How to Read Edge-Drop's In-App Changelog

A desktop app that ships frequent updates needs an accessible changelog. Users want to know what changed, what was fixed, and whether a behaviour they rely on was modified — without having to open a browser and navigate to GitHub. Edge-Drop's in-app changelog surfaces release notes inside the app, with an offline fallback for when the machine is not connected. This guide covers where the changelog pulls from, how to open it, what the offline fallback looks like, and how to find older release notes when needed. For the broader settings landscape see the Edge-Drop settings map and for the onboarding companion see onboarding tutorial: what it covers and how to replay.

Where the changelog comes from

Edge-Drop's changelog is the GitHub Releases page for the project: https://github.com/Deepender25/Edge-Drop/releases. Each GitHub Release has:

• A version tag (e.g., v0.2.7)
• A title
• A body — the release notes, written in Markdown
• A list of attached assets (the installer binaries)

Edge-Drop fetches the release list via the GitHub API (GET /repos/Deepender25/Edge-Drop/releases), renders the body of each release as Markdown, and displays the result in a scrollable panel inside the app. The fetch happens on a throttled cadence — typically once per day, plus on demand when the user opens the changelog view.

The fetch is anonymous (no GitHub authentication) and uses the public API rate limit of 60 requests per hour per IP. For a single-user machine, this limit is never approached; the changelog fetch happens at most a few times per day.

How to open the changelog view

There are two entry points:

• Settings panel — open Settings (tray icon → Settings, or Alt+C then the gear icon), go to the About / Help tab, click "What's new" or "View changelog."
• Tray menu — right-click the tray icon, click "What's new" if the menu item is present in the current version.

The changelog view opens as a panel within the settings window. It shows:

• The current installed version, highlighted at the top.
• A list of recent releases, newest first, each with its version tag, release date, and rendered Markdown body.
• A "Check for updates" button that triggers an immediate fetch of the latest release (GitHub builds only; Store builds cannot auto-update — see how Edge-Drop updates on GitHub builds).

The view is scrollable; older releases are below the fold. There is typically no pagination — the GitHub API returns up to 30 releases per page, which is more than enough for a project's recent history.

What the offline fallback looks like

When the machine is offline, or when the GitHub API is unreachable, the changelog view falls back to the last cached version. The cache:

• Lives under %APPDATA%\Edge-Drop (or a similar location — see where Edge-Drop stores data on disk).
• Stores the rendered Markdown of the last successful fetch.
• Is updated whenever a fetch succeeds.

The fallback view shows a banner like "Offline — showing last cached changelog from <date>." The content is the same as the online view; only the freshness indicator differs.

If the cache is empty (e.g., first launch on a machine that has never been online), the changelog view shows a placeholder message: "Changelog unavailable — connect to the internet to fetch release notes." A link to the GitHub Releases page is provided for manual access.

The fallback ensures that users on air-gapped machines, or users experiencing a temporary network outage, can still see what changed in the version they are running — as long as Edge-Drop has been online at least once before.

How to read older release notes

The in-app changelog shows recent releases. To find older release notes that have scrolled off the in-app list:

1. Open the GitHub Releases page in a browser: https://github.com/Deepender25/Edge-Drop/releases
2. Scroll or use the page selector at the bottom to navigate to older releases.
3. Each release page shows the full release notes and the attached assets.

For specific version history — e.g., "when was feature X added?" — the GitHub Releases page is the canonical source. The in-app changelog is a convenience view; the web page is the source of truth.

For the relationship between GitHub Releases and the actual binary version, see how Edge-Drop updates on GitHub builds.

What a good changelog entry looks like

Edge-Drop's release notes follow a consistent format. A typical entry:

## v0.2.7

### Added
- New "Fetch link previews" toggle in Behaviour tab
- Multi-select in preview flyout (Ctrl+click, Shift+click)

### Changed
- Default hover sensitivity increased slightly to reduce accidental opens
- Sound effects now respect Windows app-volume mixer

### Fixed
- Crash when copying a 0-byte file
- Shelf position not persisting across monitor disconnects
- Tray icon not updating after incognito toggle

The format is conventional: Added / Changed / Fixed, with one bullet per item, written in plain language. The format is similar to the Keep a Changelog convention, which is widely used in open-source projects.

For an in-depth look at what makes a clipboard-app changelog useful, see what a good clipboard changelog looks like.

How the changelog interacts with updates

The changelog view is informational; it does not trigger updates. To install a new version:

• GitHub builds — click "Check for updates" in the changelog view. If a new version is available, the auto-updater downloads it and prompts for restart. See how Edge-Drop updates on GitHub builds.
• Store builds — the changelog view shows the current Store-installed version and the latest GitHub release. The Store handles updates; the user checks via Microsoft Store → Library → Get updates. See Microsoft Store listing: what to expect.

The changelog view may show a newer GitHub release than the Store-installed version. This is normal: the Store lags the GitHub release by days or weeks due to certification. The user can either wait for the Store to catch up or switch to the GitHub build for faster updates.

How to verify the changelog is current

A 30-second test:

1. Open the changelog view in Edge-Drop.
2. Note the most recent release shown.
3. Open https://github.com/Deepender25/Edge-Drop/releases in a browser.
4. Compare the most recent release on the web with the one in-app.
5. They should match. If the in-app view is older, click "Check for updates" or wait for the next throttled fetch.

If the in-app view is consistently older than the web, check that Edge-Drop can reach api.github.com (corporate proxies may block it) and that the cache is not stale (delete the cache file under %APPDATA%\Edge-Drop to force a re-fetch on next launch).

Failure modes

• GitHub API rate limit — 60 requests per hour per IP. A single user will never approach this. A shared corporate NAT with many users hitting GitHub API could in theory hit it; the in-app view falls back to cache.
• Corporate proxy blocking GitHub — the fetch fails silently, the view shows the cache. The user can navigate to the GitHub Releases page manually if the proxy allows the web URL but not the API.
• Cache corruption — if the cache file is corrupted (e.g., from an unexpected shutdown mid-fetch), the view may show garbled content or fail to render. Delete the cache file and restart Edge-Drop.
• Markdown rendering quirks — Edge-Drop uses a Markdown renderer that supports the common subset (paragraphs, headings, lists, code blocks, links). Some GitHub-specific extensions (e.g., task lists, footnotes) may not render correctly. The plain text is still readable.
• Very old Edge-Drop versions — early versions may not have the in-app changelog at all. Update to the current version to get the feature. See how to install Edge-Drop on Windows 10 and 11.

What Edge-Drop does not claim

• The changelog does not include every commit. It summarises per-release changes; the commit history on GitHub is the granular view.
• The changelog does not include security advisories. Those are published as GitHub Security Advisories on the repository.
• The changelog does not auto-translate. Release notes are written in English; users who want a translated version can use the browser's translate feature on the GitHub Releases page.
• The changelog does not provide a diff between two arbitrary versions. For diffs, the user compares release notes manually.
• The changelog does not notify the user of breaking changes specially. Breaking changes are described in the release notes; the user is expected to read them.

Summary

Edge-Drop's in-app changelog pulls from the GitHub Releases API, renders the release notes as Markdown, and shows them in a panel inside the settings window. An offline fallback shows the last cached version when the machine is not connected. The changelog is informational; updates are handled separately via the GitHub auto-updater or the Microsoft Store. For older release notes or for granular commit history, the GitHub Releases page is the canonical source. The changelog follows a conventional Added / Changed / Fixed format, written in plain language.

Related reading

• Onboarding Tutorial: What It Covers and How to Replay
• How to Report a Bug in Edge-Drop
• How to Install Edge-Drop on Windows 10 and 11
• What Local-First Software Means for Clipboard Apps

Sources

• GitHub REST API — Releases endpoint — official documentation for the API Edge-Drop uses to fetch release notes
• GitHub — About releases — documents the release format and how release notes are attached to a release
• Keep a Changelog — the changelog format convention Edge-Drop's release notes follow
• Edge-Drop — GitHub Releases page — the canonical source for Edge-Drop release notes
• Microsoft Learn — GitHub API rate limits — documents the 60-requests-per-hour unauthenticated rate limit that the changelog fetch is bound by

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