Category Archives: Macintosh

Notarization …

Apple is really pushing the whole notarization thing right now. It does seem a bit like the apocryphal story of boiling the frog, adding small additional restrictions on software freedom each year until the whole platform is under absolute control. … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, Writing Software | Comments Off on Notarization …

[NSColor highlightColor] differs in dark mode

I noticed a point today while working on dark mode for Mojave 10.14. The value of -(NSColor*)highlightColor differs depending on whether you’re in light mode or dark mode. This particularly affects -(NSColor *)highlightWithLevel:(CGFloat)val; By calling: [[NSColor highlightColor] colorUsingColorSpace:[NSColorSpace genericRGBColorSpace]]; I … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, Writing Software | Comments Off on [NSColor highlightColor] differs in dark mode

SQLEditor 3.0 release

SQLEditor 3.0 is ready! I’ve feel like I’ve been working on this for ages, so I’m really happy that it’s now ready. The most visible change is the new user interface, which has been merged into a single window. Single … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor, Writing Software | Comments Off on SQLEditor 3.0 release

Apple Developer Program improvements

Apple has made some big changes to their developer programs, which I think are a big improvement: 1) You can now apparently develop and deploy to your own iOS device without a program membership. (Possibly only with Xcode 7, I’m not … Continue reading

Posted in General, Macintosh, Writing Software | Leave a comment

Is Yosemite going to be released today?

October 16th has arrived, the Apple event is scheduled. Will this be the official release date of Yosemite? Enquiring minds want to know… update: yes it looks like it will be

Posted in Macintosh | Leave a comment

Webkit Javascript Optimizing JIT compiler(s)

Is your JIT compiled javascript function running too slow? No worries, just wait and the javascript engine will recompile it and then replace the function with a faster version! But that’s not fast enough either? Webkit will compile another version … Continue reading

Posted in Internet Stuff, Macintosh, Writing Software | Leave a comment

SQLEditor 2.7 – the customizable object palette

The newest and latest feature to arrive in SQLEditor 2.7 [55MB Zip] is a customizable object palette. For a long time, the object palette in SQLEditor has looked like this: There were three fixed objects, that could be dragged from the … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor | Leave a comment

Using NSDockTile for debug info

Often when I’m working on an app or something I end up running several different versions of it in a short period of time. There’s usually some bug that I’m trying to fix and I want to make sure that … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor, Writing Software | Leave a comment

Web Development Toolkit

HTMLValidator is one of the apps in the new Web Development Toolkit bundle, which is available now. The bundle contains 10 apps for a single low price of just $39.99 If you’re doing web design, there’s probably something here for … Continue reading

Posted in Company News, Macintosh | Leave a comment

Versions, validateMenuItem: and NSMenuItem

If you find when developing in 10.7 that you get a versions menu with a NSMenuItem as one of the items, it might be worth checking to see whether you’re correctly using validateMenuItem: This problem may happen if you return … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor | Leave a comment

Runesoft updates games for Lion

Last year I bought  “Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood”; it’s a fun, 3d person, tactical combat game where you play Robin Hood or one of his merry men in the fight against the sheriff of Notingham. When I bought … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh | Leave a comment

Flash player updating on Mac

Flash Player on the Mac is always in need of an update – or so it seems. One particular problem is that the current update checking system seems to merely displays a web page with the current version numbers. That … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh | Leave a comment

Xcode 4 – Great!

Xcode 4 took a little while to get used to, but as I’ve been using it more, I’ve been liking it more. The change initially is significant, and there were new ways of doing things and certain other things that … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, Writing Software | 2 Comments

Lion Released

Lion is released! Things seem to be going well. SQLEditor appears to work correctly. There is one identified issue which means that you cannot register the app for all users of a machine. Each user must register the app separately … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor | Leave a comment

SQLEditor and OS X 10.7/Lion

The release of OS X 10.7 Lion is approaching very fast and the question must be: is SQLEditor compatible? The answer is that I expect that SQLEditor will be compatible with OS X 10.7 when it is released in July. … Continue reading

Posted in Company News, General, Macintosh, SQLEditor | Leave a comment

SQLEditor now zip file not a dmg

In a change that will probably affect almost nobody at all, SQLEditor is now being distributed with a zip file rather than a dmg as the default download. Why? Zip files are simpler to create It prevents the problem of … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, SQLEditor, Writing Software | Leave a comment

Mac OS X will still have Java in the future.

There has been lots of stuff written recently about how Java on the Mac has been deprecated. The reality is that one particular Java runtime has been deprecated: the one that Apple write themselves. Java as a language will still … Continue reading

Posted in Computing, Macintosh, Writing Software | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Apple WWDC videos

Brilliant work on Apple’s part in releasing all of the WWDC videos to registered developers. In previous years these were only available for a fee (I seem to remember $500), so including them is very nice.

Posted in Macintosh, Writing Software | Leave a comment

Big changes to Mac Developer Program

Apple have rearranged their Mac developer program so that it now costs only $99 and seems to have only one paid variant rather than the three previously available. (Student, Select, Premier). The online only variant is still available and still … Continue reading

Posted in Macintosh, Writing Software | Leave a comment

SQLEditor 1.6 final

So, if you’ve seen SQLEditor recently, you’ll hopefully have seen that there is a new version out: version 1.6. This got released just at the beginning of December 2009 1.6 is something that I’ve been working on now for a … Continue reading

Posted in General, Macintosh, SQLEditor | Tagged , , | Leave a comment