Release Notes

Release Notes

What changed in each version of Kotatsu, in plain words. Update from the pill in the top bar or with Update.bat (see Installing Kotatsu). Your chats, cards and settings stay as they are.

The full list of releases is on GitHub.

v0.8.0

A new default look

• Natsumikan is the default theme on a fresh install. If you already use Kotatsu, you keep the theme you chose.
• The Natsumikan themes have new names. Natsumikan V3 is now Natsumikan, the original is Natsumikan Classic, and Natsumikan V2 is Natsumikan Manga. Kotatsu ships six themes now. See Themes.
• Mikan-chan's welcome tour is dressed in Natsumikan's colours when Natsumikan is the theme. On a phone, the tour's sheet follows the keyboard, so the keyboard no longer covers the persona name.
• Settings buttons share one style, and each theme dresses them in its own colours.
• The message box has a soft glow along its edge, so it stands a little above the page.

The phone becomes a visual novel

• In the Sprite look, a phone shows the chat's background, one big figure and the latest message in a text box. The box takes about a quarter of the screen. Tap the text to turn the page. Tap the name tab to show the message's details, such as edit, copy and the cache readout.
• The History chip brings back the whole transcript over the scene, and Scene puts it away.
• Messages in the Sprite look now rest as a name and text. Tap one to show its date, buttons and readouts. This works on a desktop too.
• Figures fade out more softly at the bottom.

See Sprites.

A background behind the Sprite view

• Choose Background in the chat header to pick one of this chat's images, upload your own, or choose No background.
• In Pictures, a picture's menu has Use as background.
• The background shows in the Sprite look only. The other looks keep the theme's backdrop.

See A background.

Card Studio, rebuilt

• A character is now one page in chapters: who they are, how it begins, how they look, how they talk and their world, with Under the hood for the prompt levers.
• Simple and Advanced views. Simple shows what most cards need. Advanced shows every field. Anything in Advanced that is steering the model is named in Simple, so nothing works behind your back.
• The first message is shown the way the chat will show it, in your theme and message look, with arrows between openings.
• The looks chapter has large tiles you can page through, a Bust and Full body switch, and Fix holes on the hero.
• A strip says what to write next, and the token count at the top breaks down what the card costs.

See Card Studio.

Better sprite sets

• A resting face in a character's look, such as grin, confident, now stays on the neutral face only. Sadness, anger and the other feelings no longer inherit the smirk.
• When the look has a resting face, sadness, anger and surprise repaint with the larger Flush mask, which stops the resting mouth from carrying over.
• Cutting a drawing out no longer punches holes in a bright eye highlight that happens to match the background colour.

See Generate a set.

Send feedback

• Settings, System, Help, Send feedback opens a new GitHub issue with your words already filled in. You can add diagnostics, which you can read and edit first. They never hold your chats, names or keys. Nothing is sent until you press Submit on GitHub.

See Contributing.

On a phone

• The keyboard now sits under the message box instead of covering the page.
• The top bars slide away while you read and come back when you scroll up.
• Tap the story, or pull it down, to put the keyboard away.
• A phone held sideways gets its story back.
• Settings opens on Close instead of the search box, so the keyboard stays down. The row of tabs fades at the edge to show that it scrolls, and scrolls to the tab you are on.

Fixes and small changes

• The Connection tab sorts its cards by what you have set up. Claude Code leads only when you use it. A Claude Code that is not installed shows its problem and how to fix it, and nothing else.
• The welcome tour's Connect step starts on the way in that fits your computer. Without Claude Code installed, it starts on An API key.
• The search bar at the top, which did nothing, is gone. The chat title moves into the top bar on wide windows, and the scene banner scrolls with the story. The Scene chip in the header shows it again.
• Prompt caching: choosing a local server no longer leaves semi-strict merging switched on for the hosted providers you pick afterwards. The cache marker is also kept in the right place when a merge renumbers messages.
• Cache writes are counted for OpenRouter's Claude, so a first turn that fills the cache no longer reads as Busted.
• Tags with a background colour and no text colour get readable text on light themes.
• New Entry in a lorebook scrolls to the entry it adds, which matters most on a phone.
• A page address with extra text after it (such as /?x=1) no longer breaks the lorebook's New Entry button.