Add Kokoro-82M as a new TTS engine — 82M params, CPU realtime, 8 languages,
Apache 2.0. Unlike cloning engines, Kokoro uses pre-built voice styles, which
required a new profile type system to support non-cloning engines cleanly.
Kokoro engine:
- New kokoro_backend.py implementing TTSBackend protocol
- 50 built-in voices across en/es/fr/hi/it/pt/ja/zh
- KPipeline API with language-aware G2P routing via misaki
- PyInstaller bundling for misaki, language_tags, espeakng_loader, en_core_web_sm
Voice profile type system:
- New voice_type column: 'cloned' | 'preset' | 'designed' (future)
- Preset profiles store engine + voice ID instead of audio samples
- default_engine field on profiles — auto-selects engine on profile pick
- Create Voice dialog: toggle between 'Clone from audio' and 'Built-in voice'
- Edit dialog shows preset voice info instead of sample list for preset profiles
- Engine selector locks to preset engine when preset profile is selected
- Profile grid filters by engine — shows Kokoro voices when Kokoro selected
- Custom empty state when no preset profiles exist for selected engine
Bug fixes:
- Fix relative audio paths in DB causing 404s in production builds
- config.set_data_dir() now resolves to absolute paths
- Startup migration converts existing relative paths to absolute
Also updates PROJECT_STATUS.md and tts-engines.mdx developer guide.
- Rename Server tab to Settings with horizontal sub-tab navigation (General, Generation, GPU, Logs, Changelog)
- All sub-tabs are proper routes under /settings/* with /server redirect for backwards compat
- General: connection settings, link cards (docs + discord), API reference card, app updates
- Generation: auto-chunking, crossfade, normalize, autoplay as SettingRow components
- GPU: info card with platform-aware icons (Apple logo for MPS), CUDA management, explainer text
- Logs: real-time server log viewer piped from Tauri sidecar via event system (Tauri-only)
- Changelog: parsed from CHANGELOG.md at build time via Vite virtual module plugin
- New reusable SettingRow/SettingSection components for consistent settings layout
- New Toggle (switch) UI component replacing checkboxes in settings
- Toast viewport now offsets when audio player is open
- Sidebar stays active on settings sub-routes (fuzzy matching)
- Backfill CHANGELOG.md from all 17 GitHub releases (was stale at v0.1.0)
- Add draft-release-notes and release-bump agent skills
- Remove stale PATCH_NOTES.md, mlx-test/, move PROJECT_STATUS to docs/notes
- Minor voicebox-server.spec cleanup
- Force tqdm disable=False in TrackedTqdm so byte progress works in prod
(huggingface_hub disables tqdm based on logger level, which prevents
self.n from updating — our progress tracking needs the counter even
though we don't render to terminal)
- Harden devnull redirect to test writability, not just None check
- Add full traceback logging to all backend error handlers
- Add chatterbox/luxtts/zipvoice hidden imports and metadata to spec
The distributed macOS aarch64 binary shipped without MLX acceleration despite
the model and backend code supporting it. Two root causes:
1. **OSError not caught in platform_detect.py**
PyInstaller bundles isolate the filesystem, so when MLX tries to load its
Metal shader libraries (.metallib) it raises OSError, not ImportError.
platform_detect.get_backend_type() only caught ImportError, causing a
silent fallback to PyTorch even on Apple Silicon hardware.
Fix: broaden the except clause to (ImportError, OSError, RuntimeError)
and import mlx.core instead of mlx (forces native lib loading eagerly).
2. **collect_data_files used instead of collect_all for MLX**
build_binary.py and voicebox-server.spec used --collect-data /
collect_data_files for mlx and mlx_audio. This copies Python source and
pure-Python data, but NOT native shared libraries (.dylib, .metallib).
Fix: switch to --collect-all / collect_all which captures binaries too,
then pass them to Analysis(binaries=...) in the spec.
Result: macOS Apple Silicon users now get MLX inference (~4-5x faster than
PyTorch CPU), matching the performance documented in the README.
- Updated hidden imports in build_binary.py to replace 'mlx_audio.asr' with 'mlx_audio.stt'.
- Enhanced model loading logic in MLX and PyTorch backends to ensure proper progress tracking during model downloads.
- Improved error handling and context management for progress tracking in both backends.
- Bumped version to 0.1.10 in Cargo.lock to reflect recent changes.
- Added support for MLX backend on Apple Silicon, enabling optimized performance for TTS and STT tasks.
- Implemented platform detection to dynamically select between MLX and PyTorch based on the runtime environment.
- Updated build process to include MLX-specific dependencies and configurations for macOS.
- Refactored backend code to improve model loading and inference logic, accommodating backend-specific requirements.
- Enhanced documentation to clarify backend selection and performance benefits for different platforms.
- Streamlined installation instructions and troubleshooting guidance for MLX-related issues.
- Updated CONTRIBUTING.md to include instructions for building with a local Qwen3-TTS development version, facilitating easier testing and development.
- Refactored FloatingGenerateBox component to streamline the rendering of text and instruct fields, improving code readability and maintainability.
- Added functionality to handle auto-resizing of text areas based on content changes, enhancing user experience.
- Improved event handling for keyboard interactions in StoryTrackEditor, allowing for play/pause functionality with the spacebar.
- Introduced a MiniSamplePlayer component in SampleList for better audio playback control, including play, pause, and seek features.
- Implemented sample update functionality in the backend, allowing users to edit reference text for audio samples, with appropriate error handling and user feedback.
- Added support for capturing system audio on Windows using WASAPI with improved error handling and thread safety.
- Introduced the 'scopeguard' crate for better resource management during audio capture.
- Updated Cargo.toml to include 'scopeguard' and modified Windows-specific dependencies for enhanced functionality.
- Added a new test for validating audio capture output, ensuring the captured audio data is valid and non-empty.
James Pine