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Cathode Changelog

What's new in Cathode 2.4.1

May 19, 2017
  • Faster bit-rates.
  • Networking security improvements for macOS Sierra.
  • Fixed a bug related to uninstalled fonts.

New in Cathode 2.3.0 (Oct 31, 2014)

  • Cosmetics:
  • New app icon.
  • Updated retina artwork.
  • Easier to see mouse cursor.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Prompt text properly clears when resizing window.
  • Fixed Yosemite glitches.

New in Cathode 2.2.0 (Aug 26, 2014)

  • Terminal:
  • Alternate buffers for preserving state between shells and fullscreen programs.
  • Fixed a line wrapping bug in tmux and other programs.
  • Cursor hiding sequences now work.
  • User Interface:
  • Copied text preserves lines and ignores wrapping.
  • Pasting large amounts of text no longer causes cutoffs.
  • Increase/decrease font scale menu and shortcut.
  • A few new sounds (thanks to Bastian Masanek)

New in Cathode 2.1.3 (May 29, 2014)

  • Fixed a selection bug that was occurring with some multi-monitor setups.

New in Cathode 2.1.2 (Apr 16, 2014)

  • Terminal:
  • Live text reflowing.
  • Background color erase.
  • UI:
  • Simplified text/window sizing.
  • Closing windows warns about ending processes.
  • Bugs:
  • Non-PNG reflection pictures now save properly.
  • TMPDIR is properly inherited

New in Cathode 2.1.1 (Apr 7, 2014)

  • Terminal:
  • Live text reflowing.
  • Background color erase.
  • UI:
  • Simplified text/window sizing.
  • Closing windows warns about ending processes.
  • Bugs:
  • Non-PNG reflection pictures now save properly.
  • TMPDIR is properly inherited.

New in Cathode 2.0.3 (Jan 23, 2014)

  • Bug Fixes:
  • Bold colors work better.
  • Dark grey text is no longer invisible in some cases.
  • TMPDIR and DISPLAY are set properly.
  • Reflection works better with multiple monitors.
  • Improvements:
  • Made blues brighter.
  • Added yank and kill to shortcuts to the editor. (^K and ^Y).
  • Better services integration for text and URLs.

New in Cathode 2.0.2 (Oct 16, 2012)

  • Save Screenshots:
  • Use the File menu or Command-Shift-P
  • Saves PNGs with transparency.
  • Works with retina displays.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • A crash related to closing windows has been fixed.
  • Typing in a disconnected terminal now works properly.
  • Improved stability with the following graphics cards:
  • Intel HD 3000
  • ATI Radeon HD series

New in Cathode 2.0.1 (Sep 10, 2012)

  • Bug Fixes:
  • Older MacBookPros no longer display an empty picture.
  • Setting a custom reflection photo works once again.

New in Cathode 2.0.0 (Sep 7, 2012)

  • Cosmetics:
  • New icon.
  • New spring effect when scrolling or moving windows.
  • Other:
  • Better support for opening text files from the Finder or Dock.
  • Fixed some crashes related to closing windows and multiple monitors.

New in Cathode 1.9.8 (Aug 28, 2012)

  • Retina Display Support:
  • Enable it in the Preferences
  • Leave it off for higher framerates
  • Works with mixed monitor setups
  • New Mouse Options:
  • Copy on select
  • Paste with the right or middle mouse button
  • Enable these features in the Terminal section of the preferences
  • Visual Improvements:
  • The glow effect looks much more realistic
  • Noise and retrace effects don't go outside the picture area
  • Transparency works in Low rendering mode
  • Minimal rendering mode text is sharp
  • Fixed a bug that was causing a slight flash when switching windows

New in Cathode 1.9.0 (Aug 11, 2012)

  • Misc:
  • Autosaving can be disabled for text documents.
  • Smoother window resizing and font zooming.
  • Better resampling for Picture and Camera documents.
  • Reflection image can be selected using an Open dialog.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • Text no longer disappears in background windows on certain ATI graphics cards.
  • Initial window sizing and placement is smarter.
  • Scrolling never occurs when clicking in the toolbar.

New in Cathode 1.8.0 (Aug 2, 2012)

  • Unicode:
  • Thousands of new characters: Punctuation, Symbols, Greek, Hebrew, Math, more Latin and Cyrillic, etc.
  • Supported ranges are U+0000..U+0600, U+2000..U+2200, and U+25xx.
  • Classic fonts fall back to Monaco, for now.
  • Sizing:
  • Window sizing is more consistent when resuming the app, making new documents, and changing themes.
  • Font zooming is smoother, sharper, and more powerful.
  • Classic and modern fonts are sized more consistently.
  • Other:
  • Immersive mouse cursor is now optional, and is off by default.
  • The window title shows the grid size.
  • Selection looks better over multiple foreground/background colors.
  • Toolbar with font controls.

New in Cathode 1.7.0 (Jul 18, 2012)

  • Font Scaling:
  • Text size can be controlled by scaling pixels, rather than just point size.
  • A new "Lock Grid Size" option makes sizing less clunky.
  • Effects:
  • New "Vertical Interlace" effect can make nice looking square pixels.
  • Ambient light on the frame looks better on many graphics cards.
  • Glow and jitter look better at large font scales.
  • Misc:
  • Added more keyboard shortcuts for paragraph navigation in text documents.
  • Effect sliders are disabled when not available at the current rendering quality.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • Very long text buffers aren't cut off when pasted.
  • Favorites always respect their themes on launch.
  • Very long lines in text documents are wrapped properly.

New in Cathode 1.6.0 (Jun 29, 2012)

  • Terminal:
  • Many layout glitches have been solved -particularily in emacs
  • Fixed a bug that was causing text to overwrite rather than insert
  • Dark grey text is now visible
  • Rendering:
  • Choose between Minimal, Low, Medium, and High rendering modes
  • Moving effect sliders down to 0 improves performance
  • Selection is visible for black text on a white background
  • Other:
  • Supports Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
  • ARC and modern Objective-C used under the hood
  • No more crashes when deleting shortcuts

New in Cathode 1.5.0 (Jun 18, 2012)

  • General:
  • Documents and windows are restored between app launches
  • Text documents use auto-saving on Mac OS 10.7
  • New menus for controlling fonts, colors, and themes
  • Favorites:
  • Common commands can be stored as Favorites
  • Favorites can be launched with keyboard shortcuts
  • Keyboard and Mouse:
  • Middle click copies selected text, or pastes the clipboard
  • PageUp/PageDown/Home/End keys can send custom control codes
  • Video:
  • A new "Camera" mode for converting live video feeds to ASCII art (see the Favorites menu)
  • Rendering:
  • New "minimal" rendering mode ("low" and "medium" coming soon)
  • Smoother fluid mode resizing
  • Bugs:
  • Terminal no longer resizes when starting "screen"
  • Fixed a bug that was inverting text incorrectly
  • No more mouse cursor drawing conflicts
  • DISPLAY envar is now properly set

New in Cathode 1.2.0 (Feb 23, 2012)

  • General:
  • Open URLs by command double-clicking
  • Scrollbars can be hidden when not using the mouse/trackpad
  • Key repeat is back
  • Drag and drop reflection image in preferences
  • Scrolling now works smoothly in background windows
  • Terminal:
  • 256 colors
  • Blinking text
  • Underlined text
  • ASCII line drawing characters
  • Set TERM (xterm/xterm-color/xterm-256color) from the preferences
  • Better emulation, especially in Midnight Commander
  • Effects:
  • New "overbright" property has been split out of "glow"
  • Other monitor properties have been renamed (Interlace -> Scan-Lines, Contrast -> Backlight, Line -> Retrace)
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed a crash that count happen when closing windows or moving windows between multiple monitors.
  • Fixed a bug that could truncate long strings when copied.
  • Select-by-word properly understands cyrillic characters

New in Cathode 1.1.1 (Jan 30, 2012)

  • Terminal:
  • Huge improvements in emulation accuracy
  • Cathode passes all the layout tests in vttest
  • Lots of bugs fixed
  • Prompt never appears on the wrong line
  • Display:
  • Option to use a custom fullscreen mode that's nicer than Lion's
  • Framerate slider
  • Positional window perspective can be disabled
  • Nicer mouse cursor

New in Cathode 1.0.0 (Oct 31, 2011)

  • Cyrillic:
  • Cyrillic glyphs are now available.
  • Classic fonts have been updated.
  • Performance Improvements:
  • New multi-threaded renderer gives smoother framerates.
  • CPU and battery utilization have been reduced.
  • Window resizing feels like butter.
  • Fullscreen and background windows are less taxing on the system.
  • Other:
  • Fixed some minor rendering glitches.
  • Fixed a bug that had broken function keys.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing individual sounds from being disabled.
  • Added a setting to disable all sounds.

New in Cathode 0.9.9 (Oct 10, 2011)

  • Text Editor:
  • You can now view and edit plain text files without an underlying terminal.
  • Use "Open" or "New Editor" in the file menu.
  • Supports standard Mac OS keyboard shortcuts for text navigation.
  • Uses standard Mac OS open/save panels and change tracking.
  • Sound Effects:
  • New section of the Preferences for customizing sounds.
  • Categories:
  • Startup chimes
  • Ambient fan, hard drive, and CPU sounds
  • Scroll feedback
  • Character entry clicks
  • Error beeps
  • Modem noise
  • Custom Screen Reflection
  • Use your webcam to take a static reflection photo of your environment.
  • This is the most requested feature of all time.
  • Terminal:
  • Pasted text is no longer escaped with slashes.
  • Use the option key and left/right arrows to move by word at the shell prompt.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing copied text to be cropped.
  • Fixed a crash caused by unexpected unicode characters.
  • Removed some asserts that were accidentally left enabled in release builds.

New in Cathode 0.9.8 (Aug 8, 2011)

  • Features:
  • Lion-style fullscreen experience.
  • Shift + page up/down now work like in Terminal.app.
  • Locale environment variables can be disabled.
  • Open any image file to generate ascii art.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Keyboard combos for international characters have been restored.
  • Cursor disappearing bug has been fixed.
  • Issuing an exit command in a fullscreen window now works.
  • Terminal emulation continues to improve.

New in Cathode 0.9.7 (Jun 20, 2011)

  • Scrollbars:
  • Shown as needed, just like iOS and Mac OS X Lion
  • Nice looks that don't interfere with the mood
  • Live Resizing:
  • New setting for linking column and row count to window size.
  • Integrated Graphics Cards:
  • Support for many on-board graphics cards from Intel
  • Tested and working on the 2011 13" MacBook Pro, among others
  • Command Files:
  • Launch ".command" files from the finder
  • Can contain shell scripts or simple commands
  • Relaunch from the "Open Recent" menu
  • Terminal Options:
  • New "Terminal" section in Preferences (some options have moved)
  • Close on exit
  • Delete sends Ctrl-H
  • Scroll on input
  • Dynamically change the scrollback buffer size
  • Bug fixes
  • Fixed a crash that was occurring on Asian language systems
  • More accurate terminal emulation

New in Cathode 0.9.6 (Mar 18, 2011)

  • Scrollback:
  • Works with PageUp/PageDown/Home/End.
  • Works with mouse gestures.
  • Looks great.
  • Better International Text Support:
  • All characters from the ISO-8859-1 (Latin1 / Western Europe) standard are now supported.
  • You can use standard Mac OS X key combos for entering characters. (eg. add an acute accent by typing option+'e' before a character).
  • Classic bitmap fonts have been updated to support ISO-8859-1.
  • UTF-8 is used internally for all data flow.
  • The LANG environment variable is now set based on the language settings in System Preferences.
  • Terminal:
  • SSH no longer asks for passwords repeatedly. Cathode properly sets the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable.
  • Bell sound can be disabled in the General Preferences.
  • New Command-Line Defaults:
  • "ScrollBackRowCount" (Default is 10000)
  • "Color1", "Color2" ... "Color15" (For overriding the standard colors. Uses hex RGB strings. Eg. red would be "FF0000").
  • "BackgroundWindowsRenderAtFullQuality" (The default is NO. Intended only for media centers/kiosks/servers. This feature can significantly slow down drawing in other apps.)

New in Cathode 0.9.5 (Feb 17, 2011)

  • New Features:
  • Mouse cursor.
  • Mouse selection (by character, word, or line).
  • Copy/Paste.
  • Drag and drop files.
  • Buffer clearing with command-K.
  • Use option/alt as meta key.
  • Forward delete key.
  • Three new classic fonts (thanks to Damien Guard).
  • More bit-rates to choose from.
  • Architecture:
  • Now fully 64-bit, fully Cocoa, using the modern runtime, and compiled with LLVM.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fixed some terminal alignment glitches (often seen in "screen").
  • Fixed a crash that was occurring in "vttest".
  • Fixed a bug that was causing jumbled text on nVidia 7300/7600 GT and 4500 FX graphics cards.
  • Users are now properly warned about unsupported graphics hardware (Intel GMA 950/X3100, ATI Radeon 1600/1900).

New in Cathode 0.9.4 (Jan 19, 2011)

  • Richer colors
  • New icons
  • Anonymous hardware stats are now gathered