Xpra News

2019-09-20

3.0 Important Features

• Python 3 port complete, now the default: #1571, #2195
• much nicer HTML5 client user interface: #2269
• Window handling:
  • smoother window resizing: #478 (OpenGL)
  • honouring gravity: #2217
  • lock them in readonly mode: #2137
• xpra top subcommand: #2348
• faster startup:
  • #2347 faster client startup
  • #2341 faster server startup
• OpenGL:
  • more reliable driver probing: #2204
  • cursor paint support: #1497
  • transparency on MacOS: #1794
• Encoding:
  • lossless window scrolling: #1320
  • scrolling acceleration for non-OpenGL backends: #2295
  • harden image parsing: #2279
  • workaround slow video encoder initialization (ie: NVENC) using replacement frames: #2048
  • avoid loading codecs we don't need: #2344
  • skip some CUDA devices, speedup enumeration: #2415
• Clipboard:
  • new native clipboard implementations for all platforms: #812
  • HTML5 asynchronous clipboard: #1844
  • HTML5 support for copying images: #2312 (with watermarking)
  • brotli compression for text data: #2289
• Authentication:
  • modular client authentication handlers: #1796
  • mysql authentication module: #2287
  • generic SQL authentication module: #2288
• Network:
  • client listen mode: #1022
  • retry to connect until it succeeds or times out: #2346
  • mdns TXT attributes updated at runtime: #2187
  • zeroconf fixes: #2317
  • drop pybonjour: #2297
  • paramiko honours IdentityFile: #2282, handles SIGINT better: #2378
  • proxy server fixes for ssl and ssh sockets: #2399, remove spurious options: #2193
  • proxy ping and timeouts: #2408
  • proxy dynamic authentication: #2261
• Automated Testing:
  • test HTML5 client: #2231
  • many new mixin tests: #1773 (and bugs found)
• start-new-commands is now enabled by default: #2278, and the UI allows free text: #2221
• basic support for native GTK wayland client: #2243
• forward custom X11 properties: #2311
• launcher visual feedback during connection: #1421, sharing option: #2115
• "Window" menu on MacOS: #1808

2019-03-15

2.5 Important Features

• Python 3 port mostly complete: #1568
  • packaging for Debian: #1990
• pixel compression and bandwidth management:
  • better recovery from network congestion: #2090
  • distinguish refresh from normal updates: #2043
  • better tuning for mmap connections: #2037
  • heuristics improvements: #2061, #2022
  • use video encoders more aggressively: #2044
  • prevent too many delayed frames with x264: #2064
  • better video region detection with opengl content: #2113
• better automatic tuning for client applications:
  • based on application categories: #1956
  • application supplied hints: #2023
  • application window encoding hints: #2086, #2077
  • using environment variables and disabling video: #2100
• HTML5 client: #1979, #2007, #2168, #2167
• Client improvements:
  • make it easier to start new commands, provide start menu: #1961 (despite Ubuntu breakage: #2174)
  • probe OpenGL in a subprocess to detect and workaround driver crashes: #1994
  • use appindicator if available: #406
• packaging:
  • merge xpra and its dependencies into the ​MSYS2 repository: #1883
  • ship fewer files in MS Windows installers: #1988
  • partial support for parallel installation of 32-bit and 64-bit version on MS Windows: #2126
  • MacOS library updates: #1985
  • CentOS 7: libyuv #2004, turbojpeg #2078
  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) support: #2059
  • Fedora 30 and Ubuntu Disco support: #2196
  • Ubuntu HWE compatibility (manual steps required due to upstream bug): #2190
• Server improvements:
  • start command on last client exit: #2057
  • honour minimum window size: #1969
  • Python 3: #853
  • upgrade-desktop subcommand: #2171
• Network layer:
  • less copying: #2139
  • use our own websocket layer: #2121
  • make it easier to install mdns on MS Windows: #1989
  • make mmap group configurable: #2075
  • TCP CORK support on Linux: #2130
• SSH transport:
  • support .ssh/config with paramiko backend: #1937
  • connecting via ssh proxy hosts: #2041
  • SSHFP with paramiko: #2097
  • paramiko as default on MS Windows: #2222
• clipboard: restrict clipboard data transfers size: #2072
• audio: support wasapi on MS Windows: #2002
• code cleanup: #2177, #2155, #2158

2018-10-13

2.4 Important Features

• SSH integration:
  • client paramiko backend integration offering password and key confirmation GUI support on all platforms: #1646
  • builtin server support for TCP socket upgrades to SSH: #1920, better support for non standard login shells: #1892
• automatic TCP port allocation: #1945
• expose desktop-sessions as VNC via mdns, add zeroconf backend: #1644
• register more URL schemes: #1894
• window content heuristics configuration: #1950, use it to better tune automatic encoding selection: #1952
• automatic video scaling: #1951
• bandwidth-limit management in video encoders: #1957
• HTML5 client:
  • mpeg1 decoding: #1916
  • h264 decoding: #1839
  • limit video dimensions to cap CPU and bandwidth usage: #1867
  • support forwarding of URL open requests: #1862
  • Internet Explorer 11 compatibility: #1973
  • improved toolbar: #1817
  • fullscreen support: #1848
• keyboard layout handling fixes: #1901, #1902, #1898
• memory management and resource usage:
  • don't load server modules we don't need: #1838
  • skip client modules: #1861
  • reduce memory footprint: #1836, #1913
  • free video decoder resources: #1850
  • remove excessive linking in rpm builds: #1896
  • don't load things unnecessarily, speed up command line parsing: #1944
• new default GUI welcome screen: #1762
• desktop file for starting shadow servers more easily: #1946
• clipboard synchronization with multiple clients: #1835
• use notifications bubbles for more important events: #1688
• workarounds for running under Wayland with GTK3: #1925
• modal windows enabled by default: #1895
• support xdg base directory specification: #1723, and socket file time: #1889
• improved python3 support (still client only): #1717
• multi-window shadow servers on MacOS and MS Windows: #1805
• buildbot upgrade
• more reliable unit tests
• fixes and workarounds for Java client applications: #1955, #1974, #1975, #1980
• locally authenticated users can shutdown proxy servers: #1876
• restrict potential privileged information leakage: #1939
• enhanced per-client window filtering: #1934
• remove extra pixel copy in opengl enabled client: #1954
• clip pointer events to the actual window content size: #1658
• new platforms: Ubuntu Cosmic #1959, Fedora 29 #1960

And much more.. fixes, cleanups, etc

2018-05-07

2.3 Important Features

• authentication improvements and new modules:
  • multiple authentication modules per socket type: #1728
  • tcp wrappers #1730
  • kerberos and gss #1691
  • u2f #1789
  • ldap #1791
  • request access to the session: #1690
• pulseaudio server per session to prevent audio leaking: #1266
• network and performance improvements: better nagle handling #619, congestion management #999, #1299
• encodings: jpeg YUV support #1438, webp YUV support #1764, encoder hints #1699, better vsync #1754, nvenc 8.1 #1822 + #1823
• notifications: icons #1492 and actions #1735, upload notifications #1375, expose warnings #1688
• shadow server improvements: multi window mode #1801, nvfbc #1825
• client:
  • better OS integration: #540
  • window positioning: #1809, multi screen #1732
  • application icon as tray icon #1707
  • multi stop or attach #1706
  • control start commands: #1702
  • signal forwarding: #1671
• html5 client improvements: tracker #1670, show top bar and dock system tray icons #1471, debugging #1685
• custom http headers support #1741, ie: HSTS support #1664, http path #1784
• "open" command forwarding to client: #1726 (ie: xdg-open)
• python3 improvements: #1717
• bug fixes: settings synchronization #1676, macos keyboard mapping #1609
• packaging: switch back to ffmpeg system libraries #1751, support GTK3 on macos #1575
• structural improvements: refactoring #1761, fewer synchronized X11 calls #1798

And many more..

2017-12-11

2.2 Important Features

• support RFB clients (ie: VNC) with bind-rfb and rfb-upgrade options: #1620
• UDP transport (experimental) with bind-udp and udp://host:port urls: #639
• TCP sockets can be upgrade to Websockets and / or SSL, RFB: #1504
• multiple bind options for all socket types supported: tcp, ssl, ws, wss, udp, rfb
• bandwidth-limit option, support for very low bandwidth connections: #417
• detect network performance characteristics: #540, #999
• "xpra sessions" browser tool for both mDNS and local sessions
• support arbitrary resolutions with Xvfb (not with Xdummy yet - so not enabled by default): ticket:56#comment:25
• new OpenGL rendering backends, with support for Python3 + GTK3 on most platforms: #1569, now supporting window transparency on MS Windows
• clipboard support with GTK3: #1589
• optimized webp encoding, supported in HTML5 client: #1694
• uinput virtual pointer device for supporting fine grained scrolling: #1631
• connection strings now support the standard URI format protocol://host:port/, ie: tcp://username:passwrod@host:port/
• rencode is now used by default for the initial packet (see wiki/PacketEncoding)
• skip sending audio packets when inactive: #1617
• improved support for non-us keyboard layouts with non-X11 clients: #1665, #1380, #1465
• better modifier key support on Mac OS: #1609
• displayfd command line option: #1535
• cosmetic system tray menu layout changes: #1541
• dbus service for the system wide proxy server (stub): #1640
• move mmap file to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (where applicable): r16781
• password prompt dialog in client: #1645
• fixed memory leaks: #1662

2017-07-20

2.1 Important Features

• improve system wide proxy server and logind support on Linux: #1105, socket activation: #1521
• new authentication modules:
  • new posix peercred authentication module: #1524 (used by system wide proxy)
  • new sqlite authentication module: #1488
• split packages for RPM, MS Windows and Mac OS, making it possible to install just the client or just the server, with or without audio support, etc: #1253
• digitally signed MS Windows installers: #1499
• HTML5 client improvements:
  • file upload support (#1376),
  • better non-us keyboard and language support (#1484, #1487)
  • safe HMAC authentication over HTTP, re-connection etc (#1473)
  • more complete window management, (pre-)compression (zlib, brotli) (#1491)
  • mobile on-screen keyboard (#1520)
  • audio forwarding for IE (r15781)
• remote drag and drop support
• better Multicast DNS support, with a GUI launcher
• improved image depth / deep color handling
• desktop mode can now be resized easily: #1557
• any window can be made fullscreen (Shift+F11 to trigger): #1567
• Python3 GTK3 client is now usable: #640 (but still lacks opengl accelerated rendering #1569, and clipboard support #1589)
• shutdown the server from the tray menu: #1540
• terminate child commands on server shutdown: #1566
• macos library updates: #1501, support for virtual desktops: #776
• NVENC SDK version 8 and HEVC support: #1552
• Nvidia capture SDK support for fast shadow servers: #1317
• shadow servers improvements: show shadow pointer in opengl client (#1496),
• structural improvements and important bug fixes: #1470, #1474, #1458 ..

2017-03-17

2.0 Important Features

This release finally drops compatibility with many outdated libraries and Operating Systems so we can streamline the code, use newer technologies and better prepare for the future. The following systems are no longer supported:

• Windows XP and Vista: you must use the "legacy" builds (see here)
• Mac OSX builds now require a 64-bit system, version 10.9 (aka Mavericks) or newer
• Debian Squeeze and Wheezy; Ubuntu Precise and Trusty; centos 6.x, 7.0 and 7.1
• Python 2.6 and older, Python 2.7 versions lacking ssl.SSLContext
• ​GStreamer 0.10: now using 1.x series
• ​pycrypto: superseded by ​python-cryptography
• ​Pillow versions older than 3.0
• ​PyOpenGL versions older than 3.1

The following codecs have also been removed:

• csc_opencl: rarely used and known to cause problems with some icd configurations
• csc_cython and csc_opencv: too slow
• webp: version conflicts, performance issues with some versions
• xvid: unused

---

Actual new features:

• 64-bit builds for MS Windows (#678) and MacOSX (#840)
• MS Windows MSYS2 based build system with fully up to date libraries (#678)
• MS Windows full support for named-pipe connections (#1174)
• MS Windows and MacOSX support for mmap transfers (#1004)
• more configurable mmap options to support KVM's ivshmem (#1387)
• faster HTML5 client, now packaged separately (RPM only #1372)
• clipboard synchronization support for the HTML5 client (#1461)
• faster window scrolling detection, bandwidth savings (#1426)
• support more screen bit depths: 8, 16, 24, 30 and 32 - see wiki/ImageDepth
• support 10-bit per pixel rendering with the OpenGL client backend (#1309)
• improved keyboard mapping support when sharing sessions (#1373)
• faster native turbojpeg codec (#1423)
• OpenGL enabled by default on more chipsets, with better driver sanity checks (#1367)
• better handling of tablet input devices (Mac OSX #1157, HTML5 client #1424)
• synchronize Xkb layout group (#1380)
• support stronger HMAC authentication digest modes (r14790)
• unit tests are now executed automatically on more platforms (Mac OSX r14871, MS Windows: r14870, #847)
• fix python-lz4 0.9.0 API breakage (#1464)
• fix html5 visual corruption with scroll paint packets (#1432)

2016-12-06

1.0 Important Features

The 1.0 LTS release is here at last!

Here's a list of the most prominent features:

• SSL socket support #1252, documentation and examples here: wiki/Encryption/SSL, supported in the launcher
• we've been assigned the default port 14500 by ​IANA: #731, so the TCP port is now optional ie: xpra attach tcp:hostname
• run a system-wide proxy server service (#1335) on our default port, using system authentication
• MS Windows users can start a shadow server from the start menu, which is also accessible via http
• MSI installer for unattended MS Windows installations: r14252
• list all local network sessions exposed via mdns using xpra list-mdns #1332
• the proxy servers can start new sessions on demand: #1319
• much faster websocket / http server for the HTML5 client: #1252, with SSL support: #1213, MS Windows and Mac OS X server support: #1211
• much improved HTML client: #1341, including support for native video decoding in #1107
• VNC-like desktop support: #1206 + #1247 ie: xpra start-desktop --start-child=fluxbox --exit-with-children
• pointer grabs using Shift+Menu #1229, keyboard grabs using Control+Menu #1195
• window scrolling detection for much faster compression: #1232
• server-side support for 10-bit colours: #909
• better automatic encoding selection and video tuning: #1257, #1135, #1014, support H264 b-frames: #800
• file transfer improvements: #1026
• SSH password input support on all platforms in launcher: #1240
• client applications can trigger window move and resize with MS Windows and Mac OS X clients: #772 (ie: google chrome requires this)
• geometry handling improvements, multi-monitor #1284, fullscreen: #1327
• drag and drop support between application windows: #770
• colour management synchronisation: #1086 (and DPI, workspace, etc)
• the configuration file is now split into multiple logical parts, see /etc/xpra/conf.d: #1254
• more configuration options for printers: #1325
• clipboard direction restrictions: #276
• webcam improvements: better framerate, device selection menu #1113
• audio codec improvements: #1196, #1204, #1227, new codecs: #1212, mpeg audio codec: #1194
• reliable video support for all Debian and Ubuntu versions via private ffmpeg libraries: #1256
• use XDG_RUNTIME_DIR if possible: #1129, move more files to /run: #888 (sockets, log file)
• build and packaging improvements: #977, minify during build: #890, rpm "python2": #1258, netbsd v4l: #1223, selinux policy for printing: #815
• Mac OS X PKG installer now sets up ".xpra" file and "xpra:" URL association, #1163
• Mac OS X remote shadow start support (not all versions are supported): #1169

And many other more structural improvements under the hood!

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