ForkLift – the most advanced file manager and FTP & SFTP client for mac

IMPORTANT UPDATE: We’re releasing the first important fix of the 1.5 beta. We received reports that the file list sometimes freezes, and will not refresh no matter what. We’ve now fixed that, and decided to release it right away. A great many thanks to our beta users for their contributions.

So, it’s time for you to find out what we’ve been up all these long and dark winter nights, and to tell us what you think of it.

ATTENTION: Bug reports will be rewarded with the feeling that you have done something useful to improve the software you are using

So where’s the download link already?… here you go, enjoy!

And a few words about the release: 1.5 of course is the Leopard version of ForkLift, but beyond that, it contains like a hundred new or modified features. Major parts of the code have been rewritten, workflows were redirected, and new parts of the OS have been incorporated. These being the first ones to come to mind:

>obviously, the beautiful new UI, thanks to Cocoa-master Mudi Dandan

> obviously, the new sidebar. The sidebar now lists shared volumes of the local network in a separate group item, and will also recognize the computers on the network just like Finder does (with the funny little PC icons et al). It also allows you to create Favorite Groups, and to edit Favorites directly from the context menu (does not support local favorites, only remote).

> there is now a single Connect panel (from the Go menu), which groups FTP/SFTP/WebDav/S3/Bluetooth connection functions. It also has an option to add a new connection directly to the Favorites.

> mudi rewrote some part of the copy engine – it should now be about 10 times (!) faster, as FL can now use multiple channels for moving data. The improvement will affect all copy operations, over FTP, SFTP, S3, bluetooth, etc. It means ForkLift is now one of the fastest ftp clients on earth. A Word Press upgrade that took us 60 seconds now takes a mere 6 secs!

> the new copy engine also fixed a problem that was reported by many users. Namely, that copying a folder to a remote filesystem where a folder with the same name already existed wiped the original folder, instead of merging the contents of the two folders. As we have explained, this was not a bug, but we did give some thought to the problem, and found out that it’s not an impossible request. So FL will now ask you if you want to replace or merge the directories – please test this very thoroughly, as strange filenames, foreign character sets etc can still give us some surprises.

> the new preview panel is just great. It can be resized to any size, it is capable to display pdfs, and it now reads Spotlight comments as well.

> thanks to mudi, you also have Quick Look in FL. just hit [space] as in Finder

> running tasks are now grouped in a single activity window

> on top of each panel, you will now see a path browser to help navigating within the selected volumes. double clicking anywhere in the path navigator will jump to the given folder.

> we’ve reviewed and corrected the menu items and panel texts. should be nice an clean now

> if you’re attentive enough, you will have noted the new application icon. Thanks bubu for the nice 3D job. There are also a couple of new toolbar icons.

> you can now rename folders and files directly by clicking the file/folder name, like in Finder

FIXES:

> bluetooth null connection error now fixed
> slow copy bug on local copy of large amount of files now fixed
> filters did not work on extensions, fixed
> type ahead bug on localized folders is now fixed
> bug where drag and drop did not work into empty folders is now fixed
> droplet growl support is now fixed

IMPORTANT: Droplets created with 1.2 may no longer work once 1.5 BETA was installed.

Well, I hope we have everything there.
The BETA period will end on February 29.

PLEASE use our support page to report all bugs, and reserve the blog for non-technical comments only. Don’t forget to select the 1.5 BETA option when submitting your bugreports.

Thanks to all for your help in testing this beta.

Good nights everybody.

BinaryNights