v5.4 — Setup that shows its reading, and six ways into Edit

The keyboard reaches the file panes

• Click a file, then use the arrow keys. ↑ and ↓ move the selection and ⇧↑ / ⇧↓ extend it a
  row at a time, in Columns and in Tree alike — in Browse, in both Compare panes and in Organize's
  list. On macOS 27 a click selected the file but left the keyboard with the window, so every key
  pressed after it did nothing at all; ⇧-click or a drag was the only way to select a run of files.
  A click now hands that list the keyboard, and a caret you click into a field is left where it is.
  A right-click does the same, so the menu's verbs and the arrow keys always mean the same list.
• The differences list takes the keyboard too. Click a difference, wherever in the list, and the
  arrows and ⇧↑ / ⇧↓ work on that list. The review queue is deliberately unchanged: during a review
  the card keeps the keyboard, so ↩ and Skip go on working.

Columns gives names the row, and each column its own width

• Names run to the end of the row. A file's size no longer sits beside its name in Columns —
  Finder's column view shows names alone, and Tree keeps the size and the date — and the room held
  back for things that were not there is gone, so a name runs up to its folder's chevron or to the
  place a file's ☁ appears. A name too long for its column is cut in the middle, keeping its start
  and its ending: a folder of "Statement - Account - January 2024.pdf", "… - February 2024.pdf" reads
  as different months rather than as identical rows. A search hit is cut at the end away from its
  match, so the emboldened part stays in view. Tree's rows gain the same room, up to their size and
  date.
• The ⌂ badge is gone from the rows. It marked every file and folder outside your cloud
  folders, which in a Home folder was nearly every row. The Info inspector's Where it lives says
  it instead, and now says it for folders too: "This Mac only", or "In" and the source's name.
• Swiping sideways across the columns is smooth. Every visible row re-measured itself on every
  frame of a sideways swipe; each column now reads its rows' positions from its own list. The action
  bar moves to the top when it would cover the selected row's highlight — a few points sooner than
  when it reached the row's text.
• Clicking is lighter in a big folder. Every visible row's right-click menu is built along with
  the row, and on every click each one looked the selection up in the folder tree — in both panes.
  A row outside the selection now answers from itself, and the selection is looked up once for all
  the rows in it.
• Switching workspace keeps your place. Browse, Organize, Edit and Compare each rebuild the
  pane, which put its columns back at the first one and every list back at its top. A pane in
  Columns now comes back scrolled as you left it — at the far end of the columns if that is where
  you were, even if the preview has opened or the window has narrowed since — and a folder opened
  again later in the session opens where you left it.
• And its folder. Opening Organize moved the left pane to the top of its source, so the folder
  you were in was gone when you came back to Browse. It stays put now: the folder open in Browse is
  the one Organize's file pane shows, and a folder you open there is the one Browse shows. With no
  scope chosen, Organize's sections work on that folder, as they already did when you clicked to one
  inside Organize.
• Size one column at a time. Drag a column's edge and that column alone changes width; hold ⌥
  to size every column together, the way dragging always worked. Settings ▸ Readability ▸ Column
  widths swaps the two — Each column or All columns — and choosing All columns puts every
  column back to one width. The deepest column has an edge of its own now, with a strip kept clear
  after it so the preview's divider or the pane's never covers it. Double-click an edge to fit the
  column to its longest name (⌥ fits them all), and Reset Column Widths, on the right-click menu
  of a column's empty space, puts them all back. A column can be up to 600 points wide (it was 340),
  and is never drawn wider than its pane.

Getting a file into Edit

• Four ways in from a file pane. A text file in a file pane can now be opened in Edit from four
  places: File ▸ Open in Edit, on ⌘O, for the text file selected in the focused pane; Open in
  Edit first in a file's right-click menu, under Refresh, where it used to sit below Get Info and
  Reveal in Finder; an Edit button by the file's name in the preview (⇧⌘P) — beside it, or under
  it when the name is long; and Open in Edit first among the Info inspector's actions (⌘I).
  Until now the right-click menu was the only way, and it was easy to miss.
• Compare's list of differences offers it too, once for each side. Right-click a row whose file
  is text and Open in Edit is offered for each copy there is, named for the pane it opens from:
  both panes' copies when the file is on both sides, where the items sit under Compare…, and the one
  that exists when it is missing from a side, where it comes first. A folder, or a file Edit does
  not open, gets no such item. The list shown during a guided review offers it as well. It opens
  the file without moving the left pane, where every other way in takes the pane to the file's
  folder: in Compare that pane is half of the comparison the list is showing, so moving it would
  re-run the comparison and forget what you had set aside with Ignore in Comparison. The folder name
  above the document says where the file lives; click it when you do want the pane there. Edit the
  file and go back to Compare, and the comparison runs again, so the row describes the file as you
  left it rather than offering to copy the old version over it.
• Each one is offered for a text file and never for a folder — all six, those four and the rows
  in Compare's differences and Duplicates' copies, ask the question the right-click menu always
  asked, so they agree about what a text file is. The preview is the one that holds back further:
  for a file whose content is still in the cloud it goes on offering Download, because previewing
  that file is exactly what would start the download.
• ⌘O was free, and it is the key most people try first. It is the only one of File's row verbs
  with a key, and the ⌘/ shortcuts list shows it beside ⌘N.
• And a way back out, from any file in Edit's Text Files list. Right-click a file there for
  Reveal in Browse, Get Info, Reveal in Finder and Quick Look, each acting on the
  file you clicked rather than the one that is open. Until now the list had no right-click menu, and
  Reveal in Browse was offered only on the open file's own name above the document. A file Edit will not
  open — too large, or still in the cloud — keeps the menu, since that is when you most want to see
  it somewhere else. Reveal in Browse leaves the open document as it was: ⌘4 comes back to it.
• A duplicate that is a text file opens in Edit from its right-click menu. In Organize's
  duplicates, right-click a copy's row and Open in Edit comes first, above Compare with keeper —
  on every copy, the one being kept included, whose row had no right-click menu at all until now. A
  copy that is not a text file keeps the menu it had. Those rows also answer a right-click anywhere
  along them now, where some answered only over the file's name and picture. Like the other ways in,
  it takes the left pane to the copy's folder — so back in Organize the duplicates are still listed,
  and their Rescan button becomes Organize "‹folder›", to point Organize at that folder instead.
• The Info inspector's row of actions now wraps instead of squeezing. At the inspector's usual
  width those buttons had been shrinking until their labels were a few letters and an ellipsis —
  "Reve…", "Cop…" — and adding a fourth would have left two with no letters at all. Each one now
  keeps its whole name, taking a second line where it needs one.

Edit with fewer columns

• Edit shows one list of files, never two. Open the source pane beside the document and the
  Text Files list steps aside: the pane is the list. Files Edit cannot open — a PDF, an image, a
  text file over its size limit — are dimmed there, with the reason as their tooltip, and a
  single click on a text file opens it, as does moving the selection to one with the arrow keys.
  Collapse the pane and the list comes back.
• Just the text. A button beside Find, above the document, hides the Text Files list and folds
  the source pane if it was open, leaving the document alone in the window. It stays hidden until
  you ask for it back — the same button, or the new rung on the strip at the left edge — and the
  choice is remembered across launches.
• ⌘N follows the list. With no list on screen, the new file's name is typed at the top of the
  document instead, with the folder it will be created in named beside the field. Return creates and
  opens it; Escape puts it away.
• The file ⌘N makes shows up in the list, selected. With the source pane open, the new file
  appears in the folder it was created in and is selected there, the way a file you click is, so the
  list says where the document lives. A PDF you export into the folder is listed there too. The pane
  used to go on listing the folder as it was until something else re-read it.
• The document says where it lives. Under its name, beside Autosave, the header now names the
  file's folder. With the source pane open it reads "in Finance": click it and the pane goes to that
  folder with the file selected. With the pane folded away it spells out the whole path the pane's
  breadcrumb would show — "iCloud › Documents › Finance" — and each part is a place to go: the folded
  pane moves there, without opening, and the Text Files list follows it. Under Just the text, with
  neither on screen, the move shows when you bring the list or the pane back. A long path folds its
  middle first — the "…" lists the folders it hides, each a place to go — and keeps the source and
  the folder for as long as they fit, then the folder alone. A file in another of your sources, such
  as the right-hand copy opened from Compare's list of differences, is named from that source — "in
  Dropbox › Backup" — as words, not places to go. The header is now as tall as the pane's toolbar
  card beside it — a card of its own when the window draws cards — so the text starts level with the
  list, and it stays level when the pane shows its tabs. It stays with no document open, reading "No
  document open" and naming the folder a new file would be made in — "iCloud" at the top of iCloud
  Drive — so the page does not move when a file opens.
• The file you open is selected in the source pane, and scrolled into view. Open a file from the
  Text Files list, from any Open in Edit, with ⌘N or from the folder name above the document, and
  the pane selects it where it lives and brings it on screen — the 140th file of a long folder as
  much as the first, in Columns and in the list view. Reveal in Browse lands with the file selected
  too. It happens as the file is opened and not afterwards: a file you then select yourself, a
  folder you move the pane to, and a set of several files you have selected in the pane are all left
  as you made them — and so is every other workspace: move to one before the pane has listed the
  file, and nothing is selected there behind you. Like a click in the pane, it lets go of whatever
  is selected in the other one, so the two never both hold a selection. With the pane folded away
  the file is selected in it all the same, and brought into view when you open the pane — once:
  scroll away from it and the pane stays where you put it. Compare's list of differences leaves the
  pane where it is, so there the file is selected only if the pane is already showing its folder.
  Until now opening a file selected nothing in the pane, and nothing outside a search scrolled a
  selected file into view.

New and Close, above the document

• A ＋ above the document makes a new text file. It sits beside Find and does exactly what ⌘N
  does — it opens the name field, in the folder its tooltip names — in every layout: with the
  source pane open, with the Text Files list showing, and under Just the text. The Text Files list
  keeps its own ＋; this one stays on screen when the list steps aside.
• A × at the other end of that row closes the document, and so does the new File ▸ Close
  Document. There was no way to put a document away before: it stayed open until another replaced
  it. Closing saves the way leaving a file always does and asks only when autosave is off for the
  file or cannot write it — Cancel keeps the file open — then leaves Edit's empty page, whose header
  stays with its ＋ in it, and the folder, the file pane and Just the text as they were. Clicking the
  same file in the pane opens it again. Close Document has no key: ⌘W closes the tab, as it always
  has.
• A long file name keeps its letters before Source, Preview and Split keep their words. With
  the ＋ and × in the row, those three now show their words only when the whole name fits beside
  them, and are just their icons otherwise — the names stay in their tooltips.

Folders merge, and Cancel stops the copy it is in

• A folder that already exists at the destination can be merged, and Merge is the default. When
  a copy or move lands a folder onto one of the same name, the alert used to offer Replace, Keep
  Both or Skip — and Replace sent the whole existing folder to the Trash, including everything that
  was only in it. Merge keeps everything already there, adds what is missing, and asks about
  each file that is in both folders on its own. Its "Apply to all for remaining conflicts" covers
  the rest of that one merge, and a Conflicts setting other than "Ask every time" answers those
  files the way it answers any other. Folders inside the two are merged as well, without asking.
• The alert counts what each answer would do before you choose — how many items Replace would
  send to the Trash, and how many Merge would ask about. On folders too large to count quickly it
  says the same thing without numbers rather than guessing.
• A move merge tidies up after itself. The source folder goes to the Trash once everything in it
  has moved, and stays where it was if you skipped anything inside it. One ⌘Z takes the whole merge
  back.
• Merge is offered for copies and moves between panes, Copy to… / Move to…, and paste. It is not
  offered through a folder that is really a symlink, nor for a package — an app, a photo library, or
  a document your Mac shows as a single file is one item, and merging two of them would build a
  document neither app wrote — and not yet in Compare's single-row or bulk sync, whose prompts are
  unchanged.
• Cancel stops the item that is copying, not just the ones after it. One very large file or
  folder used to run to the end once it had started, however long that took. It now stops mid-file,
  and nothing half-copied is left at the destination, because the copy is written under a hidden
  temporary name and removed when abandoned. A cancel is not reported as a failure. This applies to
  bulk sync as well.
• The progress window shows how far a slow copy has got, on the item's own line — "Archive.zip —
  4.2 GB of 12.8 GB · about 2 min left" — once it has been copying for a second, with the time left
  from the third (a folder shows only how much has been copied). It stays off for a bulk sync, where
  several copies share the line.

Setting up is a guided sheet

• Ten screens instead of a five-step form — Welcome, Locations, Learn, You, People, Countries,
  Structure, Workspaces, Appearance and Summary. Five of them ask something; the rest confirm, show
  or offer. The order is the change: SyncCloud reads your folder before it asks about you, so the
  questions after it are asked with your own folder names in front of you. That reading is names and
  counts only — no document is opened at that stage.
• A screen that shows what it found. Structure draws the tree SyncCloud read with its reading of
  each folder beside it — "a year", "files go here", "inbox: nothing will be filed here" — and a
  second view placing the loose files at the top of your folder where To File would put them. It is
  on screen before the profile is written, so going back to fix a name, a country or the folder
  itself costs nothing.
• The folder profile is not written until you press Save. It is built in memory and rebuilt
  whenever you change an answer, so Back from Structure leaves no profile on disk. Your other
  answers are kept as you leave each screen.
• The likely countries arrive ticked, and "likely" is measured. A short folder name pre-ticks
  only when it is a two-letter country code and it splits five or more different parent folders —
  the bar the reference tree set. PRD never pre-ticks, because it is not a country code, and a
  three-letter code such as USA is offered for you to tick by hand. IT is Italy to that check,
  so a tree with an IT department in five places arrives with it ticked, and you untick it.
• The name question asks for the forms, not the name. Surname-first is its own suggestion
  because the matcher is positional; initials are offered and left unticked; an accented name is
  offered in both spellings. The surname builds the forms and is not saved on its own.
• The text-size control is on every screen, so somebody who needs bigger text can get it on
  screen 1 rather than screen 9. It steps through all ten sizes, the same stops View ▸ Text Size
  reaches.
• Setup no longer estimates how long it takes. The only duration it quotes is the document
  read's "About 3 h for N documents" — a coarse figure over a real count — and that read is work you
  choose.

Reading documents says so wherever you are

• A line under Organize's header on every lens while documents are being read, with Pause and
  Stop on it. The card that offers the read lives on one lens; a three-hour background job needed
  to be visible from the other five.

Settings

• General has "Run setup again…" and Advanced has "Reset setup…", which forgets that setup
  has run so it offers itself again on the next launch. The Reset All Settings alert now says the
  same thing about itself.

Fixes

• The ⌘/ shortcuts list no longer offers ⌘-double-click. Its Tabs group went on saying that
  ⌘-double-clicking a folder opens it in a new tab for the whole of v5.3, which had taken that
  gesture out so that ⌘-click and ⇧-click could select in Columns. The row is gone. To open a folder
  in a new tab, right-click it, or select it and choose File ▸ Open in New Tab.
• A Mac that had never learned a folder tree could not learn one. The app only told its engine
  where profiles live after finding a profile there, so on a fresh install the first walk refused
  with "no profiles directory was configured" before reading a single folder. Found by rehearsing a
  first run with the profiles directory moved aside.
• Organize's Help page said six sections and listed five — Storage was missing from the list,
  and two more sentences on the page agreed with the wrong number.
• Switching files in Edit is quicker on a large document. Every switch fingerprints the outgoing
  text so that its undo history is refused rather than replayed if the file has changed, and the
  fingerprint hashed the text character by character: 138 ms on a 4 MB file, the largest Edit opens.
  It hashes the bytes now, in 12 ms.