Fauxcasa read-only friend preview — tracer-test-v1

Illustrated preview guide

Open or download the standalone HTML guide. The same README.html and screenshot are included inside the Windows zip.

To leave an individual photo, choose ← Gallery (Esc) in the toolbar or press Esc.

In the gallery or individual-photo view, Space adds/removes the Fauxcasa star. During a slideshow, Space remains pause/resume.

This is a Windows preview for a trusted tester: a real end-to-end slice of Fauxcasa, not yet a Picasa replacement.

Install and run

1. Download fauxcasa-tracer-tracer-test-v1-windows-x64.zip below.
2. Right-click it and choose Extract All. Keep the extracted folder together.
3. Open fauxcasa-tracer-gui and run fauxcasa-tracer-gui.exe.
4. Choose the top-level folder containing the photos you want to browse.

The build is unsigned. Windows SmartScreen may show Windows protected your PC / unknown publisher; choose More info → Run anyway only if you obtained the zip here and its SHA-256 matches the attached checksum.

What works

• scans a photo library in place without modifying photos or Picasa data
• progressively fills completed gallery thumbnails during the first index
• shows determinate indexing progress directly below the toolbar
• visible Gallery/Esc return action in the individual-photo viewer
• Picasa-compatible Space-to-star in the gallery and viewer; choices stay in Fauxcasa's local cache
• folder, album, Starred, Recently Updated, and People views
• Picasa .picasa.ini, .pal, contacts, and selected db3 recovery data
• captions, keywords, stars, faces, crops, hidden state, search, and selection tray
• stills, RAW rendering, PSD fallback, video poster frames, zoom/pan, hover preview, and slideshow
• multi-root library model and offline-volume tolerance

Important limitations

• Source-library writes remain absent: no keyword edits, export, Picasa write-back, or photo edits.
• There is no dedicated keywords/EXIF inspector panel yet; selected metadata appears in search, the viewer, and the bottom status area.
• Videos show poster frames but do not play yet.
• Original-media decoding is not sandboxed yet. Use only files you trust.
• Windows 10/11 x64 only. The executable is not code-signed and there is no installer.
• Fauxcasa remains under active development and is not ready to replace Picasa for regular use.

Please report problems at https://github.com/maphew/fauxcasa/issues. Do not attach private photos, Picasa databases, names, captions, or paths; describe the behavior and redact personal data.

Build provenance

• Application commit: 553d31a3de92ab91a03e8fcaf47ebf97d4b75acf
• Windows bundle: successful frozen bundle workflow run 31423889281
• CI: tests, tracer, performance canary, ingest parity, and frozen bundle workflows passed on Windows and Linux
• Exact downloaded Windows artifact: frozen dependency self-check and offscreen smoke passed locally; native Windows rendering passed in CI
• Test suite: 406 passed, 1 skipped
• Bundle includes pinned PySide6 Essentials, LibRaw/rawpy, python-exiv2, Pillow, and PyAV/libav dependencies

Tracer test preview — tracer-test-v0 (Windows)

Early internal preview / "tracer bullet". Windows 10/11 (64-bit) only. Read-only — it does not modify your photos or any Picasa data.

Install & run

1. Download fauxcasa-tracer-tracer-test-v0-windows-x64.zip below and unzip it (right-click → Extract All). Keep all the files together inside the fauxcasa-tracer folder.
2. Open that folder and run fauxcasa-tracer.exe.
   • Double-click it → a folder picker appears → choose your photo library folder, or
   • (advanced) from a terminal: fauxcasa-tracer.exe "C:\path\to\your photos"

Expected warnings — this build is unsigned

• Windows SmartScreen may say “Windows protected your PC / unknown publisher.” Click More info → Run anyway. (Not code-signed yet — a known limitation of this preview.)
• A black console window opens next to the app. That's expected in this preview build — you can ignore it, but don't close it while the app is open.

Scope & known limitations

• Windows x64 only (no macOS; the Linux build is CI-only and not shipped).
• Unsigned (SmartScreen warning above).
• A console window appears (preview build — will be removed in a later build).
• Read-only, experimental viewer.

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Build provenance: built by CI (.github/workflows/bundle.yml) from commit 56901cc on main; PySide6-Essentials 6.11.1 / PyInstaller 6.20.0; passes the frozen smoke gates (JPEG-decode screenshot + graceful no-arg/no-display exit). SHA-256 of the zip is in the attached .sha256 file.