Offband Meshcore 1.2.0

Offband Meshcore 1.2.0

Our biggest release yet. A ground-up interface redesign, a real database under the
hood, GIFs that work across every MeshCore client, and hands-on control of your
radio's RF front end. This is also the first Offband release built, signed, and
shipped to every platform automatically.

One app, every platform

From this release on, every Offband build ships everywhere at once, signed with
the same key so updates just work:

• Android: install from Google Play or sideload the signed APK
• Windows: desktop build
• Linux: desktop build
• Web: run it right in your browser, no install, at offband.app

Pick your platform below.

A brand-new interface

The headline feature. Offband has been rebuilt around a modern navigation shell
that finally gets out of your way.

• A left rail you open from the hamburger button, and can pin open so it
  lives right alongside your conversation instead of covering it.
• Your channels live in the rail and switch in place, so jumping between
  channels never loses your spot or your scroll position.
• Map layer toggles, Disconnect, and Settings all found sensible new homes in the
  panel, and the back button finally behaves the way it should: it backgrounds
  the app instead of killing it, and never knocks you off a connected radio.

Your data, on solid ground

Under the surface, Offband now keeps your messages, contacts, and channels in a
real SQLite database instead of a pile of loose preference files.

• Your existing data migrates automatically the first time you open this
  version. Nothing is thrown away, and your full message history is preserved.
• Storage problems that used to fail silently now surface, so nothing goes wrong
  in the dark.
• On desktop, your data no longer gets swept into OneDrive/Documents sync.

GIFs everyone can see

GIFs are no longer an Offband-only party trick.

• Send a GIF and it goes out as a plain Giphy link, so people on stock
  MeshCore and other clients can tap it and watch it too, not just Offband
  users.
• Paste a Giphy or Tenor link and it renders inline, behind a trusted-host
  safety allowlist.

Take command of your radio's front end

Power users, this one's for you. On supported hardware, Offband now gives you
direct control of your radio's FEM / LNA (the front-end module and low-noise
amplifier that shape receive sensitivity and transmit path).

• Toggle FEM LNA right from Radio Settings.
• Device Info now reads out your radio's Offband capabilities, so you can see at a
  glance what your hardware supports.

Both are gated on firmware capability, so they appear only where the radio
actually supports them.

Deeper diagnostics

More signal, less guesswork when you need to see what your mesh is doing.

• Message arrival time is now logged and persisted separately from the claimed
  send time, so you can tell when a message really reached you versus when the
  sender says it left (#285).
• Path diagnostics report honest, width-aware units instead of mislabeled hop
  counts, and path lengths decode exactly per the firmware contract.

Faster across the board

The new storage engine and a round of under-the-hood work add up to a noticeably
snappier app.

• Connecting no longer rewrites your entire preferences file for every channel, so
  connect time is quicker and lighter on storage.
• Bulk reads and writes go through the database now, which scales far better as
  your message and contact history grows.

And a few more

• Desktop remembers your window size and position between launches.
• Reach a contact's settings straight from its long-press menu.
• You can no longer accidentally block your own node.

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See the full, itemized changelog in the repository.

Support Offband

Offband is free and open source, built by a very small team. If it is useful to
you, please consider chipping in at
offband.org/donate. Donations go directly toward
keeping the project going and toward getting Offband onto the iOS App Store, which
carries its own ongoing Apple costs. Thank you for being part of it.