vFinder 0.6.0 - alpha

New Features and UI Improvements

• Virtual Archive Browsing: Archives (.zip, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.zst, and other tarball variants) can now be entered and browsed in-place without extracting their full contents to disk.
• Archive Extraction & Drag-and-Drop:
  • Added dedicated extraction actions ("Extract…", "Extract Selected", and "Extract Entire Archive…") accessible via toolbar and context menus.
  • Enabled direct drag-and-drop extraction, allowing files and folders to be dragged from an archive workspace into normal directories or split panes automatically as a copy operation.
  • Added read-only safeguards preventing destructive or write actions inside archives, with clear notification feedback.
  • Added a visual loading modal when opening large archives to keep navigation synchronized during archive cataloging.
• Executable & Script Management:
  • Added distinct context menu execution actions: direct "Run" for binaries and AppImages, "Launch Application" for desktop entries, and "Run in Terminal" for shell scripts (.sh, .bash, .zsh) and script files.
  • Added "Allow Executing as Program" (chmod +x) directly to the context menu for files missing execute permissions.
  • Added visual document badge indicators on icons to easily identify executable binaries and scripts.
• Split Pane Explorer Context & Multi-Selection: Added full multi-selection context menu support in the split pane, including item counts (e.g. "Move to Trash (3 Items)"), Trash-specific actions, and active pane targeting for clipboard operations (Copy, Cut, Paste, Duplicate).

Performance Optimizations

• Virtual Archive Cataloging & Streaming:
  • Implemented in-memory archive directory tree construction from index headers without decompressing payload data to disk, minimizing disk I/O and saving storage.
  • Integrated chunked streaming extraction with buffered readers for Zip and Tar formats to keep memory consumption low during large extraction tasks.
  • Added metadata caching for virtual archive structures, ensuring instant navigation across nested subfolders after the initial read.
• Non-Blocking Background Tasks & Process Spawning:
  • Offloaded archive parsing, compression, and extraction to background blocking threads (spawn_blocking) to keep the desktop UI and WebKitGTK renderer responsive.
  • Standardized detached process execution with working directories set to the target file's parent folder.

Bug Fixes

• Split Tab Deletion & Keyboard Shortcuts:
  • Fixed an issue where pressing the Delete / Supr key (Delete, Del, keyCode: 46) or Ctrl+Backspace while files were selected in the split pane did nothing or mistakenly acted on the primary pane.
  • Implemented active pane routing (getActiveTargets) and bidirectional view synchronization so trashed or permanently deleted (Shift+Delete) items update immediately across both panes.
  • Added input focus guards so pressing Delete while renaming files or typing in modal dialogs edits text normally without triggering file deletion.
• AppImage Environment Variable Leakage: Fixed external executables and AppImages failing to launch from vFinder due to inherited AppImage runtime variables (APPDIR, APPIMAGE, ARGV0, OWD, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, GST_REGISTRY) by sanitizing the process environment before spawning.
• Context Menu Graphic Artifacts:
  • Fixed green pixel distortion on context menus in Linux WebKitGTK when hovering top options by replacing GPU backdrop blur with solid layer-isolated styling (macos-layer-isolate).
  • Removed direct "Run as Program" for shell scripts to prevent background execution hangs without terminal output.
• Platform Compatibility & Documentation:
  • Corrected Ubuntu version support guidelines in the documentation.
  • Added missing Fedora package dependencies to README.md.

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Feedback is appreciated! If you encounter any issues, please report them in Issues so they can be addressed in future updates.

vFinder 0.5.0 - alpha

New Features and UI Improvements

• System-Default Appearance: The theme now follows the system color scheme (prefers-color-scheme) by default. Added a System / Light / Dark selector to the toolbar menu.
• Window Control Refinements:
  • Renamed the "VS Code" window control style to "Standard", while maintaining backward compatibility with existing preferences.
  • Updated modal close buttons to keep the × icon hidden until hovered, matching the main window's traffic-light controls.
• CLI Flags: Added -h / --help and -v / --version flags, including usage documentation for [PATH], --sudo, and VFINDER_WEBVIEW_DEBUG=1.

Performance Optimizations

• Columns View:
  • Added viewport row virtualization for directories containing more than 80 items, mounting only visible rows in each column.
  • Wrapped column panes and rows in React.memo and stabilized selection callbacks to reduce unnecessary re-renders across open columns.
  • Added background directory prefetching on hover and initial column load for faster subfolder navigation.
• Icon View:
  • Switched to fixed-width grid columns (justify-start) instead of 1fr stretching, preventing continuous text and icon reflows during window resizing.
  • Throttled ResizeObserver layout updates to improve resizing performance.

Bug Fixes

• AppImage Video and Subtitle Playback:
  • Bundled gstreamer1.0-libav (avdec_h264, avdec_aac) and essential gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad / ugly parsers and encoders (h264parse, webvttenc) in the AppImage workflow.
  • Disabled WebKitGTK's Bubblewrap /tmp sandbox override and isolated the GStreamer registry in AppImage builds, ensuring bundled plugins remain accessible to WebKitWebProcess.
• Administrative Mode (--sudo): Improved privilege elevation handling without requiring a full root GUI relaunch when authenticating administrative operations.
• Split Pane Navigation: Fixed Spacebar Quick Look, Ctrl+I (Get Info), and keyboard navigation using arrow keys, Home, and End in the split explorer pane.
• Get Info Fixes:
  • Fixed Get Folder Info when right-clicking empty workspace areas across all view modes.
  • Fixed folder information incorrectly displaying 0 items by resolving child counts on demand.
• Linux Font Rendering: Disabled FreeType stem darkening (FREETYPE_PROPERTIES) by default to prevent text from appearing artificially bold on dark backgrounds in AppImage builds.

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Feedback is appreciated! If you encounter any issues, please report them in Issues so they can be addressed in future updates.

vFinder 0.4.0 - alpha

Hey guys! It's been a while since the last release, here are some changes I'm excited to share with you!!!

New features:

• System sounds (move/copy files, file trash, empty trash)
• trash bin
• "--sudo" flag, for root-required tasks

Improvements:

• The active tab looks much better! (better seamless effect)
• Less redundancy in the code, it should perform better
• I decided to change the color for external devices, didn't look as good as I thought

EDIT:

there was a bug in the appImage release that'd make the explorer crash after loading a certain amount of files, I just fixed it

EDIT 2: now appimages are compiled using ubuntu 22.04 LTS

vFinder v0.3.0 - alpha

changes:

• Performance improvements
• implemented undo (ctrl + z) for when moving folders accidentally
• Archive support (zip, tar, tar.gz ....)
• video previews available on Quick Look and Gallery view mode

Feedback is appreciated!

vFinder 0.2.0 - alpha

bugfixes.

new features:

• enhanced tabs, splitted tabs + drag & drop support

vFinder 0.1.0 - alpha

first release!

Feedback is appreciated