Changelog

Fix Post-launch patch drop: dither, color, blur and recipe fixes

A round-up of the small fixes and improvements that landed since the July 6 editor redesign.

• Fix Sepia is actually sepia now. The filter used to desaturate to pure grayscale and wipe the warm tint out at the same time (and the Grayscale slider jumped to 100% for no obvious reason). Sepia now uses a proper luminance-preserving color blend so you get the warm brown wash you expect, and the Grayscale slider stays put.
• Fix Blur panel collapses cleanly when off. The Amount / Angle / Focus sliders stayed visible even when Blur Type was set to Off. They now hide until you pick an actual blur type.
• Fix Recipe deep-links now open the intended recipe. Links like /app?recipe=Matrix or /app?recipe=Vaporwave used to land on the demo image with the default look because the recipe was silently dropped. Now the recipe applies as intended once the image loads.
• Fix Characters panel stays in sync with recipes. Applying any recipe that changes the character ramp (Matrix, Discord ASCII, etc.) now correctly updates the input and the preset chip. Before, the panel stayed on the boot ramp forever even though the canvas rendered the new one.
• Fix Custom palette Add / edit / remove buttons in the Dither Engine now actually work. The + button adds a swatch, each swatch opens the native colour picker, and a hover-only × removes it (minimum two colours enforced so the engine always has something to reduce to).
• Fix Colour "None" now truly resets. Clicking it snaps Saturation back to 100 and clears any lingering tint or grayscale from a previous filter. Other filter chips still keep your saturation setting.
• New Binary (1-bit black & white) chroma mode in the Dither Engine. Every pixel snaps to pure black or pure white, no soft levels, no palette lookup. Pairs with any dither algorithm (Bayer, blue noise, Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson) for classic Game Boy or newsprint looks.
• New Dither palette swatches in the Dither Engine panel. Every palette in the dropdown now shows its actual colours as a row of swatches, so you can see what Game Boy vs Pico-8 vs Risograph actually looks like before picking. Custom palette shows your own swatches; Original shows a "source colours preserved" note.

Fix Shared recipe links now open the editor with the look applied

• Fix Sharing or tweeting a recipe now produces a link that opens the editor on a sample image with the recipe already applied. Before, the link landed on the homepage or an empty editor. Links shared earlier are auto-rescued too.

New New homepage + sharper video backgrounds

• Brand-new homepage at ascii-magic.com, image & video stylizer positioning across all 13 styles (pixel art, ASCII, mosaic, voxel cubes, halftone, glitch, retro VHS, and more)
• The tool itself moved to /app. First-time visitors see the homepage; once you've used the editor, you skip straight to it on your next visit
• Expanded FAQ + structured data so search engines can show rich snippets
• Fix: uploaded videos now render with a sharp background at bgBlur=0 or bgMode=Original, the bg used to upscale from the per-character sampling buffer, which made it look soft. Sampling stays cheap; bg is now drawn from the full-resolution frame.

New Privacy Policy + small cleanups

• Full Privacy Policy page at /privacy, covers exactly what's tracked, what isn't, and confirms images and videos never leave your browser
• Privacy link added to the hamburger menu (shield icon)
• Removed the Disco Randomize ↻ button, wasn't pulling its weight; pattern is now deterministic per render
• Removed the Sparkles ✨ post-processing effect, barely used

Improve Crop transition + About redesign v0.19

• Opening Crop now flies the canvas image into the editor with a shared-element transition, single image traveling, no static copy left behind
• Save grows the cropped image naturally from the crop rectangle's exact position to the new canvas size, no squish, no pop
• About modal, animated cloud video hero (lazy-loaded on open, torn down on close so it never sits in memory), Instrument Serif title with a soft glowing sparkle, looser line-height for the description
• About modal rebuilt as a fluid flex container, outer card and inner body card, padding/spacing pushes content naturally instead of fighting absolute coordinates
• New letterpress separator effect, a black hairline with a 1px white highlight below it, applied across the whole app: panel sections, hamburger menu, About modal dividers
• Removed the dividers between Post-Processing rows (the section is already grouped, the lines were noise)
• Lights perf-note now fades out smoothly instead of jerking off
• Cube Style hides the Font Size slider (Cell Size handles it)

New Analytics & Event Tracking v0.17

• PostHog analytics integrated, tracks every meaningful interaction without collecting personal data
• Events tracked: Style changes, Lights on/off, Animation toggle & preset, all 13 Post-FX toggles
• Export funnel: every export click, completion, and failure tracked by format (PNG, JPG, GIF, MP4)
• Upload tracking: method (drag-drop, file picker, paste), file type, and size
• Inspire clicks and gallery background selections tracked with style/font-size context
• Mask, Crop, and feedback submissions also tracked

Improve Faster Loads, Lighter Page v0.15

• Demo gallery videos now use static thumbnails instead of streaming MP4 metadata for the grid
• Demo videos re-encoded, total drops from 8.2 MB to 860 KB with no visible quality loss
• Demo images re-compressed at higher efficiency, folder shrinks ~30%
• Initial Inspire preload reduced from 6 demos to 1, page weight on first paint cut sharply
• Open Graph image switched from PNG to JPG (897 KB → 212 KB) for lighter social unfurls
• Static assets now serve with proper Cache-Control headers so repeat visits hit the browser cache

New About Modal v0.14

• About page accessible from hamburger menu with version, platform, and credits
• Social links to Twitter/X and Instagram
• 3D tilt entrance animation matching other modals

Improve Bug Reports & Changelog v0.13

• Bug reports now capture file name, type, and size (MB)
• Source resolution included, image dimensions or video resolution + duration
• Send button shows ✓ Sent state (green) and auto-closes after 1.4s; shows Retry on failure
• Custom thin scrollbar for technical details block
• Changelog page at ascii-magic.com/changelog with full timeline since launch
• Clean URLs via vercel.json, /changelog works without .html

Export Hardening v0.9

• Fixed 19 export bugs from comprehensive stress testing
• MP4 export QuickTime compatibility fix
• GIF export timeout and size limit improvements
• Smart resolution dropdown, only shows safe export scales
• Disabled MP4 export when H.264 is unavailable (no silent failures)
• Video codec selection with multiple H.264 profile fallbacks

Themes & Render Modes v0.4

• Light/dark theme toggle with ripple transition effect
• Edge Map and Dot Matrix render modes
• 5 blend modes: Normal, Overlay, Color Dodge, Screen, Lighter