Eternal Storms Software | Blog – Page 43 – by Matthias Gansrigler, a solo indie software developer

August 12, 2016

Inactive Checkboxes are Poor UX

An inactive checkbox is always a bit of a mystery to me.
Why is it inactive? How do I get it to activate so I can select it? More often than not, it takes me a couple of tries fiddling around with other preferences to finally activate the checkbox and be able to select it.
It shouldn’t be that way.

And now I realize I’ve been guilty of having such an inactive checkbox in Yoink‘s preferences myself:

Yoink 3.2 Preferences Inactive Checkbox The inactive checkbox “Show window near mouse pointer (…)” is inactive and needs extra steps to be activated

It’s exactly what I dislike. What was I thinking?
As a new user who has no idea how these preferences are connected, you just don’t know how to get that checkbox active and, more importantly, how to change the setting available behind the inactive checkbox.
In the worst case, it’d take three steps to activate it. You’d have to:

Select the checkbox “Automatically show when” (if it wasn’t active before)
Change “mouse pointer is at edge of screen” to “drag starts”
and then you’d finally be able to access the newly active checkbox

If I launch Yoink for the first time, I have no idea what’s going on. That’s not a very good user experience.
So with the upcoming update v3.2.1, the checkbox will always be active, and it’s much clearer how these two options are connected:

Yoink 3.2.1 Preferences Active Checkbox In Yoink v3.2.1, the checkbox is always accessible, eliminating extra steps to be able to select it.

Obviously, not all cases are the same and sometimes, in some places, there might be a good reason to have a checkbox inactive.
But here, it was clearly the wrong choice.

[Update 27.10.2016: I published a follow-up here.]

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August 5, 2016

What I… (July 2016)

What I...

… Did

Worked on Glimpses v2.1 (website, mac app store)
Glimpses 2.0, I’m petrified to say, was released and then not updated again on June 7th, 2015 – that’s more than a year ago. An update has been overdue for quite some time.
In version 2.1, I focused on bringing the app up-to-speed concerning the integration with macOS – mainly, the Photos.app.
Version 2.1 includes a Share extension so photos can be sent from Photos.app to Glimpses right from within the app. Glimpses will also accept drag’n’dropped photos from Photos.app, something that didn’t work before, because Photos.app uses promise file drags.
It also includes a QuickLook plugin, which makes identifying project files easier. Photos can now be shuffled and edited in external editors.
Of course, Glimpses also includes many improvements where performance is concerned, as well as usability improvements.
I’ve also transferred the app to the base-location system along with AutoLayout. It took a bit of time, but I think moving forward, probably wanting to localize the app into further languages, this will make things much easier.
Glimpses v2.1 will be released early-to-mid-August 2016 as I’m still working on overhauling its website.

Worked on Yoink v3.2.1 (website, mac app store)
I’ve also been working on an update for Yoink – a typical x.x.1 bugfix release.
It includes bugfixes to its Force Touch capability, alias files and a crash when going backwards in the splash screen.
Yoink v.3.2.1 will be released shortly.

Worked on ScreenFloat v1.5.13 (website, mac app store)
This will be a specific update for early adopters of macOS Sierra, where ScreenFloat currently doesn’t take screenshots (I blogged about it, in case you’re interested about what’s going on).
The TL;DR version: I’m using the screencapture command-line utility via NSTask, and interactive screencaptures are apparently blocked in sandboxed apps on macOS Sierra.
I’m not yet sure how I will fix this issue, as I haven’t heard back from Apple yet about it (although I filed a bugreport: rdar://27610157 and contacted Apple directly).
There are two ways this can go: The easy way, and the hard way.
The easy way would mean me adding a temporary entitlement to ScreenFloat so until I can run my own screencapture solution, it will work unchanged for the time being.
The hard way would mean me developing my own screencapture solution right away and make it in time for macOS Sierra’s official public release.
I’ve started working on ‘the hard way’, just in case.

… Downloaded

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean (mac app store)
I love those LEGO games, but somehow missed this one when it was released. I recently picked it up and it’s just lovely. Jack Sparrow is as quirky as ever.

Claquette Icon Claquette (mac app store)
A great screen recorder app for Mac.
“Edit your recordings and share them as Animated GIF/PNG or as movie.”
I had something like this in the works myself (especially the animated GIF part), but it never worked quite correctly using Apple’s built-in tools.
I spoke with Thomas, the developer of this app and a fellow Austrian, some time ago and he told me he developed his own GIF creation code for this app – something that takes a lot of effort and dedication.
It’s all around a great app and can only recommend it!

iPulse Icon iPulse (mac app store)
A Mac app that shows the system status.
However, I can not for the life of me figure out what all the circles or colors mean. No idea.

Split Screen Icon Split Screen (mac app store)
Resizes your windows to exactly half of your screen size. Can be practical.

Snip Icon Snip (app store)
A cool new game by a developer friend of mine, Thomas, where you have to hit a target by snipping a circular object. Very intelligent design!
You can watch an introductory video at the website.

Pokémon Go Icon Pokémon Go (app store)
In my youth, I completely missed Pokémon. It just went by me. Sure, I’d heard of it and watched other people play here and there, but I never played it myself.
It all changed with Pokémon Go, though. My girlfriend and I go out and play almost daily, and it’s really fun. One of us watches the traffic, the other one plays 😉
Sure, I have no idea what these Pokémon are called or what they can do (something my girlfriend can recall before you can even ask her). It’s still fun when you find (and capture) new ones.
I can recommend getting it, but please be safe out there.

macOS Sierra Icon macOS Sierra beta (public beta, website)
Because of the issues with ScreenFloat, I had to get the macOS Sierra beta. But to not have to install the beta over my production setup, I had to get a new external hard drive (my two backup drives are, well, for backups, and pretty full).
I originally had my heart set on an external SSD, but they weren’t available. My backup plan was an internal SSD with an external enclosure, but I couldn’t get the enclosure. Then I thought I’d get an SD card for my MacBook Pro, you know, because it’s practical and small. But for the price of a 128 GB SD card, I could have bought a dozen external SSDs, or hundreds of external HDs. So I decided on an ordinary, external HD. For a beta OS drive, it works just fine and it was the cheapest solution after all. Plus, it’s a 1TB drive, so I can put other stuff on there and keep the 128 GB partition for future betas of macOS.
Too bad, though, I always thought I’d install beta systems on an SD card. That’s just so cool.

… Read

Working on Fable Destroyed my Life, but I don’t Regret it (polygon)
“We felt invincible. With Lionhead, Peter Molyneux and Microsoft in your corner, what could go wrong?”

Inside Apple’s Perfectionism Machine (mashable)
“From the beginning, the Mac has been about Apple taking responsibility for the whole thing: hardware, software, how applications can work and, increasingly, Internet services”

Why it’s Time to go Back to the Moon (theverge)
“It can teach us about interplanetary living, just as the International Space Station has taught us about life in space.”

Apple’s ‘Differential Privacy’ is About Collection Your Data – but not Your Data (wired)
“Differential privacy is a research topic in the areas of statistics and data analytics that uses hashing, subsampling and noise injection to enable…crowdsourced learning while keeping the data of individual users completely private.”

The macOS Sierra Developer Preview: Different Name, Same ol’ Mac (arstechnica)
“But the Mac feels like it has settled into a quiet and reliable groove, a groove that Sierra is happy to trundle along in.”

Physicists Simulate Sending Particles of Light Into the Past, Strengthening the Case that Time Travel is Possible (earthmysterynews)
“One aspect of general relativity that has long intrigued physicists is the relative ease with which one can find solutions to Einstein’s field equations that contain closed timelike curves (CTCs)—causal loops in space–time that return to the same point in space and time.”

Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix: The Lost Sequel to Fate of Atlantis (mixnmojo)
“It’s a title equal parts fascinating and frustrating to learn about, as it seems to have been more or less exactly what Fate of Atlantis fans would have wanted in a successor.”

… Watched

The Conjuring 2 Movie Poster The Conjuring 2 (itunes)
Just like The Conjuring 1, this is a great horror flick. The only thing that bugged me was some CGI that felt completely out of place, but it was brief, so it was bearable.
Other than that, if you’re into horror movies, go check it out 🙂

Still of The Talk Show Live The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2016 (vimeo)
An interview of Craig Federighi and Phil Schiller by John Gruber. Highly recommended.

Zelda - Breath of the Wild Image Zelda – Breath of the Wild Trailer (youtube)
Can’t wait for this game to come out. I’ve been playing all of these with my cousin, and I’m so looking forward to playing this one with him.

… Ate

Jerk Chicken with Rice and Corn on the cob

… Went to See

Danube, Danube-City Britta and I went for a bike ride to ‘Gänsehäufel’, an open-air public bath, went for a swim and then rode back again.
The most I moved in months!

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August 1, 2016

screencapture and the Sandbox in macOS Sierra (Updated)

In my app ScreenFloat, I use the command line tool screencapture via NSTask to create screenshots. On OS X El Capitan and earlier versions of Apple’s operating system, this worked perfectly fine. Now, on macOS Sierra, I’ve been getting reports that screenshot creation didn’t work anymore, so I investigated.

At first I thought it might be the keyboard shortcut API that has undergone some changes, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as I saw something actually occurred when I pressed the keyboard shortcut – Xcode’s console printed:

screencapture: cannot run two interactive screen captures at a time

Since I was absolutely sure I’m not launching screencapture via NSTasktwice, I took to Console.app to see if anything unusual was reported there. And there it was:

The output in Console.app when trying to launch an interactive screencapture with NSTask.

deny mach-register

So registering a global Mach service is denied on macOS Sierra. In the back of my mind, I remembered a temporary exception entitlement, but it wasn’t quite the same – com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-lookup.global-name. I tried adding it to ScreenFloat’s entitlements file, with com.apple.screencapture.interactive as its value (this temporary entitlement expects an array of string values), but that didn’t help – the same denial and console output occurred. On a hunch, I tried using …mach-register.global-name instead of …mach-lookup.global-name and – tada – it worked!

So I’m all set, right? Well…

Temporary Exception Entitlements

Apple offers a couple of temporary exception entitlements. They may or may not be granted to your app during Apple’s review process. But going through the list, it’s clear that …mach-register.global-name is nowhere to be found, so it’s kind of a private entitlement – which makes it even less likely for it to be granted to your app.

Digging Further

Seeing as the sandbox denial points explicitly to com.apple.screencapture.interactive, not just com.apple.screencapture generally, I tried creating a non-interactive screencapture session with NSTask. To my surprise, it worked – without the entitlement.

So I tried a different command line utility – which. (which will return the executable path to the given command line utility, for example, which screencapture would return /usr/sbin/screencapture). Again, it worked. And again, without the entitlement.

It makes me believe (and hope) that the behavior we see for com.apple.screencapture.interactive is not desired, so I’ve filed a bug report with Apple in the hopes that they can set the record straight soon.

For now, I hope ScreenFloat will be granted the temporary entitlement just so it is functional again on macOS Sierra for the time being. However, if this is in fact the desired behavior, I will have to write my own screencapture utility so ScreenFloat can remain on the Mac App Store.

Bug Reporting

For anyone who’s interested or in a position to view it, here’s the bug report I’ve filed with Apple: rdar://27610157. I do hope to get an answer soon.

Update August 2nd, 2016

As I stated above, com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-register.global-name isn’t documented anywhere. Which is also the reason you get an error when trying to submit an app with such an entitlement to iTunes Connect:

ERROR ITMS-90285

So, no dice on the temporary exception. Having to write my own screenshot utility seems more and more likely. I hope I can make it in time for macOS Sierra.

Update September 9th, 2016

The temporary exception is now valid and will go through to Apple’s App Review without a hitch. My own solution is not necessary at this time, but I’m still going to be working on it – you never know.

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July 12, 2016

What I… (June 2016)

What I...

… Did

Yoink Bugfix Update (website)
Of all the versions of Yoink I released over the past several years, 3.2 probably has been one of the most stable and bug-free so far. The closed beta might have made the difference here, perhaps I’ll do it again with future updates (for feature-releases, that is).
All stability aside, there were a couple of minor issues which I’m going to be addressing with the v3.2.1.
Currently, Yoink’s XPC process essForceTouchListener (which is used to see if any Force Touch-capable devices are available) looks for all kinds of devices, not just mice. That’s definitely an oversight on my part and will be fixed. There’s no need to look for graphics cards when all I’m interested in is a trackpad.
Also related to Force Touch, when a file was dragged out with a physical press of the Trackpad, there would be a slight delay which threw off some users. Also fixed with the next release.

Curiously, there are two bugs which are out of my hands:

Microsoft Outlook Crash: Sometimes, when dragging a file to a new message as an attachment from Yoink, Outlook would crash. After some testing, I found out not Yoink is causing this, but Outlook itself – the crash happens when dragging from Finder, as well. For some reason, Outlook doesn’t like files that have a ridiculously long file path (like, a file inside a twenty-folder-hierarchy). I believe it has to do with the file path’s string’s entire length. Filed a bug report with Microsoft.
QuickLook not working for weblocs: For weblocs, all you get is an icon of the webloc file, although Finder would load and display the website the webloc points to. For all I know, it’s a sandbox issue. Just to test things out, I tried giving Yoink access to the internet (as a client and as a server, just to be sure), and it got rid of an error message related to the issue (something about com.apple.nsurlstorage-cache), but it didn’t fix the issue at hand. Bug report filed with Apple.

More Contract Work
It’s an interesting, Austrian startup I’m doing work for (an iOS app).
I didn’t anticipate how different working for somebody would feel, as far as having to show your work is concerned.
You’d think that, as an indie developer, releasing your app into the wild, right into the hands of thousands, possibly millions of people at once would make you the most anxious you could possibly get. However, showing your work to just a handful of people in a startup is just as nerve-wrecking, if not more so. Especially when you’re given (more or less) carte blanche in terms of how the app feels and looks.
I don’t know what exactly makes those two so different. Perhaps it’s the direct feedback you get in a meeting. Or maybe it’s the dread of having to watch your opposite’s facial expression turn from a smile to a frown.
Anyway, we’ve passed the prototype / proof-of-concept stage recently and are now talking about where to go from here. I have not been fired yet, so I take that as a good sign 😉
I’m also learning a good deal about new APIs working on it: NSURLSession is amazing and I’m becoming more and more a devoted fan of AutoLayout with each and every new Storyboard or XIB I create.

… Downloaded

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (mac app store)
I prefer the first part, “The Original Trilogy”, but running it on OS X El Capitan doesn’t work, and patching it isn’t one of publisher Feral‘s top priority, according to a support mail I received from them.
So I made do with the second part instead. Besides the fourth movie, the first three are also covered (albeit, they’re “silier” than in the first game, which is kind of a pity). Overall, it’s a pretty fun game.
On the Mac, I usually only play with mouse and keyboard. Lately, I’ve been playing some games with a PS 3 controller and I must say, it makes a world of difference – and I used to be a die-hard mouse-and-keyboard player.
The only console I ever possessed was an SNES way, way back, so I never had the chance to really get used to the PlayStation or N64 controllers, which is why I prefer playing with a keyboard and mouse. But I see that changing now.

Mimpi Dreams Icon Mimpi Dreams (app store)
My girlfriend played the first part and loved it, and she had nothing less to say about the second installment.
“Mimpi Dreams” was a little easier than the first part, though.

Grandpa and the Zombies Icon Grandpa and the Zombies (app store)
Downloaded it because it vaguely reminded me of an all-time favorite of mine: Harry – The Handsome Executive (website – not available anymore) and it is pretty fun for a short break.

Procreate Pocket Icon Procreate Pocket (app store)
A powerful and feature-rich painting app. It says so in their description – and they aren’t lying.

… Read

On Subscription Fatigue (macsparky)
“I think, in general, it’s easier to pay $12 once then the thought of paying one dollar every month going forward. Now multiply that times the 20 or 30 apps that you really love and things just get crazy.”
That about sums up my thoughts on this as well. It’s interesting for one app, but since you have more than one app installed on your phone, this just becomes a hassle and unmanageable.

… Watched

Malcolm in the Middle DVD Cover Malcolm in the Middle (amazon)
I just had to start watching that show again – don’t ask me why.
To me, this is one of the best TV series ever produced. There is not a single episode I don’t like or don’t consider funny, and it makes me laugh from the beginning to the end. No downward spiral and endless carrying on just for the heck of it.
Take ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for example. The first two, maybe three (although it started there) seasons were really funny, and then “it was all downhill from there”, to quote Sheldon. Sad, but true for most of the comedy shows out there.