Distill Release Notes

New Features

New Mobile App (4.2.5): The rebuilt Distill app is now available on iOS and Android.

• A cleaner, less cluttered design.
• A new Change Feed showing recent changes from monitors in the current workspace in one timeline.
• An AI assistant that can set up monitors from plain-language descriptions.
• Offline access to monitors and cached recent changes, with automatic sync when you are back online.
• Bulk actions to check, turn monitoring on or off, and manage multiple monitors at once.

Improvements

Website Monitor:

• Search and filter the sitemap tree by URL, HTTP status, and content type.
• A new summary view that shows what changed throughout the website at a glance.
• A new "Simplified" option when viewing a page's diff that makes it easier to focus on the content.
• A new email layout that gives a better glimpse of what changed.

Change & Notification Views:

• Highlighted email diffs now keep hidden changed text visible and constrain oversized SVGs. Fixed SVG images appearing oversized on the first data in the visual web diff.
• Action Logs now show entries from all job states, including errors.

Teams & Workspaces:

• The workspace menu on the web uses a scrollable list. Global proxy availability is determined from the current workspace's plan.

Usage:

• Token usage and plan allowances are now shown in daily, monthly, and available-usage views. Token quota alerts are also labeled correctly. …

New Features

• Teams & Workspaces: Run workspace monitors using a local device. Any workspace member can run monitors through the browser extension or desktop app, making it easier to monitor sites inside secure networks and other hard-to-track websites.

• Macro Recorder V2: The updated macro engine and editor make it easier to record, edit, and replay macros, enabling more powerful automation.

• AI Assistant: AI assistants are now integrated into the platform. They are currently available in the Macro Recorder to help create macros and fix errors.

• Monitor Feed View: A new chronological Change Feed page in the sidebar shows a timeline of all detected changes across your monitors. You can filter by monitor or triggered status, evaluate conditions for crawler and feed data, and inspect crawler job details in a tree view.

• Watchlist Layouts: Choose from four configurable workspace layouts: Default, Vertical Split, Horizontal Split, and Full View.

Improvements

• Teams & Workspaces:

• Workspace groups are sorted alphabetically for easier navigation, and error notification emails now include the workspace name.

• Website Monitor: You can now monitor entire websites automatically with Distill's full website monitor, making it a better fit for compliance monitoring and competitive intelligence.

• Visual Selector on Web: …

New Features

• Improved Macro Recorder: Completely redesigned macro recorder with improved reliability and performance for automating web interactions. Contextual help, drag-and-drop reordering, better element selector, and more.

• Conditions Summary in Email: Email alerts now include a clear summary of matched conditions, making it easier to understand why an alert was triggered.

• Change Preview: New smart preview in the Watchlist displays a preview of changes directly in the list, allowing for quick assessments without opening each monitor. Email previews in Inbox show change previews too.

• Multiple Global Conditions: Support for multiple global conditions in a Workspace, enabling more control over alerting criteria. Global conditions can be applied to a subset of monitors matching a filter.

• Batch Tag Editing: Ability to add or remove tags from multiple monitors at once, streamlining organization and management.

Other Improvements

• UI Modernization: Enhanced dark mode support for diff views
• Import/Export: Import monitors as cURL commands for easier integration
• Streamlined Error Codes: Standardized error codes for better clarity
• Clear Error Flag in Batch: Option to clear error flags when batch editing monitors
• Diff rendering: Visual mode to render HTML diffs tries to show content hidden by default in the source page

Bug Fixes

• Android: …

New Features

• Dark Mode: Complete dark mode support across the entire application, including browser extension and desktop app. Toggle between light and dark themes using the switcher in the top navbar.

• Shadow DOM Support: Monitor modern web components that use Shadow DOM technology. The new XCSS selector type enables tracking changes in previously inaccessible page elements.

• Better & Faster Diff: The HTML diff library has been redesigned to be significantly better. It is significantly faster for larger files and has better accuracy at highlighting changes.

Improvements

• Feeds:

• Labels (Added/Updated) on feed items in email alerts for clearer change tracking

• Import/Export:

• Export monitors from trash

• Show progress when importing monitors

• Error Action Webhook:

• Error action webhook payloads now include human-readable label names instead of label IDs

• Miscellneous:

• Faster web app loading and improved response times

• JSON monitors no longer trigger false alerts from key reordering

• iOS: Support for structured data in conditions

• Desktop App: Enhanced Visual Selector functionality

New Features

• Dedicated Cloud Devices: These are new type of devices that can be used to run persistent browser sessions hosted on Distill's infrastrcture. It replaces Profiles as a more powerful and feature rich alternative.

• Persistence: Each device keeps its own browser profile to save cookies, local storage, proxies, etc. As a result, it offers a better support for saving preferences and using authenticated sessions.

• Multi-site support: Works with any number of websites, another benefit over profiles.

• In-App Help Search: Added comprehensive search functionality across documentation, blog, and community forums.

• Advanced Search Improvements:

• Added device: filter to find monitors for specific devices and no: filter to find monitors without any labels.

• Added support for negated search terms using - operator.

• CronTab Enhancement: Extended cron scheduling functionality is now available to all paid users (previously enterprise-only)

• Local monitors can now use Crontab for scheduling checks.

Mobile Apps

• iOS: Added support for structured data and summary in conditions

• Android: Numerous UI and functionality improvements:

• Improved text/HTML diff rendering and fixed multiple re-rendering issues

• Displaying AI summary

• Dark mode in diff views

• Added "Show/hide deleted" toggle functionality for diff lines …

Structured data and Conditions

• Distill provides tools to extract and monitor structured data in following forms:
  1. Scrapers - Extract structured data from web pages using customizable, handcrafted rules.
  2. AI Summary Fields - Utilize LLMs to intelligently extract specific data fields from web content.
  3. JSON monitors - Track and detect changes in data served by APIs in JSON format.
• Specific fields from structured data can now be used in conditions, enabling greater precision and control over notification triggers.

Browser Extensions

• XML monitors now log an error if the received content type isn't valid XML
• The open step in a macro now waits for the page to be loaded before completing.

General Changes

• Implemented Automatic Proxy Rotation in visual selector for more reliable setup and monitoring. Page validators are used to detect errors and switch the proxy if needed.
• Added more countries to the list of premium proxies available to support different regions across the world.
• Added ability to create monitors directly from sitemap crawler's change history.
• Removed redundant API calls in Watchlist to help load pages faster.
• Ability to test conditions with data in monitor's change history and custom input.
• Users can now retry failed renewals and add credits on demand.
• Added support for 'OR' and '-' negation operators. For example, "-has:label" can be used to list all monitors that do not have any label.

AI Summary

• Enhanced AI Change Summary with improved accuracy and readability. Use custom prompt to customize the summary's content and format.
• Added important field to the AI summary. Use this to filter out noisy changes and focus on important ones.
• Custom fields in AI summary can be used to extract custom data from pages. Custom fields are available in the UI and via API.

Managed Scrapers

• Managed scrapers are configurations created and managed by Distill for popular sites. Support to run managed scrapers have been added for local and cloud monitors.

Mobile Apps

• iOS app received UI improvements and bug fixes.
• iOS app can now be used to record and replay macro in all paid plans. …

iOS App

• Added support for Team Watchlist. This enables users to switch between multiple Watchlists they are part of and receive push notifications on the phone.

Features

• Ads and Cookie Banner Blockers for Cloud Monitors to minimize false alerts caused by changes in ads and cookie popups. This is available to users in all plans.
• Implemented a double-check process for cloud monitors when changes are detected to ensure notifications are only sent for genuine changes.
• Shows count of unread monitors in the browser's title bar.

Bug Fixes

• Config is now saved correcly after making changes to the config JSON.

General Changes

• Cloud monitors: Automatic validation of page's content to detect errors has been enabled for common errors in cloud monitors. This ensures that a change is captured only if the page is loaded correctly. Ir reduces false positives significantly for full page monitors.
• SMS: SMS content is now moderated to be in compliance with the SMS guidelines. The moderation is done using LLMs.
• Feed: RSS feeds with content fields are monitored correctly.
• Macro: more utility functions have been added to the macro editor.
• The unread state of a monitor is preserved even after a new change doesn't match the monitor's condition. This is to ensure that any older unread changes are not missed.
• Highlighted changes of a list of links could show unchaned links as changes in some cases. This has been fixed.

iOS App

• Faster diffing and rendering of changes for webpages and XML content.
• Better highlighting of changes in JSON monitors.
• Better diff rendering in dark mode.

Desktop App

Features

• Support for clearing cookies and local storage data.
• Working builds for Ubuntu 20.04.

Bug Fixes

• Visual selector in some pages with iframes was not able to save selections.
• Static checks used to cause memory leaks.

Chrome Extension

• Issues found and fixed after migration to mv3:
• Popup no longer gets stuck in Loading... state once a user logs out.
• Updated sqlite-wasm to resolve potential database inconsistency issues.
• Mark as Read now correctly marks the monitor as read.

Desktop App

• Users can now clear cookies and local storage data in the app using Clear Browser Data in Settings -> Advanced.
• Ensured the user agent is always updated to the latest available version.
• App no longer gets stuck in a blank screen in Ubuntu 20.04.6
• App window is now slightly faster to launch.

Microsoft Teams Webhooks Integration

• Users can now utilize MS Teams webhooks to receive change notifications directly in their Teams channels.

Email Updates

• Updated JSON diff view in emails to use nested lists instead of tables for better readability and consistency.

Chrome Extension

• Migrated to Chrome Extension Manifest V3 to adhere to Chrome's deadline.
• Note: JavaScript selectors no longer work due to MV3 limitations. Use desktop app or cloud when using js selectors.
• Addressed issues that originated in the Manifest V3 migration:
• Fixed notifications failing to open the URL in the browser when clicked.
• Notification sounds now play correctly.
• Open unread in tab button now opens multiple unread monitors as expected.
• Marking monitors as read now correctly updates the popup badge.

Desktop App

• Added a loading indicator for tabs in the custom browser.
• Custom browser's background now switches automatically with the system theme (dark mode/light mode).
• Action Macro now runs in the foreground tab.
• Macro steps updated to be user-readable.
• Fixed issue where the custom browser rendered plain text response on top of previous content.
• App icon now displays the correct unread monitor count on launch.
• Users can now export macros from the Desktop App.
• JavaScript selectors now return correct values when using sendResponse.
• Fixed issue preventing users from disabling monitoring when time slot checks were enabled.
• Macros with select step now return the correct value instead of the default one.
• Fixed issue where users were stuck in the Loading... state when not logged in.

iOS App

• Improved the diff page UI for different content types …

Loops in Macros

You can now use Loops in Macros. This is useful when you want to perform the same set of actions on multiple elements on a page, Or repeat the same set of actions multiple times.

Desktop App Now Available for Linux

The desktop application is now accessible for Linux users. You can download it from https://distill.io/apps/web-monitor/.

New fill Marco Step Introduced

A new marco step, fill, has been introduced to facilitate filling out form fields with specific values.

Enhanced Text Diff Display for Large JSON Values

Diff for large JSON values has been improved to show highlighted individual values.

CSV Export Functionality for Sitemaps

Users can now export sitemap differences and crawler data in CSV format.

Assertions in Macros

Sometimes a page may not load correctly when being checked for changes. You can now use assertions in macros to invalidate these pages to reduce false alerts. These invalidated checks will be logged as errors in the log.

Introducing page macros and URL rewrite for crawlers

The sitemap monitors can now sanitize, deduplicate and validate URLs as well as page content which reduce false alerts caused by frequently changing URLs or invalid pages.

1. URL Rewrite

You can apply pre-processing functions to modify URLs found by crawler before they are crawled. Some of the common functions are:

• Filtering or sorting query params
• Removing unwanted parts from URLs
• Basic string functions to rewrite the url

2. Page Macros

You can now skip pages by executing a macro for all pages. You can either choose to error out the crawl, or simply skip the URL based on your use case. Skipping the URL will exclude it from the check for changes.

The release note for this release includes notes for all releases since 3.7.0.

Enterprise Features

• Generative AI: Changes can now be summarized using AI (GPT). The summary is accessible in change history as well as in the notification emails. This is useful for customers who want to get a quick summary of the changes in their webpages.

• Customers can now add or manage 100 or more users in their Admin Console. Previously, the limit was 100 users. This is useful for customers a large number of users in their organization.

Macros

• Support for XPath along with CSS selectors in the Macro recorder. This allows you to use XPath selectors in the Macro recorder. This is useful when you want to select elements based on their text content or other attributes.
• Macros Actions in a monitor's Options page are now searchable. This allows you to search for a specific action from a large list of macros.

Desktop App

• Tray support for Windows and Mac. This allows you to minimize the app to the tray. You can enable this from the app's settings page.

iOS App

• Faster app launch. The app now launches faster than before. This is useful when you want to quickly check the status of your monitors.

UI for Advanced Config Options

• We have added a UI for advanced config options. This allows you to configure advanced options for your monitors without having to edit the config JSON.

Highlighted Changes …

1. Extension and Desktop App's Visual Selector Update

The extenion and the desktop app use selectorx to generate selectors. CSS selectors are now generated by default. SelectorX is significantly better at creating more durable selectors.

Miscellaneous Improvements

• Macro recorder now handles select dropdowns containing options with missing or duplicate values. It does that by supporting label-based selection.
• Time slots for checks now support slots that start in the evening and ends in the morning of the next day.
• Improved diff view for changes in feed, and XML monitors.
• Pagination in the Watchlist updates the URL with current page number, making it easier to share the URL of a specific page.
• Bug fix: condition editor in the Android app could not edit modern version (v2) of conditions.

Notifications and Conditions

• Conditions control if a notification is triggered. The change history view now lets you see the status of conditions for each version. This helps in debugging conditions and understanding why a notification was triggered or not.

Macro: Visual Recorder

• An enhanced data structure allows for more powerful operations. The user interface now facilitates editing of all recorded steps visually. Additionally, the "Edit Source" view enables advanced users to directly manipulate the underlying steps.

Sitemap Monitor

• The crawler now identifies temporary errors and reattempts the crawl used to build the sitemap. This reduces incorrect change alerts caused by such errors.
• Improved views offer better visibility into the status of crawl jobs and errors.

Desktop App

• Distill syncs data automatically between all connected devices. When any entity in the database is changed, all devices receive a change notification. The Desktop app used to stop getting change events if the PC went to sleep and the network request times out. This has been fixed by handling the network timeout error.