Release date: 2026-07-15
Two focused improvements. Playback is now lighter on your machine — Parachord no longer redraws its whole interface on every progress-bar tick, so long listening sessions use less CPU and battery. And Critical Darlings moves to a new, more reliable data source as its old feed is retired — with no interruption to the list you see.
Smoother playback
While a track plays, the progress bar updates several times a second. Parachord used to re-render its entire interface on every one of those ticks — a constant, invisible tax on CPU and battery. Now only the progress bar updates on a tick, so playback feels lighter and your fans stay quieter during long sessions. Nothing about how playback looks or works changes — it's purely more efficient under the hood.
Critical Darlings: new source
The Critical Darlings page previously pulled from a third-party feed (RSSground) that's being retired. It now sources from Achordion, Parachord's companion discovery service. The switch is seamless: while Achordion's catalog fills in, the page stays full by blending in recent picks, and it converges to the new feed automatically as it grows. No action needed on your end.
What's Changed
Other Changes
- docs: configurable OAuth/local-server port spec (#958) by @jherskowitz in #959
- perf: stop full-tree re-render on every progress tick (#768) by @jherskowitz in #965
- Critical Darlings: Achordion feed + union (cache + transitional RSSground top-up) (#962) by @jherskowitz in #963
Full Changelog: v0.9.5...v0.9.6