Limits and known gaps
This chapter lists what isn’t built, what wasn’t verified, and what’s still open. It comes from the project’s milestone documents and from reading the code.
Not built
Section titled “Not built”| Feature | State |
|---|---|
| Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox connections | Listed in the connection form, but you can’t connect. There’s no browser sign-in and no token refresh. |
| Rackspace Cloud Files connection | Listed in the connection form, but you can’t connect. |
| Sync Favorites to iCloud | The setting is saved, but nothing syncs. |
| Resuming a partial transfer after a restart or interruption | Pause and Resume work within a session only. The Resume policy control is grayed out. |
| Retrying only the unfinished items of a partly finished job | Retry is unavailable once part of a job has taken effect. |
| Previewing remote files | The Preview panel is local only. Open downloads a temporary copy instead. |
| Notifications | The first-run window can request permission, but FileTerm doesn’t send any. |
| Other interface languages | English only. See below. |
| Extra tool placeholders | None have been defined beyond the six in chapter 10. |
Remote protocol test results
Section titled “Remote protocol test results”Each protocol was to be tested for connect, list, upload, download, rename and delete against a test server.
| Protocol | Result | Note |
|---|---|---|
| SFTP, FTP, FTP-TLS, WebDAV, Amazon S3 | Passed | Against local test servers |
| Backblaze B2 | Passed | Against a stand-in server, not Backblaze’s own service |
| SMB | Passed | Through a real macOS mount |
| NFS | Not run | The test server couldn’t start in the test setup |
| WebDAV over HTTPS | Passed | Against a local test server with its own certificate. An untrusted certificate is refused. |
| AFP | Not run | No test server, and macOS 26 has no AFP client |
| VNC | Not applicable | Screen sharing can’t list or transfer files |
| Rackspace, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox | Not run | Not built |
Also not exercised live: logging in to SFTP with a key, and file names in non-UTF-8 encodings on a real server. Connections don’t reconnect after a restart.
Performance with very large folders
Section titled “Performance with very large folders”Measured on a folder of 100,000 empty files in a release build:
| Measure | Result | Target |
|---|---|---|
| List and prepare one pane | 5.2 s | Under 6 s |
| Longest main thread stall while listing | 0.12 s | 0.25 s |
| App settles with both panes on that folder | About 11 s | None set |
| Longest main thread stall copying 1 GB | 0.003 s | 0.25 s |
Not measured:
- How smoothly a list that long scrolls.
- Selecting everything in a folder that large. Open With asks macOS about each selected item, so expect that to be slow.
A folder of 100,000 subfolders is slower still, because folders also ask Spotlight for their last opened date.
Behavior to watch for
Section titled “Behavior to watch for”- Log redaction matches common credential shapes, so it can’t catch every secret. Read a log before sharing it.
- Rubber-band selection covers only icons currently laid out, and the view doesn’t scroll as you drag.
- Return opens items only in list view. It isn’t wired in icon and column views.
- Saved fields that do nothing yet. A connection’s Local Path, Note and Color Label are stored but not used.
- Archives opened as folders show the path inside the archive in the path bar, and a remote archive is fully downloaded first.
- Compress and Extract aren’t in Undo, and neither are sync jobs, copies across locations or anything done on a connection.
Language support
Section titled “Language support”Interface text and menus can look up translations, and the English strings are extracted. Alert text, command titles, and messages built in code are still hard-coded, so the app can’t be fully translated yet.
Not driven by hand
Section titled “Not driven by hand”Automated tests cover the engines behind these features, but the milestone notes say the dialogs and flows weren’t run by hand on a desktop, or weren’t run against the real service:
- The Sync, Batch Rename and archive dialogs. Empty Trash and the delete dialogs. The App Deleter.
- The tool output window and toolbar button. The remote upload prompt with a real editor. External terminal apps. The Git commit prompt and menu.
- Quick Look and slideshow in full screen, audio and video formats, physical printing, changing owner or group with privileges, and read-only volumes.
- A macOS Service or Share actually running. The tests confirm only that the menus list them.
- iCloud Drive against a real account, Dropbox links against the real service, the default file viewer changing the real system setting, and favorites import with a real file.
Automated tests do run the copy, rename and sync practice scenarios from chapter 12 end to end.
Privacy notes
Section titled “Privacy notes”FileTerm has no crash reporter and writes no log file. Logs stay in memory until you copy or export them. See chapter 7.