Mojave and Folderol

If you use my Folderol app, you may encounter issues in Mojave. I have not but I can confirm that some of my users have found that their folders tend to be “sticky”, and will keep their icons and folder colors even when they’ve been changed to new ones.

If this happens to you, the easiest solution is to set up a new folder, customize it with Folderol, and transfer the contents and rename it like the old one. I have reports of the issue with 10.14.3 and 10.14.2. The most common factor among those affected is that the system is running one or more UI customizations like dark mode.

Folderol works by using Apple’s NSWorkspace method that sets an icon for a file. So the actual “work” beyond creating and blending the icon is done by that class, over which I have no control.

I’m going to try to update the app description with a warning about the problem and add a set/remove/set sequence to see if that helps.

If you’re experiencing issues with Folderol, please let me know your OS specifics, and whether you’re using custom dark mode and/or tints. Thanks!

Kid-fu: Pay for play

Screen Shot 2016-08-19 at 7.24.19 PM How do you get your kid to try on all his shirts and pants before school starts? So you can sort them into trash, donate, wear, and “for playtime use only”? Answer: Playgrounds. Thank you playground team!

We used the “deal or no deal” rule. Two spins. You can “stick” or you can re-try, but no peeking at the next roll. Payment for each garment after trying it on, taking it off and folding it. Coins placed into a cauldron (thank you Harry Potter camp) to be counted after we’re done. Any stained items treated with Oxyclean and thrown into the hamper.

For less than a couple of dollars, we got through his entire wardrobe with no complaints except “Don’t I have anything else that needs trying on?”

Source code follows:

Apple TV Store update: Commerce watch

So, after about 6 sales total, I made my app free. 3 sales days later of 6 total sales days, and I have sold a total of 41 units. Total proceeds to date: US$8.14.

I averaged about 2 sales a day (paid) before going free and about 10 sales a day after.

So how does this massive sales surge affect my chart standings?

Still not in TR:

But HEY! I made it into TRI! Woo.

And with TRIV, I’m basically SMOKIN’. Look at me there in position (2,2).

So this is apparently what 10 sales a day gets you on the Apple TV app store.

I didn’t see “Triviata” in the Top Free Apps on Apple TV itself, but according to Slide To Play, I’m #77 on games:

New app: Quote

Now live at the Mac App Store.

Review: Fresh Air offers beautiful weather forecasting

Yesterday it was cold. Today it is cold. Tomorrow it will be cold. Apparently, it’s going to be cold for the foreseeable future and there’s no place near me to drive to where it’s even the slightest bit warm. Thank you, Mr. Gore.

If the cold is getting you down, let me point you to a beautiful new weather app called Fresh Air. For just $0.99, it provides beautiful screen design, great interactive weather forecasts, clever date book integration and more. It’s not going to improve the outlook but it gets you that information in a visually appealing way.

With it, you can scroll hour-by-hour through the upcoming forecast, with overnight and daytime trends presented with colors, graphs, and icons. There’s a lot of information packed into its sparse design. I particularly like how you can view calendar events with temperatures. That Moms get together at the park on Thursday? Maybe that should move to Starbucks instead.

The app includes several built-in discoverable features and it introduces these with minimalist training hints. The occasional “tap here” or “swipe there” reminders expose these features, without requiring an excess of labels that would kill the presentation. While the app is immediately usable, this kind of training philosophy ensures the best user experience over the long term.

If I had one major complaint about the app, it’s that I can’t remember the name. “What’s that new weather app? That thing? The one I just installed? Was it something something weather something?” In fact, no, it’s Fresh Air, and trying to remember that without having to hop into iTunes to figure out “what is the most recent app on my purchases list” is going to take me some time. It’s the sort of app you have to remember by putting it in a particular place on your screen but it’s also the kind of quick-reference that you’d want to promote anyway.

Fresh Air is narrow in its scope. It does one job, it does it well, and it’s extremely well priced.

App Store News

After several years of bother trying to get App Store to work with my first-gen-app update, ToDo finally got updated. It should be live by tomorrow. In the past 2-3 years of trying to get this submitted, I actually rewrote the app completely several times, getting it updated for the iPhone 5 (remember that!?) and more recently for iOS 7. Now that it’s finally (finally!) gotten through, let me know how it works. If you have any feature requests / bug reports, send them to me by email.

In related matters, there’s a brand new version of PasteCatcher also going live.

Art Helper: Batch Retina Pairs

At Lyle Andrew’s request, I’ve added a batch processor utility into Art Helper. It’s still in testing (ping me by email if you’d like to help), but it works like this:

You pick a folder, it searches that folder for art files. They have to use an even pixel size in both dimensions. Art Helper then creates an output folder for the new pairs and builds them there. This way, he doesn’t have to drag in each item to process it.

Want new features? Just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. This is basically a crowd-sourced tool.

Color Sampler sneak peek

I’m updating my color sampler app for a book I’m developing with Brett Terpstra on iOS Controls. I’ve built some fun interaction styles into the update. These include a scenario picker, the swatch selector deck you see here, a push-to-adjust color editor, and more.

Controls are great fun especially when you can generalize them. I enjoy moving them out from specific uses to a more reusable component. I especially love adding physical reactions using basic principles of animation.

You can preview a few of these controls in action over on my YouTube channel.

Art Helper 1.0.3 submitted to Mac App Store

Art Helper generates Icon and Default files for iOS development and Iconset folders for OS X from base art that you supply. The new version:

• Adds Retina-pair creation. Build @2x (original resolution) and regular (quarter resolution, half in each direction) versions.
• Addresses Retina-generation bug (thanks to Matt Stevens and Lyle Andrews)

With luck, the update should go live in a week or two.

Erica Sadun

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