Help with Dancing Files

Installing

Download the DMG, open it, and drag Dancing Files onto the Applications folder in the same window. That is the whole install.

You need a Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or later) running macOS 12 Monterey or newer. There is nothing else to install: the converters the app uses — ffmpeg, ImageMagick, pandoc and the poppler tools — are inside the app bundle.

If you would rather have the zip, the download page offers that too. It holds the same app; unzip it and move it to Applications yourself.

The first launch

Open it. That is the whole of it — the app is signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so macOS lets it through the way it lets through anything you buy from a developer directly.

What that means in practice: Apple has scanned the build for malware and issued a ticket saying so, and the ticket is stapled to the app itself, so the check works with the network off. Your Mac also verifies that the copy you downloaded is byte for byte the one that was signed — if a single byte were altered in transit, it would refuse to open.

The one dialog you may see is the ordinary one, the same as for any app downloaded from the web: “Dancing Files is an app downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?” — with an Open button. Click it, and macOS never asks again.

If macOS says the app is damaged

That message means the download did not finish cleanly, not that anything is wrong with the app. Throw away the copy in Applications, download the DMG again, and drag it across a second time.

You can check it yourself

If you want to see the signature rather than take our word for it, open Terminal and run:

spctl --assess --verbose /Applications/Dancing Files.app

It should answer accepted, source=Notarized Developer ID.

Using it

Converting

Drop files onto the window, or press ⌘O. Each file is read as it arrives, and the format grid then offers only what those files can actually become. Pick one and press Enter. Finished files appear in the panel on the right with the size change in percent; drag one into Finder, or double-click it to open it.

Mixed files

Drop images, video and audio at once and they split into category tabs along the top. ⌘1 to ⌘9 jump between them. Each tab converts on its own, so nothing has to be done in one go.

Hearing an audio file first

Audio cards have a play button in place of the format symbol. Click it, or press Space while the pointer is over the card. The thumb becomes an equalizer while it plays, and playback stops by itself if the file is removed or about to be converted.

Where files land, and what they are called

By default a converted file is written next to the original. Settings (⌘,) can point everything at one folder instead, or ask you every time. The same place decides whether the format is added to the name, and what happens when the name is taken — number it, replace it, or skip it. The app never writes over the file it is reading.

History

⌘Y opens the log of what you have converted, newest first, grouped by day. A row reveals that file in Finder. It is stored only on your Mac, and clears from the view or from Settings.

The menu bar and Finder

The icon in the menu bar takes files dropped on it and converts them with the format the app would have recommended — no window needed. In Settings you can also switch on the Finder Quick Action, which puts Convert with Dancing Files in the right-click menu for as many files as you have selected.

The trial and your licence

The first time you open Dancing Files it gives you fifteen days of the whole app. There is no account, no email address and no card. Nothing is locked, nothing is watermarked and nothing is uploaded — the trial is the full app, offline included. Once the days are nearly gone a small pill in the navigation bar says how many are left.

After that, one payment keeps it: 14 €, once, with no renewal. The pricing section has the button, and Dancing Files → Purchase Dancing Files PRO… opens the same checkout from inside the app.

Activating

Your licence key arrives by email as soon as the payment goes through. In the app, open Settings → Dancing Files PRO, paste the key and press Activate License. Dancing Files → Activate License… goes to the same place.

Two Macs

One licence covers two Macs at a time — a desktop and a laptop, say. To move it to a third, press Deactivate This Mac in that same panel on one you have stopped using. It frees an activation straight away, and you can do it as often as you like.

Your key is in that panel as well. It is shortened on screen so a screenshot cannot give it away — Copy puts the whole thing on the clipboard, ready for the second Mac.

If you are offline

The app confirms the licence with Lemon Squeezy now and then, but a failed check is not a revoked licence. With no connection it keeps working for fourteen days counted from the last successful check, and one successful check puts the fortnight back. Only after a full fortnight with no contact does it ask you to press Check License — it never asks you to pay again because your wifi was down.

What is kept, and where

The licence key is stored encrypted on your own Mac. Dancing Files keeps no customer list and has no account system. The payment, the receipt and the key itself are Lemon Squeezy's — the app has no card field and never sees a card.

Updates

The app asks this site a few times a day whether a newer version exists. If one does, a banner appears in the navigation bar with the option to download it or to be left alone. Nothing installs itself — the button opens the download page in your browser, and you install the new version the same way you installed this one.

You can check whenever you like from Dancing Files › Check for Updates…, and turn the automatic check off entirely under Settings › Updates.

Updating

The app tells you when a new version exists: a banner appears in the navigation bar offering it, and Dancing Files → Check for Updates… asks straight away. Nothing installs itself — the button opens the download page in your browser.

Installing an update is the same as installing the app:

1. Quit Dancing Files first — ⌘Q, and check that the menu bar icon is gone too, since it keeps the app running with no window open.
2. Open the new DMG and drag the app onto Applications. Finder asks whether to replace the one already there — say Replace. There is no need to delete the old version first.
3. Open it. Each download is a new file as far as macOS is concerned, so you may see the ordinary “downloaded from the Internet” prompt once more — click Open.
4. Eject the DMG and throw it away.

Your settings and history survive. They live in ~/Library/Application Support/Dancing Files, outside the app itself, so the output folder, naming rules, theme, accent colour and the whole conversion log are exactly as you left them. The Finder Quick Action stays switched on too.

If you would rather not be asked at all, turn the check off under Settings → Updates.

When something goes wrong

Uninstalling

Drag Dancing Files from Applications to the Trash. Two things are left behind, both harmless and both yours to delete:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Dancing Files — your settings and the conversion history.
• ~/Library/Services/Convert with Dancing Files.workflow — the Finder Quick Action, if you switched it on.
• Two items in your Keychain, if you ever ran the app: Dancing Files Safe Storage, which encrypts the licence, and se.joelbergs.dancingfiles.trial. Search for them in Keychain Access. Deleting them does not cancel your licence — the key from the email activates it again.

Converted files are ordinary files wherever you put them, and are not touched.