f-tree desktop 0.6.0

The desktop app for Windows and Linux, version 0.6.0: the UX pass that followed the first real trees built in 0.5.0 (#152). Apart from its version number it is the same app as 0.6.0-beta.1, now offered to everybody, and the website's Download points at it.

Updating from 0.5.0: f-tree now saves as you go. Once a tree has a file, you don't need to press Save again, and the .bak file 0.5.0 left beside your tree is no longer written. Earlier versions are kept under File › Show backups instead. An old .bak of yours is left where it is.

Saving takes care of itself

• Autosave. Once a tree has a file, every change is written to it about a second later. The bar beside the file name says Saved, Saving…, Not saved yet · Save… for a new tree, or Not saved · Retry if a write failed. A failure says why once (a full disk, a removed drive…), and f-tree keeps retrying.
• Backups. Before the first change in each session, and then at most every ten minutes, f-tree keeps a copy of the previous version: the newest five per tree, in the app's own folder. File › Show backups opens it. Nothing is added beside your own file any more, so the old .bak is gone.
• Closing the window saves anything still pending, and only asks when something really isn't on disk. Opening or starting another tree now asks before throwing away a new tree that was never saved.

Editing a person

• The person panel saves when you press Save (or Add for someone new), as the phone does. Leaving with unsaved edits asks first: Discard changes?
• Backing out of "Add a person" removes the blank card. Discard is offered only then; for anyone already in the tree the button stays Delete this person.
• Deleting someone with relatives asks first, and offers Keep as unknown, which keeps their place so the family still joins up. Every toast for something undoable has an Undo button.
• Dates are checked (1938, 1938-04 or 1938-04-17, and no death before birth), with real examples as placeholders. A space types the dash.

Finding a relation

• Find a relation and Preferences are now on the bar, in place of Undo, Redo and Save.
• How are we related? starts from a person: in their panel, on every row of the people list, and in the compact view.
• "Add Ravi as a child" is one Undo, not two.

Fixes

• A person card now answers a click anywhere on it, not only near the photo. (This also fixes the website viewer.)
• Dark mode: toasts were white text on white; every colour now works in both themes.
• The f-tree wordmark no longer underlines as if it were a link.

Downloads

• Windows: the .exe installer.
• Linux: the .deb is the one to take. It is the only Linux format that can give Chromium a working sandbox helper without you touching anything; the portable .tar.gz and the .AppImage need one sudo chmod 4755 on Ubuntu 24.04+.

GitHub labels every desktop release a pre-release. That is a filing rule, not a verdict on the build: it keeps the Android app's update channel answering with Android releases, so no phone is ever offered a desktop installer. This one is the stable release. See .github/workflows/desktop.yml.