v2.4.1

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.4.1

Release Date: June 20, 2026

Bug-fix release for Canon CR2/CR3 (and similar RAW) orientation and capture-date handling, plus memory safety on relaunch when session restore reopens a large folder. Treats gallery mixed orientation, single-image rotation, and out-of-memory on restart as separate issues.

Gallery — mixed portrait / landscape thumbnails

Some users saw some vertical shots correct and others sideways in the gallery after upgrading to v2.4. That pattern usually means old cached thumbnails or EXIF rows (from before v2.4 orientation fixes) sitting beside freshly warmed ones — not only a live warm-up clash (semantic vs gallery indexing, addressed in v2.4).

What's fixed in 2.4.1:

• EXIF cache validation — Persisted orientation is checked against LibRaw flip and embedded-JPEG orientation; stale orientation=1 rows for portrait Canon RAW are rejected and re-extracted.
• Cache version bump (sensor_meta_ver 9) — Forces refresh of outdated EXIF metadata on upgrade.
• Thumbnail load repair — When a cached gallery thumbnail's pixels don't match container orientation, it is corrected or dropped instead of reused.

If thumbnails still look wrong once: Run scripts/Launch/shell/clear_cache.sh (macOS) or clear_cache.bat (Windows), then reopen the folder. This clears mixed old/new cache in one step.

Single-image view — rotation unlike gallery

Gallery and single view used different preview paths: gallery favored embedded JPEG previews (with EXIF transpose); opening from gallery could force immediate full LibRaw decode with wrong container orientation on Canon CR2/CR3.

What's fixed in 2.4.1:

• Same preview pipeline — RAW thumbnails prefer LibRaw's embedded JPEG segment; byte-scan fallbacks apply container orientation after decode.
• Gallery → single — No longer skips straight to full-resolution LibRaw; uses the same progressive preview → full decode path as normal navigation.
• Unified orientation lookup — Single view uses EXIFExtractor (LibRaw flip + embedded JPEG), not header-only exifread alone.
• Canon CR2/CR3 metadata — When exifread returns sparse tags, pyexiv2 fills in orientation and DateTimeOriginal (also improves capture-date sorting).

Memory — relaunch / session restore (macOS & Windows)

On 8–16 GB machines, closing RAWviewer and reopening it could restore the last folder and file while full-resolution decode, neighbor prefetch, and AI/metadata indexing all started in the same second — sometimes killing the app (macOS jetsam, exit 137) or freezing Windows under heavy paging.

What's fixed in 2.4.1:

• Staged session restore — After the first preview paints, full decode for the current image waits ~2.5 s, then neighbor prefetch waits ~0.8 s more. Normal folder open and gallery navigation are unchanged.
• Preview vs full cache tiers — Full-resolution embedded JPEGs are stored separately from the smaller preview tier used for fit-to-window, reducing peak RAM during upgrades.
• macOS memory stats fallback — On newer macOS kernels where psutil fails, RAM tier and cache pressure use sysctl + vm_stat instead of a fake 50% value.

What you might notice after relaunch: Fit view may stay on a fast preview for a few seconds before full quality; arrow-key navigation to the next file may be slightly slower for the first ~3 s. Space / double-click zoom to 100% still requests full resolution immediately.

If relaunch still fails on low RAM: Use Lite, set RAWVIEWER_DISABLE_SESSION_RESTORE=1, or temporarily disable semantic search — see README troubleshooting.

Tuning (optional):

Variable	Default	Effect
RAWVIEWER_SESSION_RESTORE_DEFER_PRELOAD	1	Staged heavy loads after session restore
RAWVIEWER_SESSION_RESTORE_FULL_DECODE_DELAY_MS	2500	Delay before full decode on relaunch
RAWVIEWER_SESSION_RESTORE_PRELOAD_DELAY_MS	800	Extra delay before neighbor prefetch
RAWVIEWER_DISABLE_SESSION_RESTORE	0	Skip restoring last folder on launch

Recommended test after upgrade

1. Optional but best: clear_cache.sh once (orientation cache refresh).
2. Open a folder of Canon (or other) portrait RAWs — gallery should be consistent.
3. Click into single view — direction should match the gallery; full quality loads in the background.
4. Relaunch test: Close RAWviewer, reopen the same session on a large RAW folder — app should stay up; check logs for [SESSION] Deferring heavy loads until first paint.

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v2.4

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.4

Release Date: June 19, 2026

Highlights — new in 2.4

• RAWviewer Lite — A lighter edition for fast browsing and culling: smaller download, no AI model install, and gallery search by camera, ISO, date, GPS, and filename. On Windows, pick Lite in the installer; on Mac, use RAWviewer-v2.4-macOS-Lite.zip.
• One Windows installer — RAWviewer_Setup.exe is all you need. In the wizard, choose Full (CUDA), Full (DirectML), or Lite — no more hunting for separate setup files.
• Drag photos out — Drag a gallery thumbnail or a film-strip thumb to Explorer, Finder, Mail, WhatsApp (where supported), Lightroom, or any app that accepts files. Select several gallery photos first and drag once to export them all.
• Composition guides — Press G in single-image view to cycle overlays: rule of thirds, diagonals, or phi grid — handy for checking framing while you cull.
• Bookmarks — Star keepers per folder; filter the gallery to bookmarked shots only; share or slideshow your picks; works with gallery search (see below).
• Release highlights image — The GitHub release includes a new visual summary of v2.4 so you can see what's new at a glance before you download.

Introducing RAWviewer Lite

Lite is RAWviewer without the AI search engine — built for photographers who want the same fast viewer, gallery, and culling workflow, but prefer a smaller install and snappier loading over plain-language search.

What you keep (same as Full):

• Open folders of RAW and JPEG, gallery grid, film strip, fit / 100% zoom, histogram, focus overlay, composition guides (G)
• Drag photos out to Explorer, Finder, Mail, or your editor
• Bookmarks, Discard folder, keyboard shortcuts
• Gallery search by metadata — camera, lens, ISO, date, city, filename, and more (e.g. camera:sony iso<800)

What Lite leaves out:

• Semantic (AI) search — you can't type sunset on beach and have the app guess meaning; use metadata filters or your eyes instead
• Face-based filters — no has:face / people style queries
• AI model download — no ~600 MB (Windows) or ~150 MB (Mac) model install

Why Lite feels faster and uses less disk:

• No background AI indexing eating CPU, GPU, and RAM while you browse
• Tuned prefetch so the next photos in the gallery and film strip load sooner when you scroll or arrow through a folder
• Smaller app footprint (~500 MB install vs ~1.5 GB+ for Full after models)

How to get Lite: On Windows, choose Lite in RAWviewer_Setup.exe. On Mac, download RAWviewer-v2.4-macOS-Lite.zip. Already on Full? You can install Lite side by side — they don't share the same shortcut name.

Not sure which to pick? Lite if you cull by eye and search by camera/date/location. Full if you want to describe photos in everyday words or filter by faces.

Bookmarks

• Mark keepers per folder — Press ↑ to toggle. In single view, click the star on the bottom-right bar too.
• Single-image view — White star = bookmarked; outline star = not bookmarked. Click the star or press ↑ to toggle either way.
• Gallery — Star badges on thumbnails and in the film strip. ↑ toggles the current selection; with multiple thumbnails selected (Ctrl/Cmd+click, Shift+click), ↑ or the bottom star toggles all selected photos at once.
• Bookmark-only gallery — In gallery view, click the outline star (nothing selected) to show bookmarked photos only (star turns gold). Click again or press Esc to return to the full grid. With thumbnails selected, the star toggles bookmarks (same as ↑).
• Search + bookmarks — Search still runs on the whole folder; the bookmark filter narrows what you see. Turn off the filter to see all search matches; clear search with the filter still on to see every bookmark.
• Share / Open — In single view, opens or shares the current photo. In gallery, the button appears when you multi-select photos or when bookmark filter is on. With filter on and nothing selected, it targets all visible bookmarked photos.
• Slideshow — Play button in gallery and single view. In bookmark-filter mode, slideshow cycles bookmarked photos only.
• Esc order (gallery) — Clears multi-select first, then exits bookmark filter (before leaving gallery from single view).
• Persistence — Bookmarks are saved per folder locally and restored when you reopen that folder.

Improvements & fixes

• Portrait photos look right — Gallery thumbnails and the film strip no longer show vertical shots sideways or "twisted twice."
• Smoother on huge folders (especially Mac) — Large libraries scroll more reliably; the app eases off when your Mac is busy instead of freezing.
• Gallery multi-select — Ctrl+click (Windows) or Cmd+click (Mac) to pick photos; Shift+click for a range (follows visible gallery order, including search and bookmark filter). Works with drag-out and the bottom Share / Open bar.

Gallery & everyday workflow

• Multi-select — Ctrl/Cmd+click toggles a thumbnail on or off; Shift+click selects a continuous range (great for picking a burst or a run of keepers).
• Drag out — One thumbnail drags one file; a multi-selection drags every selected file together.
• No accidental re-open — Dragging a photo from RAWviewer and dropping it back on the window no longer opens it again.
• Search while indexing — Progress messages stay clearer; Lite won't pretend AI search is ready when only metadata has finished indexing.

Portrait orientation

• Vertical RAW and JPEG shots appear upright in the gallery grid and film strip.
• Cached thumbnails from older versions are refreshed when needed — run clear_cache once if you still see old sideways previews.

Large libraries (Mac)

• Better behavior when a folder has thousands of photos — less stutter, fewer "system busy" moments.
• Background search/indexing pauses while you scroll the gallery and picks up again when you stop.
• On 8 GB Macs, the app stays conservative; on 16 GB+ machines it can work a bit harder automatically.

Drag & drop

• Gallery: Drag one thumbnail, or drag while several are selected to export all of them.
• Filmstrip: Drag the active strip thumbnail the same way.
• Drop in (unchanged): Drag a folder or image onto the window to open it in RAWviewer.

Install & uninstall

• Windows install: Unified RAWviewer_Setup.exe — choose Full (CUDA / DirectML) or Lite in the wizard; launch RAWviewer.exe (not Setup) after install. Default folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\RAWviewer.
• Windows uninstall: Settings → Apps → RAWviewer → Uninstall, or uninstall.bat in the install folder. Removes the app, %USERPROFILE%\.rawviewer_cache, and %LOCALAPPDATA%\RAWviewer logs/tiles. Set RAWVIEWER_UNINSTALL_FULL=1 before uninstall.bat to also clear saved preferences.
• macOS install: Extract release zip → bash install_macos_app.sh (see Start Here.txt in the zip). Copies the app to Applications and clears download quarantine.
• macOS uninstall: Release zips include uninstall_macos_app.sh and Uninstall RAWviewer.command — removes Applications copies, ~/.rawviewer_cache, logs, and preferences. Keep the zip (or re-download) to run uninstall later; Trash alone does not clear cache.
• Documentation: README, Start Here.txt, and scripts/Launch/README.md updated with install/uninstall steps and an uninstall-vs-clear_cache table for both platforms.

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v2.3.2

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.3.2

Release Date: June 7, 2026

Installer and in-app MobileCLIP download UX — real byte progress, clearer Hugging Face messaging, and documentation for model size and first-time download times.

🪟 Windows installer

• Live model download progress: The ~600 MB Hugging Face download maps to 5–100% on the installer progress bar (no longer stuck at 75%); short status lines avoid truncated UI text.
• Byte-level reporting: download_mobileclip_onnx.py streams @RAWVIEWER_PROGRESS lines parsed by the bootstrap installer.
• Optional faster downloads: Set a HF_TOKEN environment variable before setup if you use a Hugging Face account (inherits into the download subprocess).

🔍 Semantic search (all platforms)

• In-app download progress in search field: After you click Download, progress appears as Downloading... N% in the gallery search bar (same place as Metadata/Semantic/Face indexing), with byte-level updates on macOS Core ML downloads.
• Shared progress helpers: New mobileclip_download_progress.py used by installer scripts, bootstrap, and the main app.

📖 Documentation

• README and release notes clarify models come from Hugging Face (~600 MB on Windows), and first download may take longer without a Hugging Face account.

v2.3.1

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.3.1

Release Date: June 7, 2026

Focus overlays, RAW ↔ embedded-JPEG workflow, faster gallery indexing, background update checks, Windows installer stability, and macOS release packaging (Terminal install, in-app MobileCLIP download, SSL fix).

🔔 Release updates

• Background check on launch: Once per app start, RAWviewer quietly compares your version to the latest GitHub release (offline or unreachable → no UI).
• MD3 update prompt: When a newer release is available, a styled dialog shows your version vs the latest tag and offers Open Download Page or Not Now.
• Respectful snooze: Not Now hides the prompt for 14 days for that release; a newer release tag will notify you again sooner.
• Opt out: Set RAWVIEWER_SKIP_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to disable the check entirely.

🎯 Focus overlay (F)

• Broader maker AF: Nikon NEF (AFInfo2, image-height fallback), Olympus ORF (AFPointSelected, AFFocusArea / AFSelectedArea), Panasonic RW2 (AFPointPosition, including decimal /1024 form), and refined Canon EOS point placement (center origin, Y-up).
• Brand guide: README documents which formats support maker-note AF vs CIPA SubjectArea only (e.g. Fujifilm RAF, Hasselblad 3FR, typical Adobe DNG, Pentax PEF, Samsung SRW, Sigma X3F).

🖼️ Viewing

• RAW ↔ JPEG workflow (single view): One-click toggle on the bottom bar — embedded JPEG (fast) vs full RAW decode (high quality); switching clears display caches and reloads the current file. Shown in single view only, not in gallery grid.
• Snappier RAW navigation: Bidirectional embedded-JPEG prefetch (default radius 6), focus-anchored zoom when upgrading resolution.
• RAW zoom fix: Space and double-click reach 100% zoom reliably on RAW when fit-to-window state was out of sync (Ctrl+scroll already worked).

🛠️ Gallery & navigation

• Cleaner libraries: Composite DNG panoramas (e.g. Lightroom/Photoshop HDR stitches) are hidden from the gallery and navigation lists.
• Scroll-friendly indexing: Background metadata and semantic indexing pause while you scroll the gallery and resume after idle, keeping large folders responsive.

🔍 Semantic search & indexing

• Gallery thumbnail reuse: Semantic warm-up reuses paths already in ImageCache (preview/grid tiers from loaded tiles), cutting duplicate RAW decodes during indexing.
• Faster neural pass: Auto-tuned MobileCLIP batch size on your GPU/CPU for higher indexing throughput.
• Safer setup: Incomplete ONNX installs report a clear reinstall hint instead of failing silently.

🪟 Windows installer & launch

• Clearer release filenames: RAWviewer_Setup_DirectML.exe (recommended) and RAWviewer_Setup_CUDA.exe replace the old single-file names.
• Dedicated app launcher: Install folder RAWviewer.exe is a small stub that starts the app; RAWviewer_Setup.exe in the same folder is for repair/reinstall only.
• More reliable setup: Pixi and MobileCLIP downloads retry on failure with clearer network/disk/proxy errors; canceling setup removes incomplete install folders; welcome page text simplified (no Ctrl+Shift+O / disk-space hints).
• MobileCLIP optional at install: If AI models fail during setup, browsing still works; download them later from gallery Search (MD3 prompt + in-dialog progress, same style as macOS).
• Uninstall fixes: Settings → Apps and uninstall.bat work on Win11; a confirmation message appears when removal finishes.
• Shortcuts button: Status-bar i opens the keyboard-shortcuts dialog (not just a tooltip).

🍎 macOS

• Release zip: RAWviewer-v2.3.1-macOS.zip (~82 MB); minimum macOS 13.0; bundles scipy (GPS reverse geocoding) and pyexiv2. MobileCLIP models are not in the zip.
• Terminal install: Extract the zip, then bash install_macos_app.sh in the extracted folder (see README).
• In-app model download: When the user opens gallery search, the app prompts to download MobileCLIP (~150 MB, one-time, needs internet). No download prompt on app startup.
• HTTPS / SSL fix: Packaged app bundles certifi CA certificates and configures SSL before Hugging Face / tokenizer downloads, fixing [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] on fresh installs.
• Dock — single app icon: LibRaw process pool off by default (PyInstaller runtime hook + spawn-safe startup); opt in with RAWVIEWER_USE_PROCESS_POOL=1 (may bring back extra Dock entries).
• Startup splash: Dismisses automatically when the main window is ready (no extra click).
• Gallery search crash (macOS 26+): NSTextField autocomplete disabled on the search field (including after focus and wake-from-sleep) to avoid ViewBridge / SPCompletionListServiceViewController aborts under Qt 6.11.

🏗️ Build

• Removed unused mediapipe from Windows build.py dependencies (face detection uses YuNet ONNX).
• macOS SSL bundling: PyInstaller collects certifi and runs an SSL runtime hook for HTTPS downloads in the packaged app.

📄 Docs

• README: focus-overlay brand guide, macOS version support table, Setup vs launcher exe, DirectML recommendation, Terminal install, gallery-search model download, uninstall, and troubleshooting.

v2.2

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.2

Release Date: June 5, 2026

Unified 2.2 release — search, gallery, film strip, frameless window polish, RAW loading consistency, indexing improvements, and macOS share behavior aligned with Qt6.

🎯 What's New

• Search from single-image view: Search button in single view; submitting a query switches to gallery with filtered results.
• Fast single-file open: Opening one image no longer waits for full folder scan and EXIF sort on large libraries.
• Windows — Open with another app: Native picker via OpenAs_RunDLLW / SHOpenWithDialog with OAIF_EXEC for Lightroom, Photoshop, etc., directly exposed in the bottom bar via the Share button (bypasses dropdown for instant editing selection).
• macOS — Share (single image): Bottom-bar share in single view uses a Qt menu of NSSharingService targets (Mail, Messages, …). AirDrop is hidden from the menu by default; use Finder for reliable AirDrop (see docs/macos-sharing-v21-v22.md).
• Experimental GPU single-image view: Opt in with RAWVIEWER_GPU_VIEW=1 for smoother zoom/pan on supported hardware (classic scroll area remains the default).
• Consistent RAW color (fit ↔ zoom): Single-image RAW defaults to LibRaw half-res for fit view and full decode at 100% zoom (RAWVIEWER_LIBRAW_CONSISTENT_PREVIEW=1), avoiding embedded-JPEG color snap. Gallery thumbnails still use fast embedded previews.
• Unified EXIF dual-backend: Metadata routes through metadata_backend — fast header reads for RAW, optional pyexiv2 for JPEG/TIFF (RAWVIEWER_EXIF_BACKEND=auto).
• Frameless window resize (Windows): Drag any window edge (including top strip and bottom-right grip) to resize; gallery scrollbar keeps original 24px / 6px padding with a non-layout overlay for right-edge grip.

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

Search & gallery

• Search → gallery navigation: Clicking a search result opens the correct image; film strip and arrow keys stay within filtered results.
• Gallery refresh after EXIF sort: Gallery auto-updates when background capture-time refinement completes.
• Gallery thumbnails: Click handler uses the widget’s current path so reordered/filtered grids navigate correctly.
• Search panel UI: Collapsing the search field no longer shifts nearby status-bar icons; fixed width jump when clearing the query.
• Search indexing UX: No flash of stale Semantic/Face X/10 progress after search completes; session-aware index status.
• Semantic indexing: Skip duplicate RAW companion files when writing to the index; resolved progress bar resets by scaling progress between thumbnail warming (10%) and MobileCLIP neural pass (90%); prevented brief double-count displays by filtering duplicate companion files in start fallbacks.

Film strip & rotation

• Film strip animation: Smooth fade-in/out when revealing or dismissing the single-image thumbnail strip; extended bottom hot zone.
• Film strip hover: Tuned show delays (350ms / 120ms direct) with prefetch so the strip feels responsive without flicker.
• Film strip sync: Fixed phantom selection, recursion on hover, and sync to search-filtered lists instead of the full folder.
• Rotation consistency: Non-destructive rotation stays aligned across single view, film strip, and gallery after R or arrow navigation.

Performance & image pipeline

• Butter-smooth gallery scroll: Faster scroll-speed detection and throttled prefetch during fast scrolling.
• Fast-open / EXIF refinement: Parallel capture-time probing, gated gallery EXIF sort, viewport scroll anchor on manual sort, instant gallery button when sort cache is warm.
• GPU navigation: Smoother gallery→single transitions and priority full-resolution decodes; 27% zoom race fix.
• CPU downscaling: Replaced LANCZOS with HAMMING for thumbnail downscales (faster, cleaner edges on CPU).
• GPU viewport scaling: Experimental GPU view uses hardware-accelerated scaling where enabled.
• GPU single-view navigation: Arrow keys and film strip keep the previous frame visible until the next buffer is ready; prefetched preview/full caches paint immediately; thumbnail-only stages are skipped during in-folder navigation to reduce flicker.
• GPU fit ↔ 100% zoom: Space and double-click now reach true 100% on the first action on RAW (fixes stale fit-mode flag showing ~fit% until a second toggle); resolution upgrades no longer undo an active 100% zoom.
• Resolution crossfade (optional): Smoother preview→full upgrades in single view (RAWVIEWER_RESOLUTION_CROSSFADE_MS, default 280; set RAWVIEWER_DISABLE_CROSSFADE=1 to disable).
• Idle display prefetch: Neighbor images warm preview/full buffers while browsing (RAWVIEWER_IDLE_DISPLAY_PREFETCH, RAWVIEWER_NAV_PRELOAD_*).
• Multi-core RAW postprocess: Process pool for LibRaw when RAWVIEWER_USE_PROCESS_POOL=1 (default on 4+ cores).
• Progressive RAW load: Optional embedded-first path via RAWVIEWER_PROGRESSIVE_RAW_LOAD=1 (off by default).

Platform & docs

• macOS share under Qt6: Default dev/shipping path uses Qt menu + performWithItems_; picker fallback and AirDrop/Finder behavior documented in docs/macos-sharing-v21-v22.md.
• Folder sort: Production uses EXIF / probe / birth / mtime only; Windows Shell DateTaken POC removed.
• clear_cache.bat / clear_cache.sh: Full dev/session reset; repo-root clear_cache.bat forwards to scripts/Launch/bat/clear_cache.bat.
• Windows share helper (sources retained): .NET WindowsShareHelper.exe for WinRT share in dev builds.
• Launch scripts: macOS build/test workflow in scripts/Launch/README.md; version aligned to 2.2 across build.py, pixi.toml, and QApplication.
• Environment: activation.env with PYTHONNOUSERSITE=1 to prevent global package leaks and splash issues.

v2.1

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.1.0

Release Date: May 28, 2026

🎯 What's New

• Film strip (single-image view): Bottom thumbnail strip on pointer hover; dismisses when leaving the strip or entering the status bar.
• Windows guided installer: Run RAWviewer.exe to install into a folder you choose, provision Python dependencies and AI models on first setup, and get Desktop / Start Menu shortcuts—replacing loose zip-style drops with a clearer install, launch, and uninstall flow (uninstall.bat in the install folder).

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

• Installer model download: Added requests to Pixi dependencies so huggingface_hub can download MobileCLIP ONNX models on first install (no HF account required for public models).
• Indexing stability: Stronger RAW thumbnail fallbacks, skip permanently unindexable files, conservative face-scan warm-up defaults, clearer progress phases.
• Delete confirmation dialog: Centered on the main window using global coordinates.
• Face detection threshold: YuNet / SSD confidence raised to 0.75 (fewer false positives).
• Dependencies: pixi.toml is the source of truth; legacy requirements.txt removed.
• Docs: Pixi-first build instructions, minimum macOS 13 for prebuilt releases.

Includes fixes from 2.0.1 (Pixel DNG, gallery aspect ratio, DNG single-view zoom).

v2.0.1

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.0.1

Release Date: May 23, 2026

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

• Google Pixel DNG Support: Fixed critical crashes in the QImageReader and EXIFExtractor fallbacks that prevented Google Pixel DNG files from rendering on macOS.
• Gallery Aspect Ratio Fix: Fixed a bug where thumbnail crops were improperly bypassed, ensuring that all gallery tiles now correctly display cropped square previews without distorted aspect ratios or zoomed-in glitches.

v2.0

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 2.0.0

Release Date: May 7, 2026
🎯 What's New

• Local Semantic Search: Cross-platform natural-language gallery search. Harness the power of MobileCLIP (Core ML on macOS, ONNX on Windows) to rank images by meaning (e.g., "sunny landscape" or "vintage portrait").
• Structured Metadata Filters: Powerful new query syntax to narrow by camera:, lens:, iso:, ext:, and more.
• Slideshow Mode: Automatic hands-free playback of your photos with adjustable intervals.
• macOS Native Share: Integration with the native macOS share sheet for instant sending via Mail, AirDrop, or Messages.
• High-Fidelity Rendering: New LANCZOS resampling and 2x JPEG oversampling for razor-sharp display on 4K and Retina screens.
• Native macOS & Windows Shell Integration: Improved Windows shell verbs and deep Finder/Explorer compatibility.
• Non-Destructive Rotation: Instantly rotate any image (including RAW) by 90° steps visually without modifying the original file.
• Massive Location Intelligence: Added ~150+ world cities to the GPS contradiction filter and improved multi-word place detection (e.g., "Hong Kong").
• Precision Focus Overlays: Added focus point visualization using MakerNote data for Canon, Nikon, and Sony.

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

• High-Quality RAW Fallback: Automatically triggers high-quality "fast RAW decode" for files with poor-quality embedded previews.
• Performance Hardening: Refactored UnifiedImageProcessor to open RAW files exactly once, drastically reducing Disk I/O.

⌨️ Keyboard & Gesture Map

• Space / Double-click: Toggle between "Fit to Window" and 100% zoom.
• Pinch-to-Zoom: Smoothly zoom in/out via trackpad or Ctrl+Scroll Wheel.
• Left / Right Arrow: Navigate between images (preserves zoom level).
• Down Arrow: Move current image to "Discard" folder.
• Delete: Remove the current image.
• H / F: Toggle Histogram / Focus Subject outlines.

v1.6.0

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 1.6.0

Release Date: April 28, 2026
🎯 What's New

• macOS Native Integration: The application can now be set as the default viewer for images and RAW files on macOS. Added support for handling FileOpen events to instantly display files opened from Finder.
• Seamless pinch-to-zoom support for Mac and Windows trackpads
• Improved large-folder gallery behavior, a cacheless-by-default mode, faster non-RAW thumbnail decoding, and polished single-image UI controls.

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

• Pinch-to-Zoom: Smoothly zoom in and out of images using the native two-finger pinch gesture on Mac trackpads, and precision touchpads on Windows (or via Ctrl+Scroll Wheel).
• Smart Cursor Anchoring: Zooming naturally anchors to the current cursor position, matching the expected behavior of modern macOS applications like Apple Photos.
• Smart Zoom Gesture: Double-tap with two fingers to instantly toggle between "Fit to Window" and 100% zoom.
• Boundary Limits: Maximum zoom is capped at 100% to ensure smooth performance, and zooming out is neatly bounded to the "Fit to Window" size.
• Live Percentage: The status bar actively displays the precise zoom percentage in real-time as you pinch.
• Reduced EXIF Re-Reads: Orientation lookup now checks memory cache first to reduce repeated EXIF reads.
• Faster Non-RAW Thumbnail Path: Standard image thumbnails now use QImageReader.setScaledSize() for faster decode at target size.
• Robust Embedded JPEG Fallback: Improved fallback scanning logic for embedded previews when RAW decode paths fail.
• Single-Pass Gallery Rebuilds: Removed duplicate gallery rebuild/cleanup work that could slow large folders and make thumbnail updates appear unstable.
• EXIF-Aware Gallery Ordering: Gallery can refresh ordering after background EXIF capture-time extraction, while keeping the UI responsive during the initial load.
• Current Image Positioning: Switching from single image view back to gallery now scrolls to the current image instead of starting from the beginning.
• Gallery Total Count: Gallery view now shows the total number of images in the bottom status bar.
• Open Behavior Consistency: Restored open-flow behavior for choosing gallery folder vs single image loading.
• Histogram UX Guard: Histogram visibility now resets correctly when moving to a new image while still staying disabled when no image is loaded.

v1.5.4

RAWviewer Release Notes

🚀 Version 1.5.4

Release Date: April 9, 2026
🎯 What's New

• Gallery reliability, safer navigation when loading folders, RAW preview fallback when LibRaw fails, and clear errors when nothing can be decoded.

🛠️ Fixes & improvements

• Gallery first layout: If the scroll viewport has zero width during the first layout pass, the justified grid no longer clears to blank; it retries after a short delay until geometry is valid.
• Folder scan / loading UI: "Scanning folder…" and related loading toasts are cleared reliably when the scan finishes; gallery loading errors surface a short Gallery Error message when set_images fails.
• Same-file loads: In-flight decode for the current path is no longer cancelled by a duplicate load request (fixes intermittent blank or stuck image after changing folders or restoring session).
• Stale thumbnails: A late, lower-resolution image from the load manager no longer replaces an already displayed higher-resolution frame (avoids visual flicker and related logging/UI edge cases).
• RAW fallback: When LibRaw cannot open or postprocess a RAW file, the app attempts to extract an embedded JPEG by scanning the file (thumbnails and preview paths; larger limit when full resolution is requested).
• Decode failure feedback: If the full decode stage returns nothing for the current image (unsupported RAW, corrupt file, or no usable embedded preview), a Load Error dialog is shown instead of a silent blank view.