ZX-Next-Unite

Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS) desktop app for ZX Spectrum Next users. It unites two great tools — Hdfm-Gooey and NextSync — in a single GUI, and adds a built-in browser to discover ZX Spectrum / Spectrum Next software across GetIt, ZXDB/ZXInfo, zxArt and itch.io.

By Julien Clauzel, based on HDFM-GOOEY by em00k and NextSync by Jari Komppa (with the Sync4 extensions by Julien Clauzel).

Co-developed with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic's AI).

A tour of the ZX-Next-Unite tabs

The main tabs, in Retro mode: SD Card Utility · NextSync (classic sync, then the Remote Explorer) · GetIt · ZXArt.ee · ZXDB/ZXInfo.dk · Unite! · Alien Floyd's. Every tab is documented in the User Manual.

Features

  • SD Card tab — mount an HDF image, copy files in/out with a built-in explorer, then launch CSpect or MAME directly. No emulator command lines to remember.
  • NextSync tab — push files over Wi-Fi from your PC to a real Spectrum Next (KS1/KS2 or clones with an ESP module) using the .sync5 dot command.
  • ⭐ Remote Explorer — a two-pane file manager for your Next's real filesystem over Wi-Fi: browse, drag & drop, upload/download and manage files (new folder, delete) directly — no SD-card swapping. Run .sync5 -listen on the Next to connect, and launch the app with the -start-remote-explorer-listener switch to have the listen server running from startup with no clicks. See the Wiki.
  • ⭐ HTTP bridge — remote access to a Next's file system over plain HTTP: a built-in web server (Flask) republishes the Remote Explorer's -listen session as HTTP routes, so you can browse, download, upload and manage the Next's SD card from a browser, curl — or from another Next using the built-in .http dot command. Enable it in the Settings tab (the port — 80 by default — is set in the box next to the toggle). See the HTTP bridge documentation.
  • Online libraries — search and download from GetIt, ZXDB/ZXInfo, zxArt and (optionally) itch.io.

Quick start

Windows: download the latest zx-next-unite-v9.x.x.exe from the Releases page — no Python needed.

Linux (x86_64): download zx-next-unite-v9.x.x-linux-x86_64.tar.gz from the same page, extract it and run the binary inside.

macOS (Apple Silicon): download zx-next-unite-v9.x.x-macos-arm64.zip, extract it and start the app. The app is not code-signed, so the first launch needs right-click → Open (or xattr -cr on the .app) to get past Gatekeeper.

All three packages are built by CI from the tagged source (release workflow), and the app's built-in update check offers the right package for your platform when a newer release is published.

Via pipx (any platform, from PyPI):

pipx install "zx-next-unite[full]"

installs the zx-next-unite command (plus the nextsync5 command-line sync server) in its own isolated environment — one line, no repo checkout. Drop [full] to skip the optional extras (retro pygame views, itch.io tab, Recycle-Bin deletes, HTTP bridge).

From source (any platform):

git clone https://github.com/jclauzel/ZX-Next-Unite
cd ZX-Next-Unite
python -m pip install -r REQUIREMENTS.txt
python zx-next-unite.py

Requires Python 3.10 or newer (the stock Python of Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 12 and later works out of the box; CI runs the test suite on 3.10 and 3.13). Use python3 on Linux/macOS. Only PySide6 is required; pygame-ce, itch-dl and flask are optional (flask powers the NextSync HTTP bridge — the web server that lets a Next drive another Next's SD card via the .http dot command; without it the Settings toggle is simply greyed out).

Documentation

Full setup, emulator / hdfmonkey / Mono configuration and troubleshooting are in the Wiki:

License

Released under the MIT license (see LICENSE). Built on PySide6 (Qt for Python, LGPL v3) and optionally pygame-ce (LGPL v2.1), itch-dl by Dragoon Aethis (MIT), Flask by the Pallets team (BSD-3-Clause), the web server that powers the NextSync HTTP bridge, and Send2Trash by Andrew Senetar and contributors (BSD-3-Clause), which sends locally-deleted files to the system Recycle Bin / Trash.

Provenance and license details for every third-party component — including NextSync (Jari Komppa, Unlicense), HDFM-Gooey (em00k), hdfmonkey (GPL v3), CSpect and MAME — are in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Legal disclaimer — third-party content

The author of ZX-Next-Unite does NOT distribute any files, ROMs, games, demos, graphics, music, or any other content obtained through the GetIt, ZXDB, or zxArt integrations.

All content is served exclusively by the respective third-party services listed above. ZX-Next-Unite acts solely as a frontend client that queries their public APIs and downloads files directly from the URLs those APIs return.

It is the sole responsibility of the end user to ensure that any content they download or use through this application complies with the applicable copyright, licensing, and legal requirements in their jurisdiction.

If in doubt, consult the terms of service of the relevant platform and seek appropriate legal advice before downloading or using any content.

The first time you open the GetIt, ZXDB, or zxArt pane, the application will display this disclaimer and ask you to acknowledge it. You can dismiss the dialog to continue using the pane; the dialog will reappear on the next visit until you check "I agree and understand. Do not show this message again", at which point your acknowledgement is saved to hdfg.cfg and the dialog will not be shown again.

Project links

Data verified by PyPI on Jul 29, 2026
Data provided by the project maintainers, verified at the time the release was uploaded to PyPI.

Key dates

PyPI data
Data sourced directly from PyPI's database.
  • Released:
Newer release available (9.7.21)

1 maintainer

PyPI data
Data sourced directly from PyPI's database.
Avatar for coredebug from gravatar.com coredebug

Credits

Author: Julien Clauzel

GitHub Statistics

Data verified by PyPI on Jul 29, 2026
The GitHub source repository was provided by the project maintainers and verified by PyPI at the time of upload. Stars, forks, and open issues/PRs are derived from that repository and have not been independently verified.

License expression

MIT
View SPDX License List

Requires

Python >=3.10

Provides Extra

full

Tags

zx-spectrum-next zx-spectrum nextsync cspect retrocomputing

Classifiers

Report project as malware

Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

zx_next_unite-9.3.0.tar.gz (38.7 MB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

zx_next_unite-9.3.0-py3-none-any.whl (39.9 MB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file zx_next_unite-9.3.0.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: zx_next_unite-9.3.0.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 38.7 MB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for zx_next_unite-9.3.0.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 2e5c653355fb2d25130a894f3f7e1fc4b45f7223bb9d68b569aa0d41f2d5b6cb
MD5 ff8b752065227f4e384ca93a55172b1f
BLAKE2b-256 f3554263da00d3392a96f9ae16c6fb2007a3eeec9402cc28dcd809621a107c37

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for zx_next_unite-9.3.0.tar.gz:

Publisher: publish.yml on jclauzel/ZX-Next-Unite

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file zx_next_unite-9.3.0-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: zx_next_unite-9.3.0-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 39.9 MB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for zx_next_unite-9.3.0-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 9e0cc1262ec23848d0785c9f2f0ea313cd117b411550cba7c7139e786de5a9a0
MD5 041c2271c6cd57344ad563260342db1f
BLAKE2b-256 a3cf860de0a795055abf967b0016bdef0160a9c93ece977ddc77abbfbb4555f0

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for zx_next_unite-9.3.0-py3-none-any.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on jclauzel/ZX-Next-Unite

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

9.7.21

2 files

9.7.19

2 files

9.7.18

2 files

9.7.17

2 files

9.7.16

2 files

9.7.14

2 files

9.7.13

2 files

9.7.11

2 files

9.7.10

2 files

9.7.6

2 files

9.7.5

2 files

9.7.4

2 files

9.7.3

2 files

9.7.1

2 files

9.7.0

2 files

9.6.5

2 files

9.6.4

2 files

9.6.3

2 files

9.6.2

2 files

9.6.1

2 files

9.6.0

2 files

9.5.30

2 files

9.5.29

2 files

9.5.28

2 files

9.5.27

2 files

9.5.26

2 files

9.5.22

2 files

9.5.21

2 files

9.5.20

2 files

9.5.19

2 files

9.5.17

2 files

9.5.15

2 files

9.5.13

2 files

9.5.11

2 files

9.5.10

2 files

9.5.9

2 files

9.5.8

2 files

9.5.7

2 files

9.5.6

2 files

9.5.5

2 files

9.5.4

2 files

9.5.3

2 files

9.5.2

2 files

9.5.1

2 files

9.5.0

2 files

9.4.8

2 files

9.4.6

2 files

9.4.5

2 files

9.4.4

2 files

9.4.3

2 files

9.4.2

2 files

9.4.1

2 files

9.4.0

2 files

This release

9.3.0 This release

2 files

9.2.2

2 files

9.2.1

2 files

9.2.0

2 files

9.1.9

2 files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page