Development
InCode Bundle Problem Fixed
16/05/10 01:42 PM
Some
of you may have had some rather annoying problems
with .incodebundle files not being transferrable
through iTunes; it turns out this was a bug where
an iPad app’s bundle types are not automatically
visible to the connected Mac.
To make sure they can transfer, just download the automator droplet from the InCode page and install it in your Applications folder; everything should just work. As always, contact us if they don’t.
To make sure they can transfer, just download the automator droplet from the InCode page and install it in your Applications folder; everything should just work. As always, contact us if they don’t.
Open Letter to Steve Jobs - Apple Design Award
28/04/10 11:16 AM
Steve,
I was excited to see that WWDC ’10 has finally been announced, but noted with dismay that the Apple Design Awards are no longer being offered for Mac applications. This is extremely disappointing, as Mac developers form the core of the Apple developer community; many of them are the same ones who develop iPhone and iPad software. The Apple Design Award is the crown jewel of Mac/iPhone/iPad software development. Excluding this from the Mac eliminates something to look forward to, a motivation that, though rarely achieved, nevertheless helps drive developers to continue making better and more innovative software.
I certainly hope that the decision to cancel this award will be rethought. Although it may be too late to reinstate it for WWDC ’10, I look forward to WWDC ’11 and hope to see the Mac version of the Apple Design Award back in its rightful place.
Thanks for your time.
Justin
I was excited to see that WWDC ’10 has finally been announced, but noted with dismay that the Apple Design Awards are no longer being offered for Mac applications. This is extremely disappointing, as Mac developers form the core of the Apple developer community; many of them are the same ones who develop iPhone and iPad software. The Apple Design Award is the crown jewel of Mac/iPhone/iPad software development. Excluding this from the Mac eliminates something to look forward to, a motivation that, though rarely achieved, nevertheless helps drive developers to continue making better and more innovative software.
I certainly hope that the decision to cancel this award will be rethought. Although it may be too late to reinstate it for WWDC ’10, I look forward to WWDC ’11 and hope to see the Mac version of the Apple Design Award back in its rightful place.
Thanks for your time.
Justin
AquaPrompt 1.2.2 Released
12/04/10 01:22 PM
AquaPrompt 1.2.2 fixes a bug where opening a new
file and discarding an old one would result in an
epic fail. Download it at the AquaPrompt page, or just let
AquaPrompt automatically update itself as
usual.
New Menubar Utility Soon!
13/12/09 04:07 PM
Those of you who use a lot of menubar utilities, we
have something for you! One of the problems with
small screens is that sometimes your menus cover
the menu extras. Need to access the Evernote
clipper menubar icon while in Mailplane? If it’s
covered up by the Mailplane menus, you have to
switch to the Finder, which has shorter menus.
We’ve found a better solution. We’ve been held up
for a while by exams, but we’ll be releasing this
menubar marvel as soon as we can!
AquaPrompt 1.201
01/12/09 10:03 PM
We have a bugfix release: 1.201. This fixes a
problem that caused new license files to not be
recognized. It turns out the problem was an extra
period in the code. If you had already installed
your license file prior to the 1.2 update this
doesn’t affect you. If you purchased AquaPrompt
recently and discovered that upon launching the
license file the text area was filled with
gibberish, then this fix is for you.
Compilers
25/11/09 12:33 PM
Announcement: NovaStorm products are moving to a new
compiler!
What, nobody’s excited? Well, we are. Here’s why. We’re using the new Clang/LLVM compiler which features the latest and greatest technology. It won’t have much direct effect on you besides a slight speed increase, and in our apps the code is so highly optimized already that you probably won’t notice much of a difference. And yes, that’s the official logo at the right! Who could refuse a compiler with that cool of a logo?
It will, however, have an indirect effect in that it will allow us to debug our apps and strip out errors easier and faster. Any time we can have the compiler tell us that our code may cause an error, that’s one less error that has the potential to find its way into a shipping product. Technology like this allows us to innovate faster and more efficiently. So the end result is a better product simply because of the help it affords us.
The first product to be built by the new compiler is the upcoming AquaPrompt 1.2 release.
What, nobody’s excited? Well, we are. Here’s why. We’re using the new Clang/LLVM compiler which features the latest and greatest technology. It won’t have much direct effect on you besides a slight speed increase, and in our apps the code is so highly optimized already that you probably won’t notice much of a difference. And yes, that’s the official logo at the right! Who could refuse a compiler with that cool of a logo?
It will, however, have an indirect effect in that it will allow us to debug our apps and strip out errors easier and faster. Any time we can have the compiler tell us that our code may cause an error, that’s one less error that has the potential to find its way into a shipping product. Technology like this allows us to innovate faster and more efficiently. So the end result is a better product simply because of the help it affords us.
The first product to be built by the new compiler is the upcoming AquaPrompt 1.2 release.
AquaPrompt Save and Load
26/11/09 11:44 PM
The feature is finally on its way! Saving and loading for
AquaPrompt is in the
works. And it’s not only a concept — it’s
real. It’s alive! Below you can see
an image of the warning dialog and just a
bit of the code that does the heavy
lifting!
Of course, it has the
ability to detect if the document has been
modified. And it’s really smart. If, for example,
you completely retype the document,
AquaPrompt will still know that it’s the same
document despite the fact that you retyped it and
will not bother to re-save what’s already there.
The new version 1.2 will be available within a
couple weeks, but there’s no way we’re putting a
set date on it — we learned several times that set
dates can backfire when you least expect them to,
especially for a small company with limited
resources. But we do promise it’ll be relatively
soon.
Extending Proof
30/11/09 01:35 PM
I just wanted to let people know where Proof stands as a platform.
This does get a bit technical, but I’ll keep
it as simple as possible.
The Proof architecture revolves around a central controller that manages different preview subcontrollers. Each subcontroller has its own code and views to handle specific types of files. If necessary, Proof could easily be expanded to support chaining, so a single subcontroller would have its own set of subcontrollers.
The benefit of this is that I can easily implement advanced preview features. One example is LaTeX. While Proof supports viewing the source, it doesn’t view a finished product (unless you export to a PDF first). But if I wanted to add live LaTeX previews, all I’d have to do is add a subcontroller to the text viewer module that would take control of .tex files. When asked if it could handle the file, it would check if TeX was installed. If not, it would simply ignore the file and it would be handled by the normal previewer, with full backward compatibility.
So that’s the next plan. LaTeX live preview support is coming, thanks to an anonymous contributor showing me the right commands to execute to generate the preview. Now I just have to figure out how to work them in (and learn the ins and outs of NSTask in the process). So while it may take a little while, expect this neat feature sometime in the future!
The really cool part about the Proof platform is that it can be easily opened up to third-party viewers. I don’t have much experience with actual plugins and security issues surrounding them (if anybody knows how to easily allow plugins to be loaded without any major trouble, let me know!) but a relatively easy way for me to do it would for developers to send me their viewer modules for me to integrate into the original application. I’m also considering making Proof open-source, although I’ve never handled that kind of thing before and I have no idea what’s really involved, so it’d be more of a trial thing, but I’d really like to keep it open. I’m considering using GitHub but if anybody knows which one works best or how best to manage something like this send me an email.
The Proof architecture revolves around a central controller that manages different preview subcontrollers. Each subcontroller has its own code and views to handle specific types of files. If necessary, Proof could easily be expanded to support chaining, so a single subcontroller would have its own set of subcontrollers.
The benefit of this is that I can easily implement advanced preview features. One example is LaTeX. While Proof supports viewing the source, it doesn’t view a finished product (unless you export to a PDF first). But if I wanted to add live LaTeX previews, all I’d have to do is add a subcontroller to the text viewer module that would take control of .tex files. When asked if it could handle the file, it would check if TeX was installed. If not, it would simply ignore the file and it would be handled by the normal previewer, with full backward compatibility.
So that’s the next plan. LaTeX live preview support is coming, thanks to an anonymous contributor showing me the right commands to execute to generate the preview. Now I just have to figure out how to work them in (and learn the ins and outs of NSTask in the process). So while it may take a little while, expect this neat feature sometime in the future!
The really cool part about the Proof platform is that it can be easily opened up to third-party viewers. I don’t have much experience with actual plugins and security issues surrounding them (if anybody knows how to easily allow plugins to be loaded without any major trouble, let me know!) but a relatively easy way for me to do it would for developers to send me their viewer modules for me to integrate into the original application. I’m also considering making Proof open-source, although I’ve never handled that kind of thing before and I have no idea what’s really involved, so it’d be more of a trial thing, but I’d really like to keep it open. I’m considering using GitHub but if anybody knows which one works best or how best to manage something like this send me an email.