cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/41813614

I’m currently working on a file converter app that lets you easily convert your files in bulk without needing to mess around with 500 settings or confusing command-line apps. It’s mostly a replacement for all those “convert X to Y” websites.

This is just a front-end for ffmpeg and imagemagick, but the goal is to make something so simple even my parents could use without uploading sensitive files to shady websites on the internet. I’ve looked around, and I found all the local GUI converters like Handbrake are unwieldy to use, especially if you just want to convert in bulk.

The project is still very early, but I’d like some feedback:

  1. Does anyone think this project is worth finishing, or are there too many GUI file converters out there already?

  2. What do you think about the UI so far?

Cheers.

  • popcar2@programming.devOPEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    VERT is really close but not totally what I was looking for, it’s a web app rather than a local program and AFAIK can’t convert videos locally, you’d have to upload it to a server and download them again.

    • otacon239@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 day ago

      VERT is a file conversion utility that uses WebAssembly to convert files on your device instead of a cloud.

      Doesn’t sound like you’re uploading to the server.

      • popcar2@programming.devOPEnglish
        4·
        1 day ago

        Video files are an exception since it would be too slow on WASM

        Q: What happens with video files?

        Video files get uploaded to our lightning-fast RTX 4000 Ada server. Your videos stay on there for an hour if you do not convert them. If you do convert the file, the video will stay on the server for an hour, or until it is downloaded. The file will then be deleted from our server.

        • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
          3·
          1 day ago

          Given that the server end is self-hostable one could just bundle the frontend and the backend into a single package and run that as an app. I imagine that might be a bit too much though.