Erik J
@erkjlvk.bsky.social
I build https://www.fileside.app and will bleat about its development here.
Fileside's Black Friday sale has started.
66% off on a lifetime license up until Cyber Monday 1 Dec.
Get it while it's hot!
www.fileside.app
66% off on a lifetime license up until Cyber Monday 1 Dec.
Get it while it's hot!
www.fileside.app
Home
Fileside is a modern multi-pane file manager that lets you create workspaces for different projects. It's a great alternative to Finder on Mac and Explorer on Windows.
www.fileside.app
November 23, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Fileside's Black Friday sale has started.
66% off on a lifetime license up until Cyber Monday 1 Dec.
Get it while it's hot!
www.fileside.app
66% off on a lifetime license up until Cyber Monday 1 Dec.
Get it while it's hot!
www.fileside.app
After last week's announcement, 80 people have signed up as beta testers for Fileside 2. This should be a fun release cycle!
October 6, 2025 at 5:53 PM
After last week's announcement, 80 people have signed up as beta testers for Fileside 2. This should be a fun release cycle!
Just published an update on the plan for Fileside 2.0 and how the work is progressing.
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-10...
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-10...
The plan for Fileside 2
Over the past year I’ve had a steady stream of emails asking if a Fileside version 2 is coming. One even wondered whether the project is still being maintained…
www.fileside.app
October 1, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Just published an update on the plan for Fileside 2.0 and how the work is progressing.
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-10...
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-10...
A method in a class gets created once, then reused.
A function in a React function component gets recreated once per instance (or even every render if you forget useCallback).
Now add this up for a data-dense view like a directory listing with 100s of individual cells.
A function in a React function component gets recreated once per instance (or even every render if you forget useCallback).
Now add this up for a data-dense view like a directory listing with 100s of individual cells.
August 23, 2025 at 5:43 AM
A method in a class gets created once, then reused.
A function in a React function component gets recreated once per instance (or even every render if you forget useCallback).
Now add this up for a data-dense view like a directory listing with 100s of individual cells.
A function in a React function component gets recreated once per instance (or even every render if you forget useCallback).
Now add this up for a data-dense view like a directory listing with 100s of individual cells.
Just vibecoded the remainder of my Trello notes away into my custom Markdown-file-based Kanban setup in less time than it took to listen through Carl Craig's Songs about Food and Revolutionary Art.
August 3, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Just vibecoded the remainder of my Trello notes away into my custom Markdown-file-based Kanban setup in less time than it took to listen through Carl Craig's Songs about Food and Revolutionary Art.
It's 2025 and we can finally generate dynamic colours using just CSS in production.
The syntax takes some getting used to, but it's so handy for all those little brighten/darken/saturate/desaturate tweaks you need in every UI.
The syntax takes some getting used to, but it's so handy for all those little brighten/darken/saturate/desaturate tweaks you need in every UI.
July 28, 2025 at 7:44 AM
It's 2025 and we can finally generate dynamic colours using just CSS in production.
The syntax takes some getting used to, but it's so handy for all those little brighten/darken/saturate/desaturate tweaks you need in every UI.
The syntax takes some getting used to, but it's so handy for all those little brighten/darken/saturate/desaturate tweaks you need in every UI.
This is so true.
ffmpeg is a beast, it can do absolutely anything with audio/video if you just utter the right incantation. I doubt more than a handful of people in the universe truly understand its internals.
ffmpeg is a beast, it can do absolutely anything with audio/video if you just utter the right incantation. I doubt more than a handful of people in the universe truly understand its internals.
July 4, 2025 at 7:39 AM
This is so true.
ffmpeg is a beast, it can do absolutely anything with audio/video if you just utter the right incantation. I doubt more than a handful of people in the universe truly understand its internals.
ffmpeg is a beast, it can do absolutely anything with audio/video if you just utter the right incantation. I doubt more than a handful of people in the universe truly understand its internals.
Today I discovered that saturation can go backwards in CSS.
Who'd have thought.
Who'd have thought.
June 26, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Today I discovered that saturation can go backwards in CSS.
Who'd have thought.
Who'd have thought.
The sycophancy level has been ramped up so much in current coding agents.
Hard not to get the impression they're just telling me what I want to hear when every single prompt is "absolutely right", "raising a very valid and important point", "a nuanced and insightful remark" and so on.
Hard not to get the impression they're just telling me what I want to hear when every single prompt is "absolutely right", "raising a very valid and important point", "a nuanced and insightful remark" and so on.
June 18, 2025 at 7:59 AM
The sycophancy level has been ramped up so much in current coding agents.
Hard not to get the impression they're just telling me what I want to hear when every single prompt is "absolutely right", "raising a very valid and important point", "a nuanced and insightful remark" and so on.
Hard not to get the impression they're just telling me what I want to hear when every single prompt is "absolutely right", "raising a very valid and important point", "a nuanced and insightful remark" and so on.
Thanks to this lovely review, Fileside got a whole host of new users over the weekend.
www.xda-developers.com/windows-file...
www.xda-developers.com/windows-file...
This file manager for Windows supports workspaces, dual pane browsing, and looks fantastic
If you are looking for a more effiencent file management tool, Fileside is a lightweight alternative.
www.xda-developers.com
June 16, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Thanks to this lovely review, Fileside got a whole host of new users over the weekend.
www.xda-developers.com/windows-file...
www.xda-developers.com/windows-file...
Decided to bring in Tanstack Table as a view model for the file listings, and though well-engineered, I'm not entirely sure that it doesn't actually increase complexity rather than reduce it.
May 20, 2025 at 5:50 AM
Decided to bring in Tanstack Table as a view model for the file listings, and though well-engineered, I'm not entirely sure that it doesn't actually increase complexity rather than reduce it.
Quite striking how much of the decision-making process in software development is aesthetic in nature.
AI has made the distinction between "generating code" and "developing software" very clear. By being good at the former, it's highlighted how much taste and intuition plays into the latter. 👇
AI has made the distinction between "generating code" and "developing software" very clear. By being good at the former, it's highlighted how much taste and intuition plays into the latter. 👇
May 15, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Quite striking how much of the decision-making process in software development is aesthetic in nature.
AI has made the distinction between "generating code" and "developing software" very clear. By being good at the former, it's highlighted how much taste and intuition plays into the latter. 👇
AI has made the distinction between "generating code" and "developing software" very clear. By being good at the former, it's highlighted how much taste and intuition plays into the latter. 👇
It all starts with a neat little generic parameter, and before you know it you've become an inveterate hyper typer.
pscanf.com/s/341/
pscanf.com/s/341/
Hyper-Typing
In this article, I talk about an inherent trade-off in TypeScript's type
system: stricter types are safer, but often more complex. I describe a
phenomenon I call "hyper-typing", where libraries - in p...
pscanf.com
May 13, 2025 at 7:21 AM
It all starts with a neat little generic parameter, and before you know it you've become an inveterate hyper typer.
pscanf.com/s/341/
pscanf.com/s/341/
The Clerk team seems to have come up with an actual valid reason to use an emoji in code. The lock functions as a delimiter between "public" and "private" CSS classes.
May 10, 2025 at 4:13 AM
The Clerk team seems to have come up with an actual valid reason to use an emoji in code. The lock functions as a delimiter between "public" and "private" CSS classes.
Excellent no-nonsense tool for mapping out trails on a map:
trailrouter.com
Google Maps' Measure Distance tool works well, but infuriatingly won't let you save your drawn trails. With Trail Router, it's all in the URL. Elegantly simple and sufficient.
trailrouter.com
Google Maps' Measure Distance tool works well, but infuriatingly won't let you save your drawn trails. With Trail Router, it's all in the URL. Elegantly simple and sufficient.
Powerful route planner that prefers greenery and can generate round trip routes of a specified distance | Trail Router
Powerful route planner that prefers greenery and can generate round trip routes of a specified distance
trailrouter.com
April 29, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Excellent no-nonsense tool for mapping out trails on a map:
trailrouter.com
Google Maps' Measure Distance tool works well, but infuriatingly won't let you save your drawn trails. With Trail Router, it's all in the URL. Elegantly simple and sufficient.
trailrouter.com
Google Maps' Measure Distance tool works well, but infuriatingly won't let you save your drawn trails. With Trail Router, it's all in the URL. Elegantly simple and sufficient.
Saying "right paren", "right bracket" etc became too annoying, so I came up with new spoken forms for the brackets commonly used in code.
{ }: curly/wurly
[ ]: hooky/wooky
( ): frown/smile
{ }: curly/wurly
[ ]: hooky/wooky
( ): frown/smile
April 26, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Saying "right paren", "right bracket" etc became too annoying, so I came up with new spoken forms for the brackets commonly used in code.
{ }: curly/wurly
[ ]: hooky/wooky
( ): frown/smile
{ }: curly/wurly
[ ]: hooky/wooky
( ): frown/smile
Feels good to finally see some effects of the reworked internals reach the UI. Layouts now have a dirty and an active state with corresponding visual indicators.
April 22, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Feels good to finally see some effects of the reworked internals reach the UI. Layouts now have a dirty and an active state with corresponding visual indicators.
I’m positively surprised at how usable voice control is today, and how proficient I was able to get in four weeks. This blog post details my journey so far.
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-04...
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-04...
Four weeks of voice computing - here's what I learnt
After a recent flare-up of RSI-related wrist pain, I decided to make a serious attempt at becoming proficient at speech computing. My hope was to be able to add an alternative input method in order to...
www.fileside.app
April 15, 2025 at 6:12 AM
I’m positively surprised at how usable voice control is today, and how proficient I was able to get in four weeks. This blog post details my journey so far.
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-04...
www.fileside.app/blog/2025-04...
Feels like I've finally cracked how to work productively with an LLM on the Fileside codebase. It's a combination of me getting better at providing the right context, and just sheer capability increase of the latest models. Now moved from Claude 3.7 to Gemini 2.5 Pro as the default driver.
April 8, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Feels like I've finally cracked how to work productively with an LLM on the Fileside codebase. It's a combination of me getting better at providing the right context, and just sheer capability increase of the latest models. Now moved from Claude 3.7 to Gemini 2.5 Pro as the default driver.
Fileside 2 is progressing slowly but surely. With a lot of the supporting infra finished, I am now tackling the core of the layout and lister implementations.
Both extensibility and maintainability are going to be infinitely improved once this is done.
Both extensibility and maintainability are going to be infinitely improved once this is done.
April 4, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Fileside 2 is progressing slowly but surely. With a lot of the supporting infra finished, I am now tackling the core of the layout and lister implementations.
Both extensibility and maintainability are going to be infinitely improved once this is done.
Both extensibility and maintainability are going to be infinitely improved once this is done.
Crazy how the way I go about my daily work as a software engineer has changed more in the last 6 months than in the previous 20 years.
April 3, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Crazy how the way I go about my daily work as a software engineer has changed more in the last 6 months than in the previous 20 years.
Interesting to note that the vanilla JS examples for Tanstack Table use nanostores.
tanstack.com/table/latest...
I guess good coders know good code when they see it.
tanstack.com/table/latest...
I guess good coders know good code when they see it.
Vanilla TanStack Table Basic Example | TanStack Table Docs
An example showing how to implement Basic in Vanilla using TanStack Table.
tanstack.com
March 26, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Interesting to note that the vanilla JS examples for Tanstack Table use nanostores.
tanstack.com/table/latest...
I guess good coders know good code when they see it.
tanstack.com/table/latest...
I guess good coders know good code when they see it.
My RSI got bad enough that I started investigating how to go full voice control, using @whitep4nth3r.com's helpful blog post whitep4nth3r.com/blog/how-i-l... as a starting point.
Apple Voice Control proved woefully inadequate. Now starting to climb the steep learning curve that is Talon Voice.
Apple Voice Control proved woefully inadequate. Now starting to climb the steep learning curve that is Talon Voice.
How I learned to code with my voice
Struggling with severe hand pain, I learned to code by voice. This is my journey with Talon and Cursorless, plus practical tips for hands-free development.
whitep4nth3r.com
March 18, 2025 at 10:20 AM
My RSI got bad enough that I started investigating how to go full voice control, using @whitep4nth3r.com's helpful blog post whitep4nth3r.com/blog/how-i-l... as a starting point.
Apple Voice Control proved woefully inadequate. Now starting to climb the steep learning curve that is Talon Voice.
Apple Voice Control proved woefully inadequate. Now starting to climb the steep learning curve that is Talon Voice.