Nightjar 4.1.0 is a polish release for Android, Android TV, Windows and Linux. Every main screen got a pass for spacing, alignment, wording and controller focus, so the two apps now look and read alike. It also adds Connect as for controllers that show up as the wrong type, and fixes Back as Guide on handhelds. It updates in place over 4.0.x and keeps your PCs and settings.
Highlights
- A polished look on every screen. Game pages, the PC list, pairing, settings and the stream menu are tidier and more consistent, on phones, handhelds, TVs and the desktop.
- Connect as. Pick the controller type the PC sees: Automatic, Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo.
- Back as Guide on every controller, including handhelds such as the Retroid Pocket Flip 2.
Look and feel (Android and Android TV)
- Game pages show the PC on its own line and a short Running or Suspended chip, without repeating the title. Held sideways, the cover sits beside Play, so Play shows without scrolling.
- Quit the game when I leave the stream is now also a switch on a game's page, where the library offers it.
- Covers fill their frame everywhere, cropped from the centre, instead of showing bands around art that isn't 3:4.
- The PC list says "Ready to pair" for a PC that isn't paired yet, and under a short list it shows that it is still looking, with a How to connect link.
- The pairing PIN is larger and in the accent colour.
- The stream menu fits a phone held upright: it starts right below the camera, and the four toggles sit in a 2×2 grid.
- Pages don't repeat their tab: Home, PCs and Settings drop the heading above a tab bar that already names them, and Settings opened from the bar has no back arrow.
- On a TV, the tab bar, titles and pages share one edge, PC settings starts on its first row, and a game's Running chip no longer covers its cover title.
- The display scaling setting describes the PC's virtual display instead of naming a host.
Desktop (Windows and Linux)
- Home shows a game's title under its cover only when it's focused or hovered, since the art already carries it, and covers are cropped to fill instead of squashed. A game without art shows its full title.
- The PCs page and pairing use the same words as Android: "Ready to pair", a How to connect link, also when no PC has been found yet, and a centred PIN.
- The game page has a Running or Suspended chip, the PC on its own line and the quit-on-leave switch as a settings row.
- The stream menu has the launcher's look: a Return to stream button, switch rows and the same focus ring.
- Dialogs all put the main button on the right; Esc or B cancels. The Sleep PC dialog keeps Cancel in place while it asks the PC, so a late click can't put the PC to sleep.
- Settings stop at a readable width on wide windows, with the scrollbar beside them, and "More … settings" opens from a full row.
- Home and the other lists scroll to the game or PC a controller or the arrow keys focus, not only Tab (nightjar#51).
Controllers
- Connect as in a controller's button settings picks the type the PC sees: Automatic, Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo. It helps when a controller shows up as the wrong type, such as a Razer Kishi showing as a PlayStation controller (nightjar#53). Xbox leaves out motion and the touchpad. On Android and desktop.
- Back button as Guide now works on every controller, including handhelds whose built-in controls Android lists as an external controller, such as the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 (nightjar#49).
Tested. The Android build passed 3,984 unit tests and lint, and the desktop client 809 tests and clippy, on the release commit and in CI. Every polished screen was checked on a phone emulator held upright and sideways, an Android TV emulator with a D-pad, the desktop client's page renderer at 1280x800 and 1920x1080, and the Retroid Pocket 6. The published 4.1.0 APK installed over 4.0.0 on the Retroid, kept its saved PCs and paired, then streamed 1080p at about 120 fps for 95 seconds from a Rubylight 3.1.0 host on Wi-Fi: the host's processing averaged 0.3 ms (99th percentile under 1.5 ms), the stream menu opened and Disconnect returned to the library, with no errors in the host log and no crash.
The APKs are signed by CI with the Nightjar release key; the desktop packages (Windows installer and zip; Linux .deb, .rpm, AppImage and tar.gz) are not signed. SHA-256 hashes of everything are in SHA256SUMS-4.1.0.txt.