Changelog

SwiftMediaInfo v1.5

Workflow, Control & Performance Update

This release focuses on deeper macOS system integration, smarter workflow consolidation and impactful performance tuning under the hood. SwiftMediaInfo v1.5 makes inspecting media files faster, cleaner, and more customizable than ever before.

✨ New Features & Improvements

🖥️ Native macOS Integration

• Finder Context Menu Support: You can now right-click any media file in Finder and open it directly in SwiftMediaInfo! This makes inspecting files dramatically faster without needing to drag-and-drop or open the app first.

🎨 Animation & Visual Controls

• Animated Background Toggle: Added a user setting to easily enable or disable the animated gradient background, allowing you to opt for a static, ultra-clean aesthetic if preferred.
• Optimized Background Rendering: Reduced the background animation refresh rate to a highly efficient 10 FPS while increasing its movement speed by 3x. This keeps the Liquid Glass fluid motion looking incredibly vibrant and smooth while lowering CPU and battery usage.

⚙️ Smarter Workflow Consolidations

• Unified Open Action: Streamlined the main window interface by integrating the separate Open File and Open Folder buttons into a single, smart Open button.

🚀 Performance & Optimization

• Speed Optimizations: Tuned core application threads and file-parsing routines for faster startup and quicker media loading speeds.
• Under-the-Hood Code Cleanup: Performed a thorough audit of the codebase, purging unused files, legacy code, and redundant declarations to keep the project light, modular, and maintainable.

🛠 Fixes & Stability

• Included multiple stability improvements to prevent rare UI hangs.
• Resolved potential issues when attempting to read deeply nested folder structures.
• General bug fixes to ensure a seamless experience on macOS.

💎 Polish

SwiftMediaInfo v1.5 strikes the perfect balance between beauty and efficiency—giving you more control over your visual experience, reducing system resource overhead, and blending the application seamlessly into your daily macOS workflows.

SwiftMediaInfo v1.4

Visual Refresh & Homebrew Update

This release focuses on a major UI overhaul, usability improvements, workflow enhancements, official Homebrew availability, and overall polish. SwiftMediaInfo now features a modern Liquid Glass-inspired design, smarter workflow behavior, and numerous quality-of-life improvements throughout the application.

✨ New Features & Improvements

📦 Distribution & Installation

• Official Homebrew Cask: SwiftMediaInfo is now officially available via Homebrew! You can now install and update the app directly from your terminal.

🎨 Complete UI Refresh

• Reimagined the user interface with a modern Liquid Glass-inspired design.
• Added subtle transparency effects.
• Introduced a vibrant visual theme featuring violet, pink, blue, and green accent colors.
• Added smooth animations throughout the application for a more polished and responsive experience.
• Added an animated gradient background that adapts to the application's visual theme.

🖥️ Improved Workflow

• Window titles now display the currently opened file.

Example:

• SwiftMediaInfo → SwiftMediaInfo - video.mp4
• Added Recent Files support:
• Stores the last 10 opened files.
• Accessible from the File menu.
• Recent files are also displayed in the empty state for faster access.
• Added a Clear Recents option.
• The application now remembers the last selected view and restores it on launch instead of always defaulting to HTML View.

⚙️ User Experience Enhancements

• Increased the size of toolbar and view selection buttons for improved accessibility and usability.
• Added an MIT License button to the About window.
• Improved About window layout and sizing.

🚀 Performance & Optimization

• Animated backgrounds automatically pause when the application is not in focus, reducing unnecessary resource usage.
• Performed additional optimization, debugging, and quality assurance improvements throughout the application.

🛠 Fixes

• Fixed window title updates not reflecting the currently opened file.
• Fixed status bar metadata lookups for duration and bitrate information.
• Resolved multiple UI inconsistencies and visual issues.
• Fixed several minor bugs and stability issues.

💎 Polish

SwiftMediaInfo v1.4 represents the largest visual overhaul of the application so far, bringing a more modern macOS experience while maintaining the lightweight and native-first design philosophy of the project.

SwiftMediaInfo v1.3

This update focuses heavily on workflow improvements, Compare Mode enhancements, better export handling, improved compatibility, and major usability refinements across the app.

✨ New Features & Improvements

• Added GitHub repository shortcut in the Help menu.
• Added Open File and Open Folder options directly in the File menu.
• Added Open Folder button beside the Open File button.
• Added Open in Default App support, allowing files to instantly open in their associated applications.

• Videos → VLC / Infuse / other video players
• Audio → foobar2000 / music players
• Images → qView / Preview / image viewers
• Added keyboard shortcut for opening files in their default app:

• CMD + Return
• Added keyboard shortcut for entering Compare Mode:

• SHIFT + CMD + C
• Added full drag & drop support in Compare Mode with proper File A / File B targeting.
• Added swap/open other file controls for both File A and File B in Compare Mode.
• Added export improvements:

• Export specific Compare Mode content:

• File A
• File B
• Both
• Added Export All Formats as ZIP
• Exporting now automatically loads all required views before processing.
• Added proper handling for files with special characters and UTF-8 encoded filenames.
• Added support for opening files directly by dragging them onto the Dock icon.
• Added automatic MediaInfo detection:

• Displays warning if MediaInfo is missing
• Provides guided (1-click) installation flow using Homebrew
• Added MIT License for the project.

🎯 Easy View Improvements

Easy View now displays significantly more useful metadata information:

Video Section

• File Size
• Bitrate

Audio Section

• File Size
• Bitrate
• Sampling Rate (kHz)
• Audio Channels

Text Section

• File Size

General Section

• File Name

Additional Easy View improvements:

• Removed unnecessary type labels such as String
• Removed duplicate Stream Size entries in Image section
• Removed Duration entry from Text section
• Improved duration formatting and accuracy across sections

🛠 Fixes

• Fixed Compare Mode drag & drop inconsistencies.
• Fixed issues where certain files failed to open due to text-encoding problems.
• Fixed “Open in App” behavior with Infuse media player.
• Fixed application closing behavior when clicking the macOS close button.
• Added proper fallback message when MediaInfo produces no output:

• “No output from MediaInfo”
• Fixed various metadata parsing inconsistencies.
• Improved export reliability and stability.
• Fixed multiple UI and workflow edge cases across the app.

🧹 Refinements & Usability

• Added helpful notice indicating that Easy View does not support folders.
• Improved menu organization and workflow consistency.
• Improved Compare Mode usability and navigation.
• Further polished the native macOS experience throughout the app.

SwiftMediaInfo continues to focus on providing a modern, lightweight, and native macOS experience for MediaInfo users.

SwiftMediaInfo v1.2

This release introduces major usability improvements, a brand-new Compare Mode, additional viewing options, improved handling for large files, and several workflow enhancements.

✨ New Features & Improvements

• Added support for lazy loading, significantly improving performance when opening large files.
• Added a new Text View for simplified content viewing.
• Improved and redesigned the Raw Text View experience.
• Added a new Compare Mode with split-screen support, allowing users to compare two files side-by-side.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for Compare Mode:
• CMD + 1 (⌘1) → Add File A
• CMD + 2 (⌘2) → Add File B
• Added keyboard shortcuts for switching between views:
• CMD + 1 (⌘1) → Easy View
• CMD + 2 (⌘2) → Text View
• CMD + 3 (⌘3) → Raw Text View
• CMD + 4 (⌘4) → HTML View
• CMD + 5 (⌘5) → XML View
• CMD + 6 (⌘6) → JSON View
• Improved shortcut behavior so that CMD + 1 and CMD + 2 automatically switch to adding File A and File B while in Compare Mode.
• Added new Easter eggs alongside the existing hidden surprises.

🛠 Fixes

• Fixed issues related to opening large files.
• Improved overall stability and responsiveness.
• Fixed a few minor UI and rendering inconsistencies.

🎯 Refinements

• Further polished the viewing experience across all supported formats.
• Improved workflow efficiency with expanded keyboard shortcut support.

SwiftMediaInfo v1.1

This release focuses on improving usability, cleaning up unnecessary UI elements, and refining the viewing experience for high-resolution displays.

✨ Improvements

• Increased maximum zoom level to 400% for better readability on high-resolution and Retina displays.
• Updated toolbar icons and toolbar text size for improved clarity.
• Added a new keyboard shortcut for Export (CMD + E (or) ⌘E).
• Added a Light / Dark / System appearance toggle.
• Improved HTML view rendering.
• Updated the Easter egg.

🛠 Fixes

• Fixed an issue where opening a new file while another file was already open would fail.
• Fixed several HTML view rendering issues.
• Fixed a few additional minor bugs and stability issues.

🧹 Removed / Simplified

To keep the app focused and easier to use, few features that were rarely used or impractical have been removed:

• Removed Open Folder feature.
• Removed Sheet View option.
• Removed Tree View, which was redundant.

No notes for this release.