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Fileside Changelog

What's new in Fileside 1.8.3

May 7, 2024
  • Bug fixes:
  • Potential hang after listing large folders:
  • Especially on Windows, Fileside could freeze up for many seconds up to a minute after navigating into or around in large folders. The built-in file watcher has now been reworked to prevent this from happening.
  • Windows Emojis in filenames:
  • Upgrading Electron led to an upgrade of Node led to an upgrade of libuv which unfortunately broke emojis in filenames on Windows. Oh the joys of modern software development. Kicking Electron back down a version gives us an early enough version of libuv to not exhibit this bug.

New in Fileside 1.8.2 (Apr 12, 2024)

  • Improvements:
  • When adding new panes, use the same column configuration as in the current pane.
  • Make directory size cache take up less disk space.
  • Mac: Make Permissions display consistent with Flags display.
  • Mac: Add explanatory tooltips to Permissions column.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix custom single-key shortcuts having no effect. These accidentally broke with 1.8.0.
  • Fix sort order when sorting on Size column and moving to a different folder.
  • Mac: Fix crash when adding a new pane while the Open Other… overlay is open in a subsequent pane.

New in Fileside 1.8.1 (Apr 4, 2024)

  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix potential crash if a system folder like Documents or Downloads is not present or corrupted.
  • Fix potential crash when listing corrupted folders.
  • Fix Calculate Directory Size button not always appearing on hover after holding down modifier keys.

New in Fileside 1.8.0 (Mar 31, 2024)

  • New Features:
  • Total directory sizes:
  • The total size of a directory’s contents can now be conveniently calculated. Just hover over the Size column of a folder (or a Mac package), and click the Calculate Directory Size icon icon that appears. Alternatively use the Calculate Directory Size menu entry.
  • Calculating the size of the dev folder:
  • A calculated size will display a tooltip on hover, showing the total number of files and folders within.
  • If the size of some of the contained files couldn’t be read for whatever reason, the total size will have an approximation sign in front of it, indicating that it can’t quite be fully trusted.
  • Size readout with approximation sign
  • Since this can be a relatively time-consuming operation for large folders, results are cached. The older they get though, the more faded they will look, to remind you that the size might be out of date and needing a refresh.
  • Faded size readout with tooltip
  • Additional file properties and metadata:
  • The data columns available for each pane were always a bit on the minimal side in Fileside. Now a few more have been added, showing things like attributes and flags, owners and groups, file type descriptions, as well as several timestamps other than just the last modified date.
  • Worth noting is that enabling more columns can mean slower folder listings. This is especially noticeable on Windows when Description, Owner and Group columns are enabled for slower drives like network shares. Disabling those three columns will vastly speed up retrieval time.
  • On Windows, there’s also a new Network Path column in This PC.
  • Preserve dates when copying:
  • There’s now an option under Settings to preserve the last modified date when copying files. Previously Fileside would always consider a copy a new file, and assign the last modified date to the time of creating the copy.
  • Copy & paste images:
  • Right-click an image in a browser or elsewhere, choose Copy Image, and paste it directly into a Fileside as a file. Works the other way too, from previews within Fileside.
  • Mac: Show package contents:
  • Mac packages like apps and bundles can now be stepped into right within Fileside, by right-clicking and choosing Show Package Contents.
  • Improvements:
  • Open With works for folders too.
  • Cursor position is preserved after deleting a file.
  • Context menus available in text inputs and other controls too.
  • Layout button initials are now generated from TitleCased, hyphen-separated, underscore_separated names and more, in addition to just space-separated words.
  • Keyboard shortcuts prevented from potentially triggering an additional action if their modifier key is released before the main key.
  • Double clicks on archives are no longer hijacked, allowing them to be opened in an external app. Use the Extract action explicitly to extract archives within Fileside.
  • File selection is saved with layouts.
  • The number of selected files (and their total size) are shown also for the search results view.
  • Windows: Names of mapped drives to folders show leaf folder name instead of just the volume name under This PC.
  • Windows: New menu bar implementation fixing a number of smaller glitches.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Make sure app window does not get stranded on a disconnected monitor on startup.
  • Windows: Previewing PDFs with special characters like # in the name fixed.
  • Mac: Fixed some hidden files not showing as faded.
  • Mac: Fixed crash when opening Open With > Other… picker in two panes simultaneously.
  • Breaking changes:
  • MacOS 10.13 and 10.14 no longer supported
  • MacOS 10.15 Catalina is now the minimum requirement.
  • Unfortunately, licensed builds of version 1.7.2 will automatically try to update to 1.8.0 even on Macs running older versions than Catalina. If you’re running into this problem and want to keep running Fileside 1.7.2 on an older Mac, please contact us for a workaround.

New in Fileside 1.7.2 (Oct 10, 2023)

  • Only a few bug fixes this time.

New in Fileside 1.7.1 (Jul 15, 2023)

  • While only a minor release on the surface, this one contains a lot of plumbing improvements below ground, needed to squash some tenacious bugs, and to provide a smoother user experience overall.

New in Fileside 1.7.0 (Mar 3, 2023)

  • Improvements:
  • So-called long paths on Windows are now supported by default, without needing any registry hacks.
  • Stepping through the locations menu with the keyboard is faster.
  • Menu entries disabled where they don’t apply. e.g. in This PC.
  • Middle-truncated path readouts used in progress dialog.
  • Validation of custom temp/trash dir in settings dialog improved.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Mouse selection of text when renaming files fixed.
  • Using Open With with multiple files selected fixed.
  • Using Open in Explorer when on This PC fixed.
  • Pressing the context menu key on Windows with first item in listing selected fixed.
  • Missing highlight of active drive in navigator menu fixed.
  • Potential crash at shutdown fixed.

New in Fileside 1.6.2 (Dec 15, 2022)

  • A minor bugfix release that fixes keyboard shortcuts such as Cmd-C, Cmd-V, Cmd-Z etc in dialogs on Mac.
  • If you’re wondering what happened to 1.6.1, that was a quickly rushed out hotfix to re-enable the crucial functionality of pasting the license key, which was broken in 1.6.0. 1.6.2 fixes this properly so that all the expected keyboard shortcuts work in the new dialogs.

New in Fileside 1.6.0 (Dec 12, 2022)

  • New features:
  • Open With & Set Default App:
  • The context menu now has new entries for better control over which app to use for opening a file.
  • On Mac, there’s a new submenu, which lists all known apps associated with the file type, along with an Other… entry, and a second submenu for switching the default app association.
  • Open With submenu on Mac
  • Sadly, we can’t have nice things on Windows, where the ability for third-party apps to change app associations has been prohibited. Therefore, the context menu entries on Windows just act as links into the native dialogs for opening files and managing app associations.
  • Open In:
  • Every now and then, you might need to leave the wonderful world of Fileside to dive into the treacherous waters of the operating system. To this end, the Navigate menu now contains commands for opening the currently active folder in either the system file explorer or the terminal.
  • Open In commands
  • Native properties/info dialogs:
  • Similarly, viewing the system’s info panel for a file or folder is a handy feature to have around. It’s now also on the context menu.
  • Copy Path:
  • Then there are times when you just need the path of a file for use elsewhere. The context menu now also comes equipped with this functionality in the form of Copy Path. It supports multi-selections, so to copy/paste a whole directory listing, just hit Select All first.
  • Paste Move:
  • Mac fiends might have built up muscle memory for using Cmd-C, and then Option-Cmd-V to cut and paste, rather than the classic Cmd-X + Cmd-V. Fileside now supports this too, on both Mac and Windows, via the Paste (move) command.
  • Sync dark mode with OS
  • A new option System is now available under Theme in the settings dialog. It will make Fileside play nicely with the operating system’s dark mode setting, and update dynamically in response to it.
  • Improvements:
  • Dialogs use separate windows
  • All dialogs and modals within Fileside have been rewritten to use their own dedicated windows, instead of just using overlays constrained to the main Fileside app window. This means no more chopped off edges, and more reliable keyboard handling; any dialog can be closed with Esc and accepted with Enter.
  • Context menu key on Windows more… contextual
  • The special context menu key on Windows keyboards now adapts to the selected file, just like a right-click would.
  • Del button works on Mac
  • The Del button on extended Mac keyboards now also maps to Move to Trash.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix uneven font rendering on scaled Windows displays
  • Fix relative image links in markdown previews
  • Show correct app icons on Mac
  • Fix crash when viewing folders containing more than ˜60,000 files
  • Fix crash when undoing multiple commands too quickly
  • Visual tweaks and optimisations

New in Fileside 1.5.1 (Sep 19, 2022)

  • New features:
  • New Layout action:
  • File > New Layout lets you create a new layout from scratch.
  • Improvements:
  • Faster Markdown previews
  • We’re now using a faster Markdown parser, so stepping through previews should feel snappy again.
  • Navigator and Locations menu tweaks:
  • Added tooltips to truncated path segments.
  • Reduced number of not so relevant filter matches.
  • Improved occasionally weird truncation of menu items.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Added Home and Close buttons to “Folder does not exist” error screen.
  • Esc did not always close search mode.
  • Auto-sizing of parent folder in search pane.
  • Fixed default Delete shortcut on Mac.
  • Fixed stuck drag & drop hover highlight.
  • Fixed missing feedback on deletion of recent locations.
  • Fixed some issues around UNC paths on Windows.

New in Fileside 1.5.0 (Aug 16, 2022)

  • New features:
  • Path navigators:
  • Click on any path segment to jump directly to that folder.
  • Path segment menu:
  • Right-click on a segment for quick access to sibling folders.
  • Filter favourites and recents:
  • Pop open the dropdown to reveal the familiar Favourites and Recents menus. But the new filter function makes them much more useful than before for those situations where you know you created a folder somewhere but just can’t quite remember where.
  • Filtered locations menu:
  • Start typing to quickly find any previously saved or visited location.
  • Search:
  • If you’re still not finding what you’re looking for, it’s time to jump into search. The little “No luck?” prompt will let you surf over there on your current search query.
  • But you can also open search directly by typing ? in the path field. Or use Navigate > Search (Ctrl/Cmd-F) to start searching directly at any time, bypassing the menu altogether.
  • Search results:
  • Use search to find files or folders below the current directory.
  • The search results view works just like any other pane, with the addition of a Folder column showing the parent folder in which each search result lives. You can navigate to it with one of the Open parent folder entries on the context menu.
  • Search always searches recursively down from the current folder. To widen the scope of the search, just step up in the folder hierarchy.
  • Copy/paste files to/from system:
  • While dragging files to and from the operating system’s file manager using the mouse always worked, doing it with the keyboard didn’t. Until now. Due to limitations in the inter-process communications, only copy is supported, however. If you use Cut (Ctrl-X), it works like a copy.
  • Delete recent locations:
  • You can now delete entries from the Recent Locations list too, by hovering and clicking the ⊗ button.
  • Improvements:
  • Markdown preview performance:
  • It turned out that parsing and rendering of markdown files became really slow in 1.4, when previewing even moderately sized files. The parser used will be swapped out for a faster one in a future release, but 1.5 at least mitigates the extreme lagginess through a few workarounds.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Typed filename wiped during renaming:
  • 1.4 had a pretty annoying bug where you would start typing a new name, and sometimes it would just get reset while typing. This should now be a thing of the past.
  • Names with leading and trailing spaces:
  • Turns out that Windows really doesn’t like file and folder names with leading or trailing spaces. I have no idea why anyone would ever use them intentionally, but the handling is now more robust. The Mac version allows them and deals with them gracefully.
  • UNC path handling on Windows:
  • Furthermore, Windows lets you access network locations with paths of the form \127.0.0.1C$UsersErik (my home directory accessed via localhost). Fileside didn’t do a particularly good job with these before, but navigation up and down them is now fully supported.
  • Automatic folder watching stopped on errors
  • The folder watcher now survives non-fatal errors.
  • Glitch when resizing columns after hiding some
  • Is no more.
  • A few potential crash bugs
  • Got squashed.

New in Fileside 1.4.3 (Jun 7, 2022)

  • Improvements:
  • Crash reporting added
  • Hopefully this should make it harder for potential crash bugs to stay hidden from sight in the future.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Fix crash on invalid directory
  • This crash, partly fixed in 1.4.2, showed up in a different guise on some Windows PCs.
  • Fix This PC not showing drives
  • Again, on some PCs only, the drives did not show up under This PC.

New in Fileside 1.4.2 (Mar 27, 2022)

  • Strictly a bugfix release for a potential crash when loading or starting up with a pane pointing to a missing directory.

New in Fileside 1.4.1 (Mar 19, 2022)

  • This minor update adds markdown support to the preview, and introduces a build for Apple Silicon.

New in Fileside 1.4.0 (Nov 15, 2021)

  • New features:
  • More file types previewable
  • Built-in previews, while handy, were somewhat limited up until now. 1.4 steps things up a notch.
  • On Mac, the previews now hook into the QuickLook system under the hood, allowing Fileside to support all the file types that QuickLook can handle. These include:
  • PDF documents
  • RTF documents
  • MS Office documents like doc, docx, xls, xlsx etc.
  • Apple Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents
  • Graphics files, like eps, psd, sketch, afphoto
  • Font files like ttf, ttc, otf
  • Ebook epub files
  • On Windows, life is harder. There’s no built-in QuickLook equivalent of which we can take advantage, so support for each additional file format needs to be implemented independently. Therefore the list of new file formats is considerably slimmer in the Windows version as of now:
  • PDF documents
  • MS Word docx files
  • MS Office and LibreOffice spreadsheets like xlsx and ods
  • Of course, all of the already supported image, video, audio and text formats are still previewable as before.
  • Previews for folders:
  • Previews now work for folders too, showing the contents at a glance.
  • Expanded preview:
  • With multiple panes open, the inline previews can get quite small. To get out of a tight spot, you can now hit the Expand button (or Ctrl/Cmd-E) to have the preview image fill the app window, with keyboard navigation still intact.
  • Autoplay is optional:
  • A setting for controlling whether audio and video previews should start playing automatically is now available in the preferences.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Deselecting files scrolled view away:
  • Under some circumstances, deselecting an item in a large selection scrolled the view away unexpectedly.
  • CPU churn for disconnected network drives:
  • A pane open on a disconnected network drive was previousy causing considerable CPU load as the app repeatedly tried to access the drive and failing.
  • Crash when saving/renaming layout:
  • Saving or renaming a layout could crash the app in some circumstances.

New in Fileside 1.3.2 (Jul 29, 2021)

  • Improvements:
  • New merge strategy: Overwrite if newer:
  • When trying to copy or move into a destination folder where some items with the same names already exist, there is now one more option to choose from: Overwrite if source file is newer. It will only overwrite a conflicting file if the source version was modified more recently than the version in the destination folder.
  • Redesigned conflict resolution dialog:
  • To make it a bit clearer what the different merging options are, each one now comes with a little diagram.
  • New conflict resolution dialog on Mac:
  • The option you used last will also be remembered.
  • A few performance & visual tweaks:
  • Scrolling large listings with the arrow keys should now feel a bit snappier. Transfers of large files too. On the visual side, the theme colours have been tweaked slightly to enhance the colour coding of the source and target files in the conflict dialog.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Target file(s) did not get selected after copy/move:
  • This broke with the 1.3.1 release; it now works again.
  • Undoing compress/extract could delete the wrong file:
  • Undo didn’t always work after compressing or extracting an archive; it now does.

New in Fileside 1.3.1 (Jun 26, 2021)

  • Moves are now much faster in most common scenarios.

New in Fileside 1.3.0 (Mar 29, 2021)

  • A focused release addressing one topic only: columns. With 1.3, you have the kind of control over the pane columns that you would expect. Hide, show, move, and automatically fit your columns for each pane.

New in Fileside 1.2.2 (Jan 7, 2021)

  • Strictly a bugfix release to fix a potential crash when loading a layout or starting Fileside
  • Bug fixes:
  • Crash on loading layout fixed:
  • If loading a layout with fewer panes than the one you were currently on, Fileside would crash if the active pane was at a position which didn’t exist in the loaded layout.

New in Fileside 1.2.1 (Jan 4, 2021)

  • Improvements:
  • Smoother auto-scrolling in preview mode:
  • The preview mode could be a bit jerky in 1.2.0. 1.2.1 reduces the amount of automatic scrolling needed to accommodate the dynamically sized preview pane, and makes the necessary scrolling smooth.
  • Allow closing modal dialogs with keyboard:
  • The Escape and Enter keys can now be used to cancel or close modals where appropriate.
  • Bug fixes:
  • Preview state now saved with layout:
  • A pane now remembers whether it had preview enabled when restarting the app or loading a saved layout.
  • Fixed double clicking in preview mode:
  • Double clicking on files that might auto-scroll didn’t always work in the last version. This is now fixed so that the file under the cursor when the double click starts is always the one that is opened.