Cephei Tweak Support

Cephei 2.0 is a major refactor, exclusively supporting rootless jailbreaks. It removes numerous code paths that stayed around for compatibility with old tweaks or iOS releases, and is built to run on the new ElleKit hooking platform. Cephei 1.x will continue to be supported for rootful jailbreaks on iOS 15.

Most, but not all, tweaks should already work with Cephei 2. Please don’t expect tweaks converted from rootful to rootless to work. The developers of these tweaks will most likely need to release a rootless update if there are any crashes.

For developers:

• Uses dpkg alternatives to not conflict with Procursus’s defaults package. If defaults is installed, but you want to specifically check preferences using Cephei, you can use hbprefs instead.
• Support for loading profile pictures from Twitter has been removed due to the closure of Twitter’s free API - perhaps use your GitHub profile picture instead (e.g. https://github.com/chariz.png), or link to your Mastodon?!
• Much of Cephei has been refactored into new Swift code. If you’ve written code that uses Cephei in Swift, you may need to update some class and property names to remove HB and hb_ prefixes. Keep in mind that subclassing a Swift class from Objective-C is unsupported - that said, HBListController and its subclasses work around this limitation for best compatibility with existing tweaks.

Cephei 2.0 removes:

• Legacy symlinks (/usr/lib/libcephei.dylib and friends, if anyone is even still using them)
• CepheiUI automatic loading into UIKit processes - please link against CepheiUI directly
• Classes that were already deprecated: HBDiscreteSliderTableCell, HBInitialsLinkTableCell, HBListItemsController
• HBListController legacy appearance methods
• HBAppearanceSettings’s translucentNavigationBar and statusBarTintColor
• HBPreferences’s -synchronize and other deprecated methods
• HBSupportController’s already obsolete support for the TechSupport framework

A huge thank you to the wonderful people who helped in testing this release.

• Uses dpkg alternatives to not conflict with Procursus’s defaults package. If defaults is installed, but you want to specifically check preferences using Cephei, you can use hbprefs instead.

This release is for rootful jailbreak installations only. Rootless is supported starting with 2.0.

• No longer requires RocketBootstrap dependency to be installed when using a libhooker-based jailbreak, such as Taurine or Odyssey. (This was already the case for Cydia Substrate-based jailbreaks.)
• Fixes an issue where Twitter profile photos in Settings pages wouldn’t load.
• Fixes an issue where some icons were not displaying in Settings pages on iOS 14.
• Fixes a crash with Settings pages on iOS 5.
• Improves memory usage when tweaks use HBPreferences.
• Updates various translations.

For developers:

• Adds support for using SF Symbols as preference specifier icons. See the docs for more info. (Contributed by @AzzouDuGhetto - thanks!)
• Adds support for specifying a custom tint color on HBTintedTableCell.
• Package icons for HBPackageTableCell are now loaded from Canister. (Contributed by @tale - thanks!)
• Fixes -[HBPreferences registerPreferenceChangeBlock:forKey:] not working. (Contributed by @themintchoco - thanks!)
• Fixes a few memory leaks. (Contributed by @ryannair05 - thanks!)
• Adds support for running Cephei on other iOS-derived platforms, such as tvOS and watchOS.
• Adds support for Key-Value Observation (KVO) on HBPreferences. See the docs for more info.
• Adds support for getting and setting keypaths on HBPreferences.
• Improves HBPreferences Swift compatibility.

• Fixes issues with link buttons and stepper controls (-/+ buttons) and not working.
• Fixes various bugs/crashes on earlier iOS versions.
• Some all around spit and polish.

For developers:

• HBTwitterCell now supports specifying a Twitter User ID, so you can ensure your Twitter buttons follow you around if you ever change your username.
• HBPackageTableCell is now integrated with Parcility, ensuring the modern default repositories are now supported by the automatic icon fetcher, as well as the 600+ other third-party repositories Parcility indexes.
• When tapping HBPackageTableCell, it will now prompt the user to select an installed package manager, or view the package online on Parcility.
• HBLinkTableCell now prioritises Universal Links (web links redirecting to native apps) when opening links.
• You can now hide the divider line below the navigation bar using a new HBAppearanceSettings property, showsNavigationBarShadow.
• The Email Support button no longer awkwardly pushes an empty screen before the email composer appears. If you are directly using HBSupportController, please change to presenting modally rather than pushing, to ensure this effect is avoided.

• Fixes crash when opening Cephei-powered settings.

• Fixes a corrupted installation issue experienced by some users.

For developers:

• To save space, Cephei headers are no longer included in deb releases. You can instead find them on GitHub.

• Removes TechSupport dependency entirely.
• No longer installs RocketBootstrap dependency on checkra1n and unc0ver jailbreaks.
• Works around Twitter profile photos not loading.

For developers:

• Adds an avatarURL property to HBLinkTableCell and HBTwitterCell, allowing you to set a custom image such as your GitHub avatar.