Pachli 2.12.0 is now available. This release includes new features to backup and restore your data, improves display of notifications for server administrators and moderators, and more.
New features and other improvements #
Backups #
There are two new mechanisms to export or backup your data from Pachli.
Android backup and restore #
Pachli now participates in Android’s backup system.
This means if you restore your device from a backup, or choose to transfer your data to a different device, your Pachli data, including accounts and settings, will be restored too.
For this to happen all of the following conditions must be met:
- Your device must be running Android 9 or higher (instructions on how to check your Android version).
- You must be signed in to your device with a Google account.
- You must have enabled Google’s Android backup and restore feature on your device (Settings > System > Backup).
- You must have enabled screen-unlock, with a pin, pattern, or password.
If all these conditions are met then Android copies your Pachli data, including your account information and preferences, encrypts the data, and periodically uploads the data to your Google Drive, approximately once per day when:
- At least 24 hours have elapsed since the last backup.
- The device is idle.
- The device is connected to a Wi-Fi network (if you have not opted in to mobile-data backups).
Data is restored whenever Pachli is installed.
You can disable this functionality on your device at Settings > System > Backup.
Your device backups in Google Drive can be viewed at https://drive.google.com/drive/backups.
For more information on Android’s backup and restore feature see Backup or restore data on your Android device.
Although this does not change Pachli’s privacy stance this information has been added to the privacy policy for transparency.
Preference export and import #
You can also choose to export your global and per-account preferences to a file and then import them at a later date.
For example, suppose you have decided to try Pachli Current. You could:
- Open Pachli, and open Preferences > Lab experiments.
- From there, choose Export settings, and select a file to save your preferences.
- Install Pachli Current.
- Open Pachli Current, and log in to the same accounts you use in Pachli.
- In Pachli Current, open Preferences > Lab experiments.
- Choose Import settings, and select the file you used at step 2.
This does not save any of the credentials for your accounts. That’s why at step 4 above you must log back in to those accounts first. This is to ensure your account credentials remain secure.
You may also find this useful if you want to change where you install Pachli from. For example, if you installed Pachli from Google Play but want to switch to F-Droid.
This was suggested by Jonathan.
Improved the display of admin notifications #
If you are a server admin the display of notifications has been updated.
- More space has been added to show the reporter and reportee’s details.
- Any comment attached to the report is included.
- Adjustments to ensure content cannot run off the edge of the screen.
Moved tab-tap behaviour preference out of “Lab experiments” #
The preference to control what happens when you tap a tab – jump up a “page” of new posts, or discard all posts and load the newest ones – first introduced in Pachli 2.8.2 has graduated from Lab experiments to regular preferences.
Hashtag quality of life changes #
There have been some changes to hashtag management.
- Searching for hashtags or viewing your followed hashtags now shows you how many posts contain the hashtag and how many accounts posted with it (over the past 7 days).
- The list of followed hashtags is sorted by hashtag name
Updates to translations #
Languages with updated translations are:
- Finnish by Kalle Kniivilä
- Irish by Aindriú Mac Giolla Eoin
- Latvian by Edgars Andersons
- Latvian by ℂ𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝 (𝕘𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕓.𝕔𝕠𝕞/ℂ𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝) (their first contributions to Pachli)
- Polish by Łukasz Horodecki
- Slovak by Russssty
- Spanish by Juan M Sevilla
If you would like to help improve Pachli’s translation in to your language there’s information on how you can contribute.
Significant bug fixes #
Show translated media descriptions when viewing threads #
Hunter White reported (#1483) that viewing a translated post, with an attachment, in a thread, did not use the translated version of the attachment’s caption.
Prevent “Record not found” when opening as a different account #
If you were signed in with multiple accounts and used the “Open as…” feature to open a post using one of the other accounts this could fail with a “Record not found” error.
This was reported by Florian Berger.
Admin notification crashes and errors #
Chewie reported (#1446) crashes when opening the notification tab. Austin Huang sent a fix for this in #1449. Thanks Austin!
A similar admin notification issue that would show an error instead of crashing was fixed in #1474. Thanks to Dominic for providing invaluable data when troubleshooting this issue.
Set initial reading position for some timelines to the most recent post #
Pachli’s “remember your reading position” code was behaving suboptimally on some timelines where you generally want to start at the most recent post. For example, when searching for a hashtag, or viewing someone’s account and looking at the posts there.
This has been changed. Thank you to Bert for highlighting this.
Thank you #
Thank you to everyone who took the time to report issues and provide additional followup information and screenshots.
Download Pachli 2.12.0 from Google Play, F-Droid, or the GitHub release page.