Changelog #0004 — 🖥️ Desktop app
Tags: devtools, api, testing, httpie
Published: 2021-12-05 12:44:40

---
title: Changelog #0004 — 🖥️ Desktop app
published: true
description: Announcing desktop app availability, support for nested JSON in the CLI, improvements across the platform.
tags: devtools, api, testing, httpie
cover_image: https://httpie.io/Images/Share/blog-changelog-0004.png
canonical_url: https://httpie.io/blog/changelog-0004
---

Another week, another changelog! Check out what we shipped 👇

## HTTPie for Web & Desktop

HTTPie’s mission is to make APIs simple and intuitive for all those building the tools of our time. And today we got a bit closer to that goal by becoming the first API testing platform with clients for the Web, Desktop, and Terminal.



### 🖥️  Desktop app released

Now we can finally say that “HTTPie for Web & Desktop” is entirely accurate: the HTTPie for Desktop app is live!

![HTTPie for Desktop login](https://httpie.io/Blog/changelog-0004/desktop-login-LMBLWJT5.jpg)


![HTTPie for Desktop icon](https://httpie.io/Blog/changelog-0004/desktop-icon-K3HO4RWN.jpg)

A dedicated desktop app has been the most frequent request from our beta users. And for a good reason: without it, it’s hard to test APIs running on `localhost` and behind a firewall. A focused app also serves as a protection against distraction rabbit holes, which are just a bit harder to avoid when working in the browser (as one of our beta users has pointed out).

![HTTPie for Desktop](https://httpie.io/Blog/changelog-0004/desktop-73QUP4BO.png)

If you’re a [beta](https://httpie.io/beta) member, [download the app](https://httpie.io/download) today, and start working locally & without distractions.


### ✨ Improvements

- Whenever you feel like making a new API request, you can now use the short & sweet [`req.new`](https://req.new/) alias for [`httpie.io/app`](https://httpie.io/app).
- There’s a new 📣 icon in your left-bottom navigation linking to these changelogs.
- Layout improvements: you can't see that annoying space at the right anymore, and the scroll works much better, among others.

### 🪲 Fixes

- You couldn't send a request with an invalid header name, even if that header was disabled. Now you can.
- The web app was adding some unnecessary headers to outgoing requests. It’s no longer the case.
- The panels resizing feature we shipped last week had some naughty bugs. They’re gone now.


## HTTPie for Terminal

Here’s a summary of this week’s improvements to the [development version](https://github.com/httpie/httpie) of [HTTPie for Terminal](https://httpie.io/cli), which will be part of the upcoming v3.0.0 release.

### 🌲️ Nested JSON support ([#1224](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1224))

The long-waited nested JSON support just landed! You can now use a new syntax based on the [JSON Form](https://www.w3.org/TR/html-json-forms/) notation to rapidly build complex JSON requests.


```bash
http --offline --print=B pie.dev/post \
  result[status][type]=ok ids:=1 ids:=2
```

```json
{
    "result": {
        "status": {
            "type": "ok"
        }
    },
    "ids": [
        1,
        2
    ]
}
```

This new syntax is very expressive, and we believe it will save a lot of keystrokes. See [more examples in the unstable docs](https://httpie.io/docs/HEAD#nested-json-fields).


### ✨ Improvements

— Startup time is now 40% faster. ([#1221](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1221))
- Are you authenticating with a bearer token? Great news then, bearer token auth is now a built-in method. You can use `-A bearer -a token` to send requests with it. ([#1216](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1216))
- There are two new operators: `==@` for reading query params from a file; and `:@` for reading headers from a file. ([#1218](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1218))
- If any of the response headers include `Content-Type: text/event-stream`, then we'll now auto-stream the response body. ([#1226](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1226))

### 🪲 Fixes

-   An XML declaration was auto-added to the beginning of each formatted XML response, but not anymore. Now you'll only see it if it's already present in the raw response. ([#1183](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/pull/1183))

## Happy testing, and see you next week!

- 💁🏻‍♀️ If you’re not on the private beta yet, you can [join the waitlist here](https://httpie.io/beta).
- 👉 You can also follow [@httpie](https://twitter.com/httpie) and join our [Discord community](https://httpie.io/discord).

---

Originally published on [HTTPie blog](https://httpie.io/blog/changelog-0004).