Keeping your place, and making the desktop your own.

October 18 focused on a steadier Mail list, personal appearance choices, more useful notifications and clearer control over updates.

October 18 was about the details you notice while living in a desktop: an inbox that moves when you are reading, text that needs a different size, a code you want to copy, or an update that asks for the wrong next step. The day’s work refined those everyday interactions across Mail, Terminal and the desktop.

An inbox that keeps its place

Reading an older conversation could make Mail jump toward the top of the list when that row changed. Updated rows now refresh in place, keeping their existing selection and focus. When you are already at the top, newly arrived mail is brought into view; reading farther down does not trigger that scroll-to-top behavior.

Newly found messages also queue their text download straight away, so their previews do not have to wait for the next general folder check. That improves how the list fills in; actual arrival and download times still depend on the provider and connection.

Account settings now show both incoming and outgoing servers. The command-line and agent account status also report the latest folder check as “last synced,” instead of continuing to show when the account first connected.

Personal choices should stay personal

Mail gained an Appearance page for text size, divider strength, list spacing and a personal accent color. These choices are saved for the person using the app, over the desktop theme, and included in Mail’s backup. “Back to the theme’s look” removes those overrides. Light and dark mode still follow the desktop.

Terminal gained separate font and size selectors, alongside fixes for clipped letter tops. Its Appearance preferences now show a sample and preview changes in the current window before saving. Cancel, Escape or closing the preferences window restores the saved appearance. The preview leaves saved settings and running sessions alone.

The Daylight palette and its settings controls received contrast fixes, including cases where a dark desktop theme was leaking unreadable text into a light Terminal style. The goal is to make a personal look easier to try and easier to read, without turning one person’s preferences into an update for everyone else.

Notifications that help with the next step

When a notification contains a recognizable one-time code, the desktop can now offer its own Copy button. This works at the notification layer, including the bar’s notification panel, rather than requiring each mail, messaging or browser app to add that button itself.

Copied codes are marked sensitive so Ecliptic’s clipboard history skips them. That does not remove the original notification from notification history. Code detection is based on recognizable text patterns, so it will not identify every possible format.

A separate startup fix addresses notifications being requested before the desktop’s screen connection is ready. The notification service now waits for that connection before taking over, and returns an error if handling a request fails. This addresses a path that had left an app waiting until its notification request timed out.

Choose updates, and see what remains

Ecliptic Software now offers a checkbox beside updates for apps, coding agents and system packages. Choose several and use “Install N chosen”; the confirmation includes any companion packages needed by that selection. Afterward, the page reports how many updates are still waiting.

The selection logic was corrected so an Ecliptic app update does not pull in an unrelated waiting system update when the installed dependency already meets its requirements. Packages that need matching versions still have to move together. This is a reviewed installation choice, not unattended updating or a promise that any package can be updated independently.

Restart guidance also changed. Some background services survive a quick logout and login, so asking someone to log out did not replace their old running code. After an update, eligible user services are now restarted directly. Protected services, or ones that remain on old code afterward, can still require a computer restart; the desktop continues to distinguish that from reopening an app or logging out.

The ISO builder was adjusted to take Ecliptic’s app packages from the signed update channel and stop when relevant source changes have not been published there. The aim is to avoid a fresh installation appearing to go backwards on its first update merely because its packages were numbered differently. This is a build-path change, not a new public ISO announcement.

Checks, and work still under observation

Mail gained regression checks for retaining changed list items, fetching new-message previews and applying appearance choices. Terminal’s recorded checks included repeated dialogs and rearrangements during a four-minute local test SSH stream. Its final development package passed 59 automated tests, including appearance preview, cancellation and persistence checks. Longer use with real remote environments remains separate from those bounded tests.

Virtual-machine checks exercised selected update installations, restarting an outdated sound service, copying codes without retaining them in clipboard history, and notification startup while the screen connection was delayed. They establish those tested paths, rather than covering every app, machine or update combination. A fresh install using the changed ISO build path still needs its own validation.

Intermittent missed clicks around password prompts remain under investigation. A focus-holding rule was removed as a trial, with the prompts still visible and initially focused; the day’s evidence does not establish that this resolves the problem. Diagnostic logging was also added for “not responding” dialogs to help investigate future stalls.

This entry records development through October 18. The desktop is being used and refined, with broader daily-use, accessibility and installation checks still ahead.