Binarynights
In version 4.7.6, we have mainly focused on improving the user experience when interacting with files inside ForkLift in different ways.
Improvements to Navigation and Path Bars
We have improved the behavior of the path bars at the top of the panes. Because of limited space, long paths can’t be fully displayed, so the individual folder names inside the path get truncated. In extreme cases, that meant that only the name of the last folder was visible, and other parts of the path could not be made visible even when the user hovered the pointer over those parts of the path. This unfortunately also meant that when the user tried to drag items over these collapsed or truncated folders inside the path bar, the folder did not expand to reveal the location, so the user could not be sure which folder they were dragging into. Now, when you hover over a part of the path bar, the folder name below the pointer expands. This also works when you drag files over the path, so you can clearly see which folder you are dragging them into. This makes working with long paths much easier and makes it clearer where you are moving your files.
We also made it possible to move a tab to the other pane from the Window menu. You can use its keyboard shortcut to move the tab very quickly. If you do not like the keyboard combination that we came up with, you can always change it in the ForkLift Settings.
Column View works a little bit differently than the other two views because the selected folder is automatically opened in the next column. In the other two views, you have to open folders to go inside them, which you can do by double-clicking a folder or by using the Go > Open command. Users usually do not select this command from the menu itself, but rather use its keyboard shortcut, Command-Down Arrow. Going one level up to the parent folder is possible with the Go > Enclosing Folder command or with its keyboard shortcut, Command-Up Arrow.
Because of the different behavior in Column View, you do not have to open the folder, and the other way around, in some cases, it was not possible to navigate the entire path backwards to go through all the parent folders using the command or its keyboard shortcut. Now, we have changed the navigation logic, and you can always go back one folder at a time in the path with the Command-Up Arrow shortcut, even in Column View.
Small Details, Better User Experience
Another useful addition in Column View is that double-clicking the column dividers now resizes the column to a size that fits its content. This means you do not have to manually make the column wider just to see the full file names or assigned tags.
We have also made another change to Icon View. The icons are now aligned more consistently within their rows, making the view less busy and giving you a clearer overview of the items. This is a return to the previous behavior, as some recent changes to Icon View had altered the alignment of the items.
One of the very first requests regarding the ForkLift GUI was a rather small change on the surface. When you hover over a tab, the icon in it is replaced by an X that you can click to close the tab. When you hover over the X, a small box appears around it, highlighting the X and visually turning it into a button. This box was darker than the tab color, which made it less visible in the dark theme than in the light theme.
Some users specifically wanted to see a lighter outline in dark mode, similar to what you can see in Finder or Safari. While this may seem like a very small detail that most users probably do not even consciously notice, it was something that some of you really wanted to see changed.
Interestingly, what looks like a simple visual adjustment turned out to be a little more complicated to implement than we expected. But after some work, we managed to make the change, and the close button now has the lighter outline in the dark theme as well.
macOS 27 Golden Gate and SFTP Improvements
We have also fixed two issues that only occur on the upcoming macOS 27 Golden Gate. When you restarted ForkLift on Golden Gate, its sidebar became a little wider each time, which could eventually make it unnecessarily large. This is now fixed. A more important issue affected Column View, where it was not possible to drag an item from a remote location out of ForkLift, for example to the Desktop or into another application. This has also been fixed, and you can now drag items out of ForkLift in all three views on the newest version of macOS.
This update also addresses a compatibility issue with some SFTP servers.
Full List of changes:
New
- Option to move tabs to the other pane from the Windows menu
- Double-clicking the divider between columns in Column View expands the column to the ideal width needed to display its content
Improvements
- Improved pathbar behavior: truncated folder names in long paths are expanded when hovered over or dragged over
- Changed the color of the box around the X button for closing a tab when hovered over, improving visibility and matching the native macOS behavior
- Improved navigation in Column View when using the Go > Enclosing Folder command
- Improved horizontal alignment of icons in Icon View
Fixes
- Fixes the Applications icon in tabs and the Quick Open pop-up window
- Fixes an issue on macOS 27 Golden Gate in Column View where dragging items from a remote location out of ForkLift did not work
- Fixes an issue in the Multi-Rename Window where long labels were truncated in some languages
- Fixes an issue in the Activities pop-up where the activity title was sometimes truncated during synchronization
- Fixes some compatibility issues with SFTP servers
- Fixes an issue on macOS 27 Golden Gate where the sidebar became wider after every restart