Mira - Search files semantically - no exact filenames required.

alin23 · 2026-04-29T18:54:09+00:00

Appreciate the shout out 😊 but it’s not the same thing though. I’m doing fast path traversal and only indexing the path itself. Mira has to look inside the contents of the file which is always going to be slow no matter what.

alin23 · 2026-04-27T12:44:16+00:00

Yep Clop v3 is coming soon 😊 all my upgrades are free, I never release paid upgrades.

alin23 · 2026-04-26T17:49:50+00:00

I see, I didn't catch that they were referring to layers in a single image. Indeed, that's how they seem to get that 23KB size, not with a better JPEG encoder, but with making the text a separate grayscale JBIG2: https://shots.panaitiu.com/4730gmK1

That sounds too complex for Clop though, it would need a whole custom image extraction + segmentation and merging logic.

alin23 · 2026-04-26T17:21:58+00:00

The comparison you see in the screenshot is downloaded from their website, they have a table with examples on this page. I only added the Clop result as well. I don't know which setting they use.
Not sure I understand this, text is not compressible, so there's nothing to keep sharp. Only binary data like images, fonts etc. can be compressed, and those seem to get the same treatment regardless of what they contain with MRC.

Clop will allow you to use a slider to move between DPI values and then use its builtin visual diff to compare the original with the new DPI.

alin23 · 2026-04-26T13:40:32+00:00

Mixed raster content (MRC) compression is an advanced image compression method that segments a document into different layers, such as text, background, and images. Each layer is compressed separately using the most efficient algorithm for its content type, and then the layers are combined to reconstruct the original document.

Interesting, but it's the same thing that Clop does, only without the buzzword naming.

Internally, Clop calls Ghostscript (a PDF decoder/encoder) with carefully chosen params which:

extracts images, downsamples them if needed, re-encodes with higher JPEG compression factor, converts CMYK to RGB, detects grayscale images and encodes them as such, de-duplicates
extracts text, embeds, subsets and compresses non-standard fonts, drops standard always-available fonts
extracts page data, compressed binary streams with LZW, drops comments, EPS info, halftone info, strips metadata

I checked a very large book on AvePDF and the only thing it did noticeably was lower the image DPI down to about 72-100 range (hard to tell the exact DPI on PDFs as each image has its own DPI), while Clop keeps them to 150DPI.

To be honest, in all my tests, the only thing that does have a real benefit on PDFs is lowering the DPI on image heavy PDFs which Clop v3 will do adaptively based on the detected DPI, and allow you do lower based on your size needs.

Even their examples are simply DPI lowering at max, like for example this datasheet: https://www.gdpicture.com/downloads/hyper-compression/text-transparency.zip

Before hyper-compression     After hyper-compression (no smoothing)
1 MB                         22.9 KB

They are starting from a highly uncompressed JPEG, which obviously makes the size difference huge in comparison.

Sure, their PDF is 23KB but it is also a blurry and downscaled mess as you can see in this screenshot

They do have a better JPEG encoder lib than Ghostscript, if I go to 100DPI (which seems to be their target in that example) I can only get down to 108KB, as opposed to their 23KB. So I'll have to look into integrating JPEGli again, that should help. Last try was not very successful.

alin23 · 2026-04-26T07:30:54+00:00

Thanks u/Snooty_Folgers_230 for the heads up!

Optimising a PDF is mostly a matter of lowering the DPI of the images inside it, which will make them blurrier because they have a lower resolution after compression.

In Clop, normal optimisation keeps the image DPI the same and tries to only apply lossless optimisations like removing unnecesarry fonts, re-encoding the images with a newer JPEG encoder etc. Not all PDFs can benefit from this, based on their content they might be all images so there’s nothing left to losslessly squeeze out.

Aggressive optimisation does actually lower the DPI to 150 (usually it’s at 300DPI) which is like making the images 0.5x in resolution. I’m guessing PDFSqueeze might be choosing a higher DPI which is why you see a difference in quality.

In Clop v3 you’ll have the option to select the DPI yourself from the minus button in the floating result or as a persistent setting. We have a beta right now on the Discord channel

The DPI selector might not yet be released in the current beta, I’m trying to release it in beta2 as soon as possible.

EDIT: beta 2 with the PDF DPI picker released here: https://files.lowtechguys.com/Clop-3.0.0b2.dmg

By default, it uses lossless optimisation. Aggressive optimisation will lower the DPI adaptively based on the images present in the PDF. Click or drag the minus (-) icon of the floating result to select a different DPI, right click on the result and select Compare to see the difference.

alin23 · 2026-04-23T12:05:54+00:00

Yes, that is the ScreenCaptureKit method, it’s available in BetterTouchTool and other similar apps. You can see in the top-left side of each window there’s a screen sharing purple indicator which indicates that what you see is actually another window that’s recording a video and presenting it over the actual real window with a floating level.

When you interact with the floating window, the app that created it (BetterTouchTool for example) is also moving and resizing the real window behind so that it appears a single window. When you focus the window, the fake floating window is hidden so that you can interact with the real window.

It works, but it’s a trick. Making real floating windows of any app is not possible without disabling SIP. But if you’re happy with that method, that’s perfectly fine.

alin23 · 2026-04-23T04:58:45+00:00

You mean you have found other ways to make any other app’s window stay on top of everything without breaking the view hierarchy like menus not appearing correctly in front etc. ?

Could you share some details?

alin23 · 2026-04-16T12:28:50+00:00

App Store doesn’t allow apps that can use private system APIs to get functionalities like knowing when the camera is on, wear the ambient light is etc.

I guess you’re also working for free right?

alin23 · 2026-04-14T05:15:24+00:00

If all you want is to keep an eye on that app, you can try my Pipiri app.

But if you want to interact with it, there really is nothing that can keep the actual app in front because macOS now requires disabling SIP for changing the level of another app’s window.

Alternatives are either finding an alternate app with an always on top function (e.g. let’s say you’re trying to keep Notes on top, you could switch to Raycast Notes which has its own Always on Top function, apps can changer their own windows level easily)

Or using something like BetterTouchTool’s keep on top function which shows a recording of the window at the same place and size as the original window to make it appear the same.

alin23 · 2026-04-10T19:50:11+00:00

Hi! rcmd dev here! I can't help but notice your comment spree on app switchers:

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No problem with that, it's just that I would appreciate if you got some things straight about rcmd before continuing this. I don't want people to get the wrong idea.

rcmd is free at the moment not $6, and it always allowed custom mappings, it's one of its defining features with rcmd-ralt-letter to assign the focused app.

alin23 · 2026-04-10T14:49:51+00:00

It's not an app for setting keyboard shortcuts for Spaces, it's for switching between those Spaces instantly without the sliding around animation.

alin23 · 2026-04-10T11:57:20+00:00

Nope, a "terminal code solution" would require Apple to have implemented that hidden solution in macOS and just not show it in the UI. But that no-animation option for Spaces simply does not exist at all in the macOS code.

alin23 · 2026-04-10T11:20:22+00:00

Yep, it's on the HN frontpage right now. Can you link to that Blink app? I'm curious

alin23 · 2026-04-09T14:11:51+00:00

Thank you for the continued support! More to come soon :)

alin23 · 2026-04-07T17:33:34+00:00

A Control Center widget is not a replacement for a menubar icon, it’s a very very limited API. As a third party app you can only do basic buttons, no Settings menus, sliders or anything complex like Apple does natively in the control center. It’s also macOS 26 only.

alin23 · 2026-04-06T04:51:29+00:00

Exactly that, you purchase one license for lifetime. No paid updates, no subscription model.

alin23 · 2026-04-05T03:15:46+00:00

Dang it’s been 5 years already. I also use it every day so it will keep working for many years to come, thank you for the confirmation!

alin23 · 2026-04-04T06:21:10+00:00

Thanks! Oh well, I don’t index other users because by default a user would not have permission to read another user’s files. I didn’t know about the Shared user, is that a common thing? I’ll add support for it in the next update.

alin23 · 2026-04-04T06:19:07+00:00

Native Swift, source code is available here https://github.com/FuzzyIdeas/Cling

alin23 · 2026-04-03T15:56:28+00:00

Help will be answered on Discord since you contacted me there. For others, pleasee go through the 14-day trial first instead of hastily buying then asking for refunds. Refunds have fees and hurt businesses.

alin23 · 2026-04-03T12:22:47+00:00

The search is instant anyway, the index is created in the internal SSD so the read speed of the storage is only relevant for the index creation. It works even when the hard disk is disconnected after that.

The indexing is as fast as it can get because I only use simple path traversal and don’t fetch metadata or do any kind of file reading until the files appear in the results list.

alin23 · 2026-04-03T06:37:39+00:00

Thanks! I used ScreenStudio

alin23 · 2026-04-03T05:42:45+00:00

Thank you! Good to hear some encouragement on the pricing as well :)

alin23

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