Changelog
Every feature, fix, and improvement since launch.
April 28, 2026
New Styles, Lights, and a Slider Rework
- 5 brand-new shape Styles — Lines, Diagonal, Cross, Diamond, and Mixed (different glyph per cell)
- Block Characters promoted to its own Style
- New raster Styles — Pixel Art, LEGO, Mosaic, Braille
- Mosaic Tile Shape — Square / Wide / Tall
- Point Lights — up to 4 placeable light sources via 2D pad UI; lit chars glow with hot-white centre + soft falloff and auto-bloom
- Per-character Bloom — chars actually glow now, even mid-animation (real shadow-blur)
- Per-character Chromatic Aberration for that lit-up RGB-fringe look
- Sliders rewired so each does one job — Coverage = pure dither, Density = brightness threshold, Brightness/Contrast = colour only. No more ghost characters when you tweak brightness.
- Animation presets — Wave (true 2D ripple from centre), Cascade L→R / R→L / T→B (now correctly directional), Reveal (typewriter sweep, cell by cell), Pulse
- Animation speed widened to 1–8 seconds
- Animated ASCII now works on videos (per-frame timestamp piped through video loop)
- Mask + large font sizes — 3×3 region sampling, no more jagged edges
- Video export no longer freezes playback when finished
- UX cleanup — "Render Mode" renamed to "Style", "Brightness" renamed to "Characters", Cross-Stitch retired
- Style picker now stays put when you swap demos in the gallery
April 27, 2026
Improve Faster Loads, Lighter Page
- 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
April 1, 2026
New About Modal
- 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
March 31, 2026
Improve Bug Reports & Changelog
- 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
March 30, 2026
New Hamburger Menu & Feedback System
- New hamburger menu with animated transition to X on open
- 3D tilt entrance animation on dropdown menu and modals
- Theme switcher (dark/light) moved into menu with ripple animation
- Bug reporting with auto-captured technical details — browser, OS, screen, connection, active effects, render settings
- Feature suggestion form
- Loading spinner only appears after 1 second threshold
March 28, 2026
Backgrounds Gallery
- Browse 34 curated backgrounds with real video thumbnails
- Gallery mode swaps background image only, Inspire changes full parameters
- Loading spinner for gallery and Inspire with image preloading
- Optimized demo images: PNG to JPG, resized to 1400px
March 26, 2026
Post-Processing Effects
- 12 stackable effects: Vignette, Scan Lines, CRT Curvature, Chromatic Aberration, Bloom, Film Grain, Glitch, RGB Split, Blur, Pixelate, Halftone, Film Dust
- Inline intensity sliders that appear when an effect is toggled on
- All effects stack and render in real-time on the canvas
March 25, 2026
Export Hardening
- 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
March 24, 2026
Color Overlay & Blend Modes
- Color overlay with picker, opacity control, and 11 blend modes
- Blend modes: Multiply, Overlay, Screen, Color, Hue, Saturation, Luminosity, Soft/Hard Light, Color Burn/Dodge
- Panel sections reorganized for clarity
March 23, 2026
Crop & Rotate Editor
- Full-screen modal crop editor with original image preview
- 8 drag handles, 90° rotation, rule-of-thirds grid
- Undo/redo support for crop transforms
- High-res export scaling: 1x to 4x resolution
- Frosted glass backdrop effect
March 22, 2026
Inspire Me System
- 31 curated demo images + 3 demo videos with hand-tuned presets
- "Inspire Me" button loads a random demo with optimized settings
- Image preloading for instant switching
- backgrounds.supply attribution with toast notification
March 21, 2026
Shape Masking
- Draw freehand, rectangle, or ellipse masks to limit ASCII rendering
- Invert mask toggle, adjustable brush size
- Show/hide mask overlay with info tooltip
March 20, 2026
Themes & Render Modes
- Light/dark theme toggle with ripple transition effect
- Edge Map and Dot Matrix render modes
- 5 blend modes: Normal, Overlay, Color Dodge, Screen, Lighter
March 19, 2026
Animated ASCII & GIF Export
- Static images animate with randomized character cycling
- Animation speed, intensity, and randomness controls
- GIF export with progress bar
- MP4 animation export with duration and frame rate selectors
- 60fps option for smooth animations
March 18, 2026
Video Support
- Drop any video for real-time ASCII rendering
- Full playback controls: play, pause, stop, seek, speed
- MP4 video export with H.264 encoding
March 17, 2026
Launch
- Image to ASCII art with real-time preview
- Character presets: Standard, Dense, Minimal, Blocks, Binary, Custom
- Font size, coverage, edge emphasis, brightness, contrast controls
- Background modes: Blurred Image, Original, Solid Black, Transparent
- PNG and JPG export
- Drag & drop, paste, or upload any image
- Mobile responsive layout
- SEO optimized with OpenGraph meta tags
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