"New" is relative - 15 months. Regarding your other points: The situation is actually very similar to Sublime Text (which I aspire to): Yes the market is crowded but I see potential for innovation. And paid is the only sustainable way I see to make the project happen [1]. It's free to evaluate forever, just like ST.
What in particular do you see as most innovative in your fman at the moment, or is that set for future developments.
I'm curious too - I noticed that the Linux version is 20MB, seems relatively heavy, and I'm wondering why so much larger than the Win version?
Most of the enhancement requests seem to be things [my preferred twin-pane fm] Krusader does (nix only I think, though you can put KDE over Windows it's not straightforward [or wasn't last I tried]). On Windows in the past I've used Total Commander.
FWIW on the download page I think I'd ditch the link to "don't be a free user" and just put something like "please purchase a license or donate to allow us to make fman even better for you.". The linked page is messy and doesn't give a clear message to those not familiar with the issues at hand IMO.
In the onboarding you stress to use the keyboard but the dialogs have to be next/close with the mouse; I hit enter assuming they were defaulted and it instead changed directory.
Also, why ctrl+p and not something like <spacebar> or just p? or D and C for directory and command? Is that following a pattern from somewhere else, isn't ctrl+p usually print. Ctrl+l which is browser default for entering URL would make more sense to me.
Last thing, ctrl+shift+p dialog puts too much space between command and shortcut making it a bit hard to track; if you want to keep the same width as the directory pop-up I'd recommend centre aligning (right align left column, and vice-versa).
Installing plugins one at a time gets slow quickly, especially as almost all functions appear to be plugins. On restarting it says "press A button" it means "click A button on screen", I pressed <A> and nothing happened.
HTH. For me it's too minimal at install and I don't like dark backgrounds. Good job though: it's fast and minimal in line with your "zen".
> The Linux version is 20MB, seems relatively heavy
I don't think 20 MB is heavy and don't think it makes sense to spend time on reducing this size. It's much more important for the project to focus on eg. better onboarding and/or still missing basic features.
The Win version is an online installer. That's why it's 1 MB.
> What in particular do you see as most innovative in fman
Integration of features from Sublime Text, like Ctrl+P for quickly jumping to directories or the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) for quickly discovering and invoking all features.
> I hit enter assuming they were defaulted and it instead changed directory.
That's very good feedback. You're right I should change this. Thanks!
> Also, why ctrl+p
That's the shortcut which Sublime Text uses.
> Installing plugins one at a time gets slow quickly
Sure but you don't have to do it very often. You're right it would be useful to be able to install several plugins at once; But there are bigger fish to fry atm.
> On restarting it says "press A button" [...] I pressed <A> and nothing happened.
It purposely requires you to use the mouse to make the nag screen a little more annoying, so you will get a license [1]
Then it's not FileManager it's SublimeFileManager and that's who/how you should target. Or add more "modes" (ie: keystroke groups) "do you think of this like web-browsers (ctrl-l) or sublime (ctrl-p) or bash (ctrl-t) or midnight commander (ctrl-??)"
[1]: https://fman.io/blog/fmans-business-strategy/