Fluux Messenger 0.16.1: fixes and refinements from real-world use

0.16.1 is our quick turnaround on that: a focused round offixes for the issues that have been reported, across encryption, connectivity,message history, and the desktop apps. Nothing dramatic here, we mainly want to show that we're listening and addressing reported problems fast.

End-to-end encryption in daily use

With people now encrypting real conversations, a few practical details surfaced —and they're sorted:

• Verification works across clients. Fingerprints are published and compared in a consistent case (XEP-0373 expects upper-case), so the green "verified" lock appears reliably whatever XMPP client your contact uses.
• Cleaner previews and placeholders. Encrypted reactions now show up properly in the conversation list, and you'll see a "decrypting…" placeholder while the encryption plugin finishes loading.
• Complete archive. Encrypted messages without a plaintext body now come through correctly from server history (MAM).

Smoother connections

Field reports pointed to a handful of connection scenarios, now improved:

• Happy Eyeballs. Fluux races IPv4 and IPv6 when connecting, so a slow or broken IPv6 route no longer holds things up, whichever answers first wins.
• More reliable reconnection. Stream Management handling and the desktop's local proxy hop were both tuned to resolve reconnection cases users reported.
• Clearer status. Presence pills stay grey while reconnecting, and the reconnect spinner and countdown are back in the sidebar status chip for a calmer interface on unstable networks.

More complete message history

• Gap recovery. Some users reported missing stretches of history after long periods offline. Catch-up now closes those gaps in both group chats and 1:1 conversations, with a "load missing messages" marker to bring back anything that was skipped.
• Reliable scroll-up. Loading older history by scrolling up now works as expected.

A more polished desktop experience

• Notifications open the right chat. On macOS, clicking a notification takes you straight to the conversation it belongs to.
• Single window. Relaunching the app focuses the window that's already running instead of opening a second copy.
• Linux tray fallback. When the system tray isn't available, closing the window quits the app, so it can always be reopened.
• Image downloads use the native save dialog, and Settings now links straight to your system notification settings.

Lots of smaller fixes

And plenty of smaller refinements from everyday use: consistent empty-state icons, reply quotes that match the original sender's color and render as nested bars, opening a contact profile no longer bouncing you back, link-preview images that retry once before hiding, a smoother composer resize, local JID validation on the login screen, and group-chat performance improvements on room join.

Thanks to everyone who reported issues and shared feedback – that's exactly what shapes a release like this one. 0.16.1 is available now on our website, and the full changelog is on GitHub. Keep the reports coming!