mac app

flickery icon

flickery v1.9.45, a critical bug fix release, has just been released both on the Mac App Store and via the app’s update mechanism.

What’s flickery?

flickery is a full-featured desktop client for flickr, allowing you to manage your photo stream, favorites, albums, galleries and more.

That’s still around?

I admit, flickery hasn’t seen an update in quite a while (the last one on October 24th, 2014 – it’s quite embarrassing).
Managing and maintaining five different apps is quite a task for one person, and in the case of flickery, one thing just lead to another and I somehow was never able to keep updating it regularly.

I had started development of version 2.0, but as that Yahoo sale happened, I paused again, not knowing where things would go.
Now flickr is in the hands of SmugMug, and after a very brief first conversation with them, I’m thinking flickr’s in a good place. Let’s see where things go from here.

What’s New in flickery v1.9.45?

  • A crash was fixed that occurred when loading galleries (which sometimes lead to a crash during authorization)
  • A crash was fixed when cancelling an upload
  • A bug was fixed where you couldn’t take screenshots anymore from within flickery’s upload section
  • Due to the Mac App Store’s API restrictions, flickery now uses AVFoundation for its video playback instead of QuickTime, leading to increased system requirements (macOS Lion 10.7.3 or newer is now required)

Increased System Requirements

flickery used to use the QuickTime and QTKit frameworks for video editing and playback. Trying to compile that code lead to several errors, as the frameworks are not available anymore on macOS High Sierra (possibly earlier), so (with invaluable help from Phil Dennis-Jordan (twitter) ) I had to copy them over from macOS Snow Leopard, since that’s the version of macOS I was targeting.
Building worked, and I was confident I could release right away, but then this happened:

Xcode warning: Deprecated API usage

Apparently, Apple no longer accepts apps that use the QuickTime or QTKit APIs (even if you’re targeting very old versions of macOS). So back to Xcode I went, assessing how much work it would be to move everything from QuickTime/QTKit over to AVFoundation.

The most critical parts were, of course, video playback so you could watch videos posted to flickr. Other parts where I used those APIs were recording photos and videos with your Mac’s FaceTime camera and trimming videos that were longer than allowed for upload, but I decided to scrap those features for now so I could release quickly. I’m guessing they were rarely used anyway, if at all.

Updating the remaining code turned out to be a couple of hours of work (it wasn’t all that difficult, to be honest), but resulted in increased system requirements, as AVFoundation is only available on macOS Lion (10.7) and up.

I wanted to keep supporting macOS Snow Leopard (10.6) with flickery 1.x, but I would have had to take out video playback for that build, and I didn’t want to.

Availability

Version 1.9.45 of flickery is a free update for existing customers of the app, both on the Mac App Store and from the website.

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2 ScreenFloat Icon 3 dragged

I’m happy to announce the immediate availability of ScreenFloat v1.5.14 – an admittedly long overdue maintenance update that fixes a couple of issues:

  • A semi-rare crash, that occurred when dragging the mini-icon of a floating shot, was fixed
  • Cancelling a mini-icon-drag by pressing ‘esc’ actually works now
  • Fixed a bug where a cleared keyboard shortcut would reset to its default after a restart of the app
  • Fixed an interface bug where, after sharing a shot, the standard window buttons would appear on the floating shot
  • Fixed a bug where the app would seemingly freeze when “Save as…” and “New Folder” was selected

What’s ScreenFloat?
ScreenFloat lets you take screenshots that float above all windows, so as to keep information always visible (following you around different spaces, windows and full-screen apps).

  • Need to transfer bank account information from a mail to your online banking tool? ScreenFloat!
  • Want to keep a reference image visible? ScreenFloat!
  • Want to just remember a bit of information for a minute? ScreenFloat!
  • The use-cases seem endless (and *are* endless – believe me, I use it all day, all the time 😉 )

While the main “raison d’être” is this floating functionality, ScreenFloat offers a Shots Browser that keeps all the screenshots you take in a neat library you can curate (via titles, tags and (smart) collections).

Each floating shot has a draggable mini-image-icon at the lower left, so you can quickly drag any screenshot you take to other apps, like Messages, Mail, or Twitter, for example.

Links:
ScreenFloat Website (with free, 15-day trial)
ScreenFloat on the Mac App Store

What’s Next?
Looking ahead, I’m working on a substantial v2.0 upgrade of ScreenFloat which will include features like annotations and sync (via iCloud), and I’m also looking into an iOS companion app down the road.
So, although there haven’t been a lot of updates lately for ScreenFloat (mainly because Yoink has been keeping me very busy), I do have lots of plans and love for the app.

 

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Yoink Mac App Icon

Just a quick note to let you know that Yoink 3.4.1 is now available for download from the Mac App Store. It’s a free upgrade for everyone who’s purchased it before. You can download a 15-day trial for the app here.

Yoink simplifies and improves drag and drop on your Mac.

Moving a file with Yoink

When you start moving a file in Finder, or app-content like an image from a website, Yoink appears at the edge of your screen, offering a temporary place for you to drag the files to. Without having to keep the mouse button pressed, you can now get to the destination of your file quicker and easier.

What’s New in Yoink v3.4.1?

This version is a maintenance update, improving compatibility with a lot of apps (like Apple Mail and Photos, and many 3rd party apps) and increases the overall stability and performance of the app, for example, it fixes a bug that caused Yoink to no longer work until a restart of the app in some cases.

Pricing and Availability

Yoink 3.4.1 is available for purchase on the Mac App Store for the price of $6.99 / £6.99 / €7,99. It is a free update for existing customers of the app. You can download a free, 15-day demo version here, even if you’ve tried Yoink before. Yoink runs on Macs with OS X Lion 10.7.3 or newer. OS X Yosemite or newer is recommended.

If you’re interested in writing about Yoink, you can download the press kit here, which contains screenshots, links to a short video and further information.
Promo codes are available to members of the press at press (at) eternalstorms (dot) at.

Yoink is also available for iPad and iPhone.

Yoink Usage Tips

To get the most out of Yoink, I’m collecting useful tips and tricks for you on this website.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you and to see what you think about Yoink v3.4.1. If you like the app, please consider leaving a little review on the Mac App Store, it would help me out a lot! Should you have trouble with it or have any feedback or questions, please be sure to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you! Thank you.

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Earlier today, I released Yoink 3.4 for Mac with supposed “PopClip by Pilotmoon Software” Integration.
Only that it doesn’t work, because I screwed up. My sincere apologies, it worked in testing but I managed to remove it from my Mac App Store submission by mistake, so the button does effectively nothing.

So, here’s how to fix it:
Instead of using Yoink’s “Install PopClip Extension” button in Yoink’s preferences (which is, on top of everything, badly aligned – because it’s just that kind of day for me), download the extension below and double-click it. If you have PopClip by Pilotmoon Software installed, it’ll do the right thing and ask you if you’d like to install it.

 – Download Yoink’s PopClip Extension – (then double-click in Finder)
(A logout/login or restart of your Mac might be necessary for macOS to recognize Yoink’s new system service)

Again, my apologies, this wasn’t how I wanted this to go 😉

I hope you enjoy Yoink besides this little hiccup, you can be sure it’ll be fixed with the next update!

– Matt

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