📣 Releasing r36

[joelim-work]

There has been a number of changes recently so I thought it would be a good time to create a new release.

Below are the release notes I am planning to include:

## [r36](https://github.com/gokcehan/lf/releases/tag/r36)

### Changed

- The experimental command `invert-below` has been removed in favor of the newly added support for Visual mode (#2021).

### Added

- A new placeholder `%P` representing the scroll percentage is added to the `rulerfmt` option (#1985).
- A new `on-load` hook command is added, which is triggered when files in a directory are loaded in `lf` (#2010).
- The `info` option now supports `custom`, allowing users to display custom information for each file (#2012). The custom information should be added by the user via the `addcustominfo` command. Sorting by the custom information is also supported (#2019).
- Support for `visual-mode` has now been added (#2021) (#2035). This includes the following changes:
  - A new command `visual` (default `V`) can be used to enter Visual mode.
  - A new command `visual-change` (default `o` in Visual mode) can be used to swap the positions of the cursor and anchor (start of the visual selection).
  - A new command `visual-accept` (default `V` in Visual mode) can be used to exit Visual mode, adding the visual selection to the selection list.
  - A new command `visual-discard` (default `<esc>` in Visual mode) can be used to exit Visual mode, without adding the visual selection to the selection list.
  - A new command `visual-unselect` can be used to exit Visual mode, removing the visual selection from the selection list. 
  - The existing `map` command now adds keybindings for both Normal and Visual modes. Two new commands `nmap` and `vmap` are added which can be used to add keybindings for only Normal or Visual mode respectively.
  - Two new commands `nmaps` and `vmaps` are added to display the list of keybindings in Normal and Visual mode respectively. These, along with the existing `maps` and `cmaps` commands, now display an extra column indicating the mode for which the keybindings apply to.
  - A new option `visualfmt` is added to customize the appearance of the visual selection.
  - Two new placeholders `%m` and `%M` are added to `statfmt` to display the mode in the status line. Both will display `VISUAL` when in Visual mode, however in Normal mode `%m` will display as a blank string while `%M` will display `NORMAL`.
  - A new placeholder `%v` is added to `rulerfmt` which displays the number of files in the Visual selection. This is included in the default setting for `rulerfmt`.
  - The `lf_mode` environment variable will now be set to `visual` while in Visual mode.
  - The environment variable `$fv` is now exported to shell commands, which lists the files in the visual selection.
- A `CHANGELOG.md` file has been added to the repo (#2027). This will be updated to describe `Changed`, `Added` and `Fixed` functionality for each new release.

### Fixed

- Displaying sixel images now uses the screen locking API in Tcell, which reduces flickering in the UI (#1943).
- The `cmd-history` command is now ignored outside of Normal or Command-line mode, to prevent accidentally escaping out of other modes (#1971).
- A potential crash when using the `cmd-delete-word-back` command is fixed (#1976).
- The `preserve` option now applies to directories in addition to files when copying. This includes preserving `timestamps` (#1979) and `mode` (#1981).
- The `lfrc.ps1.example` example config file is updated to include PowerShell equivalents for the default commands and keybindings (#1989).
- Quoting for the `lf` environment variable is fixed for PowerShell users (#1990).
- `tempmarks` are no longer cleared after the `sync` command is called (#1996).
- Symbolic links are now followed when tagging files. This mimics the behavior in `ranger` (#1997).
- The file stat information is no longer displayed during the execution of a `shell-pipe` command even if the file is updated (#2002).
- Directories are now reloaded properly if any component in the current path is renamed (#2005).
- Write updates for the log file are now ignored when `watch` is enabled. This helps to reduce notification spam and potential of infinite loops (#2015).
- Attempting to `cut`/`copy` files into a directory without execute permissions no longer causes `lf` to crash, and an error message will be displayed instead (#2024).

In particular I would like to thank the following contributors:

• @Kuchteq for making significant improvements (in terms of both performance and code quality) for displaying Sixel images.
• @CatsDeservePets for:
  • Implementing support for custom file information (a long-time requested feature from Ability to change display of an element on the list #83)
  • Implementing support for Visual mode (a long-time requested feature from Add select + motion or visual select #477)
  • Helping to respond to various issues/discussions.

As usual, I will plan to make the new release in a couple of weeks, and there will be a change freeze until that point. If anyone has any queries or concerns, please let me know.

Due to the issue reported with displaying Sixel images inside tmux (see #2026 for more details), there has been a request to delay this release. This has now been patched by #2030, so I will restart the change freeze period now. Once again, if anyone has any queries or concerns, please let me know.

[CatsDeservePets]

@CatsDeservePets for implementing support for custom file information (a long-time requested feature from #83) as well as helping to respond to various issues/discussions.

After being a long-time user of lf, I am glad to give back a little and help improve it even further :)

As usual, I will plan to make the new release in a couple of weeks, and there will be a change freeze until that point. If anyone has any queries or concerns, please let me know.

I was still planning to include more examples for addcustominfo that aren't git-related as well as to (re-)introduce set sortby custom, as discussed in Add addcustominfo command #2012. Since these (potential) changes are related to the new release, will they still be merged despite the freeze?

Off topic:
I remember reading somewhere about the possibility to include the changelog inside lf itself.
Are there still plans for this (for example by introducing the :news command from nvim or borrowing h: versionX from vim)?

[joelim-work]

I was still planning to include more examples for addcustominfo that aren't git-related as well as to (re-)introduce set sortby custom, as discussed in Add addcustominfo command #2012. Since these (potential) changes are related to the new release, will they still be merged despite the freeze?

I think set sortby custom should be straightforward enough to implement and unlikely to cause any issues. If you submit the change soon then I don't mind merging it. What other examples are you planning to add for addcustominfo, will it just be more sample configs in the documentation? I should also add that the documentation doesn't need to be an exhaustive list that covers every use case - depending on what it is, it might be more appropriate to add it to the wiki tips/integrations instead.

I remember reading somewhere about the possibility to include the changelog inside lf itself.
Are there still plans for this (for example by introducing the :news command from nvim or borrowing h: versionX from vim)?

The discussion I started about changelogs is in #1969. That was about including a CHANGELOG.md inside the repo - embedding it inside lf (e.g. via :news command) is something separate altogether. I don't have any plans to change anything right now (and certainly not before this release), but I'm open to further discussion and the possibility of changing things in the future.

[CatsDeservePets]

I wanted to add an example using exiftool to show meta data for audio files, like duration, album, artist, track number, and so on.
Including something like this directly in the documentation might reduce the risk of addcustominfo being seen as a Git-only feature, which was something you were concerned about.

Of course I don't mind adding it to the wiki instead.

[joelim-work]

I think it should be fine to add another example as long as it's not too complex. When stuffing multiple fields into the custom info (as is the case with the exiftool example), you might want to consider adding padding to ensure each individual field is aligned. And then if addcustominfo is called for a single file (e.g. due to that file being modified with the watch option enabled), you may have to recalculate the padding of every file in the directory again just to ensure the alignment is consistent.

Maybe there are slightly simpler use cases that can be documented, like the duration of video files, number of pages in a PDF file, file creation times, to think of a few.

[veltza]

If anyone has any queries or concerns, please let me know.

I think you should postpone the new release because I found that the new sixel implementation can break images in tmux. The problem is so serious that depending on your font size, it can break almost all images.

I'm using tmux 3.5a and chafa 1.16.1, so it's reproducible with these tools.

I might have a solution for that problem, so I'll open an issue about it.

[joelim-work]

Thanks for letting me know, I'm planning to postpone the release for a couple of weeks anyway due to #2023. I will announce a new date some time later.

Do you have more details about the issue? Is the issue caused by lf or tmux? Also what kind of solution do you have in mind and does it involve making changes to the lf code?

Also an ETA would be nice - for example I can wait for a few weeks for the purpose of delaying the release, but certainly not a whole year.

[veltza]

Moved to #2026

[CatsDeservePets]

Hey @veltza,
this might get lost in the discussion — it would be better to create a new issue and put it there so we don’t lose any important details you gave us.

[veltza]

@CatsDeservePets I offered to open the new issue, but then Joe started asking specific questions, so I thought he'd rather address the issue here. Many Github projects, such as ghostty and hyprland, have moved bug reports to discussion and then elevate them to issues if they can be confirmed. So I thought this is now the recommended way here too.

I've just opened the new issue about this, in case it reaches other pairs of eyes as well.

[joelim-work]

Oh I was just after a quick summary - I was more interested about how the issue would affect the release rather than the actual details of it. Apologies if I was unclear about that. But yes thanks for creating the new issue, that is the proper place for the discussion.

[CatsDeservePets]

I noticed that there was no setExpr for visualfmt and that the docs for Visual commands still included the incorrect (modal) statement. #2033 needs to be merged. Sorry for the oversight.

[joelim-work]

I merged it, thanks

[CatsDeservePets]

@joelim-work
Don't forget adding visual-unselect and $fv to the changelog.

[joelim-work]

Thanks, I have updated it in the description. I will update the changelog in the repo shortly before the release.

[joelim-work]

This is now released: https://github.com/gokcehan/lf/releases/tag/r36

Thanks once again for everyone involved 🎉