Orbit v0.8.3-beta

Orbit v0.8.3-beta

Version: v0.8.3-beta
Commit: 1f7a65f
Built: 2026-10-05

Note: The conversation screen, reworked. A message is no longer one box with everything crammed inside it — text, images, files, video and audio each get the treatment their content actually wants, and your own messages stop being a different colour from everyone else's.

Features

• The Conversation Screen, Reworked — Everything a message carried lived inside one bubble — text, images, files, video, audio — so a photo had a bubble around it (a frame around a frame) and a file was whatever was left over. Attachments now sit beside the bubble, and each kind gets what it actually wants: text keeps its bubble, images get none at all and keep their natural aspect instead of being forced into a square and cropped, files get a surface of their own, and video and audio float on the feed behind a shadow. Your own messages are no longer a solid block of accent — same surface as everyone else's, with the corner radius saying which side you are on. A Classic Bubbles toggle in Chat settings brings the accent back.
• The Desktop Got the Same Conversation Rework — The phone had it and the desktop did not, so the two laid messages out differently: the desktop still wrapped every photo in a bubble and drew a generic glyph for every file. Ported: attachments beside the bubble, images with no box and their natural aspect, files on their own surface, video and audio behind a shadow, and reactions straddling the bubble's bottom edge. Deliberately identical in behaviour to the mobile so the two cannot drift apart.
• Every File Draws Its Own Icon — A .zip, a .json and a .pdf were a column of identical generic glyphs. The mapper moved to shared/ui/file-icons.js, which both platforms read, and it knows archives, code, spreadsheets, slides, audio, video, PDFs and plain text.
• The Bubble Colours Were Hardcoded — #1A1D24 for incoming and a fixed blue gradient for outgoing, neither of which followed the theme. In a light theme the incoming bubble stayed dark while color: var(--text-primary) went dark with the rest of the app — so the message text vanished into its own bubble. That was Dan's "fix this" screenshot, and it was invisible in the dark theme, which is why it survived. Tokens now, and the text is 17.3:1 on its bubble in dark and 17.8:1 in light.
• The × Is Gone From the Attachment Pills — Staged files carried a close button on every pill, and the composer already has a Cancel that clears them. Two controls for one job, and the × was the smaller, harder one to hit on a phone. Removed on both platforms.
• The × Is Gone From the Bottom Sheets Too — Same duplication, one level up: every sheet had a × in its top-right and a Cancel pill across the bottom. The × is removed. Backdrop tap and drag-down still dismiss, so nothing is trapped. Two sheets keep theirs — the frame picker and What's New have no other way out.
• The Local Vault Fits the Rest of the App Now — Its status was a centred block with centred sub-text, in a settings list where every other row is left-aligned, which is what made it read as bolted on. It is a card now, like the rows around it. And its two actions were both primary, which made the eye choose between things that are not equal: exporting is routine, restoring replaces everything you have. Export keeps the accent; Restore steps back. While in there: a stored backup time that could not be parsed rendered the literal words "Invalid Date" into the UI — it falls back to "No backup yet" now.

Downloads

Artifact	Size
Orbit-v0.8.3-beta.apk	69M
Orbit-0.8.3-beta-amd64.deb	170M
Orbit-0.8.3-beta-x86_64.AppImage	197M
Orbit-0.8.3-beta-arm64.dmg	181M
Orbit-0.8.3-beta-x64.dmg	186M
Orbit Setup 0.8.3-beta.exe	163M

Installation Notes

Desktop builds are currently unsigned.

• Windows: Microsoft SmartScreen may appear. Select More info → Run anyway if you trust the source.
• macOS: You may need to right-click the application and choose Open on first launch.
• Android: Because Orbit is distributed outside the Google Play Store, Android or Google Play Protect may display a warning before installation. Continue only if you trust the release source.

Verify Your Download

A SHA256SUMS.txt file is included with this release.
Since v0.3.0-beta, the checksum file is also GPG-signed (SHA256SUMS.txt.sig).

Use the Orbit Release public key to verify:

# 1. Import the public key
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/D4niel-dev/Orbit-beta/main/security/public-key.asc
gpg --import public-key.asc

# 2. Verify the signature
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.txt.sig SHA256SUMS.txt

# 3. Verify your downloaded file
sha256sum --check SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing

For Windows PowerShell:

Get-FileHash Orbit-Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256
Compare-Object (Get-Content SHA256SUMS.txt) (Get-FileHash Orbit-Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256) -Property Hash

Security

Orbit is designed for trusted private networks and local-first communication.
Official releases are published exclusively through this GitHub repository.

Links

• Repository Orbit-beta
• View the changelog for the latest changes!
• Having issues with the app ? Click here to report it!