4.18.0-alpha.1

✨ Improvements

• Load a Rocket.Chat PR's web UI into a workspace for testing: App settings → Advanced (with Help → Developer Mode on), or the rocketchat://ui-preview?pr=<n> link. The preview keeps the server's login session, marks the tab with a UI badge, and goes away on Restore or restart. (#3525)
• The video call window's methods are now available under RocketChatDesktop.videoCall (close, openInMainWindow, requestScreenSharing), the same bridge the web app uses everywhere else. getAuthCredentials is removed, since the video call window can load any video provider's page. (#3510)
• The settings window opens at a fixed 900×720 and cannot be resized or maximized, so every section always lays out at the size it was designed for. (#3504)

🐛 Fixes

• Conference call pages (/conference/:id) now open in the video call window, from a rocketchat://conference link or a link clicked inside a room. They no longer replace the workspace view or come back after a restart. (#3523)

🔧 Internal

• Release builds now run as one prepare job plus seven parallel packaging jobs. (#3513)
• PR checks run faster: sharded tests, transpile-only ts-jest, and PR artifact builds without re-running lint and tests. (#3511, #3512, #3524)

Also includes, already shipped in 4.17.1–4.17.3: opt-in unread counter tray icon (#3522), surviving config write failures at startup (#3507), resetting saved window sizes and positions (#3488), presence detection on servers ≥ 7.10 (#3490), conference popups opening as sandboxed child windows (#3485), and the macOS keychain fix for release builds (#3499).