What's changed in Tap Zap, version by version. macOS and Windows ship independently — each platform tracks its own version number and release cadence.
Currently shipping: macOS v2.25 (Beta) · Windows v2.23
v2.25
macOSJune 13, 2026
Stability hardening and one-tap support diagnostics.
New COPY FEEDBACK FOR SUPPORT button in Settings — one tap copies an email-ready diagnostics bundle (your version, OS, displays, and filter state) to paste into a reply to support. Your license key is never included.
License activation is now double-tap-safe — a quick double-click on Activate can no longer use up an extra device activation.
Hardened quitting and display handling — quitting, or sleeping, switching, or unplugging a display mid-adjustment, can no longer leave the color filter in an inconsistent state.
v2.23
WindowsJune 13, 2026
Major fix for older graphics drivers, plus a one-click unlock when Windows blocks colors.
Fixed: sliders that did nothing. On some older or locked-down graphics drivers, WARMTH/BRIGHTNESS and the EVENING/NIGHT presets had no effect while DAY still worked — Windows was silently rejecting the stronger color changes. Tap Zap now detects this and offers a one-click fix that unlocks the full color range (it asks you to restart Windows afterward).
Fixed: FLICKER wouldn't stay on. PWM-Safe Mode could switch itself off after a restart on slower machines. Startup now waits for the display to wake and re-applies the 100% brightness lock instead of giving up.
Fixed: app invisible at startup. The tray icon could fail to appear, and "start at login" could point at a stale location. The icon now re-adds itself reliably, and the startup entry repairs its own path on every launch.
Better support diagnostics: the COPY FEEDBACK bundle now reports your graphics adapter, color-range state, and a saved event log, so startup issues can be diagnosed from a single paste.
Clearer FLICKER labeling on laptops that have only a built-in screen.
v2.22
WindowsMay 29, 2026
The text cursor stays visible on white backgrounds.
Fixed: the text (I-beam) cursor could vanish on white backgrounds — in Notepad, text boxes, and forum fields — because the warmth tint turned it red on an already-red background.
Inverting cursors like the I-beam are now left in their native form so they stay visible everywhere; colored cursors (arrow, hand, resize handles) are still tinted as before. Applies to both Legacy and Magnification color modes.
v2.24
macOSMay 14, 2026
License-paste fixes and purchase-flow polish.
Fixed: valid license keys could be rejected. The license field was auto-capitalizing what you typed, but keys are case-sensitive — so real keys came back as invalid. It now preserves your key exactly and quietly strips any stray spaces or line breaks from a sloppy paste.
Clearer error when a key doesn't validate — "Check for typos or extra spaces" instead of a flat "invalid."
Earlier in the cycle: a cleaner, collapsed PWM-safe flicker warning, a hover tooltip, and several edge-case stability fixes.
Post-purchase download page restyled to match the rest of the site.
PWM-Safe Mode pins hardware brightness to 100% on built-in MacBook panels and supported Apple displays, so software dimming never has to fight backlight flicker.
Auto-Brightness (Ambient Light Compensation) is paused while Tap Zap is running so the system stops fighting your slider — fully restored on quit.
Auto-show the popover on first launch so the menu bar icon is easy to find — silent on every launch after.
Warmth slider now glides smoothly to the new value when you tap a preset, instead of snapping.
Preset buttons no longer flash mid-drag — they only highlight once you release on a matching value.
License activation screen redesigned: bigger logo, real focus ring on the input, shake on error, staggered entrance, ZAP-style activate button.
Fixed: flicker warning silently disappeared on macOS Tahoe (26.2) because the legacy IOKit display path stopped enumerating — now uses a Tahoe fallback.
Fixed: prior brightness wasn't always restored correctly when toggling PWM-Safe Mode on built-in panels.
v2.22
macOSApril 15, 2026
A more natural warmth curve.
Replaced the old linear warmth math with a chromaticity-based CCT → xy → RGB mapping for a more natural mid-range progression.
Added a smooth red tail from 2000K down to pure red, removing the abrupt drop at the bottom of the warmth slider.
DAY, EVENING, and NIGHT presets now snap to exact Kelvin points on the curve: 4000K, 2700K, and 0K (pure red).
Preset highlights now use a tolerance check so the correct button lights up reliably on the new curve.
Honest flicker warnings: separate mild and severe states, with the severe warning making it explicit when software dimming cannot help (built-in panel below 80%).
v2.21
WindowsMay 27, 2026
One-tap support diagnostics.
New COPY FEEDBACK FOR SUPPORT button at the bottom of Settings — copies a single email-ready bundle to your clipboard with your version, OS, displays, filter state, and the recent event log. Paste it into a reply to [email protected] and we'll have everything we need to help.
Your license key is never included in the bundle. The bundle says so explicitly.
The subject line bakes in your platform + version + a stable opaque device tag, so we can tell two reports from the same machine apart without ever seeing your machine UUID.
Event log now captures in release builds (previously debug-only) — 500-entry ring covering session events.
v2.20
WindowsMay 17, 2026
Polished license entry screen.
Cleaner license input: smaller, better-proportioned text field with native edit-control margins instead of custom padding math — no more vertical clipping at any DPI.
Cue banner simplified to LICENSE KEY so the input reads as a labelled field rather than a sentence prompt.
Activation input border re-aligned with the surrounding panel for a tighter visual rhythm.
v2.19
WindowsApril – May 2026
PWM-Safe Mode arrives on Windows. Cursor tint. Brightness floor.
PWM-Safe Mode pins hardware brightness to 100% via WMI on built-in laptop panels and DDC/CI on supported external monitors — auto-reverts cleanly if the lock can't be verified.
Multi-monitor support: every DDC/CI-controllable external is locked together. Externals that don't expose DDC/CI keep the existing manual "set to 100%" guidance.
Cursor tint restored: common system cursors now inherit the active warmth and brightness filter instead of staying bright white on a separate layer.
Brightness slider now stops at 10% by default. New ALLOW EXTREME DIM setting unlocks dimming below the floor when you really want it.
Matched the warmth curve to macOS — same chromaticity-based mid-range and same smooth red tail. Both Magnification and Legacy paths use the new curve.
Per-monitor DPI awareness so the popup window stays crisp on 4K and high-DPI laptops.
Auto-show the popup on first launch so the tray icon is easy to find — silent on every launch after.
Honest flicker-warning copy aligned with macOS — clearer language about what software dimming can and cannot do.
v2.18
WindowsApril 14, 2026
Brutalist UI overhaul.
Background, header, and footer panels rebuilt to match the macOS design system — same #0D0D0D deep black, same #1A1A1A panel grey, same red.
New fader caps with the same 4-stop gradient as macOS, plus pill-style value badges in Consolas Bold (red border for warmth, grey for brightness).
Settings screen retitled and rebuilt with proper vertical alignment on every row.
Center divider, fader track spacing, and gear icon position fine-tuned for clean rendering on dark backgrounds.
Drop-shadow gap on the right and bottom edges of the popup eliminated.
v2.15
Windows2026
Native rewrite. Around 200 KB. Zero runtime dependencies.
Complete rewrite from WPF / .NET 8 to native C++ on the Win32 API — no .NET runtime, no Electron, no install footprint.
Color filter now runs on the Magnification API (MagSetFullscreenColorEffect) for system-wide coverage.
Custom GDI drawing for the brutalist UI: studio faders, gradient caps, tick marks, the lot.
System tray integration with a popup window that anchors near the tray.
Settings persist to %APPDATA%\TapZap2\ as a plain INI file.
Sleep / wake handled via WM_POWERBROADCAST, single-instance enforcement via global mutex.
Fixed: 4K and high-DPI scaling issues from the .NET build.
v2.14
macOS2026
Slider stability fixes.
Fixed: slider rubber-banding bug on macOS 12 Monterey.
Replaced the SwiftUI fader implementation with a pure NSView + CALayer path for tighter control.
Drag tracking now uses screen coordinates for stable behavior across multi-monitor setups.
v2.13
macOS2026
Brutalist redesign.
Bold UI redesign — the brutalist black / red / white aesthetic the app ships with today.
Red status indicator unified across the popover.
Improved fader precision at the very top and bottom of the slider range.