Rather poetically, this C software in 2025 segfaults on launch. I would file a GitHub issue if this was open source, but alas, nope.
Are you running it inside a VM or Wine?
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File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
151–160 of 231 posts
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
What GUI framework did they use for this?
It was written from scratch with a custom OpenGL renderer (a DirectX port is in progress for Windows) and a custom IMGUI layer on top.
You mean all those complex UI stuff code is written in immediate GUI? How maintainable/readable is the resulting code?
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#153I once devoted 2 years of my life to developing a file manager called fman [1]. In total, it generated probably 35,000$ in profits, so my income from the project is somewhere around 10 $/h. As software developers, our opportunity costs are high. I use my file manager to this day and love it. But I regret spending so much time on it. Congratulations on your launch. I wish you more success than I've had. Failing that,…
Good to know, thanks for the insight. I was playing with the idea of creating a similar app, with more features and faster (in C++). I guess there is no much demand for modern NC clones, orthodox file managers. Btw, are the sales still going on?
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#154I once devoted 2 years of my life to developing a file manager called fman [1]. In total, it generated probably 35,000$ in profits, so my income from the project is somewhere around 10 $/h. As software developers, our opportunity costs are high. I use my file manager to this day and love it. But I regret spending so much time on it. Congratulations on your launch. I wish you more success than I've had. Failing that,…
Good to know, thanks for the insight. I was playing with the idea of creating a similar app, with more features and faster (in C++). I guess there is no much demand for modern NC clones, orthodox file managers. Btw, are the sales still going on?
I put it down to desktop utility apps being a very tough market because 1. they are time-consuming to develop and 2. people hate paying for desktop software. You already have several comments in this very thread from people complaining about the price:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43102477
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43099230
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43097749
Ah and yes, I'm still getting a handful of fman sales per month. But nowhere near enough to justify any time investment.
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#155It seems to require the actual windows explorer to be running. Which kinda negates its potential as a shell replacement.
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#156Please, I beg you dear developer, replace my stupid MacOS finder with your superpowers!
I don't think it's technically possible to even replace Finder. If you type "open ." in terminal, it will open in Finder. There is not an optional "set this as default" like browsers. Something we should really push Apple to do. Finder is trash.
It’s possible to get pretty close. For example, Forklift’s instructions (go to https://binarynights.com/manual, search for “Default File Viewer”) nearly replaces it, except you still have a Finder icon in the dock.
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
What GUI framework did they use for this?
It looks like WPF but isn't. Sibling comment suggests sui generis, which explains the tiny size and lack of dependencies. This does make it blindingly fast but makes the keymappings different from what you'd normally expect. Haven't tested annoying cases e.g. two monitors with different DPI. edit: report of poor CJK support https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43100494 ; Windows file system encoding is annoying becau…
I'm sorry, as I don't know.
I mean, I don't even know what you use to write "windows" applications anymore.
But are the stock frameworks that slow to justify rewriting the toolkit? I am under the impression that writing GUI toolkits was Hard.
Are there plans to make this cross platform?
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just hope Microsoft can do something like that with current Explorer app They can start by making explorer startup in less than 5 seconds. Let's face it, Microsoft devs don't care about performance and probably never will.
Explorer is slow because it's extensible. All the thumbnails and extra stuff in the context menu is what slows it down. There's some pathological cases like "opening a folder with an MP3 file in" which puts it into scanning all the files for ID3 tags. Fpilot is a great example of how it's possible to make something MUCH faster by limiting the feature set. (also some of the NTFS APIs are horribly slow for extended inf…
File Pilot supports explorer extensions... There's an actual animation showing it on the website. What do you mean by "limiting the feature set"?
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#159This is great indeed but IMO only tech nerds can really appreciate it. My son is 10 and he never really needs to deal with real files. Nowadays normal kids just go any given app to access their photos or docs or music or movies or really anything. The notion of copying a file has been replaced by sharing, renaming doesn't really exists when it comes to photos for example and folder structure (when available) is some…
Files will always exist conceptually as a way of expressing data. The notion of sharing exists because of sandboxing and the need to exchange data between apps. This has been extended beyond just apps to sharing between multiple users or endpoints. Actual file naming for some objects has been superseded by meta data and tagging because it provides a better way of describing the thing.
The goal has always been to pull file management away from users. Because they don't need to know or care how the internal data structures work. So yes, in a sense file management is trending towards more of a need to know basis.
Re: File Pilot: A file explorer built for speed with a modern, robust interface
#160I once devoted 2 years of my life to developing a file manager called fman [1]. In total, it generated probably 35,000$ in profits, so my income from the project is somewhere around 10 $/h. As software developers, our opportunity costs are high. I use my file manager to this day and love it. But I regret spending so much time on it. Congratulations on your launch. I wish you more success than I've had. Failing that,…
Hey, thanks! Yes, I know about Fman. I’ve tried pretty much all file explorers on Windows, a fair number on Linux, and fewer on macOS. I watched that video a couple of years ago, it had some nice insights. Thanks for sharing that.
I've been talking about File Pilot since the early days of the project, so I managed to build a following on Twitter and Discord, along with a decent number of email subscribers. I'm hoping that'll be enough to spread the word.
I'm sorry Fman didn't work out for you as a business. But truth be told, you need to deliver something exceptional to compete with established players. While I don't see other file explorer alternatives as direct competition, I do think File Pilot will bring a breath of fresh air. We'll see how it goes!