Made some really good progress on Noya Explorer over the last few days.One of the biggest changes is that the app is now fully translated in both English and French. I added a proper language system with a language switcher in the settings, and every part of the UI now uses translations instead of hardcoded text.I also started making the explorer feel more personal. There’s now a new Home page showing your most used files and recently opened files, plus a persistent Favorites system. You can pin folders straight from the explorer, manage them from the sidebar, and they’ll still be there the next time you launch the app.Search got a pretty big upgrade too. Instead of only looking at file names, it now ranks results by relevance and can even search inside text files with a small preview showing where the match was found.On the performance side I spent some time optimizing things. Long file lists are now virtualized so they stay smooth, and I started using Rayon on the Rust backend to parallelize heavier operations like directory sorting and storage analysis.I also cleaned up a good part of the codebase by splitting some large components into smaller ones, which should make future updates much easier to build.Noya Explorer is slowly starting to feel like a real daily driver instead of just a side project, and I’m really happy with the direction it’s taking.As always, I’m open to any suggestions or feedback, so if there’s a feature you’d like to see or something you think could be improved, let me know :)

Development Log — Noya Explorer

Noya Explorer received a huge update focused on turning it into a real file explorer instead of just a file browser.

First, I fixed a compilation issue caused by a duplicated tokio key in src-tauri/Cargo.toml, which was preventing Cargo from parsing the project correctly.

After that, I completely redesigned the interface and theme system. The old system with multiple dark-only themes(never see the day) was replaced with a cleaner light/dark theme setup with automatic system detection, a new purple accent color, and a more technical angular design. I removed the glassmorphism style, reduced border radius, improved typography, and created a more unique identity inspired by Linux file managers like Nautilus and Dolphin while keeping Noya Explorer’s own style.

The file icons were also improved with category-based colors: folders, images, videos, audio files, documents, archives, code files, and executables now have their own visual identity, making navigation easier.

The settings panel was redesigned with a simple Auto / Light / Dark selector instead of the previous theme cards system.

I also fixed file opening issues by replacing the Tauri opener plugin with a native Rust command using the system file opener (xdg-open on Linux, open on macOS, and cmd start on Windows), making file launching more reliable.

The biggest part of this update was transforming Noya Explorer into a real file manager. I added new Rust backend commands for creating files and folders, renaming, deleting, copying, moving entries, and retrieving detailed file information such as size, dates, permissions, and extensions.

On the React side, a large part of the application was rewritten to add real explorer features: multi-selection, copy/cut/paste operations, right-click context menus, file creation dialogs, rename dialogs, delete confirmations, a detailed properties panel, a new toolbar, and many keyboard shortcuts.

New shortcuts include:

• Ctrl+C to copy
• Ctrl+X to cut
• Ctrl+V to paste
• F2 to rename
• Delete to remove files
• Ctrl+A to select everything
• Ctrl+Shift+N to create a folder
• Alt + arrows for navigation

I also created new reusable components like ContextMenu, Dialog, and PropertiesPanel to keep the code cleaner and easier to maintain.

Finally, I adjusted the layout by moving the Analyze and Settings buttons into the sidebar footer, making the sidebar fixed, removing unnecessary elements, and improving the overall consistency of the UI.

This update is a major milestone for Noya Explorer. It is no longer just a file viewer, but a real modern file manager with its own design language. The next goals are advanced features like storage analysis, duplicate detection, suspicious file detection, and smarter file organization.

Made some solid progress on Noya Explorer today. The app was already able to list files and navigate directories but it felt bare. I added a sidebar with quick access to the home folder, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and all the drives on my machine, it auto-loads the last visited folder on startup so you pick up where you left off. There’s also a proper breadcrumb now that lets you click any parent folder or type a path directly. Navigation works with back/forward/up buttons and keyboard shortcuts too (Alt+arrows or Backspace to go back). Then I built a storage analysis panel that recursively scans the current directory from Rust, categorizes every file by type, and shows a breakdown with total size, file count, and visual bars per category: images, videos, audio, documents, archives, code, executables. The whole thing compiles and runs as a Tauri desktop app, and it’s starting to look like a real file explorer so im happy with it

Made progress on Noya Explorer today. After the initial setup I wanted to get something actually working, a basic file browser that can list files from a folder on my computer. I wrote a Rust command in Tauri that reads a directory and returns the file list with names, sizes, dates and whether each entry is a folder or a file. Then I built a simple React interface that calls this command and displays the results. You can click a button to open a folder picker and the files show up in a list with icons based on file type. Clicking a folder navigates into it, and there’s a back button to go up.I also added a simple file type detection system based on extensions — images, videos, audio, documents, archives, code files, executables. Each type gets its own emoji icon for now. The file list shows name, size and modification date. Nothing fancy yet but it actually works.The UI is dark themed with a clean header and a basic toolbar. Still looks like a prototype but the core loop is there: pick a folder, browse its contents, navigate around. So i’m happy. Next I want to add search, sorting and folder size calculation.

Started working on Noya Explorer today. The goal is to build a better local file explorer with Rust, Tauri, React and TypeScript. I want it to be more useful than a classic file explorer, with search, categories, storage analysis and later suspicious file detection. For this first session, I set up the Tauri project structure, created the basic repository, worked on the README, added the non-commercial license, and planned the first MVP features. Next, I want to make the first real interface: a simple file browser view with a sidebar, a file list, and basic navigation.