PCManFM 0.9 Alpha is released!

[bmarkus]

After a long waiting, new first public test version of next generation PCManFM was published. The official annoncement:

After endless waiting, here comes the first public tarball release of next generation PCManFM.
But don’t expect too much. This is an Alpha release. :-)
Everybody loves screenshots. This is PCManFM 0.9.0 alpha running under LXDE with its desktop manager turned on.

There will be 1.0, but before it become stable enough for production use, let’s call it 0.9.

Actually, 0.9.0 is not a new version of PCManFM. It is a whole new total rewrite and redesign from scratch. So its code base is totally different from the old PCManFM 0.5.x series.

Major improvements:

   1. Have GIO/GVFS support but “still keep original speed” and memory usage is still acceptable
   2. Seamless remote filesystem access such as sftp and smb (provided by gvfs)
   3. Trash can (provided by gvfs)
   4. Much better designed configuration dialogs
   5. Much better thumbnail support
   6. Better wallpaper handling
   7. Better drag and drop handling and also support X direct save
   8. Basic auto-mount (provided by gvfs)
   9. Better application chooser based on applications menu installed on the dsektop system
  10. The core part is moved to a separate lib called libfm, which can be used by other programs
  11. Much better structure of source code, so future hacking is easier
  12. Better configurability
  13. and more…

Please give it heavy tests. This will be the default file manager in next generation LXDE.
So quality and usability are extremely important.

I just created a .tcz and it works. If there is an interest to test I will submit it. It would help developer to fix bugs.

[althalus]

I see there basic automount support - Automount without HAL dependency? If so, I'm interested in playing with it.

[bmarkus]

I see there basic automount support - Automount without HAL dependency? If so, I'm interested in playing with it.

Automount is there and it works !

[Kingdomcome]

I'd like to give it a try and more testers are good, please submit.  Have you thought of a way to integrate into LXDE easily beside the current pcmanfm extension or will there need to be a little hacking on our part?

[bmarkus]

I'd like to give it a try and more testers are good, please submit.  Have you thought of a way to integrate into LXDE easily beside the current pcmanfm extension or will there need to be a little hacking on our part?

You can replace PCManFM 0.5 with the new 0.9 in LXDE easily and it works. Just edit the lxsession config file in ~ and replace pcmanfm with pcmanfm2

When used with LXDE it appears in a normal window which can be closed, while you can't do that with the current stable. Otherwise it works. It is an alpha release.

I'm playing a bit and testing the dependency list. Will submit in few days.

[bmarkus]

Now it is in the repo. As it is an alpha test version, no WBAR or menu item added, but it comes with a freedesktop menu entry, so you will find it in Xfce4/LXDE menu. No any TC customization made, just a plain compilation and packing.

One important notice!!!

New PCManFM is using GVFS, a userspace virtual filesystem which is not available at the moment on TC, therefor many exciting features are not enabled. I will try to add GVFS to TC but it will take some time to create and most likely more to adjust properly. Anyhow, you can play with pcmanfm2 w/O GVFS.

[bmarkus]

I'd like to give it a try and more testers are good, please submit.  Have you thought of a way to integrate into LXDE easily beside the current pcmanfm extension or will there need to be a little hacking on our part?

You can replace PCManFM 0.5 with the new 0.9 in LXDE easily and it works. Just edit the lxsession config file in ~ and replace pcmanfm with pcmanfm2

When used with LXDE it appears in a normal window which can be closed, while you can't do that with the current stable. Otherwise it works. It is an alpha release.

I'm playing a bit and testing the dependency list. Will submit in few days.

I was wrong. Command parameters changed, to start in desktop mode:

pcmanfm2 --desktop

In this case you can't close program.