A few users have wondered why Nu doesn't print the full directory size as part of `ls`. With 0.14, you'll now be able to get just that with the new `--du` argument to `ls`. Note: this isn't enabled by default as calculating the directory size can take quite a lot of processing.

## Startup speedups (fdncred)

It's important to make a good first impression, and with this release Nu gets a speed boost for the initial startup. It will now load plugins in parallel rather than one after another. In some cases, this can lead to startups 3x-4x faster than previous versions.

## Auto-cd speedups (quebin31)

We've also gotten a boost when using the automatic change directory. You'll notice that 0.14 is a lot snappier when you type a directory to automatically jump to.

## Lots of new commands

- `from eml` (aeshirey) - have lots of saved emails lying around and want to process them? With 0.14, you can now easily load them into Nu
- `empty?` (andrasio) - you can now check multiple columns for emptiness, and if empty, give them a value
- `skip-until`, `keep-while`, `keep-until` (andrasio) - similar to `skip-while`, you can optionally `skip` or `keep` rows if they meet a condition or until they meet a condition
- `merge` (andrasio) - ever have two related tables and wish you could merge them into one? The new `merge` command can help you do that
- `not-in:` operator (sophiajt) - going along with the `in:` operator is the new `not-in:`, which checks that a value isn't in the given list

## It-expansion (sophiajt, thegedge)

We've streamlined how `$it` is handled. The `$it` variable has always implied iteration (`$it` gets the name from iteration, item, and being "it"). In 0.14, we've made this more explicit with an expansion that happens inside of Nu.

Now, with Nu sees an `$it`, it expands it to a full `each` call.

```
> ls | echo $it.name
```

Internally, now expands to:

```
> ls | each { echo $it.name }
```

This helps us be more uniform about when iteration will happen. We've also updated how externals are handled so they can take advantage of this, making them work a lot more closely with how internals work.

## Doc and book updates (nespera, sophiajt, fdncred, jzaefferer, siedentop)

We're continuing to fill out help information on each of the commands. This release adds a few more to the list of documented commands.

The [book](https://www.nushell.sh/book/) has also gone through a big revision to bring it up-to-date with the 0.14 release. We've also added tables to help you transition from Bash, PowerShell, SQL, and LINQ. A big thanks to our contributors to help find and fix issues. There's more work to do here. If you're writing-inclined, come join us!

## Bugfixes and polish (quebin31, BurNiinTree, avandesa, pka, homburg, rimathia, thegedge, sophiajt, mhmdanas, JesterOrNot)

Lots of bugfixes and polish for this release. A big "thanks!" to everyone that joined in and filed bugs, fixed bugs, and gave feedback on discord, github, and twitter.

# Looking forward

We've got lots of fun things planned for upcoming releases: more intelligent autocomplete, autocomplete for popular external commands, and more streamlining of the engine itself.

If you'd like to help out by writing code, writing docs, helping with the website, or just have an idea, come join us on [discord](https://discord.gg/NtAbbGn) or [github](https://github.com/nushell/nushell). We'd love to hear from you!