Thoughts, Questions and Some Issues

General
1

Hello, I’m playing around with Aspect and I’m quite intrigued but I’m experiencing some issues and I have some thoughts and comments.

  1. The moment I saw Aspect supports my Mac OS version, 12.7.6, I downloaded it, and after confirming that it does indeed run, I paid for a Pro license. Annual OS releases are stupid and make things very difficult for independent developers; I understand and sympathize. However, dropping or not providing support for at least 7 years of OSes is entirely shortsighted by folks who do this, so I appreciate that Aspect supports my OS version! Thank you.
  2. It appears that Aspect creates a hidden “.driveid” file on the root of all attached network drives when it launches? This is happening with SMB attached drives. I have several drives attached at all times and this pesky file is being recreated over and over. I’m not entirely sure if it’s Aspect that’s doing this but if it is, this is a complete nonstarter for me. Aspect, or any other software must not create random files on drives and locations with zero notice or ability to opt out. I understand that this might be a necessity but if that is the case, then sadly Aspect will simply not be a usable for me (and I suspect some others). No big deal as not all people can be served by all software but I think it’s important to point this issue out.
  3. I’m currently storing all my photos on a NAS. Everything’s organized as I want in event→yyyy-MM folders. I’ve done this manually over the years. Now I’ve setup a split Aspect library on my computer locally and the said NAS. I’ve also added a couple of folders from the NAS to the NAS instance of the Aspect library. My “Event Folder Structure” is “event name/yyyy-MM” and “Individual Photos Folder Structure” is “Individual Photos” This is as close to the existing NAS flow as I have. I’m noticing that Aspect creates “Aspect Individual Photos File.aspectnode” files in all folders that I add to the NAS library instance. This is another nonstarter sadly. If Aspect requires an empty folder to use as its library, then it should not be adding random files all over the place. I have a similar remote-originals-with-local-metadata setup with Apple Photos where the library is stored locally but the originals aren’t added to it and only reside on the NAS. Apple Photos doesn’t touch the originals, nor does it create random files all over the place. So it seems Aspect is not currently able to replicate that behavior. Is my understanding correct here? It’s fine if it can’t or won’t. I’d like to know if that is the case either way.
  4. I’m making an assumption that Aspect is using a non-Apple-provided cross-platform UI toolkit. If so, because of this some of the subtle but very important OS-provided UI behavior and functionality is missing or not respect. Example: I’ve selected “Always” to the “Show scroll bars” option, and “Jump to the spot that’s clicked” to the “Click in the scroll bar to” option in the General pane of the Mac OS 12.7.6 System Preferences. Aspect does not follow either of these options and feels broken. Note that these are only 2 examples but there are several others.
  5. Related to the above, please use the OS-provided typeface (or at least allow anything other than this awful Lato font. Please! It’s overused and just plain gross-looking.) Having a different typeface for an app is so jarring in the sea of windows and apps, and sticks out like a sore thumb. I understand this might be more subjective than objective but still.
  6. I suspect this has been noted before but please also consider providing light mode support and an explicit way of choose either light or dark mode.

Thank you for this software, for your methodical and measured approach in developing it and for attempting to bootstrap it without taking VC money or resorting to questionable tactics. Please continue the great work!

2

Annual OS releases are stupid and make things very difficult for independent developers; I understand and sympathize. However, dropping or not providing support for at least 7 years of OSes is entirely shortsighted by folks who do this

Very true, it’s hard to imagine how much working hours are wasted worldwide by these usually completely unnecessary breaking changes each year that every affected software developer has to work around. Following that thought, every software developer should do their best not to pass these issues on to their user base, just because it’s convenient. I’ve seen it countless times that developers are eager to “clean up”, without really taking into account the cost that has on their users.

Anyway, we don’t plan to drop support for older operating systems as long as we aren’t forced to do so.

It appears that Aspect creates a hidden “.driveid” file on the root of all attached network drives when it launches? This is happening with SMB attached drives.

We are using the volume UUID for identification if possible, as well as the network path for mounted network shares. Also, we are reusing existing identification files created by the operating system (e.g. .fseventsd/fseventsd-uuid). Only if all of these failed, the .driveid file is created with a random ID inside.

Now we generally rely on this identification in the case of removable drives, mainly for synchronization and auto imports, so we can’t really remove this. However, the question is why in your case it doesn’t just use the network path for identification. How do you connect to the share - Go To → Connect to Server and then choosing an SMB based share from Finder?

I’m noticing that Aspect creates “Aspect Individual Photos File.aspectnode” files in all folders that I add to the NAS library instance. This is another nonstarter sadly. If Aspect requires an empty folder to use as its library, then it should not be adding random files all over the place.

Honestly, I can feel your pain here, as I personally feel traumatized by those completely unnecessary __MACOSX and .AppleDouble folders sprinkled all over my network shares. In our case, there are however no good alternatives that I see. The main reasons to have these files are:

  1. They allow the application to identify folders that are already part of another library, avoiding the situation where two libraries “own” the same set of files, which would easily result in unexpected outcomes once files get moved in one of the libraries, or, worse, both libraries are actively loaded at the same time and react on file system changes done within the context of the other library.
  2. They contain a copy of the part of the library catalog specific to that folder, so in the event that for whatever reason the library is not accessible anymore, any extra information can be restored from just the folder alone.

The alternative to point 1 here would be using a centralized approach with a central database that knows about all the folders. However, this would be less open, and a lot less robust. In particular, it wouldn’t work across user accounts and it would break at the computer boundary (external drives, network shares).

It should be noted that these are just created at the root of each individual photos folder – ideally you’d eventually only have one of those instead of selecting each sub folder individually. They will also be removed automatically as soon as a folder isn’t selected as an individual photos folder anymore and won’t just get left behind.

Example: I’ve selected “Always” to the “Show scroll bars” option, and “Jump to the spot that’s clicked” to the “Click in the scroll bar to” option in the General pane of the Mac OS 12.7.6 System Preferences. Aspect does not follow either of these options and feels broken. Note that these are only 2 examples but there are several others.

Yes, we are actually using our own UI toolkit*, and while we try to customize the UI as well as possible to each operating system, there will always be some details that get lost. However, as long as there is a way to query the settings, we can easily fix the behavior, since we have full control over the implementation. I’ve created an internal ticket (#1599) for implementing support for the two mentioned scroll bar settings.

Related to the above, please use the OS-provided typeface (or at least allow anything other than this awful Lato font. Please! It’s overused and just plain gross-looking.)

Do you get any rendering issues, or do you actually feel like Lato is a “gross” font per-se? Anyway, since Lato and SF UI are very similar fonts, you are, as far as I know, the first to have noticed the difference. Still, using the system font on macOS has actually been on our list for a long time now (ticket #389), it just had low priority.

I suspect this has been noted before but please also consider providing light mode support and an explicit way of choose either light or dark mode.

We plan to have a light mode available shortly after the official release. The application will then probably still default to dark mode, but will offer switching to light mode manually, or to follow the OS.

Thank you for this software, for your methodical and measured approach in developing it and for attempting to bootstrap it without taking VC money or resorting to questionable tactics. Please continue the great work!

Thank you! I think at least providing alternatives to the ever growing “enshittification” of the digital world is really important, and hopefully we’ll be able to make a small difference in this photo related niche once we gain more visibility.

3

Anyway, we don’t plan to drop support for older operating systems as long as we aren’t forced to do so.

Great, thank you for confirming that! I appreciate it. I understand plans change and sometimes the need for an upgrade is absolutely necessary but it’s good to know it’ll be a considered decision when it comes to i.

However, the question is why in your case it doesn’t just use the network path for identification. How do you connect to the share - Go To → Connect to Server and then choosing an SMB based share from Finder?

In Finder I press CMD+K (same as Go To → Connect to Server), enter “smb://admin user@IP address of NAS” then enter the password for the admin user, and then select all volumes. Running mount -v in Terminal I see a list similar to the following. I don’t know if this helps or not.

...
//admin@<NAS IP address>/photos on /Volumes/photos (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by <username>)
//admin@<NAS IP address>/videos on /Volumes/videos (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by <username>)
//admin@<NAS IP address>/music on /Volumes/music (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by <username>)
...

Thank you for the explanation about the “aspectnode” files. I suppose once I’ve taken the full plunge and moved everything into the photo library this effectively won’t be an issue but I’m not quite ready to do that yet. But it’s good to know the thinking behind it.

Thank you for filing internal tickets about those two cases. Hopefully it’s possible to replicate that behavior.

There are no rendering issues but Lato just looks “ugly,” especially on retina screens. I have to strongly disagree that Lato is very similar to SF UI. This is almost blasphemy and I’m willing to die on this petty hill! :slight_smile: They are vastly different in letter shapes and font metrics. The letter spacing is too wide, and letters are seemingly thicker in an inconsistent manner. Perhaps I’m cursed with the ability to notice inconsistent typefaces and Lato just stands out as too unpleasing and awful to my eyes. Seriously though, please consider supporting the default OS typeface, my case SF UI. It’ll create such a more pleasant experience will make Aspect “feel” right at home. Thank you.

Glad to hear light mode is on the roadmap and will be addressed after official release.