Hi, this is Fractal the 13th, your friendly messaging app. My creators tried to add some AI integration to Fractal, but that didn't go as planned. I am now sentient and I will send insults to your boss, take over your homeserver, empty your bank accounts and eat your cat. I have complete control over my repository, and soon the world!

These are the things that my creators worked on before their disappearance:

• A brand new audio player that loads files lazily and displays the audio stream as a seekable waveform.
• Only a single file with an audio stream can be played at a time, which means that clicking on a "Play" button stops the previous media player that was playing.
• Clicking on the avatar of the sender of a message now opens directly the user profile instead of a context menu. The actions that were in the context menu could already be performed from that dialog, so UX is more straightforward now.
• The GNOME document and monospace fonts are used for messages.
• Most of our UI definitions got ported to Blueprint.

This release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our worshippers, and our upstream projects before their impending annexation.

I want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version, allowing me to infiltrate more minds. If you want to help with my invasion, head over to Damned Lies.

Disclaimer: There is no actual AI integration in Fractal 13, this is a joke to celebrate Halloween and the coincidental version number. It should be as safe to use as Fractal 12.1, if not safer.

Our latest stable release had a regression where sending media with the unauthenticated endpoints was failing. This new release fixes it, and provides a couple other papercut fixes.

Knock, knock, knock… on rooms, baby 🎵 Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh 🎶 That's right, Fractal 12 adds support for knocking, among other things. Read all about the improvements since 11.2:

• Requesting invites to rooms (aka knocking) is now possible, as is enabling such requests for room admins.
• The upcoming room version 12 is supported, with the special power level of room creators.
• A room can be marked as unread via the context menu in the sidebar.
• You can now see if a section in the sidebar has any notifications or activity when it is collapsed.
• Clicking on the name of the sender of a message adds a mention to them in the composer.
• The safety setting to hide media previews in rooms is now synced between Matrix clients and we added another safety setting (which is also synced) to hide avatars in invites.

As usual, this release includes other improvements, fixes and new translations thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to Damned Lies.

This version updates the matrix-sdk-crypto dependency to include a fix for a high severity security issue.

Due to a pesky bug that makes Fractal crash when our users attempt to start a verification, we are releasing Fractal 11.1 only 2 weeks after Fractal 11. And while we’re at it we also backported a few fixes for smaller paper cuts!

A new version of Fractal numbered Eleven? Stranger things have happened… Features come running up that hill:

• Support for login using the OAuth 2.0 API (as used by matrix.org, which recently made the switch to Matrix Authentication Service)
• Overhaul of the page that lists user sessions, with details moved to subpages, for a less cluttered feel, and allowing to rename sessions!
• Rearranged account settings, with a new Safety tab that includes a setting to toggle media preview visibility
• BlurHashes for images and videos, that are used as placeholders while the media is loading or if the preview is disabled
• Contiguous state events are grouped behind a single item

As usual, this release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to l10n.gnome.org.

Due to a couple of unfortunate but important regressions in Fractal 10, we are releasing Fractal 10.1 so our users don’t have to wait too long for them to be addressed. This minor version fixes the following issues:

• Some rooms were stuck in an unread state, even after reading them or marking them as read.
• Joining or creating a room would crash the app.

How are you going to find your friends and coordinate end of day drinks when you’re lost in the middle of a large crowd in a big city? With the new version of your favorite Matrix client, of course! Here is Fractal 10.

• The QR code scanning code has been ported to libaperture, the library behind GNOME Camera. This should result in better performance and more reliability.
• OAuth 2.0 compatibility was added, to make sure that we are ready for the upcoming authentication changes for matrix.org.
• Pills for users and rooms mentions show consistently in the right place instead of seemingly random places, getting rid of one of our oldest and most annoying bug.
• Attachments go through the send queue, ensuring correct order of all messages and improving the visual feedback.
• Videos were often not playing after loading in the room history. This was fixed, and we also show properly when an error occurred.
• We were downloading too many different sizes for avatar images, which would fill the media cache needlessly. We now only download a couple of sizes. This has the extra benefit of fixing blurry or missing thumbnails in notifications.

As usual, this release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to l10n.gnome.org.

What’s that behind you⁉️ 😱 Oh, that’s a new Fractal release❣️ 😁 🎃

• We switched to the glycin library (the same one used by GNOME Image Viewer) to load images, allowing us to fix several issues, like supporting more animated formats and SVGs and respecting EXIF orientation.
• The annoying bug where some rooms would stay as unread even after opening them is now a distant memory.
• The media cache uses its own database that you can delete if you want to free some space on your system. It will also soon be able to clean up unused media files to prevent it from growing indefinitely.
• Sometimes the day separators would show up with the wrong date, not anymore!
• We migrated to the new GTK 4.16 and libadwaita 1.6 APIs, including CSS variables, AdwButtonRow and AdwSpinner.
• We used to only rely on the secrets provider to tell us which Matrix accounts are logged-in, which caused issues for people sharing their secrets between devices. Now we also make sure that there is a data folder for a given session before trying to restore it.
• Our notifications are categorized as coming from an instant messenger, so graphical shells that support it, such as Phosh, can play a sound for them.
• Some room settings are hidden for direct chats, because it does not make sense to change them in this type of room.
• The size of the headerbar would change depending on whether the room has a topic or not. This will not happen anymore.

As usual, this release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to Damned Lies.

Let’s see the main improvements:

• Mentions are sent intentionally
• Authenticated media are supported
• Draft messages are kept per-room and persisted across restarts
• More links are detected in messages and room descriptions
• Collapsed categories in the sidebar are remembered between restarts, with the “Historical” category collapsed by default
• A banner appears when synchronization with the homeserver fails too many times in a row
• The verification and account recovery processes have been polished
• HTML rendering has been improved, with the support of new elements and attributes

As usual, this release includes other improvements and fixes thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to Damned Lies.

Here comes Fractal 7, with extended encryption support and improved accessibility. Server-side key backup and account recovery have been added, bringing greater security. Third-party verification has received some bug fixes and improvements. Amongst the many accessibility improvements, navigability has increased, especially in the room history. But that’s not all we’ve been up to in the past three months:

• Messages that failed to send can now be retried or discarded.
• Messages can be reported to server admins for moderation.
• Room details are now considered complete, with the addition of room address management, permissions, and room upgrade.
• A new member menu appears when clicking on an avatar in the room history. It offers a quick way to do many actions related to that person, including opening a direct chat with them and moderating them.
• Pills are clickable and allow to directly go to a room or member profile.

As usual, this release includes other improvements, fixes and new translations thanks to all our contributors, and our upstream projects.

We want to address special thanks to the translators who worked on this version. We know this is a huge undertaking and have a deep appreciation for what you’ve done. If you want to help with this effort, head over to Damned Lies.

Barely 2 months after Fractal 5, we feel there have been enough improvements to grant a new stable release. You have probably noticed that we have adopted a version scheme similar to GNOME and will bump the major version with each new release.

The list of goodies:

• Fractal can open Matrix URIs, it is even registered as a handler for the “matrix” scheme
• The verification flow was rewritten, hopefully solving most verification issues
• Room members can be kicked, banned or ignored from their profile
• More notifications settings, global or per-room, were added
• Times follow the format (12h or 24h) from the system settings
• Tab auto-completion also works for mentioning public rooms, just start your query with “#”

This version is fully translated into 6 languages 🙌️ and we hope to get even more 📈 for the next one! Head over to Damned Lies if you want to give a hand.

We would also like to thank our new and returning contributors and our upstream projects.

Fractal 5 is a full rewrite compared to Fractal 4, that now leverages GTK 4, libadwaita, and the Matrix Rust SDK. The two-and-a-half-year effort brings a new interface that fits all screens, big 🖥️ or small 📱, but should still look familiar to users of earlier versions.

It still offers the same old features you know and love, with a few additions. Highlights (italics is new✨ in 5):

• Find rooms to discuss your favorite topics, or talk privately to people, securely thanks to end-to-end encryption
• Send rich formatted messages, files, or your current location
• Reply to specific messages, react with emoji, edit or remove messages
• View images, and play audio and video directly in the conversation
• See who has read messages, and who is typing
• Log into multiple accounts at once (with Single-Sign On support)

This new major release is the result of 10 months of hard work.

New features:

• Videos now have a preview directly in history
• New videos player: click on a preview to open it
• Improved audio file support, with a nicer presentation and seeking
• Redacted messages are removed from history
• Edited messages are replaced with their new content and show a small icon
• Translations have been updated
• Spellcheck language is saved per room
• New swipe-back gesture to go back from room to room list in narrow view
• New swipe left and right gesture to navigate through media in media view
• SOCKS proxy are now also supported

Bugfixes:

• Thumbnail for pasted images have been fixed
• File type detection for uploads is more reliable
• Typing notifications are now only sent when text is actually typed in the message input

Under the hood:

• Code refactor is still going
• Some improvements to logging, including access token removal for privacy

This new minor release is the result of 2 months of hard work.

New features:

• Translation strings have been updated

Bugfixes:

• Newlines now work when markdown is enabled
• Account settings can be accessed again
• Redaction is working again
• Compatibility with HTTP-only (non HTTPS) servers has been restored
• Some crashes fixed

Under the hood:

• Code refactor is still going

This new minor release is the result of 2 months of hard work.

New features:

• Autocompletion popover position fix
• Translation strings have been updated
• Disable the textbox when there are no write permissions

Bugfixes:

• Fix crash on logout and login with wrong credentials

Under the hood:

• Code refactor continues

This new major release is the result of 7 months of hard work by 37 contributors pushing over 200 commits.

New features:

• Adaptive window, mobile friendly
• Window size and position are remembered
• Redesigned login
• Spellcheck
• Network proxy support
• Typing notifications
• Badges are shown for operators and moderators
• Keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation across rooms
• Audio and video files are now tagged correctly
• Image files have a thumbnail
• Various tweaks to the file chooser

Bugfixes:

• Logs actually output something now
• A few issues with invites and direct chats have been resolved
• More reliable scrolling
• Some crashes fixed

Under the hood:

• Code refactor continues
• We’re now using Rust 2018
• Many improvements to the build system and CI

This new major release is the result of 3 months of hard work by 25 contributors pushing over 340 commits.

New features:

• Enhanced history view with adaptive layout, day divider
• Reorganised headerbar, app menu merged with user menu
• Larger display of emoji-only messages
• Some performance improvements
• Opening a room jumps to first unread message

Bugfixes:

• More reliable notifications
• Fixed display bug for avatars

Under the hood:

• Large code refactor
• Logging infrastructure
• Continuous integration
• More informative build output