Release Notes

All notable changes to Vesper Audit, newest first. Vesper Audit uses semantic versioning - beta releases are labeled 1.0.0-beta.x and will continue until the app reaches a stable 1.0.0 release.

v1.0.0-beta.6 April 22, 2026

Report Filter - run focused audits on a single category of rules.

• New: Report Filter. A badge row in Scanner Options lets you narrow the accessibility check to one or more rule categories: Links, Images, Forms, Color & contrast, Page structure, or Keyboard & focus. The default is All rules, which runs everything as before. Select one or more categories to produce a focused report - useful when you want to hand off a specific set of issues to the right person (a content editor for link text, a developer for keyboard access) without overwhelming them with the full report.
• Multi-select with automatic fallback. Any combination of categories can be active at once. If you deselect the last active category, or select all six, the filter automatically reverts to All rules so a zero-filter or full-filter state always means the same thing.
• Filter is clearly labeled in every output. When a filter is active, all outputs make it visible: the PDF cover shows an amber "Filtered" badge and a Rules row in the scope strip; the Notion parent page shows a yellow callout; and the in-app report viewer shows an amber notice bar below the toolbar. Reports generated with a filter are never mistaken for a full audit.
• Filter selection persists between sessions. Your last-used filter is saved and restored when you reopen the app.

v1.0.0-beta.5 April 21, 2026

Smarter detection, richer reports, and a filterable report viewer.

• Duplicate link text is now landmark-aware. Links with identical text that live in different page landmarks (navigation, main, footer) are no longer flagged as duplicates - they are correctly treated as separate groups. Multiple "View on Google Maps" links in a footer with six branches will now correctly flag; the same text appearing in nav and in main content will not.
• Hidden links are excluded from duplicate checks. Links hidden with display: none, aria-hidden, screen-reader-only positioning, or visibility: hidden no longer contribute to the duplicate link text check.
• New: Truncated URL detection. Vesper now flags links whose href value contains ..., which indicates a CMS rich-text editor truncated the URL. These links lead to broken destinations silently.
• New: Repeated iframe detection. When a page contains three or more iframes from the same host (e.g. multiple Google Maps embeds) without distinct title attributes, Vesper flags them as indistinguishable to screen reader users.
• Clearer empty heading diagnosis. Instead of a generic "this heading has no text" message, Vesper now explains why - broken aria-labelledby reference, empty aria-label, or genuinely no text content - so the fix is obvious without inspecting the HTML.
• High-density page callout. Pages with 20 or more violations now get a highlighted callout in the report suggesting they warrant focused remediation effort before addressing lower-density pages.
• Scan warnings for soft-404 and maintenance pages. If Vesper detects that a crawled page title suggests "Page Not Found" or "Under Maintenance", a warning callout appears in that page's report section noting the violations may not reflect live content.
• Broken link cluster detection. When four or more broken links share the same domain, a note appears at the top of the Broken Links section suggesting the issue may be domain-level rather than individual pages.
• Cross-reference in broken links table. The Found On column now shows how many accessibility violations that page has (e.g. "+3 a11y"), making it easier to identify pages with compounding issues.
• Automated testing caveat in every report. A note at the top of every PDF and Markdown report clarifies that automated tools typically catch 30-40% of accessibility barriers and that manual evaluation is recommended for a complete assessment.
• Contrast ratios in PDF. Color contrast violations now show the actual measured ratio alongside the required minimum (e.g. "2.72:1 - required 4.5:1") directly in the PDF report.
• Report viewer filter. The in-app report viewer sidebar now has a live filter input. Type any path substring to narrow the page list, with a clear button, a count of matching pages, and a message when nothing matches.
• New guide: Iframes and Embeds. A new accessibility guide covering frame-title and repeated embed violations is live at vesperapps.com/guides.

v1.0.0-beta.4 April 9, 2026

Auto-update reliability fix and in-app announcements.

• Auto-updates now work reliably from beta.4 onwards. A missing configuration file inside the app bundle was causing the updater to silently fail on every launch for all previous beta users. This is fixed in beta.4 - the file is now included in the signed bundle automatically. If you installed beta.1, beta.2, or beta.3, auto-updates will not deliver beta.4 to you. Download beta.4 manually from the Vesper Audit page - all future updates from beta.4 onwards will be automatic.
• In-app announcements. Vesper Audit can now display a brief notice at the top of the Audit panel when there is something important to communicate - release news, known issues, or upcoming changes. Notices are dismissible and never reappear once dismissed.

v1.0.0-beta.3 April 8, 2026

Hotfix for the duplicate link text check.

• "View on Google Maps" false negatives fixed. A bug introduced in beta.2 caused links that differ only by query string to be incorrectly treated as identical destinations. Multiple "View on Google Maps" links pointing to different branch locations (distinguished by query parameters) were being silently dropped instead of flagged. Fixed in beta.3 - query strings are now preserved when comparing link destinations.

v1.0.0-beta.2 April 8, 2026

Accuracy fixes for the duplicate link text check.

• Fewer false positives on image links. The duplicate link text check now correctly reads the alt attribute of any <img> inside a link when computing its accessible name. Previously, image-only links (site logos, event card images, book cover thumbnails, staff photos) were all reported as having an empty name and grouped together as a duplicate-link violation. They will no longer appear unless they genuinely share a name and lead to different destinations.
• Fewer false positives on home page links. Two links that resolve to the same destination are no longer flagged as duplicates just because their href values are spelled differently. A nav link using href="/home" and a footer link using href="/" that both go to the homepage will no longer trigger a violation.

v1.0.0-beta.1 April 7, 2026

First public beta release.

• Auto-updates. Vesper Audit now checks for new versions automatically on launch and installs them on next quit. No more manual downloads.
• Signed and notarized. The app is now signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple. Gatekeeper will no longer block the app on first launch.
• In-app report viewer. After every scan, results open immediately in the Reports tab - no file picker required. Pages are sorted by violation count, with impact badges, WCAG criterion links, and Vesper Guide links per violation. Historical scans can be reopened via the Open Report button.
• PDF export. Fully styled, print-ready PDF reports with a cover page, summary grid, violations per page, PDFs found, and broken links. Generated natively with no external dependencies.
• Notion sync. Push results directly to a Notion workspace as a full page hierarchy - Audit Report, PDFs Found, Broken Links, Audit Log, and Suppressed Errors as separate child pages. Syncs in the background so you can keep working.
• Vesper Guides integration. Violation cards in the viewer, PDF, and Notion output include a direct link to the relevant Vesper Guide so you can go from finding a violation to knowing how to fix it in one click.
• Custom link-text checks. Two checks not covered by axe-core: ambiguous link text (click here, read more, details, raw URLs, bare phone numbers) and duplicate link text pointing to different destinations. Both map to WCAG 2.4.4 Level A.
• PDF and broken link scanning. All PDF and external links collected during the crawl. HTTP HEAD checks run after the crawl finishes and flag anything returning an error status.
• Single Page mode. Audit just one URL without crawling the entire site. Useful for quick spot-checks.
• Per-client settings. Export and import settings as JSON. Configure exclusions, suppressions, and preferences once per client and reuse them every audit.
• Light and dark mode. Full light mode support alongside the default dark theme. System mode follows your macOS appearance setting.
• Omit scanner attribution. A toggle in Settings removes the Audited by Vesper Audit line from reports - clean output for client delivery.