Changelog

A call moves to your other computer, and a new computer pairs without hunting for the code box

• A call open on your other computer can be picked up on this one with Continue here, instead of being told you are already in a call
• The first message a friend sends in a new chat arrives at once, with a notice, without opening the chat first
• While the app sits in the tray, friends see you as away. Calls and messages still reach you
• When you add a new computer, the box for its code opens on your other computer by itself, even from the tray, and says which computer is asking and when
• Safe small files up to 5 MB download as soon as they appear in a chat. Programs and shortcuts still wait for a click
• Quitting while a file is still sending or downloading asks first, and can wait for it to finish
• The app starts on a fresh Windows without installing anything else
• Shorter texts across the app

Sharp profile pictures again

• Profile pictures were blurry in 0.4.0. They are sharp again at every size

Video that fits every connection, and photos that open whole

• Cameras and shared screens are sent in two qualities. Each viewer gets the one their own connection can carry, so one slow viewer no longer costs everybody else their picture
• If your connection cannot carry even the lower quality of somebody's video, that video pauses for you and comes back by itself once the connection allows
• All the video in a meeting comes to you over one connection instead of one per person, so a large meeting holds together better
• The call says when your network is weak, in the top left corner, and a small mark on a person's tile shows when it is their network that struggles
• When the server is overloaded, the call says so instead of lagging silently: some video waits its turn and returns by itself, and joining tries again on its own with a countdown
• A meeting holds up to 16 people, and trying to join a full one says so in plain words
• A video that drops by itself is asked for again and comes back, and a short break in your connection no longer leaves anybody's video paused
• Profile photos are kept whole, not only as the round crop, and anyone who can see your picture can open the whole photo. Click a friend's face in their profile to see theirs in full
• A face beside a message in a chat opens that friend's profile
• Pinned friends on the home screen line up by how much you talk and call with each, until you drag one into place. There can be up to six
• Your own call rings with its own sound while it waits for an answer, and a call nobody picks up and a call that ends each have a sound of their own
• Files and pictures show a progress ring only when a transfer takes a moment, so a quick one no longer blinks, and the update screen says which step it is on, and on Linux how far it has got
• A new mark, sharp at every size
• This update is required: meetings now send video in a way that earlier versions do not understand

Calls ring like a phone, and pictures travel as albums

• A call rings like a phone and is answered straight into it. It ends on its own if nobody picks up, and two friends who ring each other at the same moment end up in one call together instead of two
• Missed calls wait for you as notices, the way a message does, instead of sitting silent in the history
• A call can be picked up on another computer of yours without losing it
• Messages show one tick when they arrive and two when they are read
• Pictures and files sent together travel as an album, laid out the way you would expect and opened one at a time in its own viewer
• Comparing safety codes lives in a friend's profile, the one place that ever asks for it
• Pinned friends on the home screen can be put in the order you want by dragging them
• A friend in a meeting reads as in a meeting, apart from one in a call
• Video and screen sharing hold up better on a poor connection: a lost packet is asked for again on both, and a shared screen keeps up with the screen instead of freezing between changes
• In a meeting, one participant's weak connection no longer drags down everyone's camera quality
• A slow connection reaches a usable picture faster, and the picture freezes less while quality tries to climb back up
• A shared screen keeps its upright picture when a monitor is turned on its side
• The mandatory update screen is simpler, with one button: check again
• The app closes more carefully, finishing what it was doing before it does

A steadier picture, and Linux packages that say what they need

• Fixed a memory corruption when the app repaired a lost video packet. It broke the picture into blocks and could close the app a few seconds into somebody's video, most often on Linux
• The window opens at its own size on a screen with scaling, where it used to open at about half of it and remember that. A window saved too small comes back to a usable size on the next start
• On Linux the preview of a shared screen keeps up with the screen and no longer stops on the picture before the last change
• An empty chat shows its greeting in the frame it opens in
• The unread mark on the tray icon is smaller and no longer covers the icon
• The Linux packages now say which system libraries they need, so a system that is too old stops the installation with a clear message instead of leaving an app that does not start. Ubuntu 24.04 and newer, and current Fedora, are supported

Chats, favourites and the tray

• Friends is a messenger now. Everyone you have added is on the left, and a chat with each of them opens on the right, whether or not anybody is calling. A call between the two of you shows the same chat
• Every message has a menu. React with an emoji, reply, forward it to another chat, pin it, save it to Favourites, or delete it for yourself only. Pinned messages stay in a bar above the chat, and a draft you left is waiting where you left it
• Favourites is a chat with yourself, first in the list, for notes, links and files. It is on every computer you sign in on, and sealed like any other chat
• When a friend writes, a card in the corner says who and what, and a click on it opens the chat. What you have not read is counted on their row and on the Friends button, and the chat marks where it begins
• You see when a friend is typing to you. A switch in Settings stops them seeing it from you
• Messages come in bubbles with the face of whoever wrote them, and a wide window lines them all up on the left. A picture opens over the whole screen, and the mouse wheel moves a chat by lines rather than a few pixels
• Mute a friend from the chat's menu. Their cards stop, their count turns grey, and it holds on every computer you use
• Pinned friends fold into a row of faces on the home screen, and open into a list with a call and a chat button beside each name
• Closing the window puts the app by the clock, where it keeps taking calls. Calls and messages come up over other windows unless a window in front is really full screen, and on Linux they come through the desktop's own notifications. Settings has a Notifications section, and the tray icon's menu can switch them off
• Voices hold up better on a poor connection. If you mute and unmute, the others hear you without the extra delay that used to last half a minute. The app has two short sounds of its own, each heard once
• The camera keeps its picture in a dim room and recovers faster after a bad moment on the line. Sharing a screen follows the monitor when a game changes its resolution, where it used to end
• In a call the chat slides in from a button in the bottom-right corner. A minimized call floats in the bottom-left corner and can be dragged anywhere in the window
• The call history shows faces, the friend you called or the people in a meeting
• Online is a blue dot now. The name and picture only you see for a friend moved into their profile, and friendship requests into a button over the list
• A new logo, a blue cloud, and a look that changed with it, frosted glass over the pages and a pug on the empty screens
• Camera and sound are picked in the window before a call and in the call's own settings. Devices in Settings is now the list of computers your account is signed in on. Settings also has a Storage section, which says what your account keeps on this computer and clears the pictures and the call history. The window remembers its size and comes back maximized if it was
• Errors are said in the language of the app. Some came through as the server wrote them, in English, and a wrong password showed as a bare code
• On Linux the camera is the webcam and not the infrared sensor beside it, a locked keyring is opened when you sign in and not after a restart, and the icon survives the first launch
• The whole app and the service were reviewed this month, and what was found is fixed. The ones you can feel: a message sent twice after a dropped connection is stored once, an app that stops reading can no longer swell the service, an update that will not install says so and stops trying, and a crash that used to leave no trace now leaves one
• What the service keeps about you has changed, so the privacy policy has too. It now says that the service knows which friends keep a chat and when its messages were sent, that it passes on who is typing and keeps none of it, that a reaction records who reacted to which message and when but not with what, that a pin is kept in the clear while the message stays sealed, that favourites are sealed and only how much is in them is counted, that each message keeps a random id so one sent twice is stored once, and that whether an address is registered can be found out by trying it, though only a few times a day

0.2.8 for Linux

• Everything in 0.2.8 below, now built for Linux as well. That release went out for Windows only, because its Linux build did not compile
• Nothing here is new for Windows, which already has all of it

How long ago somebody was here, and a switch to keep it to yourself

• The friends list says how long ago a person was last in the app, instead of only that they are away
• A switch in Settings hides that from everyone and leaves you simply offline. Whether you are online right now is not affected by it
• Sound holds together on a patchy connection instead of breaking up
• The sign-in and email fields say what to type instead of showing somebody else's address as an example
• What the service keeps about you has changed, so the privacy policy has too. The part about presence now says that the time is written down, that your friends see it, and how to switch it off

Presence comes back, and the update loop lets go

• A forced update nobody could finish is off. The floor that asked for it stayed where it was, so nothing else moved with it.
• Presence returns after a new computer is paired, instead of leaving everyone grey until a restart
• Joining a call no longer reports failures that did not happen
• Pictures stop getting stranded in the fetch queue
• The presence connection backs off instead of asking every 750 ms for as long as the app is open
• A name the app could not find is now missing in the language you are reading

A call and a meeting are two different things

• A call is between two people who rang each other. A meeting is a room opened by its link. They are separate now, in the history and in the invitation.
• A shared screen is pinned to its display and survives a resolution change, instead of ending the call for whoever was watching
• An update that can never install stops retrying and says so
• A crash report is recovered from Windows' own record when ours never got written
• A toast that lingers has a close button, and keeps clear of a minimized call
• Video tiles keep their textures between frames rather than building them again every time

The call notices when the other side is gone

• A call between two people ends when the other side drops, instead of leaving one person in an empty room
• One shape for every icon button

Pictures and files, in the call's own chat

• Send pictures and files in the call chat. Each one is sealed under a key of its own, so what the service stores is bytes it cannot open.
• The paperclip goes straight to the file dialog
• The app survives an audio stack that falls over, and says so while it is down

A call you can put down without leaving it

• A call can be minimized. A floating tile keeps the room while you go and do something else, and it shows you when nobody else is there.
• A call that began as a ring stays between the two people in it
• Answering a friend's ring answers it, rather than placing a second call back
• Video stops breaking into squares when the picture changes
• The offer to check somebody once sits where it can be read
• Toasts that only repeated what the screen already said are gone

It opens on the people you know

• The app starts on your people rather than on an empty screen, and a friend's card opens from their face
• Add friend opens on whoever you were looking at, and keeps up with the typing
• An update says it is coming while it is coming, rather than once it has arrived
• The Russian catalogue is finished, all 848 of it
• A shared screen and the faces beside it are centred as one cluster
• One scroller for every list, instead of six that disagreed

A moment before the door opens

• A call now sets itself up before anyone can see or hear you. Camera and microphone are yours to decide on a screen with a live level meter, and a link opened outside the app always stops there first.
• The safety number check became one card with the number split in two halves, instead of three paragraphs to read before anything could be compared
• The key of a room travels with your call history, so a call taken on one computer opens on another
• Invites that went missing, and invites that arrived under the wrong name
• A brief connection hiccup no longer claims your session expired and puts you back on the home screen
• Confirmation codes lost their dash, and the emails carrying them read correctly in a dark mailbox

Sealed on your side, and a computer that has to be let in

• Messages, call audio and video, and the key to every room are sealed on your computer with keys the service never receives. What it stores is ciphertext it cannot open.
• An account needs a confirmed address. You sign up with an email and a password, a code confirms the address, and your username comes from that address.
• A computer this account has not used before signs in but opens nothing until a computer you already use reads an eight character code off it. With no other computer left, a code goes to your email instead.
• Safety numbers, so you can be sure it is really them, and a notice on somebody's row the moment their key changes
• A call history that belongs to the account rather than to one machine, sealed before it leaves, so all of your computers show the same list. It can be switched off or cleared, and calls older than thirty days go on their own.
• Spaces and groups are gone. A call is a link, and the people you talk to live in one list.

Older installs update themselves, and conversations from before this release do not come across, because nothing that could carry them survived the move to keys the service does not hold.

The app is called Callifornia

• Renamed from Calls, with a home of its own at callifornia.online
• Russian throughout, chosen from the system the first time it runs and switchable in settings without a restart
• The installer asks which language before it starts

This one arrives as a fresh install rather than an update. A copy of Calls already on the machine keeps working and stays where it is, so take the new installer from the home page.

Chat, presence and a space with every friend

• Chat inside a call, kept with the call, so it is still there the next time you open it
• Live presence for friends, including «waiting for you» when someone is sitting in a space you share
• A private space with every friend, opened from their row or from a pin on the home screen
• Friend requests and profile changes arrive without a refresh
• Settings became a screen of its own

The way a call is joined changed, so installs older than 0.1.0 update themselves.

An honest camera

• Turning the camera on now succeeds only once a camera has actually opened, so a missing or busy one says so instead of lighting the button and sending nothing
• The camera button dims when there is no camera, and the keyboard shortcut follows the same rule

Screen sharing on Wayland

• Sharing on Wayland goes through your desktop's own chooser and PipeWire, instead of looking as though it worked while everyone else saw a black rectangle. It took four attempts, from 0.0.9 to 0.0.13, and this is the release where it holds.
• The chooser appears every time you start sharing, so you can pick a different window than last time
• A session that cannot be captured at all refuses with a message, before anything reaches the call
• On Linux the update button no longer appears minutes before the package reaches the repository

Package updates that say what they are doing

• The Linux update started from inside the app shows progress, failure and the restart prompt, instead of looking as though nothing had happened for tens of seconds
• The relaunch waits for the old process to exit, so a stalled shutdown no longer leaves you without a window
• Both download buckets are pruned to the newest two versions

Linux window, icon and theme

• The window has a title bar on GNOME again. The Wayland decoration plugin was missing from the packages, so the window came up bare and could not be moved.
• The app icon shows up instead of a generic cog
• A dark desktop no longer starts Callifornia in light mode on a fresh install
• Tooltips wait longer before appearing

Callifornia on Linux

• Packages in .deb and .rpm, with a signed APT and YUM repository for updates
• Microphone through PulseAudio, camera through V4L2, screen sharing on X11
• Updates in one click through your package manager
• A redesigned home screen and navigation
• Wayland screen sharing came later, in 0.0.9

A clean uninstall

• Uninstalling removes the install directory, your data and the updater's leftover startup entry. New installs only.

Hello, world

• Group video meetings with short, shareable meeting IDs
• Friends list, add people once and call them with one click
• Invites inside the app, see who invited you and join right from there
• Screen sharing with a picker for a window or the whole screen
• Light and dark themes
• Updates in the background, signed, only the changed files, applied on one restart
• An installer for you alone on Windows 10/11, no administrator rights required