What's new in Tixati 3.24
Mar 25, 2024
- This updates the version 3.23 release from earlier today to fix a crash upon startup if the Startup On Transfers option is disabled in Settings > UI > Behavior.
New in Tixati 3.23 (Mar 25, 2024)
- Tixati version 3.23 is now available. Several important fixes and improvements have been made:
- fixed problems with 256 MB piece size torrents
- better support for high precision scrolling devices in Windows 10/11
- saving .torrent files for multiple transfer / category selection now works correctly
- fixed several problems with menus in Linux builds
- new system log window in Help > Diagnostics
- new incoming connections window in Help > Diagnostics
- contact list can be docked / undocked by right-click on Contacts button in main bar
- new byte counters window accessible from Bandwidth view under Advanced options
- Share view has been consolidated into Home view
- removed top button from contact list
- new ignore list window accessible from Home view
- improved user key-change dialog that now shows both public and private key
- channel creation dialog now shows both public and private key
- new key finder that can create public keys that start with user-specified string
- file/folder selection dialogs start browsing from previous location
- fixed problems with download/piece path error popup dialogs
- fixed minor problems re-activating channel stream properties window and stream playlist window
- minor improvements to split-pane resizing algorithms
- fixed problems with rich text view scroll-to-selection function
- fixed problems with rich text view page up/down cursor placement and selection
- minor fixes to mouse-pointer icon selection when hovering rich text views
- in system log, fixed inaccurate logging of transfer load operation during program startup
- no longer shows merge prompt when moving single-file transfer location to existing folder
- fixed problems renaming single-file transfers in the preload window
- fixed problems with watched folder .torrent file loading
- in Windows build folder selection windows, no longer auto-expand drives within My Computer / This-PC
- new scrolling configuration window available from Settings > UI > Behavior
- new vertical and horizontal mouse wheel speed controls in scrolling configuration window
- support macro double-clicks in Windows builds that run mouse customization software
- several other minor fixes and adjustments throughout the program
New in Tixati 3.22 (Mar 7, 2024)
- fixed problem with custom font loading on startup
- fixed peer ID edit box in torrent options tab
- added options in Settings > Behavior to remove icons from menus / buttons
- fixed tray icon problems on some Linux systems
- fixed window background alignment problems on Linux systems with Wayland
- fixed menu popup positioning problems on Linux systems with Wayland
- added option in Settings > Behavior to disable smooth scrolling
- fixed inoperative buttons in torrent file merge prompts
- several other minor fixes in the GUI
New in Tixati 3.21 (Mar 7, 2024)
- completely re-wrote GUI framework
- all control surface colors can now be configured in Settings > Custom Colors
- new Dark Everything theme available in Settings > Color Scheme
- major updates to tree/list controls
- new rich-text view/editor controls
- new scrollable menu controls for Windows builds
- new notebook-tab controls
- transparent scrollbars everywhere
- options in Settings > Behavior to control scrollbar width and transparency
- animated smooth scrolling for all menus, lists, trees, and tab views
- several upgrades for system-tray icon notification and menu behavior
- new fully asynchronous file/folder pickers for Windows builds
- many upgrades to color picker in Settings > Custom Colors
- several major speed optimizations to configuration loading on program startup
- improved window default sizing and positioning routines
- new contact private message system with inline history and background sending
- new channel info/share add image window with better resolution options
- fixed problems with mirror directives in channel info/share
- fixed minor problems with forum moderation control directives in channel info
- fixed user ignore/unignore function in search result right-click menu
- support for torrent piece size up to 256 MB
- added padding option to piece-size menu for v1-only torrents in seed creation window
- local file name sanitizers now compensate for optional incomplete file name prefix length
- fixed crash on shutdown affecting some Linux/GTK systems
- fixed problems gathering correct file information of symlinked files on Windows systems
- updated IP location tables
New in Tixati 3.19 (May 27, 2023)
- fixed cumulative overflow problems in piece creation limiter
- added workaround for popup menu positioning problems on GTK3-Wayland desktops
- now correctly applying language translations in new tree/list view controls
- fixed problems with optional column selection in split DL/UL transfers view
- no completion notifications for files/folders with priority set to off
New in Tixati 3.18 (May 8, 2023)
- Linux version GUI fully updated to GTK3
- completely new tree/list view for all Windows and Linux builds, no longer depending on OS common controls
- refined initial scanning procedures to better handle seed files with a different length than expected
- fixed waiting problems with local file scanning on program startup
- added workaround to load malformed v1+2 torrents that have zero-length files misplaced around padding files
- new customizable Piece Creation Limiter in Settings > Transfers > Files to help avoid excess RAM buffering with slow hard drives
- new charts showing total pieces in memory and pending save in Help > Diagnostics > Pieces Monitor
- fixed problem loading v2 .torrent files that have nested subdirectories named "info"
- fixed web seed queuing problems that would cause excessive waiting after HTTP redirect
- new file ordered priority options to keep existing order while inserting / appending additional files
- fixed problems with Trackers column in main transfers view, will now match presets even with non-standard line spacing
- increased limit on number of trackers that can be set in a torrent, from 128 to 300
- fixed problems with default font fallback on rich text views
- fixed rich text view selection rendering problems when backscroll is trimmed for logs and chat rooms
- fixed rich text view problems when new lines are added during drag-select operation
- flags in tree/list views now display at correct height-based sizing instead of width-based
- fixed problems updating toolbar styles after change in Settings > UI > Widget Styles
- excessively long tooltips are now properly truncated and ellipsized to avoid flickering problems
- several other minor visual fixes in the GUI
- updated IP location tables
New in Tixati 3.17 (Apr 8, 2023)
- added workarounds for torrents that contain inconsistent padding structures
- reduced RAM usage when there is a backlog of local download pieces waiting to save due to a slow storage device
- download piece creation is now limited if over 18 pieces in same torrent are pending save to disk
- download piece creation is limited if over 100 pieces total in all torrents are pending save to disk
- fixed problems with right-click tray menu positioning on Windows builds
- when using OS Defaults color scheme, rich-text views now show expected background
- pasting multiline text into chat on Linux/GTK builds is now formatted correctly
- fixed character spacing problems when rendering bold text in tree/list views on Windows builds
- fixed problems copying text from a chat room, usernames are now encoded correctly and displayed without hash string
- the HTTPS layer that powers the WebUI has had several minor fixes to prevent premature connection abort when transfering larger files
- added gzip/deflate/brotli response compression to WebUI connections
- shortcut Ctrl-V now works in more places in the program to paste magnets links, and will now automatically flip to transfers view
- better handling of low-memory conditions and out-of-memory process abort
- updated IP location tables
- other minor visual fixes in the GUI
New in Tixati 3.16 (Feb 13, 2023)
- several improvements to download/upload slot auto-manage feature
- hash-links that are unresolved for over 90 seconds will re-queue if there are resolved queued downloads
- dead hash links skipped when starting new downloads from the queue
- better session restart procedures to keep track of downloads that have manually skipped queue
- new full-featured WYSIWYG editor for channel info and shared text
- peer start/stop algorithms modified in v1+2 hybrid torrents to better handle single-protocol clients
- completely re-engineered main message loop and thread manager for Windows builds
- better task prioritization balance between GUI events and internal processing for Windows builds
- added a new back-buffering render layer to treeview/listview/graph controls in Windows
- CPU usage during window drag-over, resize, and re-render events is greatly reduced
- several fixes and improvements to rich-text view controls that power log/chat/browse/info views
- tree/list view automatic scroll to selection on start/stop option in Settings > UI > Behavior
- fixed crash in the transfer preload window when using the find option and cycling through multiple transfers
- the Remote Seed Limit option will only consider partial seeds that have at least as many pieces as local
- fixed minor problems with the Source column in peers / transfers view
- tree/list views in Windows build now support bold/underline text when viewing channel list
- Linux builds now use xdg-mime by default instead of gconftool-2 to setup file/protocol associations
- fixed ordering problem in program shutdown sequencing that can cause crash on close
- corrupt config files now automatically trigger loading from .lastloadok.dat when available
- fixed minor file naming problems when using Scheduler automatic config file backup/export task
- many other minor fixes in the GUI
New in Tixati 3.14 (Dec 11, 2022)
- There have been several important fixes and updates:
- fixed problems with local file location move on complete not starting after optional redundant hash-checking
- several work-arounds to v1+v2 dual-protocol connection logic to prevent cycling in some remote clients
- no peer v1/v2 cross-connect if current connection has DL/UL traffic or interest, and is non-Tixati or v2
- fixed minor problems with Windows rich-text view wrapping, scrollbar updating, and visibility logic
- several RSS compatibility updates, also better handling of HTTP code 308 redirects
- minor fix to IPv6 raw-IP host name handling for trackers, RSS, and WebUI binding
- eliminated empty channels list popup reminder window
- crash reporter upgrades, including better exception details and stack unwinder for Windows builds
- minor tweaks to some GUI components
- major updates to HTTP server that powers WebUI, including updated SSL/TLS libraries
- updated IP-location tables
New in Tixati 3.12 (Oct 17, 2022)
- support tixati_local_instance_check.txt in app folder, which allows multiple stand-alone instances to run from separate app folders
- support tixati_standalone_mode.txt in app folder, which is the same as portable mode except without restricting system folder locations to the same device
- fixed potential crash when loading corrupt piece data storage file from previous session
- fixed problems with status area at top of floating channel windows
- fixed edit box select-on-focus problems in chat room view
- non-custom colored single and multi-line text views in dialogs now have correct system colors even on dark OS themes
- file and folder selection controls on Windows builds now have proper font-scaled minimum size request
- fixed rare crash in menu sizing routines on Windows builds
- paned split views now accurately save/restore divider position when hosting tabbed view with different minimum heights on each tab
- proper font-scaled minimum sizing for rich-text view and plain-text views on Windows and Linux builds
- fixed GTK rich-text view selection mouse capture and text highlighting problems
- single and multi-line edit boxes now properly enforce maximum bytes input with multi-byte UTF8 sequences, preventing text-clipping later
- tree and list view minimum size request in Windows is now font-proportional
- in GTK builds, all secondary floating windows and dialogs are now destroyed instantly when program is closed, before .dat files save
- fixed other minor problems with program closedown in GTK main loop exit procedure which were causing crashes
- Auto-Shutdown now correctly executes a system shutdown on both Linux and Windows builds
- some refinements to tree and list view background painting, now showing proper alternating-row background in all places
- fixed minor problems when dropping many files onto the main transfers view or categories panel at once
- paned view divider position is now saved separately for main window chat view and floating channel window chat view
- fixed rare crash when sorting transfers view by time left or by BPS In/Out
- IPv6 addresses with a trailing double-colon :: are now correctly parsed in all areas of the program, no more unnecessary host resolve
- fixed problems when manually adding peers from transfer options tab in peers section
- when merging duplicate transfers, web-seed and peer addresses are now properly forwarded from the duplicate transfer to the original
- adding a transfer by raw torrent hash-ID now works correctly from Add Transfer dialog, WebUI, and ctrl-V in transfers view
- fixed crash saving core2.dat config file when there are transfers in a rare error state and missing key components
- magnet-link copy templates now correctly handle [hash2] tag on transfers that only have a v1 hash-ID
- new wildcard: match prefix for Individual Tracker Options in Settings > Transfers > Trackers
- transfer preload window default enter-key action now works correctly
- fixed problem with DHT Peer DB view shortcut ctrl-shift ZQZ which creates transfer from selected hash entry
- fixed problems with channel Secure Local Resource Discovery, which allow peers to find each other on the local LAN
- minor refinements to the channel list display, some column alignments changed
- numerous other minor GUI tweaks and fixes throughout the program
New in Tixati 3.11 (Aug 29, 2022)
- New BitTorrent v2 Support:
- A full BEP-52 implementation has been added to the program. The primary benefit of this is the use of the block-level SHA-2 hash function instead of SHA-1 at the piece level. However, there are also many other changes from the v1 protocol that required a major review and re-write of the torrent/peers/trackers/pieces core logic. Combined version 1+2 torrents are also fully supported.
- Trackers:
- All tracker function has been completely replaced with a newly-written implementation. Dual-protocol and dual-interface announcement is now fully supported for each individual tracker.
- A tracker presets feature has been added, which can be accessed from Settings > Transfers > Trackers. These presets can be set by simply right-clicking any transfer in the main window and using the Trackers sub-menu. They are also accessible from the standard tracker-edit dialog, the transfer preload window, and the new seed creation dialog.
- A default preset for newly-loaded transfers can also be selected in the settings window. This will be set into non-private transfers, upon loading, before applying the Individual Tracker Options.
- Peer Connections:
- The peer connection logic has been largely re-written with major improvements in several areas. This was needed to accommodate the new v2 protocol messaging requirements, in particular the piece selection algorithms and file hash field synchronizing with other peers. The new implementation takes full advantage of the fact that when a transfer is only downloading a subset of files, the new v2 protocol allows clients to only download hash data for files that are needed. If managed correctly, this saves bandwidth, time, and memory, especially for extremely large torrents when only a few files are needed.
- It was also necessary in hybrid swarms to allow dual connections so peers can communicate over v1 and v2 simultaneously. This is sometimes required for situations where there are many v1-only clients in a swarm and v2 hash-info is not fully available, which, when following the specification as-written, prevents pieces from being available over the v2 connection.
- The peer connection selection and management algorithms have been completely replaced with much more modern versions that can efficiently handle multiple ports connected from the same IP, perform regular peer-ID duplicate detection, and prioritize connections based on their protocol and piece availability. Unusual situations such as losing pieces, or going from complete state to incomplete state, are now handled with great precision. The process for gathering meta-info from peers has also been greatly improved and is much faster when dealing with extremely large torrents.
- Web Seeding:
- Support for web seeds has been completely overhauled. Peak speeds are much higher and far less CPU usage is needed to maintain a continuous flow of data.
- For better control over web seed connections, a brand-new Web Seed Request Limiter has also been created. This is available from Settings > Transfers > Peers. Simultaneous connections can be globally limited based on host name, and other rate-limiting/throttling parameters can also be set. Rules can be customized for different hosts.
- DHT:
- To provide peers to dual-protocol torrents, it was necessary to modify the DHT engine to schedule separate search/announce procedures for each protocol ID-hash that a particular torrent requires. A major review and update of the DHT code was done to support this and also to add several other DHT protocol updates. These updates were made in order to support upcoming Tixati features like mutable torrent support.
- New Seed Creator:
- The seed creator (third tab in the Add window) has been completely replaced. The new dialog allows flexible creation using files from different parts of the local file system, and will also let the user change the virtual-name of files and folders. This enables you to fully customize the file structure in the torrent meta-info without needing that same structure replicated on the local file system.
- There are also numerous new options to select tracker presets, protocol and padding options, piece sizes, comments, and other technical parameters. A full host of default options can be changed from the settings menu, including full control over the default piece size selection algorithm.
- You can also now drag-drop files and folders from the operating system directly into the transfers view to create new seeds. When the Categories feature is enabled, you can drag-drop directly onto a category, or into the main view when a category is selected, and the new seed will be created in that category.
- File and Piece Handling:
- All file handling logic has been revised. The file-checker has an improved combined SHA-1 and SHA-2 multi-threaded piece reading and hashing pipeline, which will thoroughly cross-check all incoming and existing data in hybrid v1+2 torrents. Checking speed has also improved on multi-CPU systems.
- For v2 torrents, all incoming 16K blocks are checked immediately upon download instead of waiting for full pieces, so malicious peers are eliminated from the swarm much quicker.
- New Tracker Options for Categories:
- In the category properties and add windows, there is a new Trackers tab. This contains an option to set a tracker preset on any transfer entering the category. These options are also reflected on the category right-click menu.
- There were also several minor fixes to the category system. The right-click options for a category separator now correctly control all categories following. The Share sub-menu on categories has been fixed to show the checkbox states for channel mirroring correctly.
- Several Channel GUI Fixes:
- The recently re-written color text controls that power the chat rooms and user browse window have undergone a few more changes to perfect the way scrolling and back-buffering work. There were also other optimizations and adjustments to the background word-wrap updating routines and timing to further minimize CPU usage after a window full of text is resized.
- In addition, we fixed some minor problems with the channel restrictions window updating after rule changes, and also some word-wrap anomalies when switching between chat rooms.
- New Columns:
- Transfers have two new optional columns, available from the Layout button menu in the main transfers view. The Protocol column will show v1, v1+2, or v2. The Trackers column will show the name of the current preset. If there is no matching preset, either a hash identifier of the set (to be able to identify matching transfers) or in the case of only having one tracker, the tracker URL itself. The tooltip in this column will always show the full set of tracker URLs.
- Peers also have a new optional Protocol column. This shows either v1 or v2 for regular peers, or HTTP or HTTPS for web seed peers.
- Many Other GUI Improvements:
- A new find-bar has been created for the Files tab in the main transfers view, and also the preload window. Press CTRL-F when the view is in focus to make the find-bar appear at the top. You can also use the F3/shift-F3 keys to step through matches.
- When new transfers are loaded, they are now selected and scrolled into view, including changing selected category if need be. This works for any manually-created transfers, including pasting in magnet links via CTRL-V, drag-dropping .torrent or .magnet files, or creating new seeds.
- There have been dozens of other minor tweaks and improvements to the GUI, and several optimizations to reduce interface CPU usage on both GTK and Windows builds.
- Several Other Core Fixes:
- During the course of development of this version, there have been countless other minor fixes and refinements made as problems were discovered. Many opportunities for optimization were explored, and much testing was done. We also analyzed all outstanding automated crash reports and applied several minor fixes. This is the smoothest running Tixati that we have ever produced.
- More To Come:
- We are working on several other major improvements to the transfers and channels systems, including file merging, channel feeds, and more protocols.
New in Tixati 2.89 (Mar 21, 2022)
- several memory optimizations in Transfers and Channels to reduce per-peer RAM consumption
- custom download and move-on-complete path selection no longer overwriting on new single-file transfers after meta-data resolved
- bandwidth statistics for Categories now persist between program restarts
- bandwidth chart Clear option now rolls back to last 5 seconds instead of last 60
- fixed rare crash in Windows build when closing a settings window too soon after a spinbox change
- fixed text entry box maximum length inconsistencies when using extended Unicode characters
- better Channel and Transfer peer removal algorithm, allows for more chances at hole-punch if total peer count is low
- fixed problems in Channel and Transfer peer DHT search result processing that would too aggressively throttle peer creation
- in main Channels list, several new optional columns
- icon for indication of current streaming status in Channels list
- new Users tab for Channels, with several sortable columns and some new buttons
- new fully-featured Admin Commands window, opened by pressing the Commands button in the Users tab
- at top of Channel Connections tab, several new buttons
- options in Connections tab to force DHT search, stop DHT search, or manually add peers
- chat window now saves all text between program sessions
- timestamps and join/leave notifications can now be toggled within the backbuffer
- backbuffer user message name tag is a different color if the user is currently offline
- chat text entry box changes color if the channel is offline or temporarily disconnected
- moved several streaming log messages to Event Log tab
- revised timing of topic change and MOTD messages
- show user public key in all tooltips
- new field sttl for Channel info control directive, which controls user cache lifetime
- better management of Channel user connection cert issuance within the Admin Commands window
- less CPU usage maintaining aggregate Channel shared link/line counts
- account for 6to4 when setting narrow/wide network bans for IPv6
- user level changes take effect much more quickly
- fast user share data re-caching after level changes from Basic or lower to Normal or higher
- fixed crash in Forum tab when messages become de-synced from current user list
- eliminated time reminder and user name prompt first time Channels are run
- fully revised Contacts view
- new Ignore system, accessible from the contacts top button menu
- ignored Channel users and Transfer peer IPs managed in same view
- user Browse window has been completely re-done
- nearly instant user Browse, even if they are sharing the maximum limit
- new Browse find-bar, and keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-F and F3 / Shift-F3
- completely new and much faster multi-line color text control that provides chat message views and user browse view
- fixed problem with tree view column sort indicators not initially showing in GTK build
- eliminated throttle reminder popup on first startup
- fixed problems with treeview single-column mode not using full width of available space until resized
- minor adjustment to editbox height in filter bars and search view
- fixed problem in Windows build with control focus becoming de-synced when a child modal window is destroyed
- fixed problem in GTK build with control lose-focus notification being lost during modal window destruction, preventing final save
- minor updates to Dark and Light color themes
- several other minor tweaks and adjustments throughout the GUI
- updated IP-location tables
New in Tixati 2.88 (Jan 17, 2022)
- additional Transfer checks to detect inconsistent file structure after downloading metadata
- fixed crash when Transfer metadata is reloaded from config file with incorrect file sizes or misaligned piece layout
- new optional Transfer columns to show known peer and seed counts
- complete re-write of Channel user shared data and Channel Information message caching
- much lower Channel memory usage for large shared data sets
- smaller channels.dat config file, faster loading on program startup
- re-wrote all routines for synchronization of Channel Information and user shared data
- faster updating of Channel Information tab between v2.88 or newer clients
- much faster and more reliable updating of Channel user shared data
- slightly lower bandwidth usage for Channel connections
- fixed minor display problems when browsing incomplete Channel user shared data, especially with incomplete images
- all Channels now default to 10-year shared data time to live
- when switching Channels in list view, now correctly preserves and restores text from outgoing chat message edit box in lower tab
- fixed link parsing in Channel output text so that leading or trailing special chars won't be included
- fixed minor sorting problems in Channel forum tab
- major re-write of some Windows and GTK control classes to fix problems with handle destroy sequencing in complex layouts
- fixed crash when program is closed while an open Settings window has unflushed proxy settings
- better maintenance routines for rate limiters for incoming connections and torrent hole-punching, should use less RAM
- when program is closing in GTK build, the message pump is now forcibly cleared, so that any open property windows disappear without delay
- upon quitting program, app-lock is now released immediately before config save, so the wait dialog will reliably appear on quick re-launch
- several improvements to CPU and memory state diagnostic profiling, far more accurate readings in the Channels and Netbase categories
- updated IP location tables
New in Tixati 2.87 (Dec 10, 2021)
- in the Transfers view Layout > Select Columns dialog, added new tab for optional Files view columns
- added optional Location column to Transfers view and Files view
- added optional Move On Complete column to Transfers view and Files view
- in Peers view, renamed Location column to Country
- show full paths for tooltip for Location and Move On Complete columns
- new built-in crash reporter for Windows builds, separate errorreporter.exe no longer needed
- fixed problems with UPNP client due to improper ordering of some XML fields in requests
- added an fsync call before checking file last-modified time changes on some filesystems
- eliminated redundant fsync calls in some of the transfer file-moving routines
- much better formatting of dsc/fopnu/darkmx links and tooltips in chat rooms, forums, and private messages
- full colortext support in Channel topics, chat rooms, forums, private messages
- better editing controls for Channel Information
- better handling of editing incomplete Channel Information submitted by another manager/owner
- when adding links/images to top of Channel Info or Channel Share, insertion point is now always below header directives
- fixed minor Channel topic signing problems that could prevent auto-generation of signatures under certain conditions
- much better display of incomplete Channel Info / Share data when images are not complete, now collapses all base64 data lines
- fixed numerous Channel Information synchronization problems when there are multiple owners present
- fixed problems with lost unsaved changes when editing Channel Info / Share in lower tabs and switching channels
- force top-scroll and select in Channels list view when a new channel is added
- minor network error-handling and fallback improvements for older Windows XP systems that do not support IPv6
- raised default simultaneous outgoing TCP connection limit on Windows 7 or newer systems
- fixed problems on Windows version with event log and chat room text disappearing after color settings changed
- fixed RSS sorting problems in the Last Update column
- in Linux version corrected minor problems with file association .desktop file and auto-startup .desktop file
- better configuration path options for Linux builds
- several other minor fixes and adjustments in the GUI
New in Tixati 2.86 (Nov 12, 2021)
- fixed several rendering problems with bandwidth/memory/CPU graphs when displaying large quantities
- fixed problems with mouse-wheel scrolling on Windows 7 and older
- fixed message-loop recursion problem in Windows 7 that could eventually lead to a crash
- minor fixes and optimizations to the internal HTTP client used for trackers, RSS, IP Filter updater
- updated TLS libraries used for general HTTPS outgoing connections and WebUI HTTPS server
- major overhaul of WebUI
- added Categories to WebUI, including ability to add, remove, filter, move transfers, and more
- transfer names in WebUI now show indicators for private, partial, or created
- peer lists in WebUI show additional information such as flag, location
- much better list layout in WebUI, with more compact output and tooltips for extra-long names
- new WebUI HTML template file auto-inline CSS support to avoid flicker when loading
- auto-generated TLS certs used for WebUI HTTPS server now use SHA256
- numerous other minor WebUI fixes and improvements
- fixed bug in GTK file selection dialogs that would prevent last location from being remembered
- minor fixes in the GUI Add Category window
- updated built-in IP location tables