Time Zone Handling and Synchronization Improvements · Release Candidate 47

Time Zone Handling Refined

Several changes address how Aspect manages time zones. The date/time adjustment dialog now defaults to preserving absolute time when you change time zones—meaning if you shot something at 14:00 in New York and switch to London time, it gets adjusted to say 19:00 rather than staying at 14:00. This behavior is far more useful when correcting for a camera clock that has not been adjusted on a trip across time zones.

In addition to this improvement, we've fixed underlying issues with how time zones were stored and interpreted. Previously, time zones in the metadata cache were rounded to whole hours, and mobile phone EXIF data wasn't always handled correctly. Also, the day-grouping in events was wrong in some cases where an event contained photos from multiple time zones.

There's also a fix for a synchronization bug where time zones were occasionally stored as "local" rather than a specific offset, which could cause mismatches between devices.

Synchronization Reliability and Performance

The filesystem synchronization process sees several practical improvements. Full file checksums are now computed during the image analysis phase, which speeds up the initial scan and allows to start working with newly detected files earlier. For those working with large libraries on NAS storage, scanning performance should be noticeably better.

More importantly, the library catalog now gets saved periodically during lengthy filesystem synchronization operations. Previously, a crash partway through could mean significant lost progress – particularly frustrating when importing large shoots.

Several smaller fixes address edge cases in this area: RAW/JPEG pairs now always respect your pairing preferences when new folders are scanned, cancelled filesystem synchronizations properly reveal any images that were already processed, and the progress indicator during the "applying changes" phase now actually displays file counts.

Interface Tweaks

The cursor now hides properly in full-screen view alongside the controls, behaving consistently with typical video players. The sidebar can now be expanded up to 400 pixels for those who want more metadata visible, and the library clone activity in the notification center shows progress rather than just a spinner.

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