Changelog

Stay up to date with the latest changes and improvements to ZITEXT.

v2.0.0 March 31, 2026

The Platform Release

A major release that transforms ZITEXT into a secure, polished, cross-platform editor with auto-updates, modern UI, and production-grade reliability.

🎨 Redesigned UI

  • VS Code-style File Explorer: Colored SVG file and folder icons with language-specific badges, indent guides, and smooth chevron animations.
  • Modern Settings Panel: Sidebar navigation, toggle switches, grouped sections with a clean card layout.
  • New Command Palette: Search icon, category pills, keyboard navigation hints, and accent-color selection highlighting.
  • Redesigned Keyboard Shortcuts Editor: Styled key pills, pulsing capture animation, per-binding reset, and custom-binding indicators.
  • Custom Find & Replace Bar: Floating panel with match case / whole word / regex toggles, match counter, and replace-all support.
  • Modern Welcome Screen: App icon, inline quick actions with shortcut hints, file-icon-decorated recent files, and keyboard shortcut reference in a contained card.
  • Refreshed Status Bar: Pill-shaped language badge, minimap toggle with icon, and borderless zoom controls.
  • Lighter Theme: Tab bar, sidebar, and explorer header use softer tones matching VS Code's palette.

🔒 Security Hardening

  • CI Dependency Audits: npm audit and cargo audit run on every PR and block releases on known vulnerabilities.
  • GPG-signed Linux Artifacts: AppImage and .deb packages are signed with detached .asc signatures.
  • SHA-256 Checksums: Every installer ships with a .sha256 sidecar file for download verification.
  • Removed unused plugins: tauri-plugin-fs and tauri-plugin-opener removed to shrink attack surface.
  • Binary file detection: Null-byte check in first 8 KB prevents opening non-text files with a friendly warning.
  • DOMPurify hardened: Explicit tag/attribute allowlist; SVG, MathML, and inline styles blocked.
  • Symlink protection: Directory listing, search, and file metadata all skip symlinks.

🔄 Auto-Update System

  • Tauri Updater Integration: In-app download with progress bar and one-click restart.
  • Update Checker: Checks zitext.com/api/latest once per session (opt-out via Settings → Privacy).
  • Dynamic Downloads Page: Website fetches latest.json manifest — zero manual updates when a new version ships.

⚡ Performance & Reliability

  • Parallel Session Restore: Files restored in batches of 5 via Promise.allSettled for faster startup.
  • Crash-resilient Sessions: Periodic 30-second snapshots preserve untitled file content across crashes.
  • Criterion Benchmarks: Rust benchmark suite for read, write, search, and directory operations with CI tracking.
  • Frontend Performance Metrics: performance.mark() instrumentation for file open, save, and app startup.
  • Crash Logging: Global JS error handlers + Rust panic hook write to local crash.log with 1 MB rotation.
  • Session Health Dashboard: Diagnostics panel showing crash-free rate, session duration, and perf metrics (Command Palette → Show Diagnostics).

🖥️ CLI & OS Integration

  • CLI folder support: zitext . opens the current directory in the explorer sidebar.
  • Relative path resolution: CLI args resolved against cwd — zitext src/main.rs works from any directory.
  • --wait mode: zitext --wait file.txt blocks until the tab is closed — works as GIT_EDITOR.
  • Shell wrapper script: scripts/zitext for macOS and Linux with full --wait support.
  • Improved Open With: Files opened via Finder "Open With" now open correctly without stale session tabs.
  • Windows path fix: All dialog results cleaned of \\?\ prefix for reliable path matching.

🛡️ Privacy

  • Privacy settings tab: Toggle for update checks with clear data handling statement.
  • Zero telemetry: No analytics, no crash reporting to external services, no data leaves your machine.
v1.1.0 January 29, 2026

The Professional Update

A major feature update that transforms ZITEXT into a professional-grade development environment. This release adds powerful productivity tools, enhanced editing capabilities, and comprehensive data manipulation features.

🚀 Major New Features

  • Split View: View and edit two files side-by-side with independent cursor and scroll positions. Perfect for comparing code or working with multiple files simultaneously (Cmd/Ctrl+\).
  • Command Palette: Quick access to all commands with fuzzy search and keyboard navigation (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P).
  • File Explorer Sidebar: Browse entire project folders with a tree view, expandable directories, file icons, and resizable width (150-600px). Toggle with Cmd/Ctrl+B.
  • Welcome Screen: Quick actions for New File, Open File, Open Folder, Recent Files, and keyboard shortcuts reference.

📊 Data Tools

  • JSON Tools: Format JSON (pretty print with proper indentation), Minify JSON (remove whitespace for production), Validate JSON (with line/column error reporting), Sort JSON Keys (alphabetically organize keys, recursive)
  • XML Tools: Format XML (auto-indent and structure), Validate XML (syntax checking)
  • YAML Tools: Format YAML (proper indentation and structure)

✨ Enhanced Editing

  • Column (Rectangular) Selection: Select and edit vertical blocks of text - perfect for CSV data or aligned code. Supports mouse drag (Alt/Option+Shift+Drag, Middle Mouse), and keyboard (Shift+Alt+Arrow).
  • IntelliSense & Code Completion: Context-aware code suggestions powered by Monaco Editor with intelligent completions.
  • Code Folding: Collapse and expand code blocks with gutter controls.
  • Smart Indentation: Automatic indentation based on programming language and context.
  • Comment Toggling: Toggle line comments (Cmd/Ctrl+/) and block comments (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+/).
  • Format Document: Auto-format entire document based on file type (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F).
  • Minimap: Bird's-eye view of your code, toggleable from Status Bar or Settings.

⚙️ Customization & Settings

  • Auto-Save Modes: Three options - Off (manual), After Delay (500-10000ms), or On Focus Change.
  • Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts: Visual keybinding editor with conflict detection and platform-aware bindings.
  • High Contrast Themes: Added High Contrast Dark and High Contrast Light themes for enhanced accessibility.
  • Extended Font Size Range: 8-72px with quick zoom controls in Status Bar.
  • Read-Only Mode: Lock files from editing when needed.

📁 File Management Improvements

  • File Watcher: Detect external file modifications with automatic reload prompts (2-second polling).
  • Session Restoration: Now restores cursor position, scroll position, active tab, and all settings.
  • Copy File Path: Quickly copy full file path to clipboard.
  • Tab Reordering: Drag tabs to reorder them.
  • Lazy Loading: Directories load on demand for better performance with large projects.
  • Recent Files Enhanced: Quick access to 10 most recently opened files from Welcome Screen.

🔒 Security Enhancements

  • Content Security Policy: Strict CSP in production builds.
  • Path Traversal Protection: Blocks unauthorized access to system directories.
  • File Size Limits: 10MB maximum with 1MB warning threshold.
  • Safe Encoding: UTF-8 validation and proper error handling.
  • Operation Timeouts: Prevents hanging operations.

🎨 UI/UX Improvements

  • Enhanced Status Bar: Now displays file size, character/word count, selection length, and font controls.
  • Improved Search: Added in-selection search capability.
  • Auto-detect Language from Content: Smart language detection for untitled files.
  • Toast Notifications: Better error/success feedback with categorized messages.
  • Drag Overlay: Visual feedback when dragging files into the editor.

⚡ Performance Optimizations

  • Web Workers: Background syntax highlighting for better performance.
  • WebAssembly Support: Leveraging Monaco's WASM features for speed.
  • Efficient State Management: Modular hooks architecture (useTabManager, useFileManager, useSettingsManager, useSplitViewManager, useProjectState, useAutosave).
  • Optimized File Watching: Efficient 2-second polling interval.

🛠️ Technical Improvements

  • React 19: Upgraded to latest React version for improved performance.
  • Tauri v2: Leveraging latest Tauri features for better native integration.
  • TypeScript 5.8.3: Full type safety with latest TypeScript.
  • Monaco Editor 0.55.1: Updated to latest Monaco Editor version.
  • Error Boundary: Graceful error recovery with comprehensive error service.
v1.0.0 January 25, 2026

The Launch Release

We are thrilled to announce the official launch of ZITEXT! Built natively for macOS, Windows, and Linux, this version delivers a fast, minimalist, and powerful text editing experience with features familiar to power users everywhere.

🎯 Core Features

  • Monaco Editor Integration: Powered by the same engine as VS Code for professional-grade reliability and performance.
  • Tauri Powered: Lightweight native application wrapper using Rust for excellent security and minimal resource usage (under 300ms startup).
  • Multi-Tab Interface: Work on multiple documents simultaneously with a clean, responsive tab bar.
  • Session Persistence: Automatically restores your workspace, including unsaved tabs, when you relaunch the app.
  • Cross-Platform: Native apps for macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon), Windows (x64), and Linux (AppImage, deb).

✏️ Editing & Selection

  • Syntax Highlighting: Support for over 60 languages out of the box (JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go, Java, C/C++, HTML, CSS, JSON, YAML, XML, Markdown, SQL, and many more).
  • Line Numbers & Word Wrap: Essential editor controls for clear code structure.
  • Multi-Cursor Editing: Edit multiple lines at once with Alt/Option+Click or Cmd/Ctrl+D for faster code refactoring.
  • Auto-Closing Brackets: Automatic pairing for quotes and brackets.
  • Find & Replace: Powerful search with case sensitivity, whole word matching, and regex support (Cmd/Ctrl+F and Cmd/Ctrl+H).
  • Go To Line: Quickly navigate through large files with line jumping (Cmd/Ctrl+G).

🎨 Experience & Design

  • Dual Themes: Light and Dark modes designed for developers.
  • Font Customization: Choose from 9 premium monospace developer fonts (Monaco, Consolas, JetBrains Mono, Fira Code, Source Code Pro, Menlo, Ubuntu Mono, Courier New, and monospace).
  • Status Bar: Real-time feedback on cursor position (line/column), language mode, encoding (UTF-8), and line endings (LF/CRLF).
  • Drag & Drop: Open files instantly by dropping them into the workspace.
  • Recent Files: Track and quickly access your 10 most recently opened files.