What's New
Every meaningful update to Shabad Love, newest first.
July 18, 2026
Chakkar icon everywhere + polish
The new silver chakkar is now the favicon, browser tab icon and installed app icon — sized to match the original mark instead of being shrunken. Prev/next arrows on shabads sit lower on desktop and iPad so they stop floating in the middle of the page. The browser's bottom bar color now follows your theme (dark by default, cream in light mode) instead of always being white.
July 16, 2026
Taal overhaul, metronome tempo ranges & history line highlight
Taals page is reorganized by beat count (Pauri Taal at the top, Shikar at the bottom) with two new taals added — Pauri Taal (4 beats) and Mat Taal (9 beats). Bols were corrected across Dadra, Keherwa, Jhaptaal, Sool Fakhta, Ektaal, Jhumra, Sawari Panjtaal, Shikar and Rudra; Chautaal is now Chartaal, Dhamar is Dhamaar, and every 'Tirakita' now reads 'Tirkit'. The metronome now clamps to each taal's realistic tempo range — vilambit khayal taals like Tilwada and Jhumra top out at 70 bpm (down to 15), while Pauri Taal runs 100–300 bpm. Opening a shabad from history now highlights the exact line you were last reading in gold.
July 15, 2026
Removed Shabad of the Day + Romanized search fix
Removed the Shabad of the Day card from the home screen entirely — it was occasionally surfacing incorrect metadata. Full-word Romanized search (which was endlessly loading) has been removed; First Letters (Romanized) remains and works as expected.
June 27, 2026
New ornate card template
Every generated shabad card now uses a single beautifully illustrated golden template as its background — floral corner ornaments, Khanda crest, lotus divider and gold footer band are baked into the artwork so every card looks consistent and museum-quality. Card height still shrinks for short lines and expands for full shabads, and text is drawn cleanly on top of the template with no more decoration drift.
June 26, 2026
Ornate scaling cards, contiguous-only selection & cleaner Gurmukhi
Shabad cards now look ornate by default — gold double frame with floral corner rosettes, a small Khanda crest with a leafy vine spray, a centered Khanda watermark, lotus dividers, and a gold footer band with ANG · SHABAD LOVE and a small shabadlove.org credit. Cards now scale to fit: a single chosen line yields a compact card with no empty space, while a full shabad expands up to the cap before fonts shrink. Line selection in the Card Builder is now strictly contiguous so you can't pick non-adjacent lines and accidentally change Gurbani's message — clicks extend or shrink one contiguous range. Cleaned up rendering of stacked Gurmukhi diacritics (back-to-back vowel signs, tippi-then-addak, duplicate nasals) that were causing detached matras and dotted-circle placeholders in some shabads.
June 25, 2026
Reimagined Shabad of the Day, first-letter reader & compact streak
Shabad of the Day is now its own curated daily verse (separate from the Hukamnama) — a hand-picked strong line of Gurbani drawn from a rotating library, never a mangalcharan header. It sits on a glowing aurora card with raag/writer attribution and an expandable 'Trans-creation: deeper dive' that adds historical context, raag/musicality, and 2–3 practical modern applications. New reader mode: 'First Letters' — toggle in any reader's settings to show the romanized first letter of each Gurmukhi word as a memorization aid. The bulky nitnem streak card is gone from the home screen, replaced by a small flame-icon pill under the title.
June 24, 2026
Painted backgrounds, page transitions & Read focus mode
Every section now has its own quiet painted background — warm radial washes and a subtle Sikh-inspired motif (chakkar, lotus, kanda, lattice, waves, sunrise, stars) that shift with the route and adapt to light/dark. Page changes fade and lift gently instead of popping. The app now opens in light mode by default. Read view has its own Focus Mode in the side toolbar (the unused Insight toggle is hidden there). Contributors page's 'Explore Their Bani' now works for Bhai Mardana, Sundar, Satta, Balwand and every Bhatt — searches use distinctive Gurmukhi words from their actual compositions and fuzzy-match writer spellings. Search query is now persistent when you switch search modes — your text stays put.
June 23, 2026
Card text alignment and romanized search fixed
Shabad card exports now manually center every rendered line so Gurmukhi text cannot drift to the right edge of the card. Romanized search now filters against actual transliteration/writer matches, and the Contributors page sends Bhagat/Bhatt/Gursikh Explore buttons to the right SGGS contributor results instead of Japji Sahib.
June 23, 2026
Cards stay inside the frame + Explore the Bhagats' bani
Exported shabad cards now clip body text to the card frame and verify every wrapped line truly fits — no more text drifting off the right edge. Every Bhagat, Bhatt and Gursikh on the Contributors page has an 'Explore Their Bani' button that jumps straight to a search of their verses.
June 23, 2026
Card export fits the page + Asa Ki Vaar in Punjabi
Card builder now shrinks long shabads further so the text never spills off the card. Install button on iOS now opens a clear illustrated sheet walking you through Share → Add to Home Screen (Android/Chrome still get the one-tap native prompt). Asa Ki Vaar is now labelled ਆਸਾ ਕੀ ਵਾਰ in Gurmukhi to match the English title.
June 23, 2026
One-tap install, Hukamnama cards, and gurmat-sangeet taals
New 'Install the app' button on the home screen — one tap and Shabad Love is on your home screen (no more digging through browser menus). Today's Hukamnama can now be exported as a beautiful printable card labeled 'Hukamnama', and every exported card carries a faint shabadlove.org credit. Sundar Gutka: 'Asa Dee Vaar' is now 'Asa Ki Vaar'. Library history can be filtered to Today / This week / All time. Pancham Sawari has been renamed to Sawari Panjtaal with bols updated for Gurmat Sangeet. Pothi focus mode is now sticky — tap the golden arrow and the next shabad/bani stays in focus. Card builder is fixed on both mobile and desktop. Library and Reminders swapped — Library now sits last in the home grid and nav.
June 21, 2026
Mini Anand Sahib, interactive tour, and Fateh origins
Anand Sahib now has a one-tap 'Mini · 6 Pauri' mode (first 5 pauris + pauri 40 + the closing salok) — only the full 40-pauri version completes Nitnem. The first-run tour is now fully interactive with live demos for Search, Ask, Favorite and Display. Origins of Sikhi gained a deep dive into where the Fateh, Sat Kartar, Sat Sri Akaal and Dhan Guru Nanak greetings come from. Scroll restoration is now far more robust — coming back to Home or Library after Donate/Feedback keeps you exactly where you were.
June 21, 2026
Display feature, Sikh figures, and search cleanup
New Display screen projects any Gurmukhi message (ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ, ਧਨ ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ, custom shabads) full-screen with saved presets and a wake-lock — perfect for sangat. Added a 'Important Sikh Figures' page covering Bhagat Puran Singh Ji, Sant Jarnail Singh Ji Bhindranwale and Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra. Removed the broken English-phrase and first-letter-English search modes that kept returning the same two shabads, and improved card exports so long lines no longer run off the edge.
June 21, 2026
Pothi shortcuts, friendlier errors, and an update log
Double-tap any pothi in the Add-to-Pothi sheet to jump straight to it in the Library. Favorites now show a 'View' shortcut after saving, and AI features say 'Could not reply' instead of leaking internal errors. Added this update log, a donate banner on home, and quick Donate + Feedback shortcuts in the Library.
June 21, 2026
Card polish and reading polish
Shabad card exports keep ॥1॥ counters glued to the line they end. Inputs no longer trigger iOS zoom-in. Learn uses the Pencil-Line icon and Sikh History uses the Milestone icon to better match the content.
June 20, 2026
Highlighted line persists everywhere
Favoriting a specific line and opening it again from the Library, Pothi, or shortcut now keeps that golden line highlighted. Nitnem completion now requires real reading time (5 min for the longer banis, 1 min for the short ones), and reminders no longer fire multiple notifications at once.
June 19, 2026
Library deep-linking and section memory
Clicking a section in the nav now returns you to wherever you last were inside it. Sundar Gutka remembers your scroll position when you come back from a bani.
June 18, 2026
Auto-scroll while dragging and bookmark fixes
Drag a pothi item near the top or bottom of the screen and the list scrolls itself. Bani bookmarks no longer flash the wrong icon for a frame when you open a bani.
June 17, 2026
Minor bug fixes
Small UI and stability improvements.