RasterFox 3.0: a native Mac app again

RasterFox has been carrying a custom interface around for a long time, and it was starting to feel like an app from somewhere else. RasterFox 3.0 is a full redesign onto native macOS windows, toolbars and controls, with one vivid fox-orange accent doing the personality work instead of custom chrome. It respects your light or dark appearance now rather than insisting on its own.

The preview window got the most out of it. Side by Side compare mode puts the original and the optimized version in two panes with locked pan and zoom, and each pane carries a minimap showing where you are in the image, so you can click or drag to jump anywhere. Comparing a compressed gradient against its source is finally a thing you can do without guessing which corner you're looking at.

The optimizer panel is a proper inspector pane now: attached to the window edge, resizable, remembered between launches, and toggled with ⌥⌘I. Settings is a real macOS settings window with native tabs and standard grouped forms. Both were floating panels before, and both were exactly as annoying as that sounds.

Keyboard control throughout. ⌘O adds images, Space previews with Quick Look, Return opens the compare window, ⌘⌫ removes, ⌘R reprocesses, ⌘S saves, and the arrow keys walk the list. Every control shows a focus ring again. Result rows keep their buttons hidden until you hover, with the full set of actions on right-click, so a long list stops looking like a control panel.

Big batches feel much faster, mostly because the results list is no longer repainting itself dozens of times a second while images process. The rows read more calmly too: sizes in aligned figures, one highlighted savings percentage, and honest progress bars in place of animated placeholders.

Two fixes worth calling out for direct-build users. Sandbox permission prompts are gone entirely: files save alongside their originals with no folder-access dance, and that whole flow now exists only for sandboxed App Store builds. And pressing Cancel in the folder access dialog actually cancels processing, rather than carrying on regardless.

The app menu has a What's New item now, showing the full changelog in a native window, and it appears once automatically after each update. VoiceOver can reach every control, every icon button has a label and a tooltip, and Celebrations respect Reduce Motion under a single toggle covering both confetti and sound.

RasterFox is $9.99 paid once, and it runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Get it from the RasterFox page or with Homebrew: brew install --cask skulkworks/tap/rasterfox. Full details are in the changelog.