Vector v0.4.4-2

Vectory Lap

A deep stability release: the Concord community engine was hardened end to end, files got smart, and animated profiles stopped eating your GPU.

Preview 2:

• 🤖 Android launches again: Preview 1 could crash on launch for existing accounts (a Tauri upgrade stopped registering the Android context). Fixed at the root, plus fences so no background panic can ever take the whole app down again.
• 🎮 Windows multiplayer: Mini App games on Windows can finally see their peers (details under Fixed).
• 📦 Files you already have: a re-sent file now arrives as Click to Play instead of asking you to re-download it.
• ✨ Declining the Tor multiplayer prompt no longer shows the game as Playing, communities keep their spot in the chat list during moderation events, and @mention suggestions rank names above npubs and include members who just joined.
• 🔔 Notification replies go where you typed them (details under Fixed).
• ⚡ A quieter CPU: every live Community event was re-deriving encryption keys from scratch; they're computed once now, so Vector idles instead of warming your lap during busy evenings.

New:

• 🔁 Smart-Forwarding: sending a file you already hold, whether you uploaded it or received it, now reuses the existing upload instead of re-encrypting and re-uploading it. A 70MB Mini App forwards to another chat in milliseconds.
• 🧪 Beta Updates: a new opt-in under Settings > Updates offers you release candidates like this one ahead of the official release, on desktop and sideloaded Android builds. Flip it off and you simply ride stable again.
• 🚨 Raid Recovery: a Community owner can now sever a raid outright: a special refounding closes the door behind the raiders, and the links they came through stop working for second waves.
• 🐧 Proper Linux Desktop Entry: the deb package now installs a real menu entry with categories and search keywords, so Vector shows up where your app launcher expects it.

Improved:

• 🖼️ Animated Avatars, Tamed: oversized animated avatars and banners are now normalized to display size before rendering, and uploads are compressed in one pass. Profiles with huge GIFs used to visibly drag the whole app; existing caches are cleaned up automatically after updating.
• 🕹️ Play & Invite: inviting someone to a Mini App now opens the game for you instantly while the upload runs in the background, replacing the old blocking spinner.
• ⚡ Idle Means Idle: live Community events (typing included) used to re-derive their plane keys from scratch, every event, for every Community you're in — the busier your communities, the warmer your machine. Keys are computed once and remembered now.
• 🚀 Boot Sync: the Community you are reading syncs first, unchanged Communities are skipped, and live messages land immediately after launch instead of queueing behind the catch-up.
• 📥 Download Once, Everywhere: when the same file appears in several chats, one download updates every copy of it at once.

Fixed:

• 🎮 Windows Multiplayer: Mini App games on Windows joined lobbies but never connected to other players; the game sandbox had silently lost its permission set. Cross-platform multiplayer works again, Mac and Android included.
• 📦 Downloads Know What You Own: receiving a file whose content you already have (sent by you, or downloaded in any chat) now recognises it instantly instead of downloading it again — it arrives already openable.
• 😀 Edits Keep Their Emojis: editing a message containing custom emojis no longer strips them for everyone else; receivers see the emojis, not their :shortcodes:.
• 🤖 Bot Command Composer: backspace now walks out of an Options selector like any other input, (skip) actually skips an optional list, and commands with parameters no longer break the composer.
• 👥 Member Lists That Agree: Community member counts stopped diverging between devices and clients. A refounding replaces the local guest list instead of piling onto it, and a single unreachable member can no longer freeze the whole roster.
• 🔑 Rotations Without Casualties: key rotations now reach every member they should. An empty rotation is never a mass removal, a promotion can no longer strand your online members, and a rotation refuses to run at all rather than silently cut off its own staff.
• 🔨 Bans That Stick: banning someone now hides everything of theirs everywhere: painted timelines, backscroll, channel badges, and arrival lines. A stale ban list can never quietly un-ban, and a moderator's delete outlives the message it removed.
• 🔐 Password Changes Cover Everything: changing your local encryption password now re-encrypts the Community guest book too.
• 🔔 Notification Replies (Android): replying from a notification could silently post into a different chat than the one on screen — an old reply target could survive an app restart and hijack the send. Replies now always go to the chat you replied to, and replying to a Community notification works at all (it previously failed outright).
• 🕵️ Multiplayer Privacy: multiplayer Mini Apps no longer dial network addresses nominated by the other player; connections only go through paths Vector verified itself.
• 🖥️ Wayland Titlebars (Linux): the minimize, maximize, and close buttons work again on Wayland desktops.
• 🪟 "Bad Image" Popups (Windows): a corrupt third-party DLL on your system no longer greets every Vector launch with a modal error dialog.
• 💬 Stuck Tooltips: reaction and emoji hover tooltips can no longer strand themselves on screen.
• ✨ UI Polish: @mention suggestions rank display names above npub matches and include members the moment they join, unread badges follow deleted messages, each Community keeps a single rail row, the emoji picker centres cleanly outside the composer, and Start New Chat and Create Group no longer open on top of each other.