March 2017 · 3 minute read

Marta 0.1 was released around a week ago, and it was quite a success. More than 700 people requested an invite on the first day, and I received a lot of valuable feedback and feature requests. The launch clearly let me know that I’m not the only one who needs the good file manager on macOS.

Here’s one of my favorite comments:

Traveling back in time to discover old good and simple to use things. Great!

Csaba Kissi

However, not all feedback was positive. Some users disliked the “closed alpha” idea because not everybody wants to leave one’s email address just to get the download link. I had some reasoning for it, and I want to explain my point of view. To be short, it has nothing with spam.

When you publish your app for the first time, you literally don’t know if it will work properly for everybody. Of course, you can test it in different conditions (and I’ve spent some time doing it), but all users have the different OS configurations and use-cases, so it’s very easy to overlook something. The private alpha allowed me to get the initial feedback and fix some issues in a short time.

There was also the second reason: the application signature. Because of the technical issues on the Apple side, it took some time before I could activate my Apple Developer Program. Version 0.1 is self-signed, but the proper signing was the required step for opening Marta for everyone.

Marta 0.1.1

The signature issue is gone, and I don’t think that continuing the closed alpha will bear any fruit. So with the 0.1.1 update, Marta enters the public alpha. You are free to download Marta 0.1.1 here.

If you already use the Marta 0.1, it will ask you for update (or, if you turned off the automatic updates, select Check for updates… in the menu).

Some of the changes worth highlighting are:

Support “Safe move”: source files will be deleted only after the whole directory is copied;

System volumes are displayed in Favorites;

Key bindings for moving the cursor and changing the active pane can be configured;

New actions: Back, Forward, Select/deselect by pattern, Change ordering, Clean recent directories;

Copy and Move actions now allow to specify the target directory.

You can read the full list of changes in the changelog. The documentation was updated as well.

Feedback

Although being open, Marta is still in alpha, so the feedback is highly appreciated. You can post the feature requests to the public TODO list or send it via email.

Have a nice Marta! 🌟