Cyph3rfall v1.4

Cyph3rfall v1.4

What's New

Spectrafall — a new colour mode that slowly drifts the entire rain through every preset in hue order (red → orange → amber → green → cyan → blue → amethyst → pink), blending smoothly between each. Three speeds: Slow, Normal, and Fast. The cycle starts from your currently selected colour. Clock and message overlays follow the cycling colour throughout. Mutually exclusive with Chromafall.

Password lock hardening — the lock now fails closed if authentication is unavailable, and a stale auth prompt from before a sleep/wake cycle is correctly discarded so it can never dismiss a freshly re-armed lock.

Installation

1. Download Cyph3rfall-v1.4.dmg
2. Open the DMG and drag Cyph3rfall.app to /Applications
3. Launch — the Ξ icon appears in your menu bar

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel

Cyph3rfall v1.3

Cyph3rfall v1.3

A focused performance and reliability release.

What's new

Performance

• Glyph rendering now uses a pre-warmed CGImage bitmap atlas — eliminates cold-start jank and replaces per-frame Core Text layout with GPU-accelerated bitmap blits
• Frame rate raised to 60fps (was 30fps) — smoother animation especially on high-refresh displays
• Glyph mutation rate halved — reduces CPU work with no perceptible visual change

Bug fixes

• Fixed CVDisplayLink not stopping after screensaver dismissal — was causing persistent ~30% CPU usage in the background
• Fixed glyph mutation rate regression introduced in a previous session

New feature

• Show clock and message overlays on main display only — new toggle in Settings → General for multi-monitor setups

Tested on

• MacBook Pro M5
• Mac Mini M4 with dual displays (4K + 1440p high-refresh rate)

Installation

1. Download Cyph3rfall-v1.3.dmg
2. Open the DMG and drag Cyph3rfall to your Applications folder
3. Launch — no Gatekeeper prompt, installs and runs cleanly

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later

Cyph3rfall v1.2

Cyph3rfall v1.2

First fully notarized release — installs and runs without any Gatekeeper warnings on macOS 14 Sonoma and later.

What's new since v1.1

• Notarized by Apple (no right-click workaround needed)
• Default column spacing changed to Wide
• Performance warning shown when density exceeds 151%
• Version comparison fix for auto-update check

Installation

1. Download Cyph3rfall-v1.2.dmg
2. Open the DMG and drag Cyph3rfall to your Applications folder
3. Launch — it will appear in your menu bar

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later

Cyph3rfall v1.1

What's New in v1.1

• Redesigned Settings Panel — tabbed layout (General, Message, Clock, Import/Export) with smooth slide animation
• Settings Backup — export and import your configuration as a JSON file
• Auto Update Check — checks for new releases on launch; manual check in About panel
• Column Spacing — Wide or Narrow column density
• Clock Colour Presets — optionally tie the clock colour to your rain preset
• About Panel — website and email links, manual update check button

Installation

1. Download Cyph3rfall-v1.1.zip below
2. Unzip and drag Cyph3rfall.app to /Applications
3. Right-click → Open on first launch (Gatekeeper prompt — approve once)

Requirements

macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later · Apple Silicon or Intel

Note: This release is signed but pending Apple notarization. macOS will show a security prompt on first open — right-click and choose Open to approve it once.

Cyph3rfall v1.02

Hotfix — v1.02

Fixes a bug introduced in v1.01 where the screensaver could become permanently undismissable after the Mac woke from sleep with the password lock enabled.

What was happening

If the Mac went to sleep while the password prompt was on screen, macOS cancelled the authentication internally but the completion never reached Cyph3rfall. The app remained stuck in an "authenticating" state — every attempt to dismiss the screensaver was silently blocked, requiring a hard restart to recover.

What was fixed

• The app now listens for the system wake notification and immediately resets any stale authentication state
• A fresh password prompt is automatically presented when the screen wakes with the lock active
• A 90-second safety timeout has been added as a fallback for any other scenario where authentication might get interrupted

If you experienced the lockout bug, update immediately. If you do not use the "Require password to dismiss" option, this release does not affect you.

---

⚠️ First launch: right-click → Open to bypass Gatekeeper.
Cyph3rfall-v1.02.zip

Cyph3rfall v1.01

What's new in v1.01

Visual Effects

• Column brightness variation — each stream has a persistent depth-based dimming (55–100%) for a more organic, three-dimensional look
• Chromafall — new mode that gives every falling stream its own randomly chosen colour, re-randomised each time it wraps
• Fade in / fade out — smooth 1.5 s entry and 0.8 s exit transitions on all displays

Message Overlay

• Embed a custom phrase in the rain — characters light up one by one as falling columns pass through them, then fade as a group once the full message is revealed
• Built-in presets: CYPHΞRFALL, WAKE UP NEO, THE MATRIX HAS YOU, and more
• Three-phase display cycle: build → group fade → cooldown → repeat
• Explicit enable/disable toggle; 30-character limit with live counter and auto-uppercase

Controls & Settings

• Trail Length control (Short / Normal / Long)
• Global keyboard shortcut recorder — launch the screensaver from any app
• Reset to Defaults button
• Classic Dense Mode now greys out the controls it overrides
• Settings window stays open in the background during a manual screensaver session

Performance

• Chromafall rendering overhauled — eliminated ~10,000+ heap allocations per frame
• Message detection algorithm rewritten from O(columns × chars) to O(columns)

---

⚠️ First launch: right-click → Open to bypass Gatekeeper. This app is signed but not notarized through Apple's paid developer program.
Cyph3rfall-v1.01.zip

Cyph3rfall v1.0

Cyph3rfall v1.0 — Initial Release

Ambient digital rain for macOS. A lightweight menu bar app that fills your screen with cascading Matrix-style glyphs after a configurable idle period.

Installation

1. Download Cyph3rfall-v1.0.zip below
2. Unzip and move Cyph3rfall.app to your /Applications folder
3. Launch it — the Ξ icon will appear in your menu bar
4. Click Ξ → Launch at Login to start it automatically at login
5. Optionally disable the system screensaver: System Settings → Lock Screen → Start Screen Saver when inactive → Never

Features

• 9 colour presets (Green, Amber, Cyan, White, Purple, Blue, Red, Orange, Pink)
• Density slider from 10% to 500%
• Configurable idle timeout (1–30 min or manual only)
• Multi-monitor support
• Live settings preview
• Dismisses on any mouse or keyboard input

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later