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Prepare for V1.9, moved older entries out to DevHistory.md
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shundhammer committed Jan 14, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Target Platforms: Linux, BSD, Unix-like systems

License: GPL V2

Updated: 2024-01-13
Updated: 2024-01-14


## Screenshot
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ You can donate any amount of your choice via PayPal:

## Latest Stable Release

**QDirStat V1.8.1**
**QDirStat V1.9**

See the [release announcement](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/releases).

Expand All @@ -134,322 +134,25 @@ Download installable binary packages for various Linux distributions here:

## Latest News

- 2024-01-13
- 2023-01-14 **New stable release: 1.9**

- Improved the description of what QDirStat is here in the
[overview](#overview) section this document.

- New comprehensive [documentation about treemaps](doc/Treemap.md).


- 2024-01-12

- Clarified "File Type Statistics" that don't seem to add up and changed the
code to make more obvious what's going on there
([GitHub issue #241](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/241)).


- 2024-01-06

- Now following a symlink target passed as a command line argument
[GitHub issue #240](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/240).

This is is useful both when starting QDirStat from the command line and
when starting it from a file manager (right-click -> "Start with QDirStat"
on an item that turns out to be a symlink).


- 2024-01-05

- The release is getting nearer.

- Re-worked the context menus again.

Now disabled actions are no longer added which shortens them considerably:
Some actions work only for directories, some others only for files. Since
context menus are contextual, as the name implies, they should generally
not contain every possible action, and no disabled actions (usability
guidelines differ in this aspect).

Some context menu entries were only there to make certain actions
discoverable; like the "File Size / Type / Age Statistics". It might not be
so obvious to users that any of those can also be started for just a
subtree of the current directory tree, limiting those views to only that
subtree.

Those menu entries are now in a "View in" submenu, so they are still there,
but they no longer take so much screen space in the context menu.

- Lots of small improvements in many places like some more icons where they
made sense; and many more.


- 2024-01-01

- Cleaned up the context menus in the tree view and in the treemap view:

- Removed some less commonly used options like "Copy to clipboard" (also
available from the main menu and via the `Ctrl`+`C` keyboard shortcut)

- ~~Moved very common actions ("Move to Trash" and the other cleanups) to
the top~~

_It turned out this was a bad idea: The first action is easily executed
accidentially, especially on a laptop with a touchpad. It happened to me,
but I was aware what happened and how to undo it. Now non-destrucive
actions like "move up" and "move to top" are back on the top of the
context menu._

- Moved other actions to the bottom. Many of those are only in the context
menu to raise awareness that they even exist, like starting other views
from a subdirectory (file size, file type, file age statistics) or the
treemap zoom actions (typically used via mouse wheel if there is one).



- 2023-12-30

- Added bookmarks, very much like in an Internet browser.

There is now a star icon to the left of the current path to show you if
it's a bookmark / favorite, and you can click on it (or use `Ctrl`+`D` like
in all major browsers) to bookmark or un-bookmark it.

The "Go" menu now has a "To Bookmarks" submenu where the bookmarks
appear. Selecting one of them will go to that location in the
tree. Bookmarks that are not in the current tree are disabled, but still
there.

As with the "Cleanups" menu, you can "tear off" the bookmarks menu and
leave it open at a convenient place on your screen for instant access.

The bookmarks are stored in a simple text file at
`~/.config/QDirStat/bookmarks.txt` so you can easily edit, add or delete
them in bulk.

A use case are all those Internet browser cache directories somewhere deep
below `~/.cache` and `~/.config` that keep filling up with Gigabytes of
stuff, and that are never emptied even when you tell your browser to clear
browsing data.

Use the new "Find" function to search for "cache" and "thumbnails"
directories and bookmark them so you can easily revisit them: Tear off both
the "Bookmarks" and the "Cleanups" menu, move them to the side and go
through the bookmarks one by one and decide for which ones you want to use
the "Clear Directory Contents" cleanup action. Cleaning up browser cruft
becomes very easy.

...and yes, they dump tons of cruft not only into the `~/.cache` directory
which has the express purpose of just that, they also do it in `~/.config`
which is intended for configuration data, not for random junk that can be
easily restored. Chrome / Chromium, Firefox, Opera, even Thunderbird - they
all do it.

When you've cleaned up often enough like that to get a feeling where it's
worthwhile, you can even use the bookmarks file as a starting point for a
simple script to automate the task.

- A new stable release QDirStat V1.9 is getting nearer. It still needs some
more testing with all the changes recently.


- 2023-12-29

- Much improved initial selection: After reading a directory tree from disk,
sometimes nothing was selected, so the details panel on the right remained
empty. A click on the toplevel item would resolve this, but it should
really be automatic. Now it does.

- Much improved selection after a destructive cleanup and refreshing that
part of the directory tree: If you deleted a file ("move to trash" etc.),
that directory was read again from disk. But since the previously selected
item was now gone, that couldn't be selected anymore, and you were thrown
out of context. Now the parent directory is selected and its branch opened
again so you have a much better idea where you are, and you see the summary
of that directory in the details panel.


- 2023-12-25

- @Lithopsian contributed some very visible improvements to the treemap.
See [GitHub issue #236](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/236)
for details and lots of screenshots.

- The "Find Files" dialog now has a separate checkbox for symlinks.

- A new release is upcoming in the near future. It will be QDirStat 1.9.


- 2023-11-08

- It's SUSE Hack Week again where my employer SUSE sponsors a whole week of
innovative hacking for the whole company: Everybody can work on a favorite
project. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, my favorite project during
that time has almost always been QDirStat since I started it back in 2015.

Changes this time:

- A "find files" function in the in-memory tree. You can search for files
or directories or both with various options.

[<img width=300 src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/11538225/281489418-677302e2-50f6-4fae-9307-682e9ad22856.png">](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/11538225/281489418-677302e2-50f6-4fae-9307-682e9ad22856.png)

More screenshots at [GitHub issue #222](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/222).

The search results are presented in the same window that you might know
from the "Discover" actions (largest files, oldest files, broken symlinks
etc.). That means that you can move this results window out of the way
and select each of the results to see it in the main window with all
details.

Some time ago, that window also got support for cleanup options, so you
can use them there directly from the context menu or with keyboard
shortcuts.

Searching in the in-memory directory tree is lightning fast, and it's
flexible with all the search modes:

- Contains
- Starts with
- Ends with
- Wildcard
- Regexp

With just a tiny bit of customizing, that makes for a very flexible media
browser: I configured 'VLC' as one of the cleanup actions, and now I can
search through my video or music collection easily to find media files
where I only know a fraction of the title and start playing it right
away, directly from within QDirStat. Or open a file manager there. Or a
shell window. Or whatever else might come to mind.

This opens a lot of new possibilities. Use your imagination!

This is all still a bit rough around the edges, but it's already quite
workable.


- 2023-02-01

- New feature: Showing dominant items in the directory tree in bold font.
This may not sound spectacular, but it is immensely helpful to spot
disproportinally large directories or files. If you don't like it, you can
turn it off, of course.

Screenshots and more details at [GitHub issue #210](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/210).

- Bug fix: Now correctly showing the target of symlinks in the packages view.


- 2023-01-30

- Fixed sorting when directories have the same total allocated size, but a different byte size.
**Summary:**

- Greatly improved the visual appearance of the treemap thanks to @Lithopsian

- 2022-06-30 **New stable release: 1.8.1**
- Dominant (very large) items are now highlighted in bold font in the tree view

**Summary:**
- New "Find" function in the scanned directory tree

- New treemap interaction: Middle click in the treemap now highlights the
parent directories of the clicked item, and everything outside that branch
is dimmed.
- Added support for bookmarks

[<img width=300 src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/11538225/135117590-8a410ea7-847a-4b59-8c36-a2656aa63743.png">](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/11538225/135117590-8a410ea7-847a-4b59-8c36-a2656aa63743.png)
- New documentation to explain the treemap

- Some small improvements

- Bug fixes


**Details:**

- A middle click now outlines an item's parent, grandparent etc. directories
in the treemap.

Middle-click it again or click outside the highlighted area to remove the
highlight.

You can use the middle click pretty much like a left click, including
Shift- and Ctrl-click to extend the selection.

See [GitHub issue #181](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/181)
for a screenshot and more details.

- No longer drawing additional lines in the treemap by default if there is
low contrast between individual treemap tiles; that only makes the treemap
display uglier for little benefit.

You can still switch it on with the `EnforceContrast` setting in the config
file (`~/.config/QDirStat/QDirStat.conf`).

- Don't show inactive (unmounted) mounts managed by the automounter anymore
in the "Places and Mounted Filesystems" bar of the "Open Directory"
dialog.

Notice that those directories are still accessible from the tree at the
right side, but they no longer take a prominent place in the left bar.

- Prevent a hanging Samba (CIFS) or NFS mount from blocking the program, even
when no information from that mount is needed at all:

If you started QDirStat with a path on the command line, it collected the
information about used / free / reserved disk space for all mounted
filesystems already. If you had a network mount that didn't respond, you
still had to wait for a timeout before the program could continue.

Now it collects that information only when it's really needed:

- In the "Open Directory" dialog where it displays those sizes in the
"Places and Mounted Filesystems" bar on the left

- In the "Mounted Filesystems" (`du`-like) window (Menu "View" -> "Show
Mounted Filesystems").

- Now cutting off insanely long generated device names of LUKS devices in the
"Mounted Filesystems" window: E.g. `/dev/mapper/luks-3fae43...` instead of
`/dev/mapper/luks-3fae4328-4294-4c77-8f98-d437c41da26c`. The long name is
displayed in a tooltip.

- Added packed Git archives ("pack-*.pack") to the "Compressed Archives" MIME
category, i.e., they appear now in green in the treemap, no longer in the
"I don't know what that thing is" grey.

If you never changed your MIME type configuration, simply delete
`~/.config/QDirStat/QDirStat-mime.conf` (while QDirStat is _not_ running!)
to get this change; it will be regenerated with the new defaults upon the
next program start.


**Bug fixes:**

- Fixed [GitHub issue #184](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/184):
When reading a cache file, sparse files were displayed as "allocated: 0
Bytes".

- Fixed [GitHub issue #190](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/190):
MIME categories for overlapping suffixes

Files with multiple suffixes like `.tar.gz` were wrongly sorted into the
same MIME category as `.gz`. It did find the category for the longer one
(`.tar.gz`), but then it continued looking, resulting in the shortest
matching one (`.gz`). Now stopping at the longest hit.

- Now using `xdg-open %d` in KDE Plasma for the "Open File Manager Here"
standard cleanup action. This may help for
[GitHub issue #192](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/192),
yet still maintain the ability to use a powerful file manager like
_Konqueror_ (if that is configured), falling back to the standard
_Dolphin_.

- Improved BSD support ([GitHub issue #195](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/issues/195)):
If neither `/proc/mounts` nor `/etc/mtab` is available, fall back to
using `QStorageInfo` (if available; Qt 5.4 or later).

This returns a little less complete information; for example, only
rudimentary mount options which are used for some special cases.

- Bug fix for the "Packages" view for .deb / APT based systems: Now also list
packages that are on hold. They were previously missing.

See also the [release announcement](https://github.com/shundhammer/qdirstat/releases/tag/1.9).

------------

Expand All @@ -476,6 +179,23 @@ for older entries._
This is just a rough summary. For more details, see [DevHistory.md](doc/DevHistory.md).


- 2023-01-14 New stable release: 1.9

- Greatly improved the visual appearance of the treemap thanks to @Lithopsian

- Dominant (very large) items are now highlighted in bold font in the tree view

- New "Find" function in the scanned directory tree

- Added support for bookmarks

- New documentation to explain the treemap

- Some small improvements

- Bug fixes


- 2022-06-30 New stable release: 1.8.1

- New treemap interaction: Middle click in the treemap now highlights the
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