File Buddy 11 - Alpha 12

Download Alpha 12

Three things make up the bulk of this update: automatic refresh on change between windows, rename confirmation dialog, and a new criteria for the Find window.

The Features

Automatic Refresh Between Windows

This was a File Buddy 11 feature that I didn’t notice until recently. When a file is changed in one window, any other windows with that file open are automatically updated. I haven’t implemented automatic refresh for changes made outside of File Buddy, but it’s on my “to do” list.

Rename Dialog Improvements

A big thanks to Nick for pointing out some missing aspects of the Rename workflow. First, I completely missed the confirmation dialog that comes up after rename settings are selected.

Rename Confirmation Dialog

Second, because that confirmation was missing, you could only save the current file in the Info window instead of applying the change to all files in that window. This was fixed with the addition of the dialog.

Another user contacted me to ask that the rename confirmation dialog be make optional. I’m not sure if I will implement that as a configuration option to disable the confirmation or as a second button in the Rename window that will rename all without confirmation.

Find Window Criteria - File Kind

While I don’t support all the same file kinds that File Buddy 10 does yet, I do support several - including folders, symbolic links, and aliases.

Find Window File Kind Criteria

Bugfixes

  • Fixed crash in Info window when file dates are not avialable. Not sure why they aren’t available, but at least not it doesn’t crash when they aren’t.

Known Issues

  • Find results on El Capitan do not match File Buddy 10. This was reported to me, but I haven’t been able to reproduce the issue myself. I haven’t yet had time to investigate this issue. If you see this, feel free to send me screenshots of the differences in results and I’ll see if that helps me reproduce it. I’ll also look at adding some additional logs to help me understand what was found and why some things may be passed over.
  • Random crashes in various windows. I have crash reports for several different types of crashes, but none of them have clear causes. Some are connected to Objective-C generated code, others to what may be hardware issues. I’m working to triage these issues and find what solutions I can.
  • The Rename Confirmation dialog does not appear in the right place. I spent a bunch of time trying to get it right, didn’t happen.

What’s Next

Since the rename confirmation dialog and the mailing list are up and running, it’s back to the Find window. Two things on the immediate agenda:

  • The Rename Confirmation dialog isn’t appearing correctly at the top of the Info window. Not sure why, but I’ll keep digging and get it into the right place.
  • I realized after I did the basic history dropdown that the way I didn’t doesn’t provide the same feature as File Buddy 11, so I’m going to rework that to capture that missing functionality.

Longer term, I’ll also be trying to add more searching options, like the Local or Other options for search location, but some of those are complex and will need some extra time to design how the implementation.

This year, I’m aiming for 2 alphas a month, real life permitting. I may not get a second release out this month because of a work trip in the middle of the month taking me out of the country for a week. Since I’m trying to do more releases and not take so long to get new features and fixes out to you, each release will be smaller. Hopefully, the increased cadence of releases will make things better for you that much faster.

As always, thanks for the support and encouragement.

– David

PS - Mailing List

If you’d like to sign up for email updates, here you go.

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