DuckClient 5.0 released

DuckClient 5.0 has been released to the Chrome Web Store. Standalone versions are available from the downloads directory; they should still be considered beta quality, and lack support for settings sync. (You can, however, use the Backup/Restore functionality to copy your settings from the Chrome version.)

New in this release:

• The text-formatting code has been given a major overhaul:
  • Regexp-pattern triggers can optionally style only the matched text, instead of the whole line. (This is not available for wildcard patterns, because wildcard patterns either match the entire line or don't match at all.)
  • ANSI styles now carry over from line to line, unless explicitly cleared.
  • Styling for local echo text can now be adjusted in the Edit, Preferences menu.
• URLs will no longer have zero-width spaces added. This made line breaks a bit more elegant, but turned out to cause problems with cut-and-paste.
• URL detection can now be switched on and off via the "URLs" checkbox in the icon bar.
• A new world-specific setting replaces Unicode with with ASCII equivalents where possible, before sending text. This is handy when cutting-and-pasting from websites or word processor documents that use "smart quotes" and other fancy formatting. Thanks to BJ Yackley (who also did the DuckClient icon) for help with the translation table.
• Bugs fixed:
  • The master password dialog will not appear until the client has fully initialized and is responsive. Loading CA certificates added just enough of a delay here to be awkward, and made it obvious the loading indicator was appearing behind the dialog instead of in front of it.
  • Errors in telnet negotiation were causing garbage characters and disconnections on some MUD servers that supported MCCP2. These have been fixed.
  • Log filename now truncates when the window is too narrow, instead of pushing the URL detection and Auto-\ checkboxes downward.