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v3.0.0 - 2019-01-27

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@astorije astorije released this 27 Jan 21:42
· 2809 commits to master since this release
eec6ce8

For more details, see the full changelog and milestone.

Almost a year in the making, 1500+ commits, 650+ merged PRs, and 30+ contributors, The Lounge v3.0.0 really is the release of all the superlatives. It ships some of our most-upvoted and longest-awaited feature requests, with significant improvements all across the board, and a brand new documentation website.

TL;DR: If you are only looking for a simple list of breaking changes before we jump onto a shortlist of the top changes below, we now have an upgrade guide. You can also try our demo to see and test the new features.

We rewrote our entire documentation from scratch to better reflect the full capabilities of The Lounge. The website is now mobile-friendly, has a search feature, detailed pages about installation, usage, and configuration, and a list of guides to make The Lounge effortless to set up to your needs.

The first thing you might notice is how the overall UI has changed. We extracted Crypto and Zenburn into dedicated themes to only ship our default and updated theme, and Morning, the dark version of our default theme. Our logo made its way to the client and its notification-aware favicons. Speaking of notifications, the browser window title now contains the number of unread notifications you have received:

Browser tab with notification favicon and number of unread messages in title

One of the most notable additions of this release is the ability to reload messages from history (previous conversations and channels) between restarts of The Lounge. This bridges a significant and long-standing gap with other traditional IRC clients, and creates an opportunity for more advanced features (such as a search capability). See the corresponding configuration option for more details.

The Lounge now lets you upload files! Once enabled in your configuration file, you can directly upload files and images from the UI:

Paperclip icon in the message input, with tooltip saying Upload file
To upload a file, use the icon in the message input, or simply drag-and-drop it on the UI.

A new set of commands gives you the ability to ignore users based on nickname or hostmask: /ignore, /unignore, and /ignorelist.

New context menu action: List ignored users Ignored users list with 1 ignored hostmask
List ignored users directly from the UI using the context menu on networks

📂 The channel list packs a lot of improvements:

  • It is now possible to collapse channels/direct messages under a given network:

Collapse networks in the channel list by clicking the caret icon on the left of the network name

  • New keyboard shortcuts have been added to easily navigate between lobbies. A list of all available shortcuts can be found in the Help window of the client.

  • You can now edit existing networks from the UI. Most changes will take effect after the next reconnection, but editing the network name will go into effect immediately.


To edit a network, click the according action in the network context menu

  • You can also disconnect and re-connect directly from the network context menu. Disconnected networks will stay disconnected upon restarts of the server.

  • Networks now reflect their connection and security status. For a network to be considered secure, it has to use a valid and trusted TLS certificate (trusted by your Node.js installation) or to be connected to localhost.

If you are disconnected from the network, the channel list will display a broken link icon
If the connection is not secure, the channel list will display a warning icon

  • When joining a new channel, it is now added to the list in alphabetical order. You can still sort channels yourself by dragging them around.

  • The channel list can now be hidden on desktop devices.

🌍 Links previews have also been improved:

  • They gained an expand button if the title or description text is truncated:

Previews can be expanded using the More/Less button

  • Your browser language is now passed onto the server of the URL being fetched so that previews can be displayed in your language (depending on remote server support).

  • Any error occuring while pre-fetching a URL (e.g. request failure or max size exceeded) will be displayed on the interface. More details can be seen by expanding the preview.

Example of an error occurring when pre-fetching a URL

💬 The message input also gets a few improvements:

  • You can now easily wrap text with quotes, brackets, parentheses, etc. by selecting characters then hitting the corresponding key:

Auto-complete closing characters by selecting text in the message input and hitting the corresponding key

  • The input bar no longer aggressively steals the keyboard focus. This change makes it possible to tab through focusable/clickable elements in the UI. Typing or pasting text (using Ctrl/+V) anywhere when nothing is in focus will however automatically set the focus to the input bar.

⚙️ Here are a few new things you may notice in the client settings window:

  • Some settings may now be hidden behind the new "Advanced settings" checkbox:

Advanced settings checkbox

  • You can now (optionally) synchronize client settings across all your devices:

Client settings can be synchronized across devices

  • You can also instruct your device to open all URLs starting with irc:// using The Lounge:

Button in the Settings: Open irc:// URLs with The Lounge

🖥 Administrators handling the server and using the CLI will notice a few changes:

  • Text log format has been modified to improve formatting and consistency with other IRC software. The logs.format and logs.timezone settings have been removed. The Lounge now logs timestamps using a format of YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss (which used to be the default value) in UTC timezone. These are some of the breaking changes we have documented in our upgrade guide.

  • The inline documentation of the configuration file that gets generated at ~/.thelounge/config.js has been entirely rewritten. It can also be found in a rich-format on the configuration documentation.

  • The thelounge install command now allows you to install a specific version, such as thelounge install thelounge-theme-solarized@1.0.0.

  • A new command, thelounge update, has been added to update all installed packages and themes at once.

  • Message logging is now enabled for LDAP users.

💎 Other notable changes:

  • Visibility of the password fields can now be toggled using the eye icon:

Control password field visibility by clicking on the eye icon

  • If you are operator in a channel, the user context menu now lets you voice/devoice and op/deop users:

User context menu showing actions to revoke operator and give voice to a user

  • MOTDs in network windows have been improved to correctly display ASCII art:

screen shot 2019-01-25 at 01 28 28

  • The /whowas command is now supported and its response is displayed in a direct message window.

  • It is now possible to include randomly-generated numbers into the default nickname on page load, using percent signs (%). For example, this helps avoiding nick collisions in public mode. See the configuration option.

  • URL detection in messages now supports links without protocol or www. prefixes (if the top-level domain is valid) and has been improved overall by switching to a better library.

  • Accessibility of the interface has been improved throughout the interface. If you are an assistive technology user and encounter accessibility issues, we encourage you to open an issue on GitHub to help us identifying and resolving them.

  • Among other improvements to CTCP handling, the network window now reports when someone is making a CTCP request against your nickname:

screen shot 2019-01-26 at 02 13 28

This concludes the highlights of this release, but there is a lot more to it: new and improved features, security fixes, etc., of which you will find a more comprehensive list below.

So much work has happened in the last year, result of the hard work of so many contributors that we are incredibly thankful for. We hope you will love The Lounge v3. ❤️

One more thing: we started an Open Collective a few months back, where recurring and one-time donations are welcome, should you wish to help us financially. Among other things, it allows us to assemble and ship free sticker packs, so make sure to grab yours!

Added

Changed

Deprecated

Removed

  • Switch to Node v6 as the minimal supported version (#1727 by @astorije, #2907 by @xPaw)
  • Remove autoload deprecation notice (#1728 by @astorije)
  • Remove deprecated support for debug as a boolean in the configuration file (#1729 by @astorije)
  • Remove deprecated support for the --home option and $LOUNGE_HOME environment variable (#1733 by @astorije)
  • Get rid of Object.assign polyfill (#1760 by @astorije)
  • Remove deprecated options for thelounge start (#1834 by @astorije)
  • Remove session token hash conversion (#1966 by @xPaw)
  • Remove deprecated support for CSS filenames in theme configuration (#1730 by @astorije)
  • Remove support for the lounge CLI (which was replaced with thelounge) (#2077 by @astorije)
  • Remove thelounge config from the CLI (#2196 by @astorije)
  • Remove nick editor (#2337 by @xPaw)
  • Remove ability to change date format and timezone (#2506 by @xPaw)

Fixed

  • Fix CTCP commands always sent upper-case (#1927 by @astorije)
  • Rewrite CTCP handling (#1928 by @xPaw)
  • Send empty banlist error to lobby for channels user is not in (#2095 by @xPaw)
  • Change wsEngine to ws (#2099 by @xPaw)
  • Fix log.warn in LDAP (#2106 by @xPaw)
  • Always correctly trigger sticky scroll on .chat container (#2107 by @xPaw)
  • Fix "rendering..." getting stuck on first connection (#2109 by @xPaw)
  • Change "Leave" button tooltip to correspond with right click context menu (#2115 by @fnutt)
  • Revert "Allow scaling the page" (#2122 by @astorije)
  • Set channel state to joined when channel already exists (#2142 by @xPaw)
  • Do not crash when user file can not be read or written (#2143 by @xPaw)
  • Cleanup chat/userlist to use flexbox, fix a couple of bugs (#2150, #2160 by @xPaw)
  • Fix default ECDH curve for better compatibility (#2159, #2163 by @xPaw)
  • Do not listen to touch events until client is initialized (#2158 by @xPaw)
  • Normalize unicode URLs in link prefetcher (#2171 by @xPaw)
  • Fix background color when hovering users in user list (darker themes) (#2172 by @williamboman)
  • Always hide horizontal overflow in chat (#2177 by @xPaw)
  • Do not include colon in push message for actions (#2179 by @xPaw)
  • Do not crash when awayMessage is set but IRC connection does not exist (#2181 by @xPaw)
  • Remove contain as it's causing rendering issues (#2182 by @xPaw)
  • Allow overriding arrays in config, warn about incorrect types (#2189 by @xPaw)
  • Don't access Notification if the browser does not support it (#2192 by @creesch)
  • Do not repaint theme on page load (#2213 by @xPaw)
  • Fix some URLs not being sent as-is to the client (#2217 by @xPaw)
  • Send hexip in ident responses (#2237 by @xPaw)
  • Rework how unread marker is moved when status messages are hidden (#2236 by @xPaw)
  • Fix incorrect spelling (#2243 by @birkof)
  • Support strikethrough and underline at same time (#2248 by @MaxLeiter)
  • Render video and audio previews only after canplay event fires (#2251 by @xPaw)
  • Stop propagation, prevent input history call when alt is involved (#2262 by @realies)
  • Scroll channel list only when using keybinds (#2259 by @xPaw)
  • Fix order in oidentd file (#2273 by @xPaw)
  • Hide autocompletion menu when input is submitted (#2284 by @xPaw)
  • Send Accept header when fetching links (#2287 by @xPaw)
  • Fix/Improve some nick fallbacks (#2297 by @astorije)
  • Remove left padding from sidebar in example theme (#2309 by @xPaw)
  • Fix line-height showing scrollbar on mobile (#2331 by @xPaw)
  • Prevent undefined OS version in session list (#2340 by @dgw)
  • Enable sync on empty local storage, force sync, sync on both load and reconnect (#2317 by @creesch, #2544 by @xPaw)
  • Fix nicks with special characters being colored incorrectly in messages (#2363 by @xPaw)
  • Quick-fix tooltips not being loaded by Webpack (#2367 by @astorije)
  • Fix user list scroll area expanding behind the message input on mobile (#2364 by @astorije)
  • Fix your own nick in auto completion (#2381 by @xPaw)
  • Make a separate function to execute yarn commands; fallback to global yarn (#2385 by @xPaw)
  • Fix join channel UI moving when sorting channels (#2404 by @xPaw)
  • Fix CSS issues in Microsoft Edge (#2409 by @xPaw)
  • Add prefix to channels from connect window (#2378 by @xPaw)
  • Specify parseInt base in respondToIdent (#2439 by @xPaw)
  • Pointer cursor hovering nicks in user list (#2445 by @MaxLeiter)
  • Show connect window when last network is removed (#2480 by @xPaw)
  • Fix being unable to click channel link in chan after being kicked (#2482 by @Jay2k1)
  • Prevent long lobby names pushing badges out of sidebar (#2503 by @dgw)
  • Do not mark your nick changes as self in each channel (#2505 by @xPaw)
  • If a preview fails to load, remove the link from msg object (#2504 by @xPaw)
  • Fix /away not setting you away (#2524 by @xPaw)
  • Use http: for protocol-less URLs (#2532 by @benharri)
  • Fix word boundary in the custom highlights regex not matching unicode (#2534 by @McInkay)
  • Fix multiple <title> tags being concatenated (#2543 by @xPaw)
  • Synchronize number of highlighted messages to client (#2547 by @xPaw)
  • Log notices as correct sender when it will be shown in active window (#2550 by @xPaw)
  • Do not remove date marker when loading history if date changes (#2567 by @xPaw)
  • Reset highlights on self messages; update title when other client opens a channel (#2580 by @xPaw)
  • Fix text not having enough space in <select> with some fonts (#2548 by @xPaw)
  • Name close button text on channels "Leave" and keep "Close" for other types (#2593 by @MaxLeiter)
  • Disable username auto-capitalization on login form input field (#2617 by @fnutt)
  • Make user list state consistent on mobile and desktop (#2599 by @xPaw)
  • Fix incorrect target in connect/disconnect context menu (#2626 by @xPaw)
  • Stop handling CTCP messages if the sender/target is ignored (#2609 by @RockyTV)
  • Fix disabling autocomplete and fix completing special channels (#2630 by @xPaw)
  • Remove extra closing tag (#2639 by @xPaw)
  • Do not write /list messages to logs (#2637 by @xPaw)
  • Fix ignore list resetting on server restart (#2640 by @xPaw)
  • Change alert sound from OGG to WAV (#2655 by @realies)
  • Fix IRC modifiers not working with caps lock (#2677 by @xPaw)
  • Fix bugs with URL overrides in Connect window (#2702 by @astorije)
  • Hide Native App settings section when no items are available (#2705 by @MaxLeiter)
  • Fix displaying away message multiple times in query windows (#2721 by @xPaw)
  • Make sure data is an object (#2730 by @xPaw)
  • Drop spdy module in favor of native https module (#2732 by @xPaw)
  • Enforce lobby to be the 0th channel when sorting (#2733 by @xPaw)
  • Add try/catch to localStorage methods (#2701 by @adamus1red)
  • Fix passwords not being saved in Firefox (#2741 by @xPaw)
  • Add 3 commands that were missing on client autocomplete (#2756 by @McInkay)
  • Fix fullscreen mode for videos (#2775 by @richrd)
  • Fix issues in regards to ignoring your own nickname (#2795 by @xPaw)
  • Fix extra padding in condensed messages on mobile (#2798 by @xPaw)
  • Fix stored image previews not being dereferenced (#2824 by @xPaw)
  • Make sure registered command is actually a function (#2848 by @xPaw)
  • Use hasOwnProperty when checking for webirc (#2849 by @xPaw)
  • Hard limit nicks to 100 characters, add maxlength on connect inputs (#2858 by @xPaw)
  • Fix timing issue crashing on undefined when setting openChannel (#2859 by @xPaw)
  • Serve requests from cache when server responds with non 2xx response (#2973 by @xPaw)
  • Add fallback IP address for unix sockets (#2967 by @xPaw)
  • Don't fallback to host in identd server (#2958 by @xPaw)
  • Fix .active styles incorrectly applying to hovered users in userlist (#2975 by @xPaw)
  • Empty storage directory after destroying all channels (#2937 by @xPaw)
  • Add an extra check for setting names (#2977 by @xPaw)
  • Fix highlight styles not applying to notices and actions (#2980 by @xPaw)
  • Set yarn cache folder in the packages folder (#2979 by @xPaw)

Security

  • Sync network status and security to client UI (#2049 by @xPaw)
  • Consider localhost connections secure (#2081 by @xPaw)
  • Ignore events on the server if incorrect data is supplied (#2088 by @xPaw)
  • Allow setting rejectUnauthorized per network (#2075, #2154 by @xPaw)
  • Print failed login attempts to console (#2247 by @xPaw)
  • Empty local storage on sign out and move the sign out button to the settings (#2254 by @astorije)
  • Use attr() on user-controlled data (#2398, #2406 by @xPaw)

Documentation

In the main repository:

On the website repository:

Internals