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If you’ve been using SQLEditor recently, one thing you may have noticed is that the application download size increased in 2.2 from about 5MB or so, to nearly 60MB. This is because SQLEditor now bundles a complete Java VM in the application bundle, following current recommendations.

The main advantage of bundling a Java VM inside the app is that SQLEditor no longer needs Java installed on the system. (Assuming you’re running OS X 10.7.3 or later). This means no worries about installing and keeping java up-to-date. The bundled java obviously needs to be kept updated, but (a) that’s our problem now and (b) since we’re only using it in very limited ways, there shouldn’t be too much exposure.

You do still need to use a JDBC driver for the relevant database, and install this in the standard /Library/Java/Extensions directory.

SQLEditor 2.0.6 has just been posted onto the beta update channel, so if you have the “Check for beta Versions” option set you should get offered it the next time the app checks for updates. It will get pushed to the main site and the release channel in a day or so.

Or download SQLEditor 2.0.6 (5.7 MB zip file)

This version got a bit delayed, originally it was going to be 2.0.3, except that a whole collection of new bugs got reported, so it became 2.0.4. Then of course, a couple of the fixes failed during pre-release testing, so the number got bumped again (twice!). It is finally ready, though, and hopefully should fix a number of problems that were identified in 2.0.2.

Most of the problems were exceptions that were raised in odd circumstances, although it also fixes the parser to accept # as a single line comment prefix, and it makes some useful code improvements to the way that the document options window is managed. It also fixes the keyboard toggling of labels, which uses the CMD+{number} commands to hide or show labeled objects.

Hope you like it, and please do continue to report problems. It’s really appreciated!

Due to the effective end-of-life for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) we will not be supporting it in new major versions of software.
SQLEditor 2.0 will require a minimum of OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), with 10.8 strongly recommended.

Note that 10.5 will continue to be supported for SQLEditor 1.7.x, however 1.7.x will reach end-of-life when 2.0 is released.

I am personally sad to see this because this is also the end of the PowerPC support (10.6 is Intel only). Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly difficult to support old versions of OS X and the problem is, if anything, accelerating. The future is coming, and faster than ever.

In particular the difficulty of supporting new features in the latest operating system (currently Mountain Lion), while still supporting old operating systems, is very great. A lot of work went in to getting SQLEditor 1.7.18 correctly signed for gatekeeper on 10.8, because the default Apple signing tools generate signatures that are, in effect, broken on earlier systems. It was almost getting to the point where two versions would have been made available, one for 10.7 and below, the other for 10.8. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but it was pretty close.

In addition the declining proportion of users who use old systems mean that the work increases as the number of customers who benefit declines. And of course, as soon as a user replaces their machine with a new one, they have upgraded and the number of customers benefiting declines again.

Regrettably this makes the correct decision quite clear.

Goodbye Leopard, you served us all well.

Angus

If you have any questions about this or anything else please get in touch at support@malcolmhardie.com

SQLEditor 1.7.14 just got pushed to the site this evening and if you read the version history you’ll see an entry marked “Fix for 10.4 compatibility”. Due to an oversight some earlier releases of 1.7.x (starting at 1.7.11b1) don’t work correctly on 10.4 and it wasn’t caught during testing. (Sorry)

10.4 compatibility is a difficulty in many ways, because it doesn’t run easily in vmware, nor do current macs support running it. To test SQLEditor on 10.4, I have a old iBook G4 machine which runs 10.4 and by testing SQLEditor on this machine, it is possible to confirm that the program works correctly. However there was an incompatible change made in a bug release version and the testing didn’t happen. I’m personally annoyed about this and I’m sorry to anyone affected.

However it did raise a crucial point. Very few people appear to have been affected. The opt-in statistic gathering system which sends us details of your system configuration reckons that fewer than 0.1% of users are running 10.4 (and reporting statistics).

Unfortunately the result is clear. 10.4 will not be a supported operating system in SQLEditor 2.0. This hopefully won’t be too much of a surprise, because we’ve been saying this for a while in the read me file.

We’re also looking at Mac OS X 10.5 support. Currently fewer than 0.5% of SQLEditor users are running 10.5.

For me personally, removing 10.5 support is more difficult, because removing it also removes all PPC users and I’ve always been a fan of the PPC platform and of course SQLEditor started as a PPC application. (Running partly in Java for people who remember)

The current plan is to support 10.5 in the initial release of SQLEditor 2 and then look again at how much this is actually being used. It seems unlikely that 10.5 support can continue much beyond the end of 2012 and it is likely that we’ll stop before then.

I’m sad about this, but such is progress.

So if you’re using SQLEditor and running it on 10.5, please enable the statistics gathering option. Alternatively, email us and tell us your plans. We’d love to hear from you.

The MalcolmHardie company is very pleased to announce that HTMLValidator is part of the new Web Development Toolkit bundle. The bundle is available immediately for $39.99 and includes 10 great apps for Mac OS X.

The bundle includes:

• Get Backup Pro
• skEdit
• Better Link Tester
• Simon (Bronze – 15 active tests)
• Logo Design Studio Pro
• Stor
• Interarchy
• Whoosh
• MacFreelance
• HTMLValidator

The bundle deal finishes on December 28th.

This weblog has just been upgraded.