And of course, the JDK used to build the release was busted, which would make the profile creation fail. And due to the way the packaging is performed, it would only fail in that state, and not during the tests, conclusion:
After a long wait, a new version with some major changes:
Forums
You can now communicate using forums and instant synchronization. Subscribe to your favorite topics and participate in conversations with other users.
It also features a markdown editor so you can have some structure and style but without the bloat of HTML.
which gives the following result once the message is sent:
Incoming HTML messages from Retroshare are automatically converted to markdown.
Emojis
Emojis up to Unicode version 14 are supported inline and with colors:
Profile export/import
You can now export your own profile, location and identity as well as your friend’s profiles and locations to an XML file for backup purposes.
This is also useful when switching versions with incompatible databases (*).
Miscellaneous changes
Java 21 support for better and faster performances
improvements to automatic backups (3 of them are kept)
improved network failures handling
protocol improvements
UI fixes
*: Upgrading from a previous version requires deleting the profile because of some major changes again. At least from this version on there’s the profile export/import feature to mitigate this in the future.
This is mostly a bugfix release but it also contains a new useful feature: QR code support to exchange IDs.
You can save it as an image (for example to display on a phone) or simply print it. To import it, go to Add Peer… / Scan a QR code and just hold it in front of your webcam (yes, Xeres supports webcams now).
Other notable bug fixes are:
fix GXS syncing so that updates are pushed and received in all cases (for example missing avatar image)
This release contains quite some important features:
Support for Tor and I2p.
Which means you can connect to Tor and I2P peers.
And support for the DHT.
Which means you can connect to other Xeres/Retroshare peers even if you don’t know their IPs.
There’s a lot of cool new UI features, especially the settings part where you can configure all the above and also control UPNP and Broadcast Discovery.
There’s also the (in)famous LEDs in the status bar 🙂
Here’s the list of changes:
Protocol
add Tor support
add I2P support
add DHT support
improve UPNP compatibility with Askey devices
add hostname support in discovery
upgrade the broadcast discovery protocol to the latest ongoing version
UI
add Settings UI
show a notification for detected clients on the LAN
add status bar
add leds for NAT and DHT status
improve Home UI and menus
improve tray icon (menu and tooltip)
Chat UI
bases the nickname color on the GxsId to make spoofing harder
Connection
prefer direct connection for clients on the same LAN
detect if the IP changed and reconfigures the services accordingly
This release was focusing on fixing many bugs regarding the GxS syncing, many parts have been rewritten and it’s now faster and more reliable.
The chat UI has been refined too. Xeres can be used as a daily chat system.
I also upgraded to the latest H2, which is unfortunately not backward compatible. This means you have to delete your user data and recreate a profile. Sorry! From now on I’ll be more careful when upgrading and provide an automated path.
List of changes:
Chat UI
improve chat room info display
add tooltip over the user list
improve nickname completion: the tab key handles multiple nicknames and works anywhere
display received broadcasts
Identities
add support for identity avatar image, including setting it
Protocol
faster and more consistent GxS syncing
Database
upgrade to latest H2 (this means the user data needs to be deleted before upgrading, sorry!)
Connection
allow to manually select a peer IP to connect to
connect immediately to peers when adding them
allow to manually set trust levels
Misc
add a log file in the user directory (useful for troubleshooting)
display profile and location name in the main window