UI Cosmetics, Script Additions and Stability

User Interface Refinements

Beyond the core stability work, we’ve made subtle UI improvements:

• Scrollbar Appearance: Scrollbars are now always visible on macOS and Windows to offer a more consistent look with the operating system defaults.
• Banding Artifacts: The pattern used to minimize banding artifacts (a subtle visual artifact that can occur with color gradients) has been adjusted to be less noticeable.
• Window Resizing Artifacts: We're reducing visual artifacts that can appear around window edges while resizing the application window.

Addressing Stability and PSD File Handling

A significant portion of this update addresses stability improvements. We’re continuing to prioritize reliability, particularly around handling complex file types. We’ve identified and resolved several potential crash scenarios, including those triggered by:

• EXIF Data Handling: After encountering crash reports related to reading PSD files, we reviewed the handling of EXIF data. The crash issue for PSD files has been fixed by properly handling PSD files that contain two EXIF sections instead of just the usual one. Also, a secondary issue has been fixed, where certain EXIF fields, such as GPS coordinates, were ignored. The latter fix applies to both, PSD and JPEG-XL images.
• Library Management: Issues related to moving files and folders, particularly into year folders within the library, have been addressed. A crash that could occur when moving complex folder hierarchies has been eliminated, making large-scale organization tasks more reliable.
• System Standby & Hostnames: We’re tackling a range of low-level issues, including potential crashes when the system enters standby mode, and a fix for a possible crash relating to the use of non-ASCII hostnames on Windows. These fixes address edge cases that, while rare, were causing disruptions for some users.
• File Deletion During Search: We're also mitigating a potential crash when deleting files while a search operation is still in progress.

New Scripting APIs

We're expanding the scripting capabilities of Aspect with the introduction of rgbToHex, rgbaToHex, FileNode.getKeyColors, and FileNode.addKeywords. These new functions provide more direct access to file properties and allow for more complex automation workflows within Aspect. The getKeyColors function, for example, allows scripts to extract dominant colors from image files, opening up possibilities for automated tagging or color-based organization. These additions will be particularly useful for users who employ extensions or snippets for their photo management workflows.

As always, see the change log for the full list of changes.