Release notes 0.6.3

By Erik Jälevik on 3 January 2020

This is intended to be the last build before 1.0, picking up a few of the remaining little issues and annoyances.

Improvements

The modal that would previously pop up when a pane couldn’t display its directory has been transformed into an in-pane error message to be less disruptive.

Feedback when cancelling large file transfer

If cancelling a file transfer in the middle of a huge file, Fileside doesn’t actually cancel the operation until after the file finishes transferring. Previously there was no visual feedback on pressing Cancel in this situation, which felt like a bug. Now the Cancel button immediately changes appearance to indicate this intermediate state.

Simplified default key bindings

Duplicate pane to the Right is now Alt-R, and duplicate Down is Alt-D, which fits in nicely with the Alt-W shortcut for closing a pane.

Likewise, creating a new file is now Shift-Ctrl-M/Shift-Cmd-M to harmonise better with creating a new directory at Shift-Ctrl-N/Shift-Cmd-N.

Default to descending sort order for date and size

The most common use case for sorting on date is most likely to see the newest files. Likewise for size, we are often more interested in the largest than the smallest ones. Achieving this now requires one click on the header instead of two. Text columns still default to ascending order.

Tweak contrast and theme colours

The contrast between the active pane and the rest has been slightly increased along with some other minor visual tweaks to the two themes.

Bug fixes

Mac: trashing from a network drive fails

It wasn’t possible to trash files on a mounted drive before, it would fail with an error about no Trash being available on the drive. This operation now uses the same “stashing” behaviour as on Windows, i.e. it just copies the file(s) to a temporary directory, so as to not lose the undo functionality. The path to this temp directory is now exposed in the Preferences dialog for Mac as well.

Hang when clicking Up while fetching directory listing

If navigating to a new directory and pressing Up again before the contents had loaded, the pane would hang.

Flipped sort indicator

As pointed out by Mikko in the beta group, the sort indicator icon was flipped compared to how most other apps do it, so it’s now been turned the other way around.

Close pane button not getting disabled

The pane’s Close button is now disabled when there is only one pane left.

Border when renaming layout

An unsightly border appeared during renaming of a layout.

Looking for a better file manager?

Fileside is a modern multi-pane file manager for Mac and Windows.

Its customisable workspaces of tiled panes make it a breeze to keep your projects and collections organised.

Learn more Try it now

More from the blog

The plan for Fileside 2

Over the past year I’ve had a steady stream of emails asking if a Fileside version 2 is coming. One even wondered whether the project is still being maintained. The short answer is yes. Fileside 2.0 is deep in…

Four weeks of voice computing - here's what I learnt

After a recent flare-up of RSI-related wrist pain, I decided to make a serious attempt at becoming proficient at speech computing. My hope was to be able to add an alternative input method in order to offload my hands, and allow them some rest even during my daily work. I’m now four weeks in and this post summarises my impressions. The journey has had its fair share of frustrations, but also brought some surprising insights.

Full Disk Access - what is it and what does it do?

A quick search for “Full Disk Access” reveals plenty of results, although some are misleading if not outright dishonest. Many come from application vendors suggesting that if we don’t grant their Mac apps Full Disk Access, they might not work as intended. In fact, the vast majority of applications should have no reason to need Full Disk Access.

The weird world of Windows file paths

File system paths on Windows are stranger than you might think. On any Unix-derived system, a path is an admirably simple thing: if it starts with a /, it’s a path. Not so on Windows, which serves up a bewildering variety of schemes for composing a path.