Meet SwiftList: A Modern, .NET 10 & AVX2-Accelerated Open-Source Alternative to Listary & Everything

English General
1

:high_voltage: SwiftList: A Modern, Open-Source .NET 10 & AVX2-Accelerated Alternative to Listary

Hello, Windows power users, developers, and Listary enthusiasts! Today, I’m excited to share a completely open-source local search and productivity launcher: SwiftList.

If you love Listary but find yourself frustrated by its closed-source nature, slow updates, or compatibility issues with modern Windows features and custom file managers, SwiftList is built just for you.

:speech_balloon: Connect with Us

SwiftList is open-source and welcoming contributors. Give it a spin, customize it with your own plugins, and let us know what you think!

We welcome bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests! Let’s build a faster, open productivity launcher together.

:rocket: Why SwiftList? (Solving Listary’s Pain Points)

We have kept and enhanced Listary’s most beloved workflows while redesigning the core engine from the ground up using the latest technologies.

1. :open_file_folder: Signature Double-Click Menu & Quick Jump Redirection

  • “Ctrl+G” Quick Switch: When a system file Open/Save dialog is in the foreground, simply press Ctrl+G. SwiftList will instantly grab the path of the currently active Windows Explorer (or Directory Opus) window and redirect the dialog to that exact location! It perfectly recreates and enhances Listary’s most famous signature shortcut.

  • Double/Middle-Click Blank Space Menu: Double-left-click or middle-click on any empty space in Windows Explorer or the Desktop to trigger a fast cascading folder menu. Traverse nested directories instantly, access virtual folders (Quick Access, This PC, Recycle Bin), and view history/favorites.

  • Inline Explorer Docking (InlineSearchPanel): SwiftList automatically attaches a sleek inline search bar to Windows Explorer and standard system File Open/Save dialogs. Search for any folder, hit Enter, and the current window instantly jumps to the target folder—eliminating tedious manual navigation.

  • Native Directory Opus Support: Fully compatible with Directory Opus dual-pane windows and explorer interfaces.

2. :high_voltage: Modern Hardware Acceleration: SIMD / AVX2 Vectorization

  • Millisecond-Level FZF Fuzzy Match: Ported the legendary FZF fuzzy match algorithm to C# with advanced SIMD vectorization.

  • Blazing Fast performance: Leverages Vector256 character scanning and Top-N heap optimizations (SoA format). It calculates search windows up to 9.9x faster and speeds up large-directory masking by 1.6x - 2.1x, providing instant results over millions of indexed items.

  • Pinyin & Initials Matching: Built-in Pinyin support allowing Chinese character retrieval using initials or Pinyin (e.g. searching xx returns 学习资料.xlsx), combined with a dynamic programming highlighter for clean discrete coloring.

3. :brain: SysListView32 & ListBox Hook Search

  • Search inside standard Windows Tables: Not just for files! When the Inline panel attaches to standard list views (like task list tables, registry values, or standard list boxes), typing filters the items directly.

  • Multi-Column Merging: Joins all columns behind the scenes (via Tab delimiters) and matches queries across multiple columns simultaneously, displaying columns with premium separators (│) and horizontal scrolling animations.

4. :eye: Modular QuickLook File Preview

  • Instant Sidebar Preview: Toggle a side-docked, high-quality preview window by pressing a customizable shortcut (like Alt + Space / Alt + P).

  • Multi-Format Support: Quickly preview folder structures, images, plain text documents, and PE headers. The preview stays synced as you browse items.

5. :puzzle_piece: Fully Decoupled Plugin Ecosystem

  • Zero-Allocation Binary IPC Daemon: A lightweight background NT service monitors the NTFS USN Journal in real time, streaming updates via zero-allocation IPC to keep the file index synced silently.

  • Ultra-Low Idle Memory Footprint: Unlike Listary, which can easily consume dozens or even hundreds of MBs of memory in the background, SwiftList leverages a zero-allocation IPC architecture, on-demand plugin loading, and aggressive cache management. Its idle memory usage is significantly lower than Listary’s, keeping your system lightweight.

  • Built-in Plugins:

  • Scientific Calculator: Real-time math evaluator with bracket support and base conversions (e.g. 1024 to hex or 0xFF to dec).

  • Environment Variables Expansion: Instantly expand %appdata% or %temp% paths to open them.

  • Bing Translator: Translate strings on the fly (e.g., tr hello).

  • Command Runner: Prefix with $ for normal terminal execution or # for administrative UAC elevation.

  • Web Search Shortcuts: Google (gg), Baidu (bd), Bing (bing), GitHub (gh), and Wikipedia (wiki).

:hammer_and_wrench: Architecture & Tech Stack

  • UI: Modern .NET 10.0 (WPF) with fluid transitions, acrylic blur styles, and custom themes.

  • System Integration: Win32 low-level APIs targeting NTFS MFT and USN logs.

  • Modular Clean Code: Decoupled into SwiftList.App, SwiftList.Service, SwiftList.Core, and SwiftList.PluginSdk.

2

Thanks for announcing SwiftList. This looks like a promising Listary alternative.

No offense to the developer, but it’s a brand-new project with no named author listed and one star on Github. None of that is unusual or a red flag on its own, but it made me want to look before running a packaged installer on trust.

So I had Claude review the source and build from it instead. The review was reasonably thorough (network calls, the background service, the keyboard hooks, the updater, plus a scan for the usual exfiltration patterns) and came back clean, with one thing worth flagging: the auto-updater runs elevated with no signature or hash check, so a malicious future release would land with full privileges. That’s the main reason building from source and leaving auto-update off felt safer.

On first start, the app registered its own service, Windows threw a UAC prompt, I approved it, and SwiftList’s Settings > Service Status panel confirmed the service was running and indexed.

Now to try the features.

3

Thanks for the thorough review and for pointing this out! You are 100% correct about the lack of signature/hash verification for the updater. Since getting a commercial EV Code Signing Certificate is currently cost-prohibitive for a new indie open-source project, this is a very valid concern.

I would like to clarify a detail about the update design to reassure users: by default, SwiftList does NOT silently download or install updates in the background.

  • Default Behavior (Notify-Only): The app only checks for new releases on startup. If one is found, it simply shows a notification dialog and directs you to the “About” page. It will never download or run anything without your explicit manual action.
  • Opt-in “Silent Update” Requirement: Background auto-updating (AutoSilentUpdate) is turned off by default. It can only be enabled if you explicitly check it in the settings, and only if the application is running with administrative privileges.

How I Fixed It (Released in v2.1.2):

To address the supply-chain / MITM trust issue, I have just integrated ECDsa NIST P-256 Signature Verification into both our build workflow and the auto-updater client in the newly released v2.1.2:

  1. Auto-Updater Signature Checks: The client now downloads the release ZIP alongside a signature file (SwiftList-Portable.zip.sig). The client verifies the signature using an embedded public key (via native .NET cryptography) before extracting or triggering any update script.
  2. Workflow Checksums & Verifications: Our GitHub Actions release pipeline has been updated. Starting from v2.1.2, we will:
    • Automatically sign the release artifacts directly within the pipeline using standard OpenSSL.
    • Publish the SHA-256 checksums of all assets directly in the release notes.
    • Provide the public key and a quick openssl / PowerShell command on the release page so users can manually audit and verify the integrity of the downloaded assets.

For security-conscious users, building from source or running the portable version with auto-update turned off is still highly supported, but the update channel is now cryptographically secured!

Thank you again for the code audit! Pull requests or further security suggestions are always welcome.

4

Excellent software. Once all basic features of Listary 5 are incorporated, I will shift. Currently, I am using the portable version for testing purposes