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Telegram X: November Update

November 8, 2021 · 12 min read

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

New Notification Settings

Visible when you frequently get messages from unknown users

Chat Improvements

Multi-Pins in Chats

Groups of Files and Audio Playlists

Animations demo in the running app achieved by editing messages from another device
Also works with photo albums and other media types

Advanced Video Options

Slide your finger above the slider while holding it for precise adjustment
Send original option preserves the trimming and mute options

Improved Instant View

Here's the demo, based on an article from the real world. If you are viewing this text from Telegram X, you may try out these features by yourself:

Channel block with member counter, reference tooltips, Twitter embeds, spoilers, related articles and more

New Tools for Admins

Anonymous Admins

Anonymous admins are not visible in the members list. New messages from them are displayed with the chat title and name instead of the real ones.

Invite Links 2.0

Statistics

Devices and QR Sign-In

Blurred Backgrounds and Links

And Much More

Internal Changes

Bugfixes

  1. Archive may not showed up after launch, even though there are archived chats
  2. Typing and other status animation in the chat list was getting stuck after using chat filter
  3. Non-latin anchors in Instant View did not work
  4. Admins on the View Admins screen could get duplicated
  5. Groups tab could have not showed up on user profile when opening it for the first time
  6. Protection against video compression crashes was missing
  7. In-App YouTube player did not work on Android 10+
  8. switch_pm_parameter was not passing to the bot properly when tapping on switch_pm_text button
  9. Group upgrade confirmation was not showing up when toggling specific admin permissions
  10. null instead of the user name when reporting a message in a group
  11. Profile photo upload date was missing for certain photos
  12. Rare case when certain photos could get duplicated in albums
  13. Map preview in inline results was missing
  14. In-app language editor was not working on certain Android versions
  15. Settings — Username — Share did not work properly
  16. "X subscribers" part in chat search results was affected and highlighted by current search query
  17. Incorrectly placed lock icon when having a secret chat with a verified account
  18. App now requests access to background location on Android 11+ which should result in a more stable broadcasting of Live Locations
  19. Sound feedback was duplicating when tapping live location bar in the chats list
  20. "Beginning" could have not worked in certain cases when searching messages by date
  21. Set as Current and Delete could have not worked for some old profile pictures
  22. Error tooltip could be incorrectly placed when tapping non-existent usernames and it took too long to load the server response
  23. telegra.ph and telegram.org links were opening in the browser in some cases when they should have opened in the Instant View
  24. Big view counters in polls could have overlapped the number of voters in bubble mode
  25. Members online status could become outdated on Members tab in some groups
  26. When deleting a chat from an archive, it will now bring to archived chats list instead of the main screen
  27. Dozens of other fixes not mentioned in this list

Fixed crashes

  1. Crash when trying to play specific .flac files
  2. Crash when trying to view certain animated stickers
  3. Crash when trying to get a link of certain proxies
  4. Crash when system notification channel cannot be updated
  5. Crash when trying to erase database from "Aw, Snap!" screen when only one account is signed in
  6. Crash when sending certain messages using Send without Markdown feature
  7. Crash when trying to play audio from inline search results
  8. Crash when trying to open certain videos with subtitles tracks in it
  9. Crash when trying to view certain events in Recent Actions
  10. Crash when trying to display a notification with a custom sound that was deleted
  11. Crash when scrolling poll voters
  12. Rare crash when tapping on certain hashtags
  13. Rare crash when new message arrives while viewing Unread chat filter
  14. Several crashes specific to Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Download on Google Play

http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thunderdog.challegram

Subscribe to Beta

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/org.thunderdog.challegram

Change Logs

https://t.me/tgx_android — big announcements and stable change logs

https://t.me/tgx_log — beta change logs and automatic build status updates

https://t.me/tgx_bot — verify APK checksum for authenticity against modifications

Since you've read the entire change log up to this point, I may assume you might want to know a little bit more, or get a hint of what to expect next, like you do so from post-credit scenes in popular movies.

Bringing this update, including writing this change log and making the demos, required me to battle with a deep burnout and going through countless sleepless nights over again. This is the main reason why beta version has received over a hundred of updates, but it's been a long while since the stable one got one.

This year I've been coming up and experimenting with different ideas that might allow the app to survive even after I'm gone. Even though without burnout it would be much easier and faster, several required steps are finished and are mentioned in this change log. I hope you will be able to see them all before I really do so.

There's no big team behind creation of Telegram X. There is a wizard working on TDLib and many brave ones doing magic with Telegram servers on which it relies. But behind the app itself, since more than 6 years of its creation in April 2015, even though millions of people have used the app, more than 325,000 people subscribed to beta, and entire community with over 4,000 volunteer testers has grown around it, on another end there's always been just a couple chat admins who helped sorting out feedback and bug reports, and just one person resolving all of them, trying at the same time to bring joy through little details and animations to a few people who might notice them.

In spring 2020, when exactly 5 years have passed since the first development crunch that created the first version of the app, things stopped working the same way they used to. I didn't quit, and never stopped working. Moreover, whenever I tried to have a break or some rest, I couldn't relax at all, so I had to yet give up on this idea.

Even though I haven't recovered, in the end I've managed to create several things that allow improving the development process and ended up publishing this yet another stable release, including writing this change log.

Meanwhile, a couple months ago new young developer has joined this one-person team, and some of the features in this update are based on his pull requests. I hope one day this development process will become as public as possible, and it will bring everyone an opportunity to hop in and hop out of it anytime, without sacrificing healthy life and interrupting the process of creating new updates.

But it should be clear it's not an easy task to achieve in an instant: few things still have to be done before that, and properly building the team and managing such community isn't compatible with bringing new features, investigating and fixing issues, and writing the change logs by the same person at the same time (especially when it's the one out of life energy).

There's a big story behind each of the updates, and I apologise that this one took so long. While you may, as always, want to see more features, I hope you will find something new to enjoy in this update.

— V.

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