Release notes, July 18: paste a link list into Compose, drafts keep your sign-off, safer links
Hey everyone, posting today's release notes.
Most of what shipped is in three places: what generated drafts are allowed to do, the Compose screen, and navigation.
What changed:
Paste a link list straight into Compose. If your next issue starts in a spreadsheet, doc, or Slack message, paste the whole list. HeyNews extracts the links, removes duplicates, and shows what it will add before opening any pages. They become one-off Stories in your draft selection, in paste order. Larger lists keep working if you close the window, and you can retry failed links.
Drafts keep your closing lines. Sign-offs, invitations to keep reading, and mentions of your other newsletters now survive generation. Calls to action are linked only when the link comes from a Story you selected or a reusable link you approved in your AI Writer's Voice Profile.
Every link is checked before a draft saves. HeyNews verifies links come from your selected Stories or approved reusable links, and catches unfinished placeholders. If a check fails it rewrites once; if the second version still fails, nothing is saved and you can try again.
More room in Compose. The story pool and your selected stories get more space, and on smaller screens you can switch between Story Pool and Selected without losing your place. With several ready AI Writers, you choose one before the workspace opens and can switch later from the header. Select Best is now a quieter shortcut with an Undo, and Write Draft sits directly below your selected stories.
Scheduled drafts know the right issue day. If an automation prepares your Friday issue on Thursday, the AI Writer writes with Friday in mind, following your saved lead time and timezone, including seasonal clock changes.
Refine with AI survives leaving the page. Refresh or navigate away mid-refinement and Compose restores the work in progress, or applies the finished copy as unsaved changes to review. The Draft stays locked during the run, and a failed refinement leaves your previous copy intact.
Navigation is grouped by publication. The sidebar follows the publication you selected, the publication name appears in page headers, saved work lives under Issues, past writing and AI Writers under Voice & past issues, and platforms, feeds, and imports under Connections & imports. On mobile, Dashboard, Compose, and Issues stay within reach.
Plus the usual fixes: older Settings links for Publications and Connections & imports open the right page, Compose asks before you leave with unsaved changes, and archive checks that find no usable issue now say so and point you toward the newsletter's RSS feed or public archive.
Full release notes: https://roadmap.heynews.co/p/whats-new-july-18-2026-I9hjk0
If a link check blocks a draft, it shouldn't, or the new Compose layout gets in your way, reply on this thread, and we'll dig in.
Cagri, co-founder
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