Changes

NEW Added Scheduler

• Adds the ability to schedule background compression of watched folders, with the following choices:
  • When system is idle (existing functionality)
  • On Schedule
  • On Schedule if system is also idle (for example you want to run it at 6pm every day, but only if you're not actively using the computer)
• If the Scheduler is running and you wish to cancel it, you can do so from the Watcher tab as below
• Note: Scheduler will only run if the computer is already on and CompactGUI is running.

NEW Manual compression of all watched folders

• You can now compress all watched folders manually from the Watcher tab
• Any scheduled background compressions can also be cancelled from this tab when they are running too.

NEW Logging
Hopefully this will make error reporting easier - logs are now generated and saved to %IridiumIO%/CompactGUI. If you run into issues with CompactGUI, please share these logs when creating an issue! Hopefully they catch the reason for any crashes or problems.

TWEAKS UI Updates

• Improved Compression Mode option buttons and layout of main area of CompactGUI
  • the hover effect can be disabled in settings if you prefer to always see more details
• Tweaked results view (not sure if this looks better or not - probably will change again later)
• Adjusted Watcher page layout - now includes button to compress all watched folders on command
• Changes to base background colour and image use

Fixes

• Fixed several memory leaks
• Major performance improvements in several areas and reduced overall memory usage
• Fixed a crash that could occur when opening the skiplist
• Fixed the watcher list nuking itself if a monitored folder is deleted #546
• Fixed instances where the background watcher simply doesn't do anything
• Fixed the compression buttons showing the wrong estimates #543
• Fixed spamming disk writes when the user changes settings (previously every change in the settings menu would immediately write the new settings file to disk - now this is debounced)

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		F6722CD43AA8169DB1F960A258639889
SHA-256: 	5CB2DB4EC39B8FA3E11BC3824BBFDC55214373D27714BFA2C1DF306576F06D81

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Full Changelog: v4.0.0-beta.5...v4.0.0-beta.6

Tweaks + Bugfixes

• You can once again drag-and-drop folders into the main window to be compressed #533
• Adds an error message when attempting to compress folders that have been compressed by the old Windows LZNT1 method (using the "Compress contents to save disk space" option) as this is unsupported. #316
• Adds a warning when attempting to compress games that use DirectStorage #423
• Window state, position and size is now saved between application launches #537
• Compression options are now saved between application launches, and when adding new folders to the queue any modifications made to the configuration options will carry across #536
• No longer travels down symbolic links or directory junctions when scanning folders. This may have been the cause of some crashes and incorrect file size reporting #532

Known Issues

• Adding an extension to the Settings skiplist will not update the XXX files will be skipped counter unless you remove the folder and re-add it to the queue

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		F1EEBEBBAFF74D2C01EA8C223DFF1136
SHA-256: 	710786CD5A8583F3AEB1F38A5355FEF0D8EDFB1BCF130A2364773C55EB2FAE32

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Full Changelog: v4.0.0-beta.4...v4.0.0-beta.5

Changes

NEW Added Results Database Viewer

• Let's you see and search compression results from user-submitted data
• It uses the same database that is already used to show the estimated compression when working on a Steam game
• Note: I've added a filter in the generation of the database to get rid of extremely old submissions that are likely to be inaccurate. This means that any game that has more than 4000 results (1000 per compression level) will have the oldest submissions stripped out. "Ark: Survival Evolved" is a good example of this.

Backend Changes

• Rewrote core logic in C# (time to start saying goodbye, VB.NET my old friend)
• Improved analyser performance

Fixes

• Fixes crash when the program can't download an updated results database on launch #528
• Fixes adding watched folders to the compression queue not auto-selecting the correct compression level #530

Known Issues

• Adding an extension to the Settings skiplist will not update the XXX files will be skipped counter unless you remove the folder and re-add it to the queue

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		1CF91B3C93EDDE224690B9D973F88436
SHA-256: 	86FF3247DB150F0A76E1A0C0B553010E211FBE3E729D6A338107CF850EE8C767

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Full Changelog: v4.0.0-beta.3...v4.0.0-beta.4

Changes

NEW Added Compression Estimator

• Estimations now show up for non-Steam games as well, and are generally accurate to ±5% of the XPRESS4K compressability
• Scans tiny fragments of each file when analysing to guess how compressible it is by using in-memory compression
• These estimates can be used to skip files that may not compress well in the selected folder
  • The UI and checkboxes in the Configuration list have been updated to reflect this, along with tooltips to improve clarity
• These estimations can be disabled in the Settings

Backend Changes

• Internal refactoring of Compactor and Uncompactor to utilise a shared interface, as well as use SafeFileHandle for operations

Known Issues

• Adding an extension to the Settings skiplist will not update the XXX files will be skipped counter unless you remove the folder and re-add it to the queue

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		E4F2AAB5119F3A46E5524AFC55A40C93
SHA-256: 	4FA49887AE861CEE74E5C5B5DA8A697C3D60AEB3BBD6E21711E894D872D08F2C

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Full Changelog: v4.0.0-beta.2...v4.0.0-beta.3

Changes

• Watcher
  • You can now rename watched folders by double-clicking their display name #487
  • Added a button to re-analyze individual folders #452
• The PC now stays awake while a folder is being compressed (sleep prevention is lifted when compression finishes or CompactGUI is closed) #110
• Added an Admin icon to the UI when running CompactGUI as administrator

Fixes

• Fixed several crashes related to the Watcher #519
• Removed an unused registry entry that also caused a crash #517
• Fixed unreadable Skiplist window on Windows 10 #516
• CompactGUI no longer appears as "MainWindow" in the taskbar #515
• Fixed issue where a paused folder could get stuck after clicking "Apply to All" from another folder #521
• Minor Watcher UI fixes:
  • Fixed missing analysis indicator next to folders
  • Last Compressed date now updates correctly after compression #522

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		A4BAA27E02BB6550C758716041CB6C1A
SHA-256: 	33FA69CB9E765821314712C39C9DA0BE1A68F0FC30085A5B4A9C962641285BF3

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Full Changelog: v4.0.0-beta.1...v4.0.0-beta.2

Changes

• UI overhaul - The existing UI with the animated transitions was getting really hard to manage, and I couldn't figure out how to squeeze some new features into it. So I've rewritten it entirely. It's less unique, and I'm not entirely a fan of the new design (in progress), but at least it's more functional. If you have suggestions on changes, please let me know
  • Switched to WPFUI and uses a more standard navigation layout
  • Window can now be resized properly
• Folder Queue - Multiple folders can be selected for compression at a time
  • Each folder can have different compression options
• Improved background watcher logic and environment checks

Fixes

• Watcher:
  • Fixed a crash when adding an unsupported folder to the Watcher page
  • Fixed details not updating in some situations

Known Issues

• If CompactGUI is run from the root of a directory, it will crash on launch. >> I have overwritten this release with a fixed version (version number unchanged), redownload if you have this issue

Installation

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (10MB):		 Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (64MB):	 Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

MD5: 		432C732E71F1FF842D3DB28BA7632AC4
SHA-256: 	90D8B50F9C145A86E7E2FAC9A92E5FA5BF18525C04AAB5A4B91A61B2CFDE9779

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Changes

• Navigation Bar is now always visible (to switch between Compactor and Folder Watcher views)
• Quality Of Life:
  • Added tooltips to buttons in the Folder Watcher view. #487
  • Holding Shift + clicking on the exit button now closes CompactGUI without minimising to tray.

Fixes

• Fixed program hang when attempting to compress folders on RAMDisks or SSHDs #488 #489

Installation Options

Binaries

CompactGUI.exe (2.8MB):		Smaller size, but requires .NET 9 Runtime to be installed
CompactGUI.mono.exe (72MB):	Fully self-contained and embeds the necessary .NET 9 libraries

WinGet

winget install CompactGUI

Automatically installs .NET 9 if required, however it can often take a few days for new releases to become available.

File Checksums

MD5: 		84D9C95B1FFE79D0BB90B34EFB86CE45
SHA-256: 	F21963A68C25B72D59A8431AF2E0E98B4A701E87C4F4A47EC4363238D7D384D2

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Please consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi :)

Changes:

• Upgraded to .NET 9.0
  • For some reason this fixes the Windows Defender false positives from version 3.6. 🤷 No other changes have been made

Important!

Because this application uses .NET 9, you have two choices of downloads:

• 
  • 2.8 MB: If you don't have the .NET 9 runtime installed when you try to run this, it will prompt you to download it from Microsoft.
• 
  • 70 MB: Includes all libraries required to run it completely standalone, however it's nearly 25x the size. I do recommend installing the .NET 9 runtime instead.

File Checksums

MD5: 		E70BC6335A7BDCF86E0AEF56D378AE7E
SHA-256: 	DF7E46413A613F5EF918561984BB9C6FF9000AA613DC33B0F7B2CA26CB8FF77B

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Please consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi :)

Full Changelog: v3.6.0-...v3.7.0

New Changes:

• Added option to choose how many threads are used when compressing (and decompressing). Setting this option to 0 will fallback to default settings (max threads = processor core count)
  • Additional option to always force HDDs to use a single thread (this can actually speed up performance significantly due to minimising seek times, and might reduce fragmentation)
  • All background compression now only uses a single thread to minimise use of system resources.

Fixes:

• Fixes #469 - Thanks @AndrisBorbas!

Important!

Because this application uses .NET 8, you have two choices of downloads:

• 
  • 2.8 MB: If you don't have the .NET 8 runtime installed when you try to run this, it will prompt you to download it from Microsoft.
• 
  • 70 MB: Includes all libraries required to run it completely standalone, however it's nearly 25x the size. I do recommend installing the .NET 8 runtime instead.

File Checksums

MD5: 		0871F1FAAE67F9818CAFCCE8F3428DED
SHA-256: 	90B2B43E429FF4C235EF1B89655A8B7258EA5E92E634D5FA8B139B6227345219

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Please consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi :)

Full Changelog: v3.5.1...v3.6.0

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed issues with launching CompactGUI if Start In System Tray was enabled #451
• Fixed memory leak in the Analyser #450

Other:

• Code refactoring
• Minor UI tweaks
• Steam background images are now cached instead of downloading them every time

A few people have asked about a Discord server for communication as well; while I'm not so sure about it, I've created one here anyway. We'll see how it goes Iridium Discord Server

Important!

Because this application uses .NET 8, you have two choices of downloads:

• 
  • 2.8 MB: If you don't have the .NET 8 runtime installed when you try to run this, it will prompt you to download it from Microsoft.
• 
  • 70 MB: Includes all libraries required to run it completely standalone, however it's nearly 25x the size. I do recommend installing the .NET 8 runtime instead.

File Checksums

MD5: 		C168BED82910A33A3CC53E1D7191E91C
SHA-256: 	77C023870286DD06AA30B1C40903702F377BF7264559564329C8C456DE0120AF

Like this project?

Please consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi :)

Full Changelog: v3.5.0...v3.5.1