Fractal 5.alpha1 is the first release since Fractal has been rewritten to take advantage of GTK 4 and the Matrix Rust SDK. It is the result of eighteen months of work.

Currently supported features are:

• Sending and receiving messages and files
• Sending files via Drag-n-Drop and pasting in the message entry
• Rendering of rich formatted (HTML) messages, as well as media
• Displaying edited messages, redacting messages
• Showing and adding reactions
• Tab completion of user names
• Sending and displaying replies
• Sharing the current location
• Exploring the room directory
• Sorting the rooms by category
• Joining rooms
• Sending and accepting invitations
• Logging into multiple accounts at once
• Logging in with Single-Sign On
• Sending and reading encrypted messages
• Verifying user sessions using cross-signing
• Exporting and importing encryption keys
• Managing the connected devices
• Changing the user profile details
• Deactivating the account

Major missing features are:

• Notifications
• Read markers

As the name implies, this is still considered alpha stage and is not ready for general use just yet. If you want to give this development version a try, you can get it from the GNOME Apps Nightly flatpak repository (See wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Nightly).

A list of known issues and missing features for a 5.0 release can be found in the Fractal v5 milestone on Gitlab.

This new major release is the result of 10 months of hard work.

New features:

• Videos now have a preview directly in history
• New videos player: click on a preview to open it
• Improved audio file support, with a nicer presentation and seeking
• Redacted messages are removed from history
• Edited messages are replaced with their new content and show a small icon
• Translations have been updated
• Spellcheck language is saved per room
• New swipe-back gesture to go back from room to room list in narrow view
• New swipe left and right gesture to navigate through media in media view
• SOCKS proxy are now also supported

Bugfixes:

• Thumbnail for pasted images have been fixed
• File type detection for uploads is more reliable
• Typing notifications are now only sent when text is actually typed in the message input

Under the hood:

• Code refactor is still going
• Some improvements to logging, including access token removal for privacy

This new minor release is the result of 2 months of hard work.

New features:

• Translation strings have been updated

Bugfixes:

• Newlines now work when markdown is enabled
• Account settings can be accessed again
• Redaction is working again
• Compatibility with HTTP-only (non HTTPS) servers has been restored
• Some crashes fixed

Under the hood:

• Code refactor is still going

This new minor release is the result of 2 months of hard work.

New features:

• Autocompletion popover position fix
• Translation strings have been updated
• Disable the textbox when there are no write permissions

Bugfixes:

• Fix crash on logout and login with wrong credentials

Under the hood:

• Code refactor continues

This new major release is the result of 7 months of hard work by 37 contributors pushing over 200 commits.

New features:

• Adaptive window, mobile friendly
• Window size and position are remembered
• Redesigned login
• Spellcheck
• Network proxy support
• Typing notifications
• Badges are shown for operators and moderators
• Keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation across rooms
• Audio and video files are now tagged correctly
• Image files have a thumbnail
• Various tweaks to the file chooser

Bugfixes:

• Logs actually output something now
• A few issues with invites and direct chats have been resolved
• More reliable scrolling
• Some crashes fixed

Under the hood:

• Code refactor continues
• We’re now using Rust 2018
• Many improvements to the build system and CI

This new major release is the result of 3 months of hard work by 25 contributors pushing over 340 commits.

New features:

• Enhanced history view with adaptive layout, day divider
• Reorganised headerbar, app menu merged with user menu
• Larger display of emoji-only messages
• Some performance improvements
• Opening a room jumps to first unread message

Bugfixes:

• More reliable notifications
• Fixed display bug for avatars

Under the hood:

• Large code refactor
• Logging infrastructure
• Continuous integration
• More informative build output