New In Karea: A Built-In Media Player And Tasks You Can Just Describe

This release brings two new things: a media player built into Karea, and a faster way to create tasks by just describing them. Below that, a round of smaller updates and fixes.

A Media Player Inside Karea

Most of us keep a separate tab or app open just for something to listen to while we work. That's one more window to find, one more thing using up memory, and one more reason to leave what you were doing.

Karea now has its own player, so you don't need any of that. Whatever you want to listen to plays right inside Karea, next to your work, with no extra tab and no extra app.

Rest your pointer on the thin line at the top of the screen and the player slides down. It plays:

• The Quran, verse by verse, with a choice of reciters. Play one surah or a selection of several, on repeat if you like. A slider follows the recitation, and a book icon opens the current ayah on quran.com.
• Online audio: YouTube, SoundCloud and Vimeo links, internet radio, or any direct link to an audio file.
• Your own files: choose an audio file or drop it onto the page. It plays in your browser and is never uploaded.

When you pause the Quran, the player waits for the end of the current verse so a verse is never cut in half. Press pause again if you need silence right away. Your keyboard's media keys and headphone buttons work too.

It picks up where you left off. The player remembers the surah and ayah, the link, or the file you were on and how far in you were, even on another device. For a file from your computer, Karea remembers its name and position. If the file isn't on the device you're using now, drop it in again and it carries on from the same spot. Drop a different file and it starts from the beginning.

Several tabs or devices, one player. Only one of them plays the sound. The others show what's playing as it plays, and can pause it or move it over to themselves.

While something plays, the player shrinks to a small bubble you can drag to any edge of the screen. If you'd rather not have the bubble, or the line at the top, use the gear icon in the player or go to Settings. The "Most played" card in Reporting shows what you listen to most.

Describe A Task, Karea Fills The Form

The new-task window now has a second way in. Instead of filling in each field, just describe the task: "Call the accountant about the Q3 invoices before Friday, high priority, project Finance". Karea fills in the title, description, priority, deadline, project and the rest.

• Fill and review puts the result in the form so you can check it before saving.
• Create directly saves it right away. If it looks like a task you already have, it stops and shows you the possible duplicates first.

Duplicate detection is smarter too. It now looks at the description as well as the title, so two tasks about the same thing are caught even when they're worded differently. Each possible duplicate appears as a task card with a "% match", and the form turns red when a match is very likely.

Smaller Updates And Fixes

• Settings are easier to scan: every setting has an icon, and Display is split into sections by topic.
• New tasks land in the right category much more often.
• The new-task window keeps you in place after creating a task, so you can open it or start another one.
• Deadlines on Today count down live, meetings show "Now" right on time, and the Join button pulses when it's time to join.
• You can add another work session to a task straight from its timeline block.
• The day-load banner only counts the work still ahead of you, whenever your day ends.
• Tasks and meetings can repeat every other week or every other month.
• Archived projects no longer appear in search, mentions, capacity or reporting.
• Picking a date in a reminder or deadline popover no longer closes the popover.
• Dragging inside a dialog and letting go outside it no longer closes the dialog.
• The editor keeps your blank lines.
• Durations in alerts read naturally ("3h 28m").
• The greeting screen shows only when you open Karea, not on every page change.

All of this is live on karea.app. If anything looks off, the bug button in the corner sends us a report.