Changelog

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Every release, newest first. The files of each one are on the releases page.

0.16.0 — 2026-10-19

Faster reading deep into big lanes: stored posts are paged from where the last page ended instead of skipping the newer ones again each time, and text is pulled out of a post’s HTML with patterns compiled once. Ctrl+F “in every lane” goes through lanes that share a source together, each post parsed and matched once — on 20 000 stored posts it takes 0.4 s instead of 0.9 s; “Deeper” and long lanes gain the same way.
A click on the time slider of a video or an audio jumps right there; it used to move only one step towards the click, and only dragging the handle really seeked.
Sending no longer gives up after 30 seconds on a slow server: it waits post.send_timeout (90 s). When the answer still doesn’t come, fedtail looks among your latest posts first — the post was usually made, only the answer lost — and treats it as sent if it’s there. If it can’t tell, the message says “maybe sent: look before retrying” instead of a raw “Read timed out”. Each post carries an Idempotency-Key: Mastodon gives back the post already made instead of a double when the same text is sent again.
Ctrl+F “In every lane”: a tick in the find bar searches everything stored in every lane at once; the counter says which lane the match is in, and the next match opens its lane and loads it down to the post. Ctrl+F pressed again in the find bar goes to the next match, as in a browser (Enter, ↓ and F3 still do too).
The point theme closer to point.im: square avatars, the name bold in dark blue with @address · date under it, the post’s #id under the text on the left with the number of replies (#a3f | 4), the buttons on the right, a hatched grey band behind the lane’s and the new post’s title, solid and clearer lines between posts, a dark “Create” button. New theme keys for any theme: shape.avatar_shape (circle, square, rounded), shape.card_header = "stacked", shape.short_id (header, footer), shape.actions_align (left, right), shape.rule (solid, dashed), shape.header_stripes, shape.header_bar (a band above the title strip, point.im’s dark top bar), colors.primary / on_primary, colors.header, colors.header_bar, colors.name.
The lane’s and the new post’s title strip is tinted with the theme’s accent in every theme (colors.header left at “auto”), with a 3 px band of the accent above it (shape.header_bar, 0 turns it off); bnw and contrast keep a white strip under the band. Lines between posts in “rule” style are solid by default (terminal keeps its dashes).
“Add to list” for someone you don’t follow: the lists are dead now, not just greyed — a click on them does nothing at all (it used to send a request the server refused and stall the window). While fedtail is still asking the server whether you follow them, the lists are dead too, with “Checking…” above them, instead of looking clickable.
Video is decoded by the processor by default (ui.video_decode = "software"): on some cards Qt’s hardware decoding fails (“CUDA_ERROR_INVALID_VALUE”, “more than 32 decode surfaces”) and the video stutters or stalls. "hardware" brings the old way back.
The opossum is gone from the icon and About: it comes from an official Telegram sticker pack, and its artist says the rights are Telegram’s, not theirs to give. The drawn thread bubble is the icon again (in the theme’s colours with ui.themed_icon); ui.app_icon is gone with it.
“Activity” counts as seen what came on screen, like the other lanes, checked when you scroll or come back to the window. It used to mark everything once, on opening — rows far off screen too — and a window in the background at that moment left the newest unread for good.
The debug theme: for finding what’s wrong, not for reading. Each state of a post in a loud frame of its own — unread, “on screen but not all of it yet” (not counted read yet), the j/k cursor, what Ctrl+F found, the post you came to — plus the keyboard focus and disabled buttons. shape.debug = true turns the same on in any theme of your own.
“Copy handle”: a button in a profile, “Copy handle @…” in a post’s ⋯ menu (the author, and the booster of a boost) and on the “boosted by” line. Always the full @user@server — people of your own server come as a bare user, your server’s name is added.
⋯ → “Call into the thread…”: a reply to that post with only “@” in it and the people list open — pick who, add a word, send. They get a notification and open the thread at home; no links with service ids. The thread’s others aren’t mentioned; the call has its own draft. post.invite = false hides the item.
≡ → Debug → “Federation status”: how your server is doing — what it runs, how many answers and how fast, polls and the live stream — and what keeps failing that isn’t the client’s doing: what the server can’t do, who waits to go into a list, and every request that keeps getting 404/410/401/timeouts, on your server and on other servers, grouped (ids folded), counted, with when it last happened and what it most likely means. Live while open; “Copy” as text for an issue; “Count anew”. Only what this run saw: nothing is asked of the network for it, no queries or tokens are kept.
Federation status: who waits to go into a list is named (my server is asked who an id is when no post of theirs is here), linked to their profile in a tab, with why they wait — a follow request unanswered, not followed (refused or withdrawn), or followed and going in with the next refresh.
A slow answer about direct conversations no longer fails the whole poll (“Read timed out” on screen, the lanes not fetched): it is only a nicety, skipped till next time.
Someone waiting to go into a list is tried only once they’re followed; while the follow request waits nothing is asked, and once it’s refused or withdrawn they’re let go. (A refused follow was retried with a 404 every ten minutes, for a month.)
What the server hasn’t got — blocked domains on GoToSocial, the notification policy — is asked once a run, not on every silence refresh. Muted and blocked lists no longer ask for an empty second page.
A post’s ⋯ menu is built when it opens, not with every card: two dozen actions and submenus per card were most of a lane’s widgets and of its drawing time; what it shows (unread, subscribed, pinned) is how things are at that moment.
The log’s trend line gives the rate over the whole session beside start → now (and the last minutes apart): 245 → 763 MB over a night read “+1950/h”, the rate of three minutes.

Release on fedtail

Changelog

0.16.0 — 2026-10-19