Telegram X: Spring Update

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

Roll a Die

Send ? emoji to get a random number from Telegram

Send ? emoji to throw a dart & try your luck

Send ? emoji to check your basketball skills

Hold send button if you’d like to send them as regular emoji

Improved Privacy Settings

View & edit privacy effective for specific user or chat members via Profile — Three-Dot Menu – Edit Privacy

Option to always allow/disallow entire group chats in privacy exceptions

Global search when editing privacy exceptions via Settings — Privacy & Security
Ability to add groups while editing privacy exceptions in Setting — Privacy & Security.

Quizzes 2.0

Specify quiz explanations & view them (when available)

Destruction timer, when participating in bots’ quizzes like @QuizBot

Admin Tools

Edit channel messages without date limit
Global user search when creating groups or channels
Add bots when creating groups or channels
Total member’s message count when deleting messages as a supergroup admin (instead of “Delete all from X”)
Membership duration when deleting messages from specific user as a supergroup admin

Other Features

Over 20,000 stickers available in Trending Stickers section (Settings – Stickers or in keyboard)
Cloud emoji suggestions when you type : in the input field
Markdown in notifications

Added Settings – Notifications – Silence Non-Contacts

PSA chats & messages support

New Tooltips

Replaced old-style system toasts with the built-in animated tooltips in many places, and added many useful hints that might help you discovering nice hidden features.

Here’s the list of places where new tooltips are used:

Explanations for quizzes
References in Instant Views
Brush color & size in paint tool

When there’s an error opening Instant View
Drag avatar to reorder pinned chats

Camera tap/hold hint
When text message send fails for any reason, tooltip will be shown with the error

When trying to send sticker in a chat without corresponding permission
When trying to send GIF in a chat without corresponding permission
When trying to send sticker from sticker preview in a chat without corresponding permission
Choosing correct option when creating quiz
Hold to forward as copy & other options
When trying to select a chat where some content cannot be forwarded (e.g. when trying to forward public poll to channel)
Help button in Recent Actions
When entering proxy sponsor channel for the first time
When trying to pin more chats than is allowed
When tapping on a “Unknown” phone number in profile
When adding member / admin and user restricted action in privacy settings
When group limit reached
When trying to use empty filter in Recent Actions

In-App Camera 2.0

Reworked in-app camera under the hood, which brings CameraX implementation (made by Google), option to use system camera app, and many new settings.

While CameraX provides major improvement in picture / video quality, and gives vendors an ability to provide their own tweaks (auto-enhance, HDR, etc), it is yet still under development, unstable, might not work on certain devices, and is not compatible with fancy UI animations.

Until then, it’s not default, but you are free to try it out.

Telegram X will keep CameraX up to date with the latest available version in future updates & keep track on Google’s progress making it production-ready.

Choose between CameraX (Android 5.0+, experimental), Legacy Camera and System Camera
Hold volume button for hands-free video recording
Multiple new settings to play with:

If you take a picture, and device battery dies before you send it, it will be available in device gallery (unless it was a Secret Chat, well then)
Bonus: control zoom using volume buttons when recording video message

48+ other improvements:

Passcode Auto-Lock: pop-ups are now being properly restored after resuming locked app (attach menu, etc)
Prompt before closing an attach menu if some captions or changes are about to be lost
Vibrations in the app now follow system durations
Save to Downloads now immediately scans files of any types
Removed fade-out->fade-in animation for texts when it’s not changed
Polls in groups are now public by default
Toast when blocking / unblocking users
Confirmation dialog when blocking user
All voice messages can be played without waiting for a file to be downloaded
Videos sent through Attach — File — Gallery or Attach — Gallery — Hold send Button — Send as File now always sends original video file as playable media
Restart button for bots
Bot deep links now require user interaction (pressing start button)
Better quality of photos when sending them without any changes
Changed sorting in attach gallery on Android 10, now it should match the system gallery, even if you make edited copies in system gallery
When opening permission exception screen, list of selected users & chats will be at the end
Reworked all privacy settings-related internal logic
Full error text when nearby places fail to load
Better preview of calls in notifications
When you paste text into message field, links’ links are removed (example: copying text from some social media with their redirects instead of the real url)
Warning when few of selected messages can be deleted only for yourself
Proper handling of messages that can be deleted only for yourself in PMs (i.e. dice within some time after sending)
Updated dependencies
Tapping on a sticker in link previews will open sticker set (when available)
Added icons in the menu when unblocking users from Setting – Privacy – Blocked Users
Total message count from specific member when using “Messages from X” feature
Themes: now it’s possible to use transparent colors in *pressHighlight colors without experiencing overlapping between lines
“channel” sign in groups for auto-forwarded messages from linked channel
Optimized the way press highlights & static text backgrounds are drawn (e.g. in Instant Views for links with IV available)
Square checkboxes for multi-choice polls
Huge refactoring for entity click / long processing (usernames, links, commands, etc)
Send without sound / schedule sticker from sticker preview while viewing from sticker pack in a chat
Clickable via @bot sign in forwarded messages
Migrated to new APIs in several places where deprecated ones were used & updated targetSdkVersion
Reworked the way touch events are processed in messages
Reworked thumbnail generation & improved its quality for outgoing photos, videos, GIFs, stickers
Added thumbnail generation for outgoing audios and documents
Unified media type detection logic while sharing from other apps & sending via attach — file
Correct handling of ```code blocks```, previously handled like regular `code`
New error types translations without need in updating the app
Separate block / unblock strings for users & bots
Better click handling of text entities that are next to each other
Improved TDLib fatal error recovery screen
See who invited some member in the member’s menu (when known)
Dark menu when long-pressing link, hashtag, etc in captions in full-screen media viewer
View removed channel or group’s photo in Recent Actions
Reduced number of parallel accounts when performing messages sync (when there are multiple users)
Better TDLib Logs screen: hint to turn off logging before sharing, simpler verbosity visualizing, translations
Long-press handling for monospace entities in instant views + theme colors to style it

… and 67+ bugfixes:

UNAUTHORIZED_OVERLAY when trying to use minimized YouTube player
Flickering images and other render issues when viewing images in a chat on Android 10 with specific system settings
Stuck voice message when receiving new one while playing
Several cases when video could fail to play without a reason, but play properly if re-opened
Passcode Auto-Lock: after resuming locked app with in-app camera open, close animation is broken
Incorrect size of minimized YouTube player
Incorrect rotation of some image documents previews
Incorrect width/height of some videos taken from the in-app camera
UI breaks completely after opening an app by pressing on a notification when it’s locked by passcode
Photos send in low resolution if some adjustments were made & screen size is small
Crash when trying to remove wallpaper in a theme
Crash on launch when there are 100+ accounts
Empty space instead of animated sticker in t.me/${username}/${message_id} link previews
Broken gradient in the drawer after answering call & similar issue in other places
Stuck profile photo download progress when opening from profile
App does not request camera permissions when using system camera
Rare crash when unlocking passcode with fingerprint
Open search on main screen, lock app with passcode, close, open, header gets stuck in search state, but chats list are showing instead of search results (now search state will be preserved in this case)
Number of blocked users does not update properly when blocking/unblocking from the blocked users list
unblock user from blocked users screen, leave, enter again – user is still present as blocked
deleted users are missing on Blocked Users screen (but counted as so on the previous one)
Users could be duplicated on Blocked Users screen
Rare case when attachment buttons could be shown with the non-empty input field
Fixed case when stickers, typing and other stuff could stop sending after system time change
<mark> & multi-line links press highlights overlap each other, so there is a dark line between them
Holding “Send Sticker” in sticker preview in secret chat brings send options menu (which does not work in secret chats)
Removed “Send without sound” for secret chats when forwarding (which does not work)
Missing animated sticker thumbnail, when explicit thumbnail is not set for the pack
Admin’s delete options appear when deleting an automatically forwarded message to the group, like if it would be a message from a regular user
Incorrect handling of forwarded messages in channels when displaying in the linked group
Incorrect message merging logic case when 2 messages automatically forwarded from two different linked channels
Missing warning when trying to forward poll to a chat where there’s no corresponding permission
Message updates (delete, edit, etc) are not updated on the messages search results screen (e.g. “messages from X”)
Some actions in messages do not work properly on th messages search results screen (e.g. “View Results” in polls clicks, but does nothing)
Choosing an empty quiz result will show send button & “wrong correct option ID specified” error when trying to click it
Send options do not hide after send button hides on create poll screen
Start creating quiz, add 3 options, select 3rd as correct, remove the 2nd, choose 1st as correct -> two correct options (visually)
Silently trimmed input when creating a poll with big explanation
Hold to record video hint incorrectly showing when recording video message
Incorrect position of record voice / video message controls on Android 4.4 and lower
White thumbnails when sliding from one album to another in full-screen media viewer
Detached video timeline when sliding from album to video in full-screen media viewer
Fingerprint authentication appears second time immediately after successfully authenticating
Missing letters if contact message does not have a first name, but has a last name
Missing closing bracket when displaying phone numbers like this: +1 (800
When opening channel profile via name/avatar click, header animation is not the same as when tapping the header
Google Maps crash workaround
Stuck media sending in secret chats
Rudimentary three-dot-menu button for deleted users profiles
Sent animated emoji & animated stickers with disabled looping do not replay on tap until reopening the chat
Link preview media in messages does not update when it changes until re-entering the chat
Crash / freeze when trying to open group/channel photo from Recent Actions
Menu buttons are unavailable when text is too long (i.e. holding big monospace text)
Receiver name is under status bar when sending media
An image caching issue that caused some profile pictures to appear on wrong users/chats
Visual glitch when scrolling stickers in a chat with sticker looping disabled
Monospace, italic, bold, etc in the text selection menu are always in English
App freeze when sending text messages & some other specific events occur at exactly the same time
Incorrect display of current playback position in the music notification seek bar
Timer in the music notification does not update after song loops
Fast forwarding to the very end of the track with repeat mode set to “one” ignores the setting
Incorrect display of current playback time in the music timer while track is buffering
“Select All” is missing in the system text selection menu on Android 4.x
Sticker set doesn’t update to the newer version when displaying cached one & there are some changes (while viewing by link)
Animated emoji might not appear after the first restart if some newer one was added
Crash related to trending sticker sets
Other crashes from Google Play

… and 10+ TDLib Bugfixes:

After setting phone number privacy to “Nobody”, “Share phone number with X” didn’t appear when adding the contact
Ability to ban/restrict/promote members, if you are creator of the chat, but left it
Jumping Discuss button in channels, when you are banned in the discussion chat
Closed secret chats no longer disappear when you arhcive/unarchive them. If you previously lost secret chat histories due to this, they will re-appear
Incorrect behaviour when you try to leave chat & you are supergroup owner
Non-contacts’ last seen status doesn’t update automatically when you change privacy settings
When you delete contact, their last seen status doesn’t update automatically
Recent stickers & saved animations do not update properly
Stuck photo/video sending with a timer, if it was already sent
Crash fixes

Little bonus for those who have read to this part of the change log.

While this update brings major quality improvement, there is the same amount of work behind the scenes as well, that will be used by bigger features in the following updates.

Here’re three major changes under the hood that are included in this release:

Reworked file streaming & playback. This huge change under the hood fixes several bugs related to voice messages, audio & video playback, improves performance of fast forwarding, and will be used by video streaming
Reworked text rendering among the app in a way that makes implementing text selection in messages and other places possible
Reworked logic that determines colors used when displaying texts that’ll help implementing search keyword highlighting in the future app version

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