mindfork 0.18.3 — a plain code block can be quiet
mindfork 0.18.3 is out. It is a small release with one addition — a choice of background for a code block the feed cannot highlight — and an update of the TLS library.
Two looks for a plain block
A code block the feed highlights — rust, bash, python and many more —
is coloured text between its ``` lines. A block it cannot highlight — no
language, text, or one it does not know — has always been drawn as a solid
rectangle in reversed colours, so it stands out from the prose around it.
Settings → Interface → Code block background now chooses:
- inverted — the solid reversed rectangle, as before. This is the default, so nothing changes unless you change it.
- normal — no background: the block's text in the code colour between its
```lines, the same look a highlighted block has, without the colours.
The choice applies at once, to the whole conversation.
Why now: the animated demo
A Mermaid diagram is drawn only once its block is complete; while the reply is still streaming, the block shows as its source. On the reversed background that source was the brightest thing on screen for a moment — and then it turned into a diagram with no background at all. In the animated demo on this site and in the README, that was the one untidy moment, in the part that shows the renderer off.
The demo is now drawn with normal: the diagram's source streams in like the
bash block above it, and the diagram replaces it without a flash. The demo is
generated from the app's own code at every release, so this release is the one
that brings it.
Also: the TLS library
rustls, the TLS library under every network request mindfork makes, is updated past four advisories. One of them reaches mindfork: someone on the network between you and a server could make later connections to that server fall back from post-quantum to classical key exchange. No key or authentication is broken — what is lost is the protection against traffic recorded now being decrypted later by a quantum computer. The other three are in parts of the library mindfork does not use.
Your data
settings.json gains one field, interface.code_block_background. Nothing is
migrated and no step runs at the start. An older version starts on the file but
does not keep the field — 0.18.2 rewrites the settings while it runs, without it — so
after a trip back to 0.18.2 the choice is inverted again.
The full list is in the
changelog;
downloads are on the
releases page, and
cargo install mindfork builds the same version from
crates.io.