A friendlier first run, better macOS and Linux support, and viewer fixes

This beta adds a guided first run and fixes several problems on macOS and Linux. It also includes smaller improvements to the viewer, the table and the Problems panel.

What is new

Getting started

• On first launch, a welcome screen can open an example project.
• A Getting started guide explains the main parts of qrate. The export tip appears only after your first export starts.
• The launcher shows previews of recent projects, and it opens faster because the thumbnails are cached.
• The new-project flow explains the Files, Columns and Create steps more clearly.

macOS and Linux

• qrate now integrates better with the desktop on macOS and Linux.
• The macOS app is ad-hoc signed.
• On macOS, qrate finds ffmpeg installed by Homebrew, and export no longer treats the same path in different letter case as two different files.
• On Linux, thumbnails of different files no longer overwrite each other.

Viewer and panels

• Scroll-wheel zoom in the full-screen viewer now zooms toward the cursor.
• The table fills its panel with no margin.
• The Problems panel's filter tabs and source picker now sit in its title bar, and each tab has a severity icon.
• Switching between Gallery and Table no longer expands the Details preview to full height.

Settings

• Themes chosen from the dropdown now apply in full.
• The settings scope switcher is gone. Project overrides still apply where they make sense.

qrate v0.6.0-beta.2

Downloads

Start with the base download. It leaves out PDF preview, video preview and the assistant's runtime, and qrate offers to install each one the first time you need it (or under Settings ▸ Components). The full download carries them all, for machines that stay offline.

• Windows: *-base-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users). Full: *-<version>-setup.exe, or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-base-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon). Full: *-<version>-universal.dmg.
• Linux: *-base-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver). Full: *-<version>-x86_64-linux.tar.gz.

An installed qrate updates to the same kind of download it came from. Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt. The component-* files and components.json are the parts qrate downloads by itself; you do not need to download them.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.6.0-beta.2-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews need PDFium, which the full downloads carry and the base ones install on the first PDF you open.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. On Windows and Linux qrate installs it on the first video you open (the full Windows download carries it). On macOS install it with Homebrew and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS

A copy already installed on the computer, such as sudo apt install ffmpeg, is used too. Without ffmpeg those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: open it once, then choose Open Anyway under System Settings → Privacy & Security, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

A smaller download, linked files kept in step, and Excel export

This beta makes the download much smaller, keeps linked files in step with the folder they live in, and adds Excel export and faster editing on large projects.

What is new

A smaller download

• A new base download leaves out PDF preview, video preview and the assistant's runtime. qrate offers to install each one the first time you open a PDF, a video or the Agent panel.
• Settings ▸ Components lists every optional part with its size, and lets you install, update or remove it.
• Downloads are checked against qrate's signature before they are used. A part that did not change is kept after an update rather than downloaded again.
• The full downloads still carry everything, for computers that stay offline. An installed qrate updates to the same kind of download it came from.

Updates and downloads

• Updates come straight from GitHub releases.
• A download source setting can point updates, optional parts and the plugin catalog at a mirror or a local folder.
• Visual search can download its model from Hugging Face or from qrate's own release.

Files and photos

• qrate watches the files folder and picks up changes to it while the project is open.
• Rows keep their links to files, and qrate says so when a link is broken.
• Dropped files are imported without copying what the project already holds, and you choose what happens when several rows name the same file.

Table and import

• Group rows. Wrap cell text and set the row height.
• Append spreadsheet rows to an open project, with a preview before anything changes. Google Sheets dates import as dates.
• Load a column config onto an open project.

Export

• Export Excel workbooks. Spreadsheet exports include project notes.

Settings and saving

• Set your author name once for every project. New settings, with project overrides where they make sense.
• qrate never loses unsaved edits when you quit or switch projects.
• .qrate project files open in qrate from Explorer on Windows.

Speed

• Editing, validation and previews do less work on the interface thread, so large projects stay responsive.

qrate v0.6.0-beta.1

Downloads

Start with the base download. It leaves out PDF preview, video preview and the assistant's runtime, and qrate offers to install each one the first time you need it (or under Settings ▸ Components). The full download carries them all, for machines that stay offline.

• Windows: *-base-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users). Full: *-<version>-setup.exe, or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-base-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon). Full: *-<version>-universal.dmg.
• Linux: *-base-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver). Full: *-<version>-x86_64-linux.tar.gz.

An installed qrate updates to the same kind of download it came from. Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt. The component-* files and components.json are the parts qrate downloads by itself; you do not need to download them.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.6.0-beta.1-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews need PDFium, which the full downloads carry and the base ones install on the first PDF you open.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. On Windows and Linux qrate installs it on the first video you open (the full Windows download carries it). On macOS install it with Homebrew. In this beta qrate finds it only when started from a terminal (/Applications/qrate.app/Contents/MacOS/qrate); the next release also finds it when started from Finder:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS

A copy already installed on the computer, such as sudo apt install ffmpeg, is used too. Without ffmpeg those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: open it once, then choose Open Anyway under System Settings → Privacy & Security, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

This beta improves data review, spreadsheet import, and plugin safety.

What is new

Data review

• Collapse diagnostic groups to focus on the problems you need to fix.
• Fix spelling and capitalization for a whole diagnostic group.
• Ignore one occurrence or an entire column. Review value variants before you apply a fix.
• Filter rows by diagnostic source. Check spelling in more languages.

Import and workspace

• Import Excel and OpenDocument spreadsheets.
• Choose a qrate theme. Use improved panel controls and focus behavior.

Plugins

• Browse a signed plugin catalog. Review GitHub releases before installation.
• Check package metadata and hashes before installation. Keep optional permissions off until you grant them.
• Export plugin data as JSON.

Feedback and reliability

• Send report forms with useful context.
• Refresh authority data more reliably. Run validation away from the user interface thread.

qrate v0.5.0-beta.1

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.5.0-beta.1-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-beta.2

The first beta of the 0.4.0 line, replacing beta.1 an hour after it: that build shipped before the assistant's corrected prompt was pinned. The Open Project window is the centre of this round — it now scrolls, keeps its own menus, and tells you when an update is waiting. A new project opens onto a row you can type into, a file you pick for a row shows up in the preview straight away, and the details panel stops jumping about.

What is new

The Open Project window

• The recent projects list scrolls, with a scrollbar. A long history used to sit centred on the window — the top of it hidden behind the title bar, the bottom past the frame, and no way to reach either.
• The word qrate in the title bar is now a menu: New Project, Settings, Extensions and Help, without opening a project first.
• An update downloading in the background, or waiting for a restart, is visible here too. It was only ever shown on the main window, which is the one you have not opened yet.
• Spacing throughout the window is even, and the list runs to the bottom of the frame.

Starting a project

• A blank project now opens with a row in it. It used to open onto an empty grid, where the first row had to be found under the Insert menu before any metadata could be entered.

Files and previews

• Picking a file for a row shows that file immediately. The preview used to keep showing the row's old file until the project was closed and reopened.
• The first file you pick by hand in a project with no files folder sets the folder for the collection, so that file — and everything beside it — can be found from then on.
• The Details panel keeps its height when the bottom dock is opened or closed. The preview used to resize under the pointer every time.

Updating on Windows

• Installing an update no longer fails when qrate lives in Program Files. The installer now asks Windows for permission properly, instead of failing silently and relaunching the old version.

The built-in assistant

• Asked what files you have, the assistant answered with a listing of the folder it happens to be running in. It now answers from the project itself — the rows, their filename columns, and the media they link to.

For people who use their own AI agent

• The repository has a skills/ folder you can download: instructions that teach a coding agent to read the project open in qrate and hand findings back as drafts. It works with any agent, and nothing in it can change a cell — every proposal waits for you to accept it.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-beta.2-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-beta.1

The first beta of the 0.4.0 line. The Open Project window is the centre of this round — it now scrolls, keeps its own menus, and tells you when an update is waiting. A new project opens onto a row you can type into, a file you pick for a row shows up in the preview straight away, and the details panel stops jumping about.

What is new

The Open Project window

• The recent projects list scrolls, with a scrollbar. A long history used to sit centred on the window — the top of it hidden behind the title bar, the bottom past the frame, and no way to reach either.
• The word qrate in the title bar is now a menu: New Project, Settings, Extensions and Help, without opening a project first.
• An update downloading in the background, or waiting for a restart, is visible here too. It was only ever shown on the main window, which is the one you have not opened yet.
• Spacing throughout the window is even, and the list runs to the bottom of the frame.

Starting a project

• A blank project now opens with a row in it. It used to open onto an empty grid, where the first row had to be found under the Insert menu before any metadata could be entered.

Files and previews

• Picking a file for a row shows that file immediately. The preview used to keep showing the row's old file until the project was closed and reopened.
• The first file you pick by hand in a project with no files folder sets the folder for the collection, so that file — and everything beside it — can be found from then on.
• The Details panel keeps its height when the bottom dock is opened or closed. The preview used to resize under the pointer every time.

Updating on Windows

• Installing an update no longer fails when qrate lives in Program Files. The installer now asks Windows for permission properly, instead of failing silently and relaunching the old version.

For people who use their own AI agent

• The repository has a skills/ folder you can download: instructions that teach a coding agent to read the project open in qrate and hand findings back as drafts. It works with any agent, and nothing in it can change a cell — every proposal waits for you to accept it.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-beta.1-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-alpha.5

A files release: the new-project wizard now finds media in subfolders, matches each row to its file the same way the rest of the app does, and stops leaving stray files out of the collection.

What is new

Finding your files

• The Link step has a new Also search subfolders option, on by default, so a collection whose batches are nested is found instead of turned away.
• A row matches its media by filename, by filename without the extension, and by the id its numbered parts are built from. An item whose media is only partly present still counts as linked.
• Files in your folder that no row mentions now each get their own row, empty apart from the filename, instead of being counted and left behind.

When a folder is turned down

• The wizard says which reason applies — nothing at that path, no permission, no files there, or no row naming any of them — and shows example row values and filenames from both sides so you can see what did not line up. If subfolder search is off, it says so. Every rejection is written to the log for a bug report.

Previews and problems now agree

• The Details panel and the Problems panel resolve a row's file by one shared rule, so a row can no longer show its picture and be reported as missing at the same time.
• A sheet that names the master file finds the access copy beside it when only the extension differs, and a file column holding a path resolves by the filename at the end of it.
• When two batches hold the same filename, a row shows the same picture on every launch.

Setting up columns

• Advanced column mapping no longer repeats the Title and File columns you already chose above it, which read as a conflict to resolve rather than a summary.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-alpha.5-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-alpha.4

An updater release: qrate now shows the download in the title bar, stages it safely, and restarts into the new build without opening a terminal.

What is new

Updates you can follow

• Update downloads now appear as a compact progress status in the title bar. When the update is ready, it becomes a Restart to update button.
• Restarting for an update uses qrate's normal save, discard, and cancel flow before it closes any windows.
• On Windows, the update helper now uses a small native progress window instead of a terminal. If replacing the app fails, it rolls the old files back and relaunches qrate.
• A manual check with no newer release now says qrate is up to date. It no longer shows an error with a Retry button or logs the normal case as an automatic-update failure.

Installing and removing on Windows

• One alpha MSI can now upgrade another in place.
• The uninstaller now keeps app data by default and offers separate choices for removing qrate's app data and settings.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-alpha.4-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-alpha.3

Installer fixes, and the first release qrate can install for itself.

What is new

Installing on Windows

• The installer now offers just for me first. A per-user install needs no administrator rights, which is the difference between installing qrate yourself and filing a ticket for it. Installing for all users is still there on the same page.
• The enterprise MSI showed placeholder text where the licence agreement should be. It now shows qrate's actual licence, the GNU AGPL v3.

Updating

• If you are running 0.4.0-alpha.2, this is the first release that arrives on its own: qrate finds it, downloads it, checks it, and offers Restart to update qrate.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-alpha.3-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the signature qrate checks on an update.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-alpha.2

qrate can now update itself. It checks for new releases in the background, verifies them before touching anything, and waits for you to say when to install.

What is new

Automatic updates

• New releases download in the background while you keep working. Nothing is installed until you choose Restart to update qrate in the title bar.
• Quitting normally never installs an update. A downloaded one stays staged and offers itself again next time you launch.
• Updates are verified before they are applied: qrate checks the release signature, the version, and the exact contents of what it downloaded, and refuses anything that does not match what was published. If an update fails to install or fails to start, the previous version is put back.
• Background checking can be turned off under Settings ▸ Application. The manual check in About keeps working either way.
• This covers the Windows installer, the Windows portable zip, the macOS app, and the Linux tarball. Enterprise MSI deployments stay under the administrator's control and are never modified.

[!IMPORTANT] Earlier versions of qrate have no updater, so they cannot bring you to this release on their own — install this one by hand, as usual. From here on qrate updates itself.

Starting a project

• The new-project wizard now asks for a title column and a file column before it will create a project, so a project cannot start life in a state that breaks the grid later on.
• Title is now a column type you pick, rather than something qrate infers.

Columns and files

• Column descriptions can be edited, and the agent reads them when it summarises a project — so you can tell it what a column means once instead of explaining it every session.
• Linking a file opens a file picker instead of asking you to type a path.

The agent

• Switching projects restarts the agent session, so it no longer answers questions about the project you just closed.
• Fixed the bundled Pi extension failing to load.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-alpha.2-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned. This is about who Windows and macOS think published the app, and is separate from the update verification described above.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.4.0-alpha.1

This release is mostly about the built-in agent: the terminal now reads and performs like a real terminal, sessions start without a freeze, and agents talk to a running qrate over a bounded protocol.

What is new

The agent terminal

• The terminal uses a real monospace face that is actually installed on your machine, so columns finally line up. Previously it asked the system for a font that does not exist and quietly got the proportional UI face instead.
• You can choose the terminal font and size yourself under Settings ▸ Agent.
• Cell backgrounds and the cursor block now sit exactly under their glyphs. They used to drift further apart with every column across the line.

Agent sessions

• Starting a session no longer freezes qrate for about three seconds.
• Starting a new session clears the conversation in place instead of shutting the agent down and cold-starting a replacement.
• Session actions moved into a + button beside the Log/Terminal switcher: click to start a new session, right-click for Stop and Restart. The toolbar row now shows only the session status, and a resumed session no longer announces itself when there is nothing to report.
• Agents connecting to a running qrate now use a bounded harness protocol, and the bundled agent runtime is checked on Windows, macOS, and Linux with every build.

Elsewhere

• The update notice moved to the title bar, and both it and the About window now open the download page rather than starting a file download straight away — so you see what an unsigned build does on first launch before you commit to one.
• qrate's diagnostic log no longer buries a bug report under one accessibility message per frame. In a recent session those were 633 of 787 lines.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.4.0-alpha.1-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.3.0-alpha.2

The agent now lives inside qrate, alongside a round of editing fixes and performance work across the grid, previews, and background services.

What is new

The built-in agent

• qrate now bundles the Pi runtime on Windows, macOS, and Linux, so the Agent panel works without a separate Pi installation.
• The terminal renders styled output, including text attributes and per-cell background colours.
• First-run feedback is clearer, and crash diagnostics remain visible when Pi exits unexpectedly.
• The terminal and agent bridge poll less often while idle, reducing background work when no agent session is running.

Editing and keyboard behaviour

• Escape now cancels an in-progress cell or column-name edit instead of committing the typed value.
• Escape propagates correctly when the find bar or Details panel has nothing to dismiss.
• A file opened from the gallery now closes correctly with Escape, including when its find panel is open.

Grid and preview performance

• Grid cells no longer allocate a fresh element identifier on every frame.
• Gallery scrolling avoids repeated filesystem checks for ordinary images and reuses the preview cache directory instead of recreating it on every access.
• JPEG previews avoid an unnecessary full-size pixel-buffer copy.

Diagnostics

• Routine GPUI focus-node messages no longer clutter qrate's diagnostic log.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.3.0-alpha.2-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.2.0-alpha.3

A follow-up to alpha.2 with the fixes that came out of working a 5,000 item collection of mixed media. This is alpha software. Keep a backup of your data.

What is new

The file viewer

• The viewer no longer re-reads a file's details every time the panel repaints.
• Video timelines are read off the interface thread. A long video no longer stalls the window.

The grid

• A row keeps the same identity across a save. Notes stay attached to the item, not to the position it sat in.
• Notes realign only after a row is added or removed, not on every edit.

Panels and the gallery

• The grid resizes to fill the space when a dock opens or closes.
• The gallery keeps its card density after you drag the slider.

Google Sheets

• Sign-in and sync controls are in Settings, next to the consent gate, instead of only in the menu.
• A public Google Sheet imports again without signing in.

Settings

• More of a project's configuration is editable from the Settings window.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.2.0-alpha.3-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.2.0-alpha.2

A follow-up alpha, mostly under the hood: Windows installers that work without admin rights, and a way to actually know when a new version ships.

What is new

Windows installers

• The installer no longer requires admin rights — it asks up front whether to install for just your account or every account on the machine, and only asks for elevation when that's actually needed.
• A new MSI installer for institutions: installs per-machine, upgrades in place across versions, and works with Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune, including a silent msiexec /quiet push.
• The app no longer opens a console window behind itself when launched.

Update checking

• qrate checks GitHub for a newer release on startup and shows a dismissible notice in the status bar when one exists, linking straight to the right installer for your platform.
• Help > "Version X.Y.Z" opens a small About window with the installed version and an on-demand check for anyone who wants to look without waiting for the next launch.

Fixes

• Every window qrate opens now shows its own name in the OS taskbar and title bar — previously only the main project window did; Settings, About, the project launcher, and the New Project wizard all showed up blank.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer, asks for per-user or all-users) or *-x86_64.zip (portable). Deploying to managed machines? See Enterprise below.
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland + X11; needs a Vulkan driver)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Enterprise (Windows)

*-x86_64.msi installs per-machine and is built for Group Policy Software Installation, SCCM, and Intune — or a plain silent push:

msiexec /i qrate-0.2.0-alpha.2-x86_64.msi /quiet /norestart

Upgrades in place on top of any earlier MSI install; downgrading is blocked.

File previews

PDF previews work out of the box everywhere — PDFium ships in every download.

Video previews and JPEG 2000/AVIF/HEIC need ffmpeg. It is bundled on Windows; on macOS and Linux install it and qrate will find it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without it those files fall back to a file-type icon; nothing else is affected.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.2.0-alpha.1

The second alpha. It adds validation, plugins, file previews, spell checking, export, and a read-only agent bridge. This is alpha software. Keep a backup of your data.

What is new

Validation and the Problems panel

• Column validators with cell squiggles, and a Problems panel that lists every finding.
• Built-in authority checks against LCSH, Wikidata, and GeoNames. Each column picks its authority.
• EDTF date checks, including sets and lists.
• A column declares its data type and how loud it reports a problem.
• A row reports a linked file that is not there.
• Any producer can offer a correction. Filter the panel by the producer that found the problem.

Spell checking

• A Hunspell spell checker with a user dictionary and a per-column toggle.
• Canadian and American English ship with the app. Download any of 92 more from Settings.
• Fixes from the cell menu and from the Problems panel.

Plugins

• A Luau plugin host. A plugin declares permissions, settings, storage, and column mappings.
• Plugins run off the user interface thread, add bar items, and read HTTP over qrate.http.get.
• The Islandora plugin now lives in its own repository.

File previews

• Thumbnails and a viewer for images, PDF, video, and archive file types.
• Page through a multi-page document or a multi-image TIFF.
• Search a PDF for text. The viewer marks each hit on the page.
• Scrub through a video without leaving the app.
• Zoom from the keyboard. The thumbnail cache stops at 2 GB.

The grid

• Undo and redo, multi-cell copy and paste, and column freezing.
• Add and remove rows and columns. Select several items at once.
• Find and replace from the find bar. Filter a column by sub-delimited values.
• Notes on an item, more than one, each with the name of the person who filed it.

Panels and windows

• A gallery view over the row images, sized by cards per row.
• A Details panel that edits fields in place and describes a whole selection.
• Panels declare their own bar button and move between docks.
• One title bar and status bar style on every window.

Import and export

• Export a project as CSV, JSON-LD, CSL-JSON, or a ZIP archive.
• Sync to a Google Sheet you choose. Every Google surface waits behind an opt-in consent gate.

Agents

• A read-only agent bridge over loopback, turned on in Settings.
• An agent stages review findings as drafts. The bridge cannot write a cell.
• The Agent panel shows the traffic.

Other

• A session log, a panic hook, and Help items that copy debug information.
• Linux builds. A new application icon. qrate is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer) or *-x86_64.zip (portable)
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel and Apple Silicon)
• Linux: *-x86_64-linux.tar.gz (Wayland and X11, needs a Vulkan driver)

Check your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Preview binaries

Every download includes PDFium, so PDF previews need no extra setup.

Video previews and the JPEG 2000, AVIF, and HEIC formats need ffmpeg. The Windows downloads include it. On macOS and Linux, install it and qrate finds it on your PATH:

brew install ffmpeg          # macOS
sudo apt install ffmpeg      # Debian/Ubuntu

Without ffmpeg, those files show a file-type icon. No other function changes.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen can report an unknown publisher. Click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app and select Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

qrate v0.1.0-alpha.1

Overview

qrate reaches its first alpha release with a stable core data container, full project-creation workflow, and essential table operations. This release is ready for initial archivist testing and feedback before moving toward feature completeness.

What's New in v0.1.0-alpha.1

File Persistence & Editing (PR #47)

• Autosave with configurable modes — choose between timed/buffered (default), immediate, or off.
• Ctrl+S explicit save — save on demand, with an automatic flush at quit time.
• Unsaved indicator — the project title in the window shows a dot when unsaved changes are pending.
• Floating cell editor — replaces inline editing with a floating popover that overflows the cell and stays on-screen, with sticky highlighted headers (row number and column header highlight while editing).
• Data integrity — all edits are persisted atomically to the .qrate file in the original column order, preserving layout.

Details Panel Enhancements (PR #48)

• Tabular field display — replaced text lists with a bordered 2-column grid (label | value) for cleaner metadata review.
• Sticky image + scrolling fields — the image stays fixed while you scroll through field metadata, with resizable height (80–600px, 180px default).
• Type-aware file icons — resolved files now show appropriate icons (BookOpen for PDFs/docs, Play for audio, Frame for video, File for others).
• Open/reveal buttons — every resolved file type now has affordances to open or reveal in folder.
• Fixed layout bugs — addressed fieldlist clipping, rounded-border image rendering, and the bottom-dock crop affecting Details visibility.

Table Search & Filtering (PR #46)

• Global find bar — Ctrl+F search with case-insensitive, whole-word, and regex toggles (matching a Zed-style workflow).
• Per-column filtering — Google Sheets–style column header dropdowns with value checklist and search-to-narrow for high-cardinality columns.
• View/source index split — filters correctly narrow visible rows without reordering the underlying data, ensuring edits write back to the correct source row.
• Composable with virtualization — filtering and search work seamlessly with the virtualized grid on large datasets.

Project File Stability (Preceding work, ASNT-16)

• WAL mode replaced with DELETE journal — eliminated the .qrate-wal and .qrate-shm leftover-file problem by switching to DELETE mode with synchronous=FULL and busy_timeout=5000.
• Single-connection architecture — projects use a single owned connection per process (no pooling), simplifying concurrency and crash recovery.
• Layout persistence — dock position, size, and layout state are persisted with the project.

Downloads

• Windows: *-setup.exe (installer) or *-x86_64.zip (portable)
• macOS: *-universal.dmg (Intel + Apple Silicon)

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt.

[!NOTE] These builds are unsigned.

• Windows: SmartScreen may warn "unknown publisher" — click More info → Run anyway.
• macOS: right-click the app → Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/qrate.app".

COMP 371 Final project submission (dev version 1)

This is the initial developer release (v0.0.1-dev) of qrate, a local-first desktop workspace designed to help archivists catalog cultural heritage materials without the performance bottlenecks of traditional tools.

The goal was to replace the fragmented workflow of switching between Excel and file explorers with a single, high-performance environment that doesn't crash on large datasets.

What’s working in this build:

• Performance: The "Headless Document Model" (SQLite + Rust) is fully functional. You can import 1GB+ CSV files, load them instantly, and scroll through millions of rows with minimal RAM usage.
• Unified Interface: The split-pane view is active, letting you review media files and edit metadata side-by-side without context switching.
• Data Integrity: Auto-save is implemented with ACID transactions, meaning edits are persisted immediately to disk to prevent data loss.
• Archival Tools: The background thumbnail pipeline, custom spellchecker, and cell annotation system are all hooked up and running.

Foundational work (Scaffolding):

• AI Infrastructure: The Rust backend traits and provider modules (src-tauri/src/ai/) are in place, currently set up with scaffolding for Cohere and Mock providers.
• Chat Interface: The frontend routes and UI components for the AI assistant (src/routes/chat/) have been created, laying the groundwork for the future "metadata suggestion" feature.

Tech Stack: Built using Tauri v2, Svelte 5, and Rust.

See the README.md for the full architecture breakdown and setup instructions. You can test the app using sample data attached with this release.