chore(release): prepare v0.15.0

[jatinkrmalik]

Description

Prepares v0.15.0 for everything on main since v0.14.2.

Rebased onto latest main again — includes #618 (sidebar dictation footer), #619 (Custom Shortcut Record/Set restore), #617 (English India → Whisper en), plus #616 / #599 and earlier fold-ins.

Why 0.15.0 (not 1.0)

0.14.1 and 0.14.2 were already stable. This delta is a minor feature set. AppImage just landed, so it belongs in 0.15 before anyone treats a build as a forever 1.0 baseline.

In this PR

• Version bump to 0.15.0 across app, web, AUR, Flatpak AppStream
• Production/Stable classifier; release-notes writing rules in docs/RELEASE_PROCESS.md
• Docs + website updated for the full 0.15 delta

Smoke evidence (tip of main + local AppImage)

Short recap video (settings + AppImage dictation via IBus):

vocalinux-smoke-recap-playable.mp4

Screenshots:

Social / Product Hunt drafts stay outside git (maintainer artifacts only).

Checklist

• Rebased onto latest main (includes fix(languages): map English (India) to Whisper code en #617–fix(settings): restore custom shortcut Record/Set controls #619)
• Notes include settings footer, shortcut UI restore, en-in Whisper mapping, languages, Bluetooth mic fix
• CI green (re-check after this push)
• Local install smoke (whisper.cpp / VOSK / remote API / IBus)
• Local AppImage build + dictation smoke
• Tag after merge only

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Draft GitHub Release Notes

Vocalinux v0.15.0

Vocalinux 0.15.0 is a stable minor release on top of the 0.14 packaging line. Settings move to a searchable sidebar with dictation controls in the footer, GitHub Releases include AppImages, the speech-language catalog grows a lot (including Hungarian), continuous dictation gets capitalization and spacing fixes, and there are new controls for unloading the model and picking a Vulkan GPU. Wayland IBus also improves when ibus-wayland is present. Selecting a Bluetooth headset mic no longer crashes the process during PortAudio probing.

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Highlights

Area	Description
Settings	Sidebar navigation with search; status / mic level / Test Dictation / Close stay in the sidebar footer
AppImage	x86_64 and aarch64 builds attached to the GitHub Release
Languages	~33 selectable speech languages plus Auto-detect (incl. Hungarian); VOSK only lists languages with official models
Dictation polish	Capitalize after . / ! / ?; leave a trailing space after each completed utterance
Auto-pause / keep-alive	Unload the model while configured apps run, or after an idle timeout
Vulkan devices	Prefer a discrete GPU when one exists; override under Advanced settings
ibus-wayland	Prefer IBus on previously “unbridged” compositors when ibus-wayland is running
CLI	vocalinux --version prints the package version and exits
Bluetooth mics	Capture open/probe path no longer heap-corrupts on SCO/HFP devices

---

New Features

• Settings: searchable sidebar instead of seven notebook tabs. (feat(settings): searchable sidebar settings instead of seven tabs #601 by @jatinkrmalik)
• Settings: move recognition status, mic level, Test Dictation, and Close into the always-visible sidebar footer. (feat(settings): move dictation controls into sidebar #618 by @jatinkrmalik)
• Packaging: AppImage for x86_64 and aarch64, plus smoke-test packaging fixes. (feat(packaging): add self-contained AppImage build (x86_64 + aarch64) #573, fix(appimage): smoke-test fixes for tray, labels, and packaging #602 by @jatinkrmalik)
• Languages: expand the speech catalog (Hungarian and many more); CLI --language choices come from the same list as Settings; wire official Alphacephei VOSK models where they exist and hide Whisper-only languages in the VOSK dropdown. (feat(languages): expand speech catalog with Hungarian and more (#565) #616 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [FEATURE] Please add support for the Hungarian language to the program. #565)
• Dictation: capitalize at the start and after sentence-ending punctuation. (feat: auto-capitalize sentences after punctuation #554 by @jatinkrmalik, closes [FEATURE] Automatically put capital letter after a period. #553)
• Dictation: append a trailing space after each completed transcription so the next session does not glue on. (feat(dictation): append trailing space after completed transcription #608 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [FEATURE] Add trailing space after completed transcription #605)
• Auto-pause competing apps and idle model keep-alive unload. (feat(offload): auto-pause apps + idle keep-alive model unload #592 by @jatinkrmalik, closes [FEATURE] Auto-pause when selected games or apps are running #445, [FEATURE] Feature Request: Implement model offloading / keep-alive timeout to support NVIDIA Optimus (battery saving) #591)
• Vulkan: auto-select a discrete GPU and allow a manual device in Advanced settings. (fix(vulkan): auto-select discrete GPU and add manual device selection #590 by @jatinkrmalik, closes [BUG] Unable to select NVIDIA GPU with Vulkan #589)
• Wayland: use IBus when ibus-wayland is running, including on compositors previously treated as unbridged. (feat(text-injection): use IBus on unbridged compositors when ibus-wayland runs #614 by @eiseleb47, closes [FEATURE] Allow IBus on wlroots compositors when ibus-wayland (input-method-v2) is running #607)
• CLI: vocalinux --version. (feat(cli): add --version option 🤖🤖🤖 #563 by @AnayGarodia, closes [FEATURE] --version option missing #555)
• Website: marketing site redesign and languages page with honest per-engine badges. (feat(web): redesign marketing site with workstation craft #582, feat(languages): expand speech catalog with Hungarian and more (#565) #616 by @jatinkrmalik)

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Bug Fixes

• Settings: restore Custom Shortcut entry / Record / Set controls after the sidebar settings refactor. (fix(settings): restore custom shortcut Record/Set controls #619 by @jatinkrmalik)
• Languages: map English (India) (en-in) to Whisper code en for whisper.cpp / Whisper / remote API (VOSK still uses en-in). (fix(languages): map English (India) to Whisper code en #617 by @jatinkrmalik)
• Audio: stop Bluetooth mic probing from corrupting the heap. One PortAudio open per capture session, stop-before-close, and no stereo probe on mono-only devices (fixes crashes on SCO/HFP headsets such as PipeWire “Bluetooth internal capture”). (fix(audio): stop Bluetooth mic probing from corrupting the heap #599 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [BUG] Heap corruption (malloc) crash when selecting Bluetooth audio input device #567 reported by @HaleTom)
• IBus: keep engine teardown correct when parent do_destroy fails. (fix(ibus): keep engine teardown correct when parent destroy fails #613 by @eiseleb47, fixes [BUG] IBus engine teardown raises TypeError: IBus.Object.destroy() takes exactly 1 argument (0 given) #606)
• Settings UI: flatten info notices so helper text matches the rest of the dialog. (fix(ui): flatten settings info notices #615 by @jatinkrmalik)
• KDE Plasma Wayland: skip unbridged IBus when ibus-wayland is not present so injection does not fail quietly. (fix: skip unbridged IBus on KDE Plasma Wayland #577 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [BUG] IBus text injection reports success on every dictation, but text never reaches native apps on Kubuntu/KDE Plasma Wayland (not a first-of-session race — 100% reproducible) #574)
• xdotool: keep input focus after injection. (fix(xdotool): preserve input focus after injection 🤖🤖🤖 #564 by @AnayGarodia, fixes xdotool path sends Escape after injection and steals focus (e.g. Telegram) #549)
• Uninstall: remove the IBus data dir, stop the app via PID file, and remove ~/.local/bin launchers reliably. (fix(uninstall): remove IBus data dir & stop app by PID file not pgrep -f #597 by @jatinkrmalik, fix(uninstall): remove ~/.local/bin launcher wrappers reliably #569 by @webenefits)
• Installer: install both libgirepository 1.0 and 2.0 when the distro has them. (fix(install): install both libgirepository 1.0 and 2.0 when available #583 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [BUG] Installer is missing dependencies: gcc-12 and libgirepository-2.0-dev #571)
• AUR: depend on virtual python-pywhispercpp; move clipboard and wtype tools to optdepends. (fix(aur): depend on virtual python-pywhispercpp so the documented GPU swap works #579 by @Asseel-Naji, fix(aur): move clipboard and wtype tools to optdepends #586 by @jatinkrmalik)
• UI: first-run dialog response without Gtk.Dialog.do_response. (fix(ui): first-run dialog response without Gtk.Dialog.do_response #580 by @jatinkrmalik, fixes [BUG] GtkDialog doesn't implement response — crash in first-run dialog #566)
• Vosk: add Italian and English-India rows to the medium/large model tables. (fix(vosk): add missing Italian and English-India entries to medium/large model tables #551 by @AnayGarodia, fixes [BUG] cannot download 1.5 GB vosk model #550)
• Docs: fix ydotool service setup guidance. (fix: correct ydotool service setup guidance 🤖🤖🤖 #560 by @AnayGarodia, fixes [BUG] ydotoold runs (and intermittently crash-loops) in the GDM login screen #557)

Docs / maintenance (lower priority)

• Multi-distro tray icon FAQ. (docs: multi-distro tray icon FAQ (apt, dnf, pacman) #584)
• robots.txt no longer blocks indexable pages. (fix(web): stop robots.txt from blocking indexable pages #610)
• Website CI lint / action warning cleanup. (fix(ci): clear website pipeline lint and action warnings #611)
• README badge layout tweaks. (docs(readme): center-align header before hero image #542, docs(readme): pin CI badge to main and restyle social/coverage badges #544, docs(readme): redistribute header badges into three rows #545)
• Next.js dependency bump. (chore(deps): bump next from 15.5.20 to 15.5.21 in /web in the npm_and_yarn group across 1 directory #587)

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Thanks

Thank you @HaleTom for reporting the Bluetooth mic malloc crash (#567).

Thank you @eiseleb47 for the IBus teardown fix and for teaching Vocalinux about ibus-wayland (#613, #614).

Thank you @AnayGarodia for --version, the xdotool focus fix, the Vosk model table entries, and the ydotool docs correction (#563, #564, #551, #560).

Thank you @webenefits for making uninstall remove the ~/.local/bin wrappers (#569).

Thank you @Asseel-Naji for the AUR python-pywhispercpp dependency fix (#579).

Thanks to everyone who filed the linked issues (including #565 for Hungarian) and tested builds on the way to 0.15.

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Install / Upgrade

Recommended (install.sh)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jatinkrmalik/vocalinux/main/install.sh -o /tmp/vl.sh && bash /tmp/vl.sh

AppImage

chmod +x Vocalinux-0.15.0-x86_64.AppImage
./Vocalinux-0.15.0-x86_64.AppImage

Host text-injection tools (xdotool / wtype / ydotool) are still required. FUSE is needed to run the AppImage on most hosts.

Arch / PyPI / Flatpak

yay -S vocalinux · pip install -U vocalinux · local Flatpak under packaging/flatpak/ (Flathub may trail this tag)

Full changelog: v0.14.2...v0.15.0

  

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 86.04%. Comparing base (27ecf88) to head (01bd349).

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##             main     #609   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   86.04%   86.04%           
=======================================
  Files          35       35           
  Lines        6470     6470           
  Branches     1052     1052           
=======================================
  Hits         5567     5567           
  Misses        682      682           
  Partials      221      221           

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/vocalinux/version.py	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)

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[jatinkrmalik]

Tested on both local and cloud vm!