Unterlumen v0.9.0 — Design System, Folder Insights, and Slideshow Music
Unterlumen v0.9.0 is a focused quality and UX release. No sweeping new workflow this time — instead, a design system that makes the whole app feel more coherent, a genuinely useful new panel for folder-level photo insights, built-in music for the slideshow, and a clean-up of a handful of bugs that have been waiting too long. Here is what is new.
Design system v1
The UI has been gradually accumulating small inconsistencies since the early releases. v0.9.0 addresses them with a first formal design system pass: a unified icon set used consistently across all views, a redesigned viewer navigation bar, toggle sliders that now always show three labels (left, center, right) rather than letting the active state speak for itself, and D3.js charts that share a common visual language. The changes are mostly invisible until you go looking — things just feel more intentional throughout.
Folder metadata panel
The info panel has a new mode: select a folder in the browser and open the panel, and instead of seeing a single photo's EXIF data you see a summary of the entire folder. A treemap shows the distribution of files by type and size, and below it you get aggregated EXIF statistics — focal lengths, apertures, ISOs, cameras, lenses, and Fujifilm film simulations — across every photo in the folder. It is a quick way to understand what is in a folder before you open it, or to compare the character of different shoots side by side.
About dialog
A small addition: there is now an About entry in the application menu. It shows the current version, an author credit, and a link to the GitHub repository. Useful if you have forgotten which version is running, or want to share the project quickly.
Home button in breadcrumb
The breadcrumb navigation bar now has a Home button that jumps directly to your OS home directory. Previously you had to navigate up manually from wherever you were. A small change, but the kind that removes a low-level friction point you did not realise was annoying you.
Slideshow music
The slideshow now supports built-in background music. Two tracks ship with the app — After Hours Transit and Mahogany Gravity — and they loop automatically across the slideshow duration. You can still point the slideshow at a folder of your own audio tracks, as before; the built-in tracks are there for when you just want something without having to prepare anything. A fix in this release also prevents a ghost landscape image from appearing behind a portrait photo during a fade transition.
Improved statistics
The statistics snapshot layout has been redesigned for better readability, and the film simulation chart in particular is clearer — the previous version could get crowded when a library covered many different simulations. The underlying data is unchanged; this is purely a presentation improvement.
Bug fixes
Several bugs were addressed in this release:
- HEIC crop — Crop coordinates for HEIC files were calculated incorrectly, producing a misaligned result. The stale thumbnail cache after cropping was also fixed, so the updated photo is shown immediately.
- Library tools in filter results — The tools menu and export were not accessible when viewing photos through the filter or search panel in library mode. Both are restored.
- Overlay badges — GPS, film simulation, and aspect ratio overlay badges were missing in library view. They are back.
- Wastebin re-render — The photo grid was not refreshing after a permanent delete from the wastebin. It now re-renders correctly.
- Focus ring — Grid and justified view items now show a visible focus ring when navigating by keyboard, with a subtle breathing animation to make the active item easy to spot.
Security
golang.org/x/image was updated to v0.41.0 to incorporate upstream CVE fixes. No user-facing behaviour changes.
Get the update
Install or update as a desktop app:
./unterlumen -desktop-install
Or run with Docker — ffmpeg and exiftool included:
docker run -p 8080:8080 -v /path/to/photos:/photos ghcr.io/bjblazko/unterlumen:latest
All release assets are on the product page and the GitHub repository.