It’s Objective-C, as you’ve never seen it before…

Teaser

Get ready for the revolution in Mac development.

Remember Fumo? Well, I have slowly been unraveling the source code Alcor kindly provided, and am starting to get the picture of how everything works. I’ve been playing around with different interface ideas, and for Fumo, have so far got something like this:

Fumo screenshot 1

Yeah, I know it’s a far cry from the actual interface mockups Pavel created, but it’s a start. I mean, I’ve been whinging about this a lot, but you try to subclass views that are as cool and extreme as Quicksilver’s - without looking at their implementations. As ytrewq1 described, writing plugins for Quicksilver is a tedious process involving looking through the available code and just experimenting until something goes right.

Having said that, I’m having a lot of fun writing code for my favorite app, and it shouldn’t be too long before Fumo hits the market… uh… streets. It’s a great idea that is just waiting to be created (in fact, it’s been waiting for several months now. Before I knew about it, of course).

Got any ideas for Fumo? Or for a plugin for Quicksilver? I’m eagerly awaiting that comment

Update: Download a (still unstable) version of Fumo from this post.

Creating Fumo : A new Quicksilver interface

Having been contact by the creator of the Fumo interface concept, Pavel, I am starting work on creating the a brand spanking new interface for Quicksilver. Take a look at the mockups he’s created.

While various difficulties (trying to write a plugin on top a system that I can’t see, using subclasses that I can’t see the implementations for, etc.) are proving to be tough challenges, Alcor (Nicholas Jitkoff) and ytrewq1 have been and are continuing to be most helpful in providing help when I need it. Alcor has already provided code for the “window” interface that I will be building on top of on, and ytrewq1 has assisted in overcoming various programming hurdles and provided some welcome encouragement.

That’s what’s so great about the Apple Mac Developer community - they’re ready to help people out and provide whatever assistance they can. Sure beats the “read the incoherent documentation” or “Google it” approach employed by various other operating systems regarding development troubleshooting.

And if you don’t know what Quicksilver is, or don’t use it, it’s time to get up and walk out of that dusty cave. Trust me, it’ll relegate Finder, Automator, and System Preferences to “lost somewhere in the HD”. It’s the best thing that happened to productivity, and once you start to tap into it’s power, you realize how much more it has. For example, I had a workflow to scale images. While playing around with the Quicksilver’s preferences, I found that you not only scale images, but also convert images to/from psd, jpg, png, gif, and a plethora of other formats. You can change your desktop background, move / copy / rename / delete files, add and delete lines from files without opening them, get into, do a Spotlight search. You can also add triggers (hotkeys), and integrate it with just about any application that exists. I mean, seriously, this thing is powerful. Get it now, use it now, and wait for Fumo.

Update: Download a (still unstable) version of Fumo from this post.

Shareware licensing techniques

I have been meaning to write about this topic for ages due to a huge response to this article, but with four exams in two days and a few more still left, there’s been very little time. So instead of a full-fledged post / tutorial, here is my view on writing solid security measures into your shareware applications. Note that I haven’t actually written a shareware app myself, so most of this is theoretical (ie. in my crazy mind).

Before we get into the different strategies, I would like recommend this article on software piracy by Ambrosia Software (Snapz Pro X). It really shows how vulnerable Mac apps really are and the effect they can have on small and individual developers. Ambrosia now uses what I believe to be one of the strongest and most fraud-free licensing system of any developer (including Apple). However, the method they use does have drawbacks in slight annoyances for the user. There is no perfect way of protecting your application, and no matter what you do, those that want to crack your application will; Even Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe have their software cracked and pirated. It’s about finding the right balance between safety and resources. How much time are you willing to spend hack-proofing your app? Do you need to go hard core encryption and daily online checks or is storing a hidden encrypted file enough? It’s up to you to review the alternatives and decide.

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