News
Diffractor 126.0
2024-05-10
This release fixes two long time issues:
Nowadays my free time to work on Diffractor is limited but I am trying to keep it going. These two issues were annoying but thanks to those who have been so patient. The map has been changed to Bing maps because Google maps no longer supports the Windows HTML control.
Diffractor 125.0
2022-07-04
Diffractor 125.0 can now be downloaded here.
Diffractor is now free. Thank you to everyone who purchased in the past – very much appreciated. I am hoping donations will now cover the running costs. Let’s see how it goes :)
This release removes any payment verification screens. It also includes several small fixes:
- Support display scale factor #111
- Make Diffractor free #110
- slide show stops bug #100
- Option to remove shadows around image view panel #99
- Caption/Description - mixed up #97
- Full screen image not reloaded after tag or rename #95
- Tags with space at the end #92
- Add option to not update file modified timestamp when changing file metadata enhancement #86
- HEIC Support #85
- Allow space in search scope #42
- very short wav files do not play bug #39
- Option to toggle on/off playing media at the last known position enhancement #19
- Better “customize” screen #18
- Optimize network IO enhancement #15
Diffractor 124.0
2021-12-30
Diffractor 124.0 can now be downloaded here.
The version of Diffractor adds a new smart scrollbar to the items view that shows year or other grouping information about the items displayed. It also improves performance when displaying large lists of items.
Other release details can be found here.
Diffractor 123.6
2021-10-26
Diffractor 123.6 can now be downloaded here.
In this release Diffractor gets a 64bit version:
- The installer now contains both 32bit and 64bit configurations of Diffractor. It automatically links shortcuts to the appropriate executable.
- Improvements to sound playback latency. This makes video playback and scrubbing seem faster.
- Added filters to allow only images, videos, or audio files to be shown.
- Fixed an issue where DNG files were not shown correctly. #83
- Fixed playback of short videos and audio files less than one second. #39
Diffractor 123.5
2021-07-23
Diffractor 123.5 can now be downloaded here.
This release improves workflow and collection management:
- The import screen has a new 'analyze' feature to preview where items will be copied to.
- A synchronize collection feature has been added to allow the collection to be synchronized with an external folder or NAS.
- An advanced search dialog has been added to easily create more advanced searches.
- WEBP save support has been added.
- The resize and convert dialogs have been combined as they have overlapping behavior.
- Combine to PDF has been replaced by print to PDF as it has more layout options.
- Other various bugs and crash fixes.
Diffractor 123.4
2021-06-15
Diffractor 123.5 can now be downloaded here.
This release improves workflow and collection management:
- The import screen has a new 'analyze' feature to preview where items will be copied to.
- A synchronize collection feature has been added to allow the collection to be synchronized with an external folder or NAS.
- An advanced search dialog has been added to easily create more advanced searches.
- WEBP save support has been added.
- The resize and convert dialogs have been combined as they have overlapping behavior.
- Combine to PDF has been replaced by print to PDF as it has more layout options.
- Other various bugs and crash fixes.
Diffractor v123.3
2021-05-23
Diffractor 123.3 can now be downloaded here.
Minor release containing:
- Fix to diffractor randomly closing #55
- Updated location dialog that allows selecting a location by clicking on the map. #11
- Added option to show verbose metadata #33
- Fixes to various crashes identified by Diffractor crash reporting.
Diffractor v123.0
2021-04-26
Diffractor 123.0 can now be downloaded here.
This is a major release including many improvements. The main changes are:
- Diffractor has been translated into German by a helpful volunteer. This is exciting because Diffractor has many German users. Wunderbar!
- The sidebar has new history and map selectors. They allow quick searches by date and country.
- The dark color scheme allows Diffractor to do more with color in the user interface. For example highlight differences and special items.
- Comparing photos and other files has been enhanced to show differences in file attributes.
Diffractor v123 Beta
2021-04-17
Diffractor v123 Beta can now be downloaded here.
If you are interested in the future of Diffractor give it a try. One big difference is the dark palette. This allows Diffractor to do a lot more with color in the user interface. For example highlight differences and special items.
Diffractor has also been translated into German by a helpful volunteer. This is exciting because Diffractor has many German users. Wunderbar!
Send any feedback or bug reports here here.
Diffractor 122.16
2021-03-03
Diffractor122.16 can now be downloaded here.
This release fixes crashes and bugs:
Diffractor 122.15
2021-02-18
Diffractor122.15 can now be downloaded here.
This release adds new features to make it easier to manage a large collection of photos and videos. It allows you to easily determine if an item is in your collection or not. All indexed locations combined make the collection.
The changes are:
- Allow grouping items by presence. "Did you ever insert an old memory card and wonder do I have these photos on my hard disk? Now you can open diffractor and sort those items by presence in your collection. Items not in your collection will be grouped together."
- #16 Separated ordering and sorting
- #23 Fixed crash when structured copy dialogue opened on an invalid drive.
- #12 Added support for .m2ts files
- #24 Fixed for importing before all selected items are fully scanned
- #10 Returned shift based selection of multiple items
- #25 Returned drag and drop of items to/from windows explorer
- #26 Reduced the amount of CPU used when starting Diffractor.
Diffractor 122.14
2021-01-25
Diffractor 122.14 can now be downloaded here.
This release fixes several crashes and bugs.
- Fixed occasional issue where diffractor would not start up. This was caused by an error processing empty tags in xmp metadata. Diffractor would go into an endless loop.
- Fixed a crash when decoding truncated TIFF files.
- Fixed a crash when decoding malformed GIF files.
Diffractor 122.9
2020-09-04
Diffractor 122.9 can now be downloaded here.
This release is mainly fixing bugs, improving performance and upgrading dependencies.
- Fixed a crash when playing MP4 videos containing older audio encodings.
- Fixed various hangs caused by duplicate detection blocking the UI.
- Added support for using a network server name as an index location (//server-name)
- Added "sort by album/show" as discussed in the issue tracker #4.
- Upgraded to FFmpeg 4.3.1 and LibRaw 0.20
Diffractor 122.8
2020-07-05
Diffractor 122.8 can now be downloaded here.
This release adds an ‘Ignore previously imported items’ option to the import/structured copy dialog.
As with 122.7, in this release there has been a rationalization of keyboard accelerators. The biggest difference is a change in how SPACE and ENTER are used. SPACE now stops and starts video playback or slideshows. Enter opens items and toggles media full-screen. This makes Diffractor like most other Media software. Hopefully helps the transition for users between software products.
This release also includes a new Keyboard reference screen (control-F1) where accelerators can be reviewed.
Diffractor 122.7
2020-06-20
Diffractor 122.7 can now be downloaded here.
It fixes a crash with various graphics cards that was affecting multiple users. If you are seeing crashes in Diffractor you should upgrade to this version. Sorry about the crashes folks :(
There has been a rationalization of keyboard accelerators. The biggest difference is a change in how SPACE and ENTER are used. SPACE now stops and starts video playback or slideshows. Enter opens items and toggles media full-screen. This makes Diffractor like most other Media software. Hopefully helps the transition for users between software products.
This release also includes a new Keyboard reference screen (control-F1) where accelerators can be reviewed.
Diffractor 122.6
2020-05-23
Diffractor 122.6 can now be downloaded here.
This release adds a new duplicate report. Entering @duplicates into a search will list items detected as duplicates.
Diffractor 122
2020-03-16
Diffractor 122 can now be downloaded here.
This release contains several changes:
- Support for hardware accelerated video playback.
- A new layout for the top toolbar to save space.
- Fixed an occasional crash during video playback.
- Moved the settings and about information to a new simpler dialog.
Diffractor 121
2020-01-22
Diffractor 121 can now be downloaded here.
This release changes the UI so that all selected items are shown in the preview panel. This means if you select two images, they are both displayed. This is useful when comparing photos etc. This also simplifies the user interface. Tools now always apply to the currently selected items. In the past, they could either apply to the shown items or the selected images; depending on where you selected the menu option.
Support has also been added for displaying CR3 raw photos and WEBP images.
There are also multiple small bugs fixed for existing functionality. Including a fix to detecting duplicate photos - this didn’t always work in the past reliably.
Last thing: Diffractor will now automatically update unless you disable this feature in the system settings.
Diffractor 120
2019-02-06
Diffractor 120 can be downloaded here.A fix to WMV files thumbnail generation and a fix to seeking videos with no audio.
Also started adding support for google-photos. This experimental feature allows you to add a google account and return results in a search. A work-in-progress so be careful. This feature is read-only to you google-photos account. Enable it on the settings screen.
Diffractor 119
2018-09-02
Diffractor 119 can be downloaded here.Duplicate photo detection has been improved using a new visual hashing algorithm.
Clicking on an existing item's rating now removes the rating.
Control-clicking on a tag in the tagbar now searches for that tag.
Diffractor 118
2018-02-02
Diffractor 118 can be downloaded here.There are also several bug fixes to media playing and keyboard shortcuts.
Diffractor 117
2017-06-19
Diffractor 117 is ready for download. It brings a new user interface with some useful buttons added to a bottom toolbar. Other new features:- PSD file support
- Ability to select an audio track for playback (if more than one)
- Can now be installed for current user or all users
- Added ability to flag an image for action or deletion. You can also search for flagged images.
- Fixed a bug where copy and paste was not working during metadata edit
- Added the ability to use locations from google (sponsor only feature)
Metadata Documentation
2017-01-30
As requested by several users; there is a new section documenting metadata supported by Diffractor.Diffractor can add or update metadata such as tags, rating, description or dates. It can also understand metadata added by your camera. Diffractor has a database to cache these values for faster searching. However, the values are primarily stored in metadata to allow compatibility with other programs.
Diffractor 116
2016-01-05
Diffractor 116 final release is ready for download. Same new features as the beta with a few minor bug fixes. Enjoy!Diffractor 116 Beta
2015-12-01
I am happy to announce the next version of Diffractor is in Beta: http://www.diffractor.com/DiffractorSetup.Beta.exe- Searches can now filter on media type with new photo|video|audio keywords. For example 'Photo C:\Users\zac\Pictures' only shows photos in that folder.
- Keywords in searches can now be identified with a # symbol. For example '#tree' shows my all items tagged with tree.
- Files in sub-folders can be show using ** query syntax. For example 'C:\Users\zac\Pictures\**' lists all the items in sub-folders.
- File globbing can now be used on folders. For example 'C:\Users\zac\Pictures\*.jpg'
- It is now possible to add negatives to a search. For example '-London' searches for items without the text 'London'.
- Files with Duplicates or sidecars (external thumbnail, xmp or subtitles) are indicated with a small number icon.
- Added a new related media search to show duplicate or related items. For example 'related:C:\Users\zac\Pictures\family.jpg' shows duplicates and images with similare date and location properties.
- Sorting by camera or Megapixels has been added.
- 'Open with' integrates with windows to get a more accurate list of compatible applications
- Viewing properties for multiple selected items now possible. Previously only show properties for single focus item.
- Performance greatly improved by switching to Direct3d 11. Unfortunately this means dropping support or Windows XP and Vista. Sorry XP folks.
- Fixed selection of multiple items using control or shift keys.
- Added buttons on screen to allow moving to the next or previous media item.
- New layout of controls related to playing and viewing media.
- Added ability to edit common/favorite searches or folders.
- Added tooltips in many areas to help users identify what a given button will do.
Diffractor 112
2014-05-16
- Fix for crash on some older graphics cards.
- Improved start-up performance.
- Fix to encryption of flickr/facebook credentials.
- Improved searching performance
- Changed install so admin rights are no longer required.
- Upgraded libav and sqlite
Diffractor 111 ready
2014-02-27
Great news, Diffractor 111 is ready for prime time, it can be downloaded here: http://www.diffractor.com/DiffractorSetup.exeIt has several bug fixes to improve stability. It also has more intelligent sorting. Security for Twitter, Facebook and Flickr uploads has also been improved. Enjoy!
Diffractor 111 Beta
2014-02-22
Download the next version of Diffractor here. It has several bug fixes to improve stability. It also has more intelligent sorting. Security for Twitter, Facebook and Flickr uploads has been improved. Enjoy!Media files still on PC's
2013-03-01
A survey by the Diffractor project found most users still storing their media collections on a PC. Diffractor, a new Windows Desktop App, helps to keep them organized.