https://youtube.com/watch?v=W-59sWasI98
windows
zip: https://github.com/hydrusnetwork/hydrus/releases/download/v504/Hydrus.Network.504.-.Windows.-.Extract.only.zip
exe: https://github.com/hydrusnetwork/hydrus/releases/download/v504/Hydrus.Network.504.-.Windows.-.Installer.exe
macOS
app: https://github.com/hydrusnetwork/hydrus/releases/download/v504/Hydrus.Network.504.-.macOS.-.App.dmg
linux
tar.gz: https://github.com/hydrusnetwork/hydrus/releases/download/v504/Hydrus.Network.504.-.Linux.-.Executable.tar.gz
I had a great week focusing on improving sidecar import/export. Importing and exporting tags and URLs with files is now easy.
Qt5
As a reminder, I am no longer putting out Qt5 builds. If you are on Windows 7 (and I heard one instance of 8.1), or a similarly old OS, you probably cannot run the hydrus builds any more. You can still update, but you need to run from source from now on. The good news is that this is now much easier to do on Windows--please check the help here: https://hydrusnetwork.github.io/hydrus/running_from_source.html
Windows source users should also get a nice hydrus taskbar icon this week.
sidecars
There's a semi-advanced feature in hydrus where you can tell the client to look for (on file import) or create (on file export) additional files (sidecars) along with your media. Until now, this has been fixed to 'filename.jpg.txt' files that would include tags for the file separated by newlines. This system expands radically this week.
What was static before is now flexible. You can set up multiple workflows for multiple sidecars in one task, grab or send URLs as well as tags, parse or output formatted JSON instead of .txt, and transform or filter the text at every stage.
This is available on manual imports and exports, and import folders and export folders. For manual imports, it becomes a new 'sidecars' page tab on the 'add tags before import' window, and for all the others it is now a button on the UI. If you are interested in this tech, please check it out and let me know what is confusing. It is quite powerful now, and users who are familiar with the concepts involved (and the parsing system) should find it obvious, but I think I'll need to add some help text and a full help guide for users new to it.
All existing 'neighbouring .txt' settings on import folders, export folders, and the manual file export window should be migrated to the new system when you update. Let me know if there are any problems!
There are many potential next steps here. I'd like a 'favourites' system first, so it is possible to save/load/share workflows, and then we can think about more content types (ratings, notes) and .xml parsing/export.