This week Fibich moved deeper into one of the most important macOS workflows: opening music from Finder and having the app do the right thing.
A local music player should not only work when everything starts inside its own library browser. Sometimes I double-click an audio file. Sometimes I open a whole folder. Sometimes I want external files to go into the current playlist; other times I want them separated into a new playlist. That behavior needs to feel predictable, because file opening is one of the oldest and most natural Mac interactions.
So this week I spent time improving file associations and external file routing.
Fibich now has more reliable audio file associations, with settings around how external files should be opened. That sounds like a preferences feature, but it touches the whole app: the system sends files in, Fibich has to recognize the formats, decide where they belong, preserve order, and update the playlist without confusing the library state.
There were a few subtle obstacles here.
The first was ordering. If a folder or album is opened from Finder, tracks need to appear in musical order, not arbitrary system order. There was also a library numeric ordering fix, because names like 1, 2, and 10 should not be sorted like plain text in a way that breaks album flow.
The second was routing. External files are not always library files. Fibich has to support that distinction without making them feel temporary or fragile. If the user opens external tracks into a playlist, they should behave like real playlist items, survive where expected, and remain playable.
The third was repeated tracks.
Until now, playlists were still too close to the idea that a track appears once. But real playlists do not work like that. The same track may appear twice: maybe as a reprise, a comparison, a repeated favorite, or part of two different sections in the same listening session. Supporting repeated track occurrences meant the playlist needed a more precise identity model.
That is a deeper change than it looks. A playlist item can no longer be identified only by the track it points to. The app needs to distinguish the track from its occurrence in the playlist. Playback, selection, search, metadata updates, persistence, and table rendering all need to understand that difference.
This is exactly the kind of detail that makes a player feel reliable. If I add the same song twice, Fibich should treat those as two intentional playlist entries, not collapse them into one or become confused about which one is playing.
There was also a small but useful playlist UI improvement: playlist tabs now sit in a horizontally scrollable container. That makes multiple playlists more comfortable once the user creates enough of them. The app should not punish someone for organizing listening sessions.
And today, Fibich now remembers the last active playlist across launches.
That fits naturally with the recent persistence work. It is not enough to save playlists; the app should also remember where I was. If I close Fibich while working in a specific playlist, reopening the app should bring me back to that context.
This week also added third-party license notices, which is another quiet release-readiness step. Like signing, updates, activation, and About Fibich, it belongs to the growing layer of polish around turning the app into something properly distributable.
The theme of the week is simple: Fibich is learning to respect intent.
If I open files from Finder, keep their order.
If I choose how external files should be handled, remember that choice.
If I add the same track twice, treat both occurrences as meaningful.
If I leave the app on a playlist, return me there next time.
These are not flashy features, but they are the kind of behavior that makes a native macOS music player feel trustworthy.