v23.3.0

UX: error messages

Previously, when a game could not be launched, the message displayed was somewhat cryptic. Those messages are now friendlier:

Linux: 32 / 64-bit

Previously, if there were multiple downloads available for Linux, the app showed them all. Even if some of them were incompatible.

Now, if there are both 32-bit and 64-bit available, the app will filter out 32-bit builds on 64-bit platforms and vice versa.

When universal Linux builds are available, the app used to launch whichever executable came first in the folder - since folder ordering is (seemingly) random, this meant launching the "wrong" executable sometimes (often resulting in the game not working on 64-bit linux because of missing 32-bit libraries, or spawn UNKNOWN for 64-bit games on 32-bit linux).

Now, the app will automatically filter out 32-bit binaries on 64-bit linux, and vice versa. Additionally, if libraries are missing (no matter the architecture), they're now listed in the message box:

...allowing tech-savvy users to hunt down the missing package and install it to get the game running.

Automatic library detection & installation for Linux games is planned (and initial progress has been made in this direction), but not included in this release.

Web engine update

itch now runs on and ships with Chrome 56.

Various fixes

Linux: When registering the itchio:// protocol, the wrong .desktop name was used. The correct one is now set.

Linux: The .desktop file had some validation errors, @darealshinji fixed them.

Linux: trying to configure a game with a fifo in the folder would get stuck forever. fifos are now ignored when looking for executables.

Windows: Notifications on Windows included a weird string, now it's gone. Notifications are simpler & prettier!

macOS: Context menus (that pop up when right-clicking) no longer block rendering of the app.

All platforms: The "Close tab" button was shown over the user menu. It no longer is.

v23.2.1

• ⬆️ 23.2.1
• Fix 64-bit windows detection

v23.2.0

UX: Table view & filters

The grid view is cute, but when you own north of 200 games it becomes a bit hard to use. Table view is here to save the day:

You can sort by any column, and there's three new filters: Compatible, Installed, and Owned:

Note that play time is only recorded while a game is installed. I'm being told it will be given the cloud treatment any time now though. Let's call it a good start.

UX: Smooth tabs

Dragging tabs to re-order them is now smooth. Like, silky smooth. Smooth is a feature.

We could include a GIF of it here, or you could try it. Only way to be sure.

Also, you can't drag "Essentials" tabs anymore, since, those can't be re-ordered. That was a bit silly. Now it's not. Not silly. Just smooth.

UX: Revamped collection view

The collection view is a bit prettier:

The goal being mostly, to help you wait for full in-app collection management. Is it helping? A little, right?

UX: web views & misc.

• When restoring many tabs, don't let them all load at once. Only load them when focused.
• Ctrl-click/middle-click/meta-click to "Open in new tab" works in most views now (grid, table, web views)
• There's a context menu in web views now (with Cut/Copy/Paste/Open link in new tab/Copy link)

• In-page navigation (pushState) works properly
• Web tabs are properly saved/restored when quitting/restarting the app now
• Web controls have bigger click targets and ink (see Google's material design). Ink is good.

Compatibility

• If there's multiple downloads, picks the proper one (32-bit or 64-bit)
• If a single download ships both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries, launch the proper one

This applies to Windows. Linux will follow suit, although there's bigger fish to fry on the Linux front, like downloading missing libraries.

(There's no screenshot here. If there was, it'd be a screenshot of the hundred of GitHub issues this closes. But I won't screenshot that, these notes are heavy as-is).

Also, for UE4 games, when the UE4 prerequisites setup file is being run, there's now a little dialog that says, hey, we're preparing things for you, don't worry game's still going to launch, it's just going to be a bit. Rather than just saying "Running..." when, clearly, there's more to the story there.

Misc.

• Change the way tooltips are displayed. Which should result in 100% fewer cases of "the tooltip is under something". It does result in one case of "the tooltip is over something", if you can find it, congrats! Still, an improvement.
• Recognize more network errors as network errors and not general errors (this should only affect you - in a good way - if you're on a flaky connection).
• Esc now exits fullscreen. Now, the only way to get into fullscreen mode is to click the fullscreen video on an embedded video player (looking at you YouTube/Vimeo). But if you happen to be stuck there, well, Esc gets you out of it.
• Upgraded Chrome version to v53.0.2785.143
• Got rid of some technical debt, reinvested some of it in fresh technical debt.

v23.1.0

• Don't prefer optimized patches by default - make it an advanced preference until we can make sure it's stable
• Use smaller window icon on windows because otherwise the volume mixer goes nuts

v23.0.0

• A new UI is shown when installing prerequisites on Windows

• Additionally, VC++ 2015 is now available to developers as a prerequisite, both in x86 and x64 flavor (#1102). More will follow, now that most of the ground work for adding redists has been done.
• Users can now clear the browser cache and cookies (in Preferences->Advanced)

• Upgrading games is now more reliable. Previously, if your local install was corrupted, patching would fail and fall back to redownloading the whole game. Now, it seamlessly redownloads only what's necessary, and continues the regular patching process.
• The downloader now takes into account a larger set of temporary network errors and should be more resilient (#1098)
• Bugfix: When exiting fullscreen in web games, the app menu used to re-appear in the game's window. This is no longer the case
• Bugfix: The temporary folder passed to games is created on launch if not available (and is wiped after the game exits). Fixes all TyranoBuilder games, among others (#1092)
• Bugfix: When a developer pulls a build, the app will now revert to the older build instead of getting locked into an update loop (#1099)

v22.2.0

• Add support for Twine games, cf. #1073
• Correctly remember save data for all HTML games, cf. #861

v22.1.0

• 🐛 Fix API integration broken in v22.0.0

UX improvements:

• bring back tab icons
• ink when pressing buttons
• circular progress indicators for download/install
• new tab animation
• tab loading indicators
• moved new tab button

see video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJn0Z-B0qk

v22.0.0

Automatic web login and two-factor authentication support

The app will now prompt you to enter a code from your authenticator, if one is set up. This allows it to automatically sign you into the itch.io website, so you can easily review games, post on forums & comment sections and more.

Verify integrity

We've added a "verify integrity" option to the context menu of games that were uploaded with the command line tools. This allows you to check if your game files have been damaged or modified, and repair them if so, while being a lot faster than a full reinstall.

Revert to previous build (experimental)

With this feature, you can download older versions of games, as long as they were uploaded using our command line tools. To use it, just right click a game and look for "Revert to version..." in the Advanced submenu.

Minor improvements

• Fixed some minor UI bugs
• Tray icon is now monochrome on Linux and Windows 10

v21.0.4

• Open new tabs on top instead of bottom, switch to most-recently used constant tab when closing tab (#1023)
• Remember scroll position in game grid (#1027)

v21.0.3

• Fix AUR package, broken by a third-party package upgrade. Took measures to prevent further breakage for this package.