Telegram X: November Update

@tgx_android

Brief overview of new features available on Telegram X for Android.

New Notification Settings

Choose from which accounts you receive notifications: all, current or only selected ones

Option to automatically Archive and Mute chats from unknown users

Visible when you frequently get messages from unknown users

Chat Improvements

New animated view, reply and share counters in channels
Consistent look of number of views and shares in forwarded messages
Reworked the way chats lists are loaded, which results in much faster loading and smoother scrolling
Added in-app external link preview upon opening. Currently supported for YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Spotify, SlideShare, Sketchfab, SoundCloud, Apple Music and several more. Control in Settings — Interface — Preview external links.
Preview private channels via invite link without a need in joining them
Animated unread counters in the chats list
Replies stack: when you follow up to the thread beginning by tapping on the replied message, tapping arrow button will take you back through each of them
Holding arrow button now brings you to the very end of the chat, ignoring the unread messages and replies stack
Added OpenMoji emoji pack

Multi-Pins in Chats

Pin and unpin multiple messages at once
Expand and scroll through the list of pinned messages
Preview specific pinned message by holding
See all pinned messages on a separate screen
Now also available in private chats

Groups of Files and Audio Playlists

Send up to 10 files or audios as a single message
Caption changes in these messages are now animated
In case any of it gets deleted, it's also animated

Animations demo in the running app achieved by editing messages from another device

Save entire albums and media groups in one click

Also works with photo albums and other media types

Advanced Video Options

Select video quality upon sending it

Added option to trim videos

Slide your finger above the slider while holding it for precise adjustment

Option to send in original quality by holding send button

Send original option preserves the trimming and mute options

Improved Instant View

Much more links now have Instant View buttons
Supported many new block types and references
Channel link with member counter, when available
Highlighting of links that lead to another Instant View
Revised fonts and layout for a better look in general
Improved viewing of t.me/iv for instant view template developers

Here's the demo, based on an article from the real world. If you are viewing this text from Telegram X, you may try out these features by yourself:

Channel block with member counter, reference tooltips, Twitter embeds, spoilers, related articles and more

New Tools for Admins

Set Slow Mode to limit number of messages per certain period
Use Auto-Delete timer to self-destruct new messages

Transfer ownership of groups, channels and bots
Supported all new Recent Actions event types
Added an ability to add admins without any rights to override some of Chat Permissions or just to set a custom title

Anonymous Admins

Make admins anonymous whose identity you don't want to expose
Anonymity indicator in the members list

And quick toggle for it

Set custom title for anonymous admins that's also visible in chats list

Invite Links 2.0

Manage invite links on a new screen

Create invite links with expiry period and limit of members who can join
See other admins' invite links (when you have enough rights)
See list of members who joined by a specific invite link

Statistics

See recent posts activity in channel statistics
View statistics for specific posts in channels
Review statistics in big groups

Quickly access and review active devices and sessions on settings screen
Sign in on Telegram Desktop by scanning QR code
Improved overall look of devices screen
Warnings in menu and settings if you have incomplete login attempts
Hold IP address or other information in the session's pop-up to copy it
Added explanatory pop-ups when error occurs because current session is too recent
Support for tg://settings and tg://settings/devices links

Blurred Backgrounds and Links

Added new vector and gradient backgrounds, which you can find in Settings — Themes and Chats — Wallpapers
Supported t.me/bg/... links and its preview
Added option to blur wallpaper

And Much More

Emoji 13.1 support: 😮‍💨, 😵‍💫, 😶‍🌫️, ❤️‍🔥, ❤️‍🩹, 🧔‍♀️, 🧔‍♂️ and many more
Download and upload files up to 2GB
Option to use system night mode
Hold any person when typing "@" to create a custom mention
New look of scheduled messages indicator in chats list
Added Discuss button in channel message menu which brings to the specific
Switch displaying data size unit between KB/MB/GB and KiB/MiB/GiB
Option to add proxy via Scan QR
Added Save to Music button in player's three-dot menu
Delete call entry for other side from calls tab
Send without sound in Secret Chats
In-app website authorisations, example: contest.com, bugs.telegram.org
Completely reworked internal link parser
More hints when following invalid internal links
If you have installed APK somewhere outside of Google Play, you will still receive notifications about new updates
Added an ability to subscribe to beta from the app
Notification error message on settings screen
Action suggestions in Settings
Send 🎰 for a random slot machine result
Information tooltips when certain admin rights cannot be toggled
Improved adding members, admins and banning them in small groups
Vector outline of loading stickers
Automatic build process status updates in @tgx_log channel
Verify downloaded APK checksum for authenticity via @tgx_bot
Dozens of other changes and improvements

Internal Changes

Fully reworked build scripts
All native libraries are now assembled by CMake
Building and publishing process is now fully automated
Upgraded targetSdkVerison to 30
Upgraded compileSdkVersion to 31
Upgraded NDK to 22.1.7171670 (r22)
Upgraded Gradle to 7.1.1
Upgraded Android Gradle Plugin to 7.0.3
Upgraded ExoPlayer to 2.16.0
Upgraded Firebase Messaging to 22.0.0
Updated TDLib, CameraX, ffmpeg and all other dependencies
Migrated to 64-bit identifiers
Work on reproducible builds
Open-sourced some of the app components
Added commit hash to the build
Synced built-in strings with Translations Platform

Bugfixes

Archive may not showed up after launch, even though there are archived chats
Typing and other status animation in the chat list was getting stuck after using chat filter
Non-latin anchors in Instant View did not work
Admins on the View Admins screen could get duplicated
Groups tab could have not showed up on user profile when opening it for the first time
Protection against video compression crashes was missing
In-App YouTube player did not work on Android 10+
switch_pm_parameter was not passing to the bot properly when tapping on switch_pm_text button
Group upgrade confirmation was not showing up when toggling specific admin permissions
null instead of the user name when reporting a message in a group
Profile photo upload date was missing for certain photos
Rare case when certain photos could get duplicated in albums
Map preview in inline results was missing
In-app language editor was not working on certain Android versions
Settings — Username — Share did not work properly
"X subscribers" part in chat search results was affected and highlighted by current search query
Incorrectly placed lock icon when having a secret chat with a verified account
App now requests access to background location on Android 11+ which should result in a more stable broadcasting of Live Locations
Sound feedback was duplicating when tapping live location bar in the chats list
"Beginning" could have not worked in certain cases when searching messages by date
Set as Current and Delete could have not worked for some old profile pictures
Error tooltip could be incorrectly placed when tapping non-existent usernames and it took too long to load the server response
telegra.ph and telegram.org links were opening in the browser in some cases when they should have opened in the Instant View
Big view counters in polls could have overlapped the number of voters in bubble mode
Members online status could become outdated on Members tab in some groups
When deleting a chat from an archive, it will now bring to archived chats list instead of the main screen
Dozens of other fixes not mentioned in this list

Fixed crashes

Crash when trying to play specific .flac files
Crash when trying to view certain animated stickers
Crash when trying to get a link of certain proxies
Crash when system notification channel cannot be updated
Crash when trying to erase database from "Aw, Snap!" screen when only one account is signed in
Crash when sending certain messages using Send without Markdown feature
Crash when trying to play audio from inline search results
Crash when trying to open certain videos with subtitles tracks in it
Crash when trying to view certain events in Recent Actions
Crash when trying to display a notification with a custom sound that was deleted
Crash when scrolling poll voters
Rare crash when tapping on certain hashtags
Rare crash when new message arrives while viewing Unread chat filter
Several crashes specific to Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Download on Google Play

http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thunderdog.challegram

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/org.thunderdog.challegram

Change Logs

https://t.me/tgx_android — big announcements and stable change logs

https://t.me/tgx_log — beta change logs and automatic build status updates

https://t.me/tgx_bot — verify APK checksum for authenticity against modifications

Since you've read the entire change log up to this point, I may assume you might want to know a little bit more, or get a hint of what to expect next, like you do so from post-credit scenes in popular movies.

Bringing this update, including writing this change log and making the demos, required me to battle with a deep burnout and going through countless sleepless nights over again. This is the main reason why beta version has received over a hundred of updates, but it's been a long while since the stable one got one.

This year I've been coming up and experimenting with different ideas that might allow the app to survive even after I'm gone. Even though without burnout it would be much easier and faster, several required steps are finished and are mentioned in this change log. I hope you will be able to see them all before I really do so.

There's no big team behind creation of Telegram X. There is a wizard working on TDLib and many brave ones doing magic with Telegram servers on which it relies. But behind the app itself, since more than 6 years of its creation in April 2015, even though millions of people have used the app, more than 325,000 people subscribed to beta, and entire community with over 4,000 volunteer testers has grown around it, on another end there's always been just a couple chat admins who helped sorting out feedback and bug reports, and just one person resolving all of them, trying at the same time to bring joy through little details and animations to a few people who might notice them.

In spring 2020, when exactly 5 years have passed since the first development crunch that created the first version of the app, things stopped working the same way they used to. I didn't quit, and never stopped working. Moreover, whenever I tried to have a break or some rest, I couldn't relax at all, so I had to yet give up on this idea.

Even though I haven't recovered, in the end I've managed to create several things that allow improving the development process and ended up publishing this yet another stable release, including writing this change log.

Meanwhile, a couple months ago new young developer has joined this one-person team, and some of the features in this update are based on his pull requests. I hope one day this development process will become as public as possible, and it will bring everyone an opportunity to hop in and hop out of it anytime, without sacrificing healthy life and interrupting the process of creating new updates.

But it should be clear it's not an easy task to achieve in an instant: few things still have to be done before that, and properly building the team and managing such community isn't compatible with bringing new features, investigating and fixing issues, and writing the change logs by the same person at the same time (especially when it's the one out of life energy).

There's a big story behind each of the updates, and I apologise that this one took so long. While you may, as always, want to see more features, I hope you will find something new to enjoy in this update.

— V.