Spiral 0.18.2

An AppImage shows the icon it carries, read out of its image by unsquashfs in the thumbnail sandbox, never by running it; without squashfs-tools it keeps the icon of its type. A picture set as a folder's icon is drawn sharp at every size, an icon theme's SVG included, where it was drawn at the few dozen pixels the file names and blurred up to fill a large tile.

Spiral 0.18.1

Each server on the Network page carries a tag naming the protocol it is reached by, SMB, NFS, SFTP, FTP, DAV, DAVS or AFP, so a machine's Samba server and its NFS exports are told apart. An NFS export opened from there is shown once it is connected, where it used to go on connecting to it over and over, and a folder on a share opens at the top of the grid rather than partway down while its listing comes in.

Spiral 0.18.0

The desktop folder can now show as icons on the wallpaper, through spiral-desktop, with the home folder, the trash and mounted drives beside them, on a Wayland compositor with layer shell. It is the file manager's own grid spread over the screen, so selecting, renaming, dragging, the menus, undo and the keys work as they do in a window. The icons stand on a grid, in the sort order or wherever they are left, keep their places for each display as panels come and go, and gather into a pile under the pointer while they are dragged. Where the compositor draws glass, as Meridian does, the desktop's menus, prompts and tooltips are set into it, tinted with the accent where its settings ask, and a tagged file's name stands on its tag's colour.

Other programs can add entries to the menu of files, with desktop entries in spiral/item-menu/ offered for the file types they name. The file chooser searches the folders below the one shown, as the “Search in Subfolders” preference has it, a link found by a search shows as what it points to, and symbolic links carry a small arrow. Folders open in Caret where it is installed.

A batch rename can swap two names or shift a numbered run along, and passes over the files whose names it leaves as they are instead of saying they already exist. A document made from a read-only template can be written to, a folder renamed twice in a row is followed to its latest name, and a file name holding %s or %t shows as it is in the operations list. The preview plays videos that carry a timed-metadata track, as iPhone videos do, turns a video the way it was recorded, plays finished media again, opens a picture of more pixels than it decodes whole at its proper size, and keeps a file switched away from silent.

Spiral 0.17.3

The window no longer waits for a server where it did: naming a location on a share, filling the location entry (Ctrl+L on the network froze it for seconds), reading and writing tags and the tag index, encoding a pasted picture and reading the system's thumbnailer entries all happen without holding it. Space on a file on a slow share opens one preview, with the file's name and a spinner until the file has said what it is; pressed again meanwhile it no longer stacks previews over the window, and Escape gives the wait up.

A server's password is asked for only while someone still waits for it: leaving the location or closing the tab while it connects no longer brings the prompt up seconds later over something else. Disconnecting from a share leaves a trash folder at its root alone, since it belongs to the server's own user, and dismissing a volume's password dialog no longer reports that it could not be mounted. Moving between two folders shown in the grid no longer flashes the list's column header on the way, and a user's own desktop entry decides over the system's whether an application needs a terminal.

The file chooser changes the size of its icons, with Ctrl++, Ctrl+- and Ctrl+0, Ctrl and the wheel or the buttons at the top of its view menu, and keeps a size of its own as it keeps its view and order. It fits its narrowest width, with the file name on a line of its own and back and forward at the bottom, and a folder asked for is chosen rather than opened. A name an application proposes can no longer save somewhere other than the folder on screen, two applications' dialogs no longer cancel each other, and no file filter can freeze the dialog however it is written. In the Copy To and Move To dialog, zooming changes the dialog's view rather than the window's behind it.

Spiral 0.17.2

A copy was the only operation whose bar moved by what it had done. A move, a delete, an extraction and an archive being packed now each go by what they spend their time on: the bytes inside a file being moved across filesystems or read out of an archive, and items where a byte count would say nothing, since a file is unlinked and a folder is renamed in the same time whatever they hold. A move within one filesystem no longer walks the whole tree first for something that is over at once, what the trash cannot take is deleted at the end with a count of its own instead of running the bar past its total, and the clock stops while a question waits on screen, so an answer slept on no longer leaves hours left to go.

The file chooser shows hidden files, on Ctrl+H or from the item under the sort button. They are the file manager's own setting, so turning them on in a dialog turns them on in its windows too.

Spiral 0.17.1

Folders follow their changes again after a file is saved by being written under another name and renamed over, as editors and a replace on paste do; before, the tab stopped noticing changes until it was closed. What an operation, an undo or a redo leaves is selected, rows keep their selection and unfolded folders stay unfolded as the folder changes, search results follow renames and moves, and a view whose folder is moved or deleted goes along with it.

The file chooser hands applications files they can use: a file on a server goes as its path under GVfs, and the trash or a place with no path is refused with a message. Saving under a folder's name goes into the folder, a path typed as the name or in the location bar is saved to, saving several files goes into the selected folder and asks before replacing any, and one file asked for allows one selected. Ctrl+O accepts, and Open or Save stay off until there is something to accept.

Paste and New Folder work at the top of an SMB share, the keyboard goes back to the files after a rename, a templates folder made while Spiral runs is offered at once, and a file still being written no longer leaves a thumbnail of part of it behind.

Spiral 0.17.0

Video and sound in the preview are decoded inside the sandbox, as thumbnails are, and only the pictures and the sound reach Spiral. Video is still decoded on the GPU where there is one, and its pictures stay in GPU memory on their way to the screen, in the colours the file gives them: full range, BT.2020 and HDR included. A seek lands on the moment asked for, and a file with only sound or only pictures goes on playing after one.

Pictures are decoded by glycin in its own sandbox where it is installed, and in Spiral's otherwise: the preview's pictures and covers, the pages of a PDF, thumbnails found in the cache and pictures set as folder icons. Thumbnails of photos are made by glycin too, and large ones a few at a time, so a folder of them no longer fills the memory.

What a sandboxed helper leaves behind is no longer taken at its word: a link or a pipe in place of a thumbnail is refused. Another application asking Spiral to show a folder on a share it has not connected to no longer connects it, 7-Zip is told passwords on its standard input rather than its command line, and the save dialog refuses a name of “.” or “..”.