topic editing in Outline rows so the first line stays visible while multi-line row height expands. [Mac]
- Fixed an occasional beep when indenting, outdenting, or toggling edit mode while a cell is being edited. [Mac]
- Added support for starting Outline cell editing by typing on an external keyboard after selecting a cell. [iPad]
- Fixed live Topic row sizing while editing so row height expands as you type. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed a crash that could occur while editing a Topic when syncing updates triggered view reloads. [iPad & iPhone]
- When a row has a long note, it is now loaded and displayed inline correctly (before it was only loaded if shown in a new tab).
- Fixed iPad date picker selections in the Outline so choosing a date updates the cell value. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed note typing color in Dark Mode when starting to edit a note so new text uses the appearance-adapted note style color. [Mac]
- Fixed an occasional beep when ending editing the Topic cell.
- Fixed dragging columns. [Mac]

* Timeline view fixes:
- Fixed occasional missing horizontal dividers.
- Fixed the shadows in the Timeline view when the Outline is also visible. [Mac]

* Board view fixes:
- Fixed Board card dragging so drops use the actual drop location and no longer intermittently land in the wrong lane. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed Board card selection so selecting a card no longer recenters the board and highlight drawing updates without visual artifacts. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed Board scrolling artifacts where cards could briefly appear in the wrong position while moving around the board. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed live sync refresh so Board updates after remote changes are received.

* Year view improvement:
- Now shows additional months to fill visible empty space.

* Inspector fixes and improvements:
- The Inspector now uses a full-height background and a rounded control to switch pages.
- The Inspector now slides in from the right, instead of a popover, on iPadOS 26. [iPad]
- Updated the iPhone Inspector sheet to open at half height with drag support to full height or dismiss. [iPhone]
- Made the List Inspector item color pickers use a circular shape instead of appearing oval. [Mac]
- The iPad Inspector now uses an opaque background like on Mac. [iPad]
- Changed the Mac Inspector toolbar icon to the modern style. [Mac]
- The Inspector now also draws more smoothly when changing the layout, like toggling the filter bar. [Mac]
- The Inspector now remembers and restores the expanded/collapsed state of the groups (at last!). [Mac]
- Fixed crash when editing dates via date picker in the Inspector. [iPad & iPhone]
- Fixed editing the Topic in the Values Inspector. [iPad & iPhone]
- Changes in the Inspector are now live-updated in the Outline view. [iPad & iPhone]

* Enhanced completed button style:
- Added a new Circle style for the completed button; set in the Value Inspector for the Topic cell.
- Added a color picker to change the color of the completed button.
- Unified drawing of the completed button (appears in the sidebar, Outline, Board, and Month views).
- Fixed checkmark state in the sidebar for partially complete rows. [Mac]
- Fixed sometimes not saving the completed button style (in the Format Inspector for the Topic column).

* Sidebar improvements:
- The sidebar is now shown inline by default, so it’s readily available for focusing and switching sheets. It can be hidden if not needed. [iPad]
- Added a menu command in the View menu and action (...) menu to toggle between showing the sidebar and Inspector inline or in an overlay (as before). [iPad]
- Fixed loading of a document with custom folders in the sidebar.
- Fixed dragging a sheet to a custom folder, and related dragging validation. [Mac]
- The button to toggle the sidebar now appears above the sidebar when visible, or before the title when hidden. [Mac]
- Fixed the sidebar being empty if the document opens with the sidebar hidden, then it is shown. [Mac]
- The split dividers are now hidden, for a cleaner look on macOS 26. [Mac]
- Fixed unnecessary space on the left edge. [iPad & iPhone]
- Added a document title at the top of the sidebar, which shows the filename, selected sheet, and edit state, like on Mac. [iPad & iPhone]
- Tap the title to show a menu, with information about the document at the top. [iPad & iPhone]
- The menu includes a Rename command, to rename the document. [iPad & iPhone]
- The menu also includes New Sheet, Duplicate Sheet, and Duplicate Sheet and Rows commands. [iPad & iPhone]

* Toolbar and menus improvements:
- The window titlebar and toolbar now uses a unified appearance, with the document title and toolbar buttons on the same level. [Mac]
- The current sheet name and/or any filter/focus now appears below the document title. [Mac]
- The toolbar now defaults to only showing the icons, as is the modern convention (but you can re-show the title text if you wish). [Mac]
- The toolbar now appears fully-formed when opening a document, instead of briefly showing extra buttons. [Mac]
- Changed the Views control to use regular bar buttons, and automatically collapse to a single button with a menu if the window is narrow. [iPad & iPhone]
- Removed the Connect item from the toolbar.
- Added the Connect submenu to the Organize menu. [iPad]
- Added titles to the toolbar buttons; they appear in the overflow menu if the window is narrow. [iPad & iPhone]
- When displaying the Inspector inline, the Inspector toolbar button is hidden. [iPad]
- Added the Welcome to SheetPlanner, What’s New, etc items to the Help menu in the menubar. [iPad]

* Single view mode option:
- Added a new Show Single View / Show Multiple Views option in the View menu. [Mac]
- This option is tab-specific. [Mac]
- Holding the Option key when selecting a view via the toolbar will temporarily reverse this setting. [Mac]
- Changed the keyboard shortcut of Show Views Vertically/Horizontally to ⇧⌥⌘0, as the new view mode option uses ⌥⌘0. [Mac]
- The Show Views Vertically/Horizontally option is not available when using Single view mode, since it doesn’t apply. [Mac]
- By default, documents use Single view mode, unless they already have multiple views displayed on upgrade. [Mac]
- The Project Plan templates default to Multiple view mode, to show the Outline and Timeline. [Mac]
- A tip popover appears when first using the views control, to inform about the view mode option. [Mac]

* The Smart Filter editor is now in a popover:
- The filter editor now appears in a popover on Mac, like on iPad. [Mac]
- It now includes a Name field; leave blank to use an automatic name, or enter a custom one. [Mac]
- The popover can be dragged from any empty space above the criteria to detach it to a floating window. [Mac]
- The controls are larger than before, and laid out more tidily. [Mac]
- Moved the restore current view and focus options to the top.
- When opening a template with saved filters, the Filter Bar is shown by default.

* Focus in Smart Filters:
- When clearing (exiting) a filter, the focus is set back to what it was before using the filter (even from a previous session).
- Increased the size of the Focus button in the filter editor. [Mac]
- Fixed the focus button showing up when focused via a filter. [iPad & iPhone]
- When adding a new Smart Filter, if currently Focused, that focus is saved in the filter.
- When using a saved filter, any focus state is restored.
- When clearing (exiting) the filter, the focus state remains; it can be cleared separately if desired, but will often still be wanted.
- When changing or clearing the focus, the filter is cleared, since its conditions are no longer satisfied.
- Added a “From focus” button in the filter editor, that shows the filtered focus, if any.
- Clicking/tapping that button shows a popover listing the topics of the top-level rows, and the disclosures can be expanded to show any levels. Checkboxes are included to select zero, one, or more topics for focus.
- If a parent topic is selected, its children can’t be selected, since they are included by the parent.
- The disclosure state in the picker is remembered, except that the selected topics are automatically disclosed.
- When selecting a filter that contains a focus, or choosing a Focus in the Outline view, the sidebar is expanded to show the selected focus.

* Date picker improvements:
- In the Outline view, the date picker menu button is now available in parent cells with calculations.
- The date picker menu button now doesn’t unexpectedly disappear after choosing a date.
- The date picker now includes a value pop-up menu at the top, available for parent rows, enabling choosing between custom values or Latest or Earliest calculations.
- The date picker now has a bit more space, to fit with macOS 26. [Mac]
- Fixed the date picker not working properly when accessed via the Timeline Info popover.

* Added handy arrow key shortcuts:
- Pressing Option-Left Arrow in the Outline view when not editing a cell will collapse the selected row(s); if the row can’t be collapsed, its parent (if any) is collapsed and selected.
- Pressing Option-Right Arrow will correspondingly expand the selected row(s), if possible.
- Moved the Show/Hide Sidebar menu command into a Sidebar submenu.
- Added Select Previous Item and Select Next Item commands to that submenu, with keyboard shortcuts Cmd-Option-Up Arrow and Cmd-Option-Down Arrow, to enable navigating the sidebar via the keyboard.
- Also added Collapse Item and Expand Item to the Sidebar submenu, with shortcuts Cmd-Option-Left Arrow and Cmd-Option-Right Arrow, to collapse or expand the selected item in the sidebar.
- On iPad, the sidebar shortcuts require the Control key too, as iPadOS doesn’t allow Cmd-Option arrows. [iPad]

* Template Chooser improvements:
- Reimplemented the Template Chooser to use a native split view sidebar style on macOS 26. [Mac]
- Added a Recents sidebar section in the Template Chooser to quickly view recently used templates. [Mac]
- Updated the Open Recent drop-down menu to use the new one (see below). [Mac]
- Fixed the Project Plan template so the Successors column remains hidden when first opened on another device.

* Enhanced recent documents:
- Replaced File > Open Recent with a custom menu grouped by date ranges, with tooltips showing the location. [Mac]
- It is more resilient to temporary cloud outages (won’t forget recents if briefly offline). [Mac]
- If a recent document can’t be resolved, you can choose to locate it or remove it from Recents. [Mac]

* Added About window:
- Added an About SheetPlanner window, available from the More menu and app menu. [iPad & iPhone]

* New Settings:
- Added an option on the General page for the Spacebar action: by default pressing the spacebar with a cell selected in the Outline (when not editing) will start editing, but this option enables you to instead toggle the completed state. [Mac]
- Pressing Option-Space will reverse this behavior. [Mac]
- Added options on the Defaults page for the font and color to use for new notes. [Mac]

* Live sync fixes and improvements:
- Reduced live sync participant start/stop notification churn by delaying stop notifications briefly and canceling them if activity resumes.
- When a document is an observer, the Save command is disabled. [Mac]
- Fixed a bug where syncing didn’t start for a newly saved document, leading to the publisher state being inaccurate.
- Improved the publisher evaluation logic.
- Fixed changes not being saved to the document after being synced from an observer.
- Significant performance boost and faster ready-to-sync by remembering more sync state (the boost will apply after it does one more full sync with the cloud).
- Several more fixes and improvements to fast syncing.

* Fast sync now supports Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and other cloud providers:
- Now detects when a document is saved on a cloud drive other than iCloud Drive.
- If so, and the document is open on more than one device at the same time, changes are only saved to the cloud drive from one device, to prevent conflicts.
- The first device to open the document will typically save, but that could change depending on usage.
- The changes from each device will be synchronized via the fast-sync mechanism, so all devices have the same content.
- If another device is publishing changes, the window subtitle will say “Shared” instead of “Edited”.

* Sync diagnostics logging:
- Added an optional sync diagnostics logging pane in the Activity Inspector.
- Only available as a Debug menu option; enable the Debug menu (via Settings), then enable Diagnostic Logging, then choose Sync Diagnostics ▸ Show in Activity to make the pane show up.
- Includes the current publisher status and sync status.
- Also includes an auto-updating log of publisher- and sync-related log entries (there are a lot!).
- Plus a Copy button, that copies all of the log entries onto the clipboard.
- Tip: if using Copy on an iPad, you can paste the text into a TextEdit document on your Mac thanks to Universal Clipboard.
- Useful to help trace publisher and sync issues.

* Performance improvements:
- Reduced redundant split-view state updates to improve view refresh responsiveness. [Mac]
- Reduced unnecessary divider and split-resize bookkeeping work when switching views to improve tab-switch responsiveness. [Mac]
- Reduced unnecessary full Outline data reloads during view switching to improve Outline tab responsiveness. [Mac]
- Reduced repeated hidden-Outline split sizing and unnecessary Inspector reloads during view updates to cut tab-switch lag spikes. [Mac]
- Added diagnostics for frequent Inspector reload bursts to help identify remaining reload churn. [Mac]
- Reduced Inspector refresh overhead by avoiding duplicate scroll restoration and redundant print-container layout updates. [Mac]
- Reduced hidden-Inspector split bookkeeping work and added finer Inspector reload diagnostics to identify remaining spikes. [Mac]
- Stopped reloading folders on simple view switches unless folder/sidebar state changed. [Mac]
- Coalesced nested Inspector reload requests and improved Inspector timing diagnostics to isolate remaining reload spikes. [Mac]
- Optimized Inspector disclosure updates to avoid unnecessary expand/collapse work during view switches. [Mac]
- Skipped redundant Inspector disclosure and scroll restoration work when state is unchanged. [Mac]
- Reduced false Inspector disclosure updates caused by group reordering during reloads. [Mac]
- Reduced Outline redraw overhead by skipping header reload work during redraw-only refreshes and avoiding unchanged grid color updates. [Mac]
- Avoided redundant Inspector print-container updates when print mode is unchanged. [Mac]
- Reduced unnecessary Outline topic-width recalculation when split positions are unchanged. [Mac]
- Avoided unnecessary base split-divider positioning while sidebar or Inspector panes are hidden. [Mac]
- Skipped redundant post-layout view-bounds updates when split state and bounds are unchanged. [Mac]
- Fixed some significant CPU usage, e.g. trying to update the Timeline when it wasn’t shown.
- Made logging much more efficient (important since it is used extensively).
- The Diagnostic Log now updates every 10 seconds in the background, and starts a new log for each launch or day.
- Disabled some excessive logging.
- When resizing the window or columns, the note, links, and tags now remain visually unchanged (but behind the scenes temporarily replaced with images, for performance reasons). [Mac]
- Fixed an issue with the sidebar.
- Plus other improvements.

* Apple Intelligence (experiment):
- Added an Apple Intelligence child-row generation experiment. [Mac]
- To enable it, show the Debug menu and turn on Enable Intelligence (only shown when Apple Intelligence is available on this Mac). [Mac]
- Then use Organize ▸ Generate Child Rows on a selected row to generate and add child rows from the row’s Topic and Note. [Mac]
- Use the note to write a prompt to guide the rows to generate and columns to populate; the more detail you provide, the more likely to be what you want. [Mac]
- If the selected row already has child rows, you’ll be prompted to Replace, Append, or Cancel before rows are added. [Mac]
- Generated rows always include Topic and can also fill other columns (for example Start Date, Finish Date, and People) when sensible. [Mac]

* Plus many other changes:
- Rebuilt Mac app menus in code for easier maintenance and aligned more shared menu commands between Mac and iPad.
- Added icons for all app menus.
- Fixed the initial visibility of the sidebar and Inspector so they are now restored from the saved state.
- Added a Debug menu option to temporarily disable optimization paths for A/B performance testing.
- Fixed the note text color; now properly adapts between light and dark modes.
- Fixed a crash when loading a document with a lot of sheets. [iPad]
- Fixed layout of the Settings view in landscape on iPhone. [iPhone]
- Fixed slow layout on phone rotation after showing the Inspector. [iPhone]
- The Month and Year views now update correctly when selecting a row in the sidebar.
- Fixed a crash when attempting to drag a row onto one of its own children.
- Replaced the toolbar search field with a dynamic search toolbar item: it resizes with the window, and if the window is narrow, it collapses into a button, and expands when clicked, or on Cmd-F. Plus implemented pressing Esc to clear and exit the search field. [Mac]
- Fixed the sidebar completion pies updating when changing between light and dark modes.
- Fixed Focus in New Tab. [Mac]
- Moved updating records to after loading is complete, to avoid accessing settings not yet loaded.
- Fixed sometimes unexpectedly reverting the active theme when syncing.
- When hiding the Inspector, and there is empty space to the right of the last column in the Outline, the Topic column width is now adjusted to eliminate that empty space.

Note: changes apply to the Mac, iPad, and iPhone editions, unless otherwise noted.

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