v2.0.0

TRex v2.0.0 Release Notes

✨ New Features

Table Detection

• Vision-based detection: Uses macOS 26+ document recognition for table extraction
• LLM fallback: Falls back to AI-based table detection on older systems
• Multiple formats: Export tables as Markdown, CSV, or plain text
• Menu bar toggle: Quick access to table detection settings

LLM Integration

• AI-powered OCR: Use OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, or Apple Intelligence for vision-based text recognition
• Smart post-processing: Automatically format, correct, or transform captured text with LLM
• Separate provider configuration: Choose different providers for OCR vs post-processing
• On-device processing: Apple Intelligence runs locally with no API calls (macOS 15.1+)
• Network-aware fallback: Automatically falls back to built-in OCR when offline

Multi-Region Capture

• Batch selection: Select multiple screen regions in a single capture session
• Combined results: OCR results from all regions are merged together
• Optional LLM processing: Post-process combined text with AI
• Up to 50 regions: Capture complex layouts in one go

Watch Mode

• Continuous monitoring: Monitor a screen region and automatically capture when content changes
• Interactive region selection: Draw regions with a visual overlay
• Floating control panel: Start, pause, and reselect regions on the fly
• Multiple output modes: Append to clipboard, write to file, or stream notifications
• Smart detection: SHA256-based change detection with configurable polling interval
• URL scheme support: Trigger watch mode via trex://watch

Capture History

• Persistent history: All OCR captures saved with thumbnails
• Quick access: Last 5 captures available in menu bar submenu
• History window: Browse all captures via trex://showHistory
• Configurable storage: Set max entries (1–10,000)
• One-click copy: Quickly copy any previous capture to clipboard

🐛 Bug Fixes

CLI Improvements

• Fixed CLI not exiting after stdin EOF (#61)
• Added back Intel Support
• Improved temp file handling with UUID-based paths

Language Recognition

• Added Turkish (tr-TR) to Vision OCR fallback language sets (#62)
• Fixed language code normalization to handle underscore format (#65)

UI Fixes

• Fixed Quick Setup content overflow with scrollable language grid (#63)
• Added confirmation dialog when hiding menu bar icon with recovery instructions (#60)

🔗 Links

• Full Changelog
• GitHub Release

TRex2.0.Demo.mp4

v1.9.1

TRex v1.9.1 Release Notes

✨ New Features

Command Line Tool

• In-app CLI installer: Added one-click installation of the TRex command-line tool directly from the app's preferences window
• User-local installation: Installs to ~/.local/bin/trex with no admin privileges required

🐛 Bug Fixes

Language Recognition

• Fixed language code normalization: Resolved issues with Czech (and potentially other) language recognition where language codes with underscores (cs_CZ) weren't being properly converted to the hyphen format (cs-CZ) required by Apple Vision OCR
• Fixed engine selection: Corrected issue where Tesseract engine was being selected even when disabled in preferences, causing fallback to incorrect engines with poor results
• Language identifier handling: Improved LanguageCodeMapper.standardize() to properly handle locale-based language codes

Image Preprocessing

• Enhanced text recognition accuracy: Added automatic image preprocessing with:
  • +30% contrast enhancement
  • +10% brightness adjustment
  • +10% saturation boost
• These improvements help recognize low-contrast and light-colored text more reliably

🔗 Links

• Full Changelog
• GitHub Release

v1.9.1-BETA-3

TRex v1.9.1-BETA-3 Release Notes

🛠 Fixes

• Improving CLI downloader

v1.9.1-BETA-2

TRex v1.9.1-BETA-2 Release Notes

🛠 Fixes

• Release pipeline reliability: Resolved GitHub Actions caching conflicts by moving the CLI binary into an isolated build cache directory, preventing restore failures when staging artifacts for signing and notarization.
• Notarization flow guardrails: Ensured the CLI binary stays signed/notarized in-place, simplifying the notarization submission and reducing chances of entitlement-related errors during packaging.

🔧 Improvements

• CI transparency: Added targeted logging around staging the CLI artifact during signing and release so troubleshooting future release runs is faster.

✅ Deployment Notes

• This build is intended to exercise the full release pipeline end-to-end. Tag the repository with v1.9.1-BETA-2 to trigger the release workflow once you are ready.

v1.9.1-BETA-1

TRex v1.9.1-BETA-1 Release Notes

🐛 Bug Fixes

Czech Language OCR Fix

• Fixed language code normalization: Resolved issues with Czech (and potentially other) language recognition where language codes with underscores (cs_CZ) weren't being properly converted to the hyphen format (cs-CZ) required by Apple Vision OCR
• Fixed engine selection: Corrected issue where Tesseract engine was being selected even when disabled in preferences, causing fallback to incorrect engines with poor results
• Language identifier handling: Improved LanguageCodeMapper.standardize() to properly handle locale-based language codes

Image Preprocessing

• Enhanced text recognition accuracy: Added automatic image preprocessing with:
  • +30% contrast enhancement
  • +10% brightness adjustment
  • +10% saturation boost
• These improvements help recognize low-contrast and light-colored text more reliably

OCR Engine Management

• Better engine routing: Made OCRManager.engines publicly readable to allow proper engine filtering based on user preferences
• Explicit Vision engine selection: Ensures Apple Vision is used when Tesseract is disabled

🔧 Improvements

Developer Experience

• Enhanced logging: Added comprehensive debug logging throughout the OCR pipeline, including:
  • Language selection decisions
  • Engine routing information
  • Recognition results with confidence scores
  • Alternate recognition candidates for debugging

Code Quality

• Removed unnecessary entitlements: Cleaned up app entitlements file by removing unneeded permissions

📝 Technical Details

This release primarily addresses language recognition issues that could affect users working with Czech and potentially other languages where locale-based language codes (containing underscores or region identifiers) weren't being properly standardized for the Vision framework.

v1.9.0

TRex v1.9.0 Release Notes

✨ What's New

Enhanced Language Support

• Tesseract OCR Engine: Added support for 100+ languages through Tesseract OCR
• Intelligent Engine Selection: TRex automatically chooses the best OCR engine (Apple Vision or Tesseract) based on the selected language
• Comprehensive Language Coverage: Now supports languages from Afrikaans to Yoruba, including complex scripts like Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and many more

Automatic Updates

• Sparkle Integration: TRex now supports automatic updates! The app checks for new versions and notifies you when updates are available
• Manual Check: Check for updates anytime from Settings → General or the menu bar
• Beta Channel: Opt into beta updates to get early access to new features

Compatibility

• Fixed compatibility with macOS 15.0+ for Option (⌥) symbol display
• Requires macOS 13.0+ for enhanced OCR features

v1.9.0-BETA-5

TRex v1.9.0-BETA-5 Release Notes

🐛 Bug Fixes

Tesseract Language Download Fixes

• Fixed language mapping: Added comprehensive ISO 639-1 to ISO 639-3 mapping for ~75 additional languages
• Resolved download failures: Languages like Slovak (sk), Romanian (ro), Bulgarian (bg), Croatian (hr), Indonesian (id), and many more now download correctly
• Previously, only 27 languages were mapped, causing "Language not supported" errors for the remaining 80+ languages that Tesseract supports
• Tesseract language downloads now work for all 107 supported languages

🔧 Improvements

Auto-Update Configuration

• Fixed GitHub Pages URLs to use correct repository path (amebalabs.github.io/TRex)
• Streamlined release workflow to deploy directly to main branch
• Improved appcast feed configuration for more reliable update delivery

📝 Technical Details

• Comprehensive language code mapping now covers all languages supported by both Apple Vision Framework and Tesseract OCR
• Bidirectional mapping ensures proper conversion between ISO 639-1 (Vision) and ISO 639-3 (Tesseract) codes

v1.9.0-BETA-4

TRex v1.9.0-BETA-4 Release Notes

✨ What's New

Auto-Update Support

• Sparkle Integration: TRex now supports automatic updates! The app will check for new versions on launch and notify you when updates are available.
• Update Preferences: Control update behavior in Settings → General:
  • Check for updates manually with the "Check for Updates" button
  • Opt into beta updates with the "Include beta updates" checkbox
• Menu Bar Access: Quickly check for updates from the TRex menu bar icon

v1.9.0-BETA-3

TRex V1.9.0-BETA-3 Release Notes

🐛 Bug Fixes

Changes

• Fix: Tessaract languages download
• Fix: Settings window opens on app launch
• Improved onboarding workflow

v1.9.0-BETA-2

Improvements

• Added autoupdate pipeline with Sparkle
• Tesseract implementation refactoring