blitztext-app-linux/linux/CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

All notable changes to Blitztext for Linux (the native dictation tool in linux/) are documented here. The format follows Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

The version is defined in blitztext/__init__.py.

Unreleased

1.5.0 - 2026-06-07

Added

• On-screen dictation overlay (Settings → General → "Visual overlay", or [general] overlay_enabled, default on): the moment recording starts — by hotkey or wakeword — a translucent bubble appears at the cursor showing a pulsing microphone, a live waveform of your mic level, and the recognised text (word-by-word with a realtime streaming STT engine, or the final result as a brief confirmation otherwise). Its tail points at where the text will land: it follows the text caret when the focused app exposes it over accessibility (AT-SPI), otherwise the mouse pointer, otherwise a screen corner — tune via [general] overlay_anchor = "caret" | "pointer" | "corner". The window is click-through and never takes focus, and it finally gives hands-free wakeword sessions visible feedback (their notifications are suppressed by design). X11 only; falls back to a corner where the cursor can't be located.

Changed

• Presets are speakable by name: voice routing now matches a preset's name as an implicit keyword, so a preset works by voice even with no keywords configured (e.g. just say "nicer email …"). Explicit keywords still take precedence, and preset names also bias the STT for better recognition.
• General settings switches moved to the far right of each row, each with an inline description so it's clear what the toggle does without hovering.
• About: added a "Copyright: 2026 mARTin Bierschenk - Design" line.

[1.4.0] - 2026-06-07

Added

• "Announce matched preset" notification (Settings → General, or [general] notify_routing, default on): after a voice command, a notification shows which preset and spoken keyword matched — shown even for hands-free wakeword sessions, so you can see what you triggered. It only fires on a real match, so it never spams when nothing is said.
• Per-preset emoji icon (Presets → "Icon (emoji)"): give each preset a distinct emoji, shown in the matched-preset notification so you can tell at a glance which fired.

Fixed

• Voice-routing default went to a rewrite: when no [routing] default preset is set, the no-keyword fallback used the first preset — which, if that happened to be an LLM rewrite (e.g. "Improve text"), sent every unrouted wakeword command to the language model (and failed when the LLM was down). The fallback now prefers a transcribe preset, so the default action is plain transcription.

[1.3.0] - 2026-06-07

Added

• Pause wakeword (tray): a reversible "Pause wakeword" toggle appears in the system-tray menu when the wakeword is enabled. It pauses/resumes hands-free detection by toggling the /tmp/wake_muted flag (external scripts may toggle the same file).
• "Play audio cues" switch (Settings → Input → Audio cues, or [sounds] enabled): on/off for the manual (keyboard/hotkey) start/stop chimes. Defaults to on. The hands-free wakeword sounds are independent of it.
• Configurable wakeword auto-stop silence (Settings → Input → Hands-free → "Silence to stop (s)", or [wakeword] silence_seconds): end a hands-free recording this many seconds after you stop speaking. Defaults to 2.0 (previously hard-coded to 2.5 s).

Fixed

• Wakeword sounds silenced by the manual cue switch: the "Play audio cues" master switch wrongly muted the hands-free Sound: detected/captured cues too. Wakeword cues are now independent — they play whenever a file is set and stay silent when cleared (no surprise system-chime fallback), regardless of the manual switch.
• PortAudio/ALSA teardown noise: the level meter no longer leaks pthread_join ... failed / PaUnixThread_Terminate ... failed lines to the terminal when a clip ends — that C-library chatter (written straight to fd 2) is now suppressed around the stream open/close.
• Wakeword stuck muted: a leftover /tmp/wake_muted flag silently disabled detection with no in-app way to clear it. The state is now exposed and reversible from the tray, so a stale flag no longer kills hands-free use. The daemon also logs a clear Starting PAUSED warning when it boots muted.
• Away-from-keyboard "Busy" storm: a wakeword hit arriving while the previous clip was still transcribing went through toggle() and popped a "Busy" notification. Wakeword triggers now go straight to start_dictation(), so a busy/not-ready state is ignored silently instead.
• Quiet hands-free errors: transcription/rewrite failures during a wakeword-triggered session no longer raise critical desktop notifications — they are logged instead, keeping background sessions silent.
• Notification storm / lock-screen pile-up: desktop notifications are now sent as transient with a short expiry and reuse a single bubble, so they no longer stack in the notification log or persist on the lock screen.
• Quiet hands-free sessions: per-dictation notifications are suppressed for wakeword-triggered sessions (audio cues are used instead).

[1.2.0] - 2026-06-05

Added

• Wyoming Wakeword Support: Complete hands-free integration via Wyoming protocol (e.g., openWakeWord), with live configuration testing and model fetching in the UI.
• ATK Screen Reader Accessibility: Fully mapped GTK labels, inputs, tooltips, and properties to the ATK bridge, enabling seamless navigation for blind users via screen readers like Orca.
• Drag-and-Drop Workflow Ordering: Workflows in the main tray menu can now be reordered via native drag-and-drop.
• Voice Activity Detection (VAD) Auto-Stop: Dictation now automatically stops after detecting 2.5 seconds of silence, removing the need to manually click Stop.
• Audio Feedback: Added audible start/stop/cancel chimes mapping to system-native alert sounds.
• Benchmark Autocomplete: The Benchmark UI automatically fills in the reference .txt transcript if it matches the selected audio file.
• Realtime STT streaming mode: new mode = "stream" workflow support and a riva_realtime STT engine for Riva/NIM WebSocket transcription, including a Settings shortcut for Nemotron ASR Streaming on http://127.0.0.1:8006/v1.
• Settings About tab with the app version, source link, changelog, and license text.
• STT & LLM engine manager: add, rename, and delete engine presets, each with an online/offline status dot, a per-engine type (local/cloud), and a searchable model dropdown populated from the server's /models (with a reload button). Local Whisper device/precision now live with the STT engine.
• Benchmark tab: run a reference clip through every STT engine and compare time, case-sensitive accuracy (WER), and a CPU/GPU/remote device column, with the fastest and most accurate highlighted.
• Custom audio cues: pick your own WAV files to play when recording starts and stops (covers stop+paste, stop+paste+Enter, and silence auto-stop), each with play-test and clear-to-default buttons. Built-in system sounds otherwise.
• Settings Log tab: a live activity log (model load/download, transcriptions, errors) with Copy and Clear, so a long "Loading…" is no longer opaque.
• Per-tab info boxes and expanded tooltips across Settings, written in plain language and exposed to screen readers (ATK) — for non-technical and blind users (barrierefrei).
• Click-to-bind hotkeys: a Set button captures the next keypress (including modifier-only chords like Ctrl+Win) into any hotkey field.

Changed

• GUI rebuilt in GTK 3 (replacing tkinter): a native GNOME panel unified with the tray, with the Ubuntu font and a dropdown+editor pattern in Settings.
• Voice-keyword routing and a modifier hotkey scheme (Ctrl+Win start, Ctrl stop+paste, Alt stop+paste+Enter, Esc cancel) replace per-preset combos as the default way to dictate.
• Quality gate rejects silent/too-short clips and stock Whisper hallucinations before they reach the screen.

1.1.0 - 2026-06-04

Added

• Debian package (packaging/build-deb.sh) producing an installable blitztext_<ver>_arm64.deb with a desktop entry, app icon, and a blitztext launcher. Installs via the Software app or apt install ./…deb. Bundles a relocatable venv with all Python deps (no pip/network at install) and declares system deps (python3-gi, xdotool, libnotify-bin, a recorder) so they pull in automatically. The bundled venv is built on the system /usr/bin/python3, so the tray works out of the box.

Notes

• python3-gi is already present on a standard Ubuntu GNOME install; the tray only seemed unavailable from source when the project venv was built from a non-system Python (e.g. conda/miniforge). The .deb avoids this entirely.

1.0.1 - 2026-06-03

Changed

• Redesigned the control-panel window: minimal flat layout, Ubuntu font throughout, clickable workflow rows with hover (click to record / stop), subtle dividers, and text-style Settings/Quit actions. Dropped the monogram avatars and per-row buttons in favour of a cleaner, simpler look. The Settings window picks up the same font and styling.

1.0.0 - 2026-06-03

First release of the Linux port. The upstream project is a macOS-only menu-bar app (Swift/SwiftUI, CoreML/WhisperKit) that cannot run on Linux or in a container; this is a native host tool that reproduces the workflow — focus any text field, press a hotkey, speak, and the (optionally rewritten) text is typed into that field.

Added

• Native dictation engine (daemon.py): global hotkeys via pynput, each hotkey toggles record → transcribe → optional rewrite → deliver.
• Local transcription via faster-whisper (transcribe.py); device="auto" tries CUDA and falls back to CPU int8 (CPU-only on this arm64 host).
• Microphone recording (recorder.py) through pw-record / parecord / arecord — 16 kHz mono WAV, no Python audio bindings required.
• Optional LLM rewrite (rewrite.py) against any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, or a local vLLM / llama-swap), configurable per workflow.
• Typing into the focused window via xdotool (paste.py): type directly or paste through the clipboard; re-activates the target window first.
• Configurable workflows (config.py) in ~/.config/blitztext/config.toml, with five defaults (Transcribe, Nicer email, Improve text, Calm down, Add emojis), per-workflow prompt/model/temperature overrides, and a TOML writer.
• Control-panel window (gui.py, tkinter): workflow rows with monogram avatars, hotkey badges, per-row Record buttons, a live status dot, and a Settings window that edits config and can Save & Restart.
• System-tray mode (tray.py, AppIndicator): macOS-menu-bar-style status icon with a menu to trigger each workflow, Show panel, Settings…, and Quit; shares one daemon/model/hotkey set with the window. Falls back to the window with an install hint when PyGObject is absent.
• CLI (__main__.py): tray (default), gui, run, transcribe, config-path, and --version.
• Packaging: install.sh (venv with --system-site-packages), requirements.txt, and a blitztext.service systemd user unit.

Notes

• Targets an X11 session (uses xdotool); Wayland would need ydotool/wtype.
• System tray requires a one-time sudo apt install python3-gi (the GTK / AppIndicator typelibs and GNOME ubuntu-appindicators extension are already present on the target host).