|
|
|
|
|
|
March 31st, 2014
Several people have reported that folders that they’ve put in the Favorites section of the sidebar in Finder windows just disappear, and have thought that either Default Folder X or Jettison was at fault. I’ve confirmed with Apple that this is a known bug in Mac OS 10.9.2. It’s not caused by Default Folder X, Jettison or any other 3rd party application. It’s an issue that Apple needs to fix in OS X.
Here’s a more complete description of the problem:
Bug:
If I drag a folder to the Finder sidebar to add it as a Favorite, then later eject the disk containing the folder, the Finder deletes the folder from the sidebar. It doesn’t return when I remount the disk.
Steps to Reproduce:
- Plug in an external drive (I used a FW800 drive, but apparently any old disk will do).
- Open a Finder window, navigate to the external drive and then drag a folder from the drive to the Favorites list in the Finder window’s sidebar.
- Eject the external drive.
- Run Disk Utility and remount the external drive.
Expected Results:
I would expect the folder to stay in the Favorites list in the sidebar, regardless of the availability of the disk. If I click on it it should ask for the disk or try to remount it automatically. Failing this, if the folder is going to be hidden in the sidebar because the disk is unavailable, it should reappear when the disk is available again.
Actual Results:
The folder is removed from the Favorites list in the sidebar, never to return.
Posted in Default Folder X, Jettison, Mavericks | 23 Comments »
March 28th, 2014
 App Tamer 2.0.2 is available now, providing fixes for a couple of bugs, as well as some minor changes to the UI that help to show what’s going on.
First the fixes:
- In certain situations, App Tamer 2.0.1 could crash when you launched it. This was due to a bug in the way it tracked subprocesses. The common example was a command in Terminal that ran a couple of other commands which in turn spawned subprocesses themselves. A few simple checks were all that was needed to fix it.
- A more common problem was that App Tamer would occasionally stop limiting the CPU usage of an application it was supposed to be managing. This turned out to be a timing issue: If App Tamer stopped throttling a process and then immediately started again, the original CPU limiter would still be winding down and App Tamer would find it and use it rather than creating a new one. A few milliseconds later, that CPU limiter would finish shutting down and disappear, leaving the managed application free to use as much CPU as it wanted. App Tamer doesn’t do that anymore 🙂
The UI enhancements:
 Mark Mackay, an App Tamer user in New Zealand, pointed out that if App Tamer wasn’t limiting the CPU use of an application at the time (because that app wasn’t doing anything) he couldn’t tell if he’d configured App Tamer to slow it down. He suggested I enhance the status indicators that App Tamer puts next to each application to somehow show that running apps – the ones with blue squares – had settings attached to them. A little triangle of color in the bottom right corner now shows you if that app will be slowed down or stopped (with yellow or red corners, respectively).- Version 2.0.2 also dims the icon and name of any application or process that can’t be stopped, so you know not to bother clicking on them.
Grab your copy from the App Tamer Release page. The update is free if you’ve bought App Tamer 2!
Posted in App Tamer | No Comments »
March 13th, 2014
 I just put the finishing touches on Default Folder X 4.6.4, which is now available on the Default Folder X page. It includes a bunch of fixes for bugs and compatibility issues.
There are corrections for problems with specific applications like OmniOutliner, Sublime Text and Reunion. More importantly, there’s new logic for automatically setting the initial folder for all Open and Save As dialogs. Seems like that’d be a simple thing, right? Unfortunately, there are a host of application- and OS-specific quirks that Default Folder X has to deal with, as well as several options that you can select in your Default Folder X preferences. The combination of all these things had made for some contorted logic, especially with Mavericks’ “creative” handling of Carbon applications. It’s now simplified and properly sorted out and works a lot better. If you still encounter problems with a specific application, send us a tech support request and I’ll have a look.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
February 26th, 2014
App Tamer 2.0.1 corrects a few issues that were causing slow-downs in App Tamer itself, especially when it first started up. If you had an application that had a lot of sub-processes (typically Terminal, Google Chrome or Safari), App Tamer’s launch time could be glacially slow. And even after startup, pausing and un-pausing those apps took much more CPU than it should have.
In addition, CPU usage was reduced in several other areas and several bugs were squashed, including one that could cause App Tamer to fail to reenable itself after you turned it off for a specified amount of time.
For a full list of changes as well as links to download the new version, go to the App Tamer Release page.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
February 7th, 2014
It’s come to our attention (after about a week’s worth of debugging) that a software package called Elite Keylogger Pro disables Default Folder X. The Default Folder X Helper application will still run and you’ll see Default Folder X’s icon in your menubar, but none of its controls will appear around your Open and Save dialogs.
The frustrating problem has been that Elite Keylogger Pro actually hides itself so that it can be installed on a computer and surreptitiously record keystrokes and screen snapshots without anyone knowing (yes, that’s pretty sketchy). When I started receiving bug reports saying that Default Folder X had suddenly stopped working, the System Information reports, Console logs and other debugging information that I got from affected users showed no clear clues as to what was causing the problem. Finally, one observant Default Folder X user (with a good memory) remembered buying Elite Keylogger Pro as part of the Mac Bundle 4.0 and installing it (thank you Adam Olson!)
So, if Default Folder X has suddenly stopped working on your machine, see if you bought the Mac Bundle 4.0 recently – or purchased Elite Keylogger Pro separately – and installed it. If so, this is probably what’s causing the problem.
To get Default Folder X working again you need to uninstall Elite Keylogger Pro. And be careful – you must uninstall it according to WideStep’s instructions http://help.widestep.com/how-to-uninstall-elite-keylogger-mac/. Using a “clean up” application or just throwing the application in the Trash is not enough to remove it from your system.
I’ve contacted WideStep to see about fixing or working around the conflict and will update this as I have more information. Sorry for the trouble and for any time you’ve wasted troubleshooting this (hopefully you haven’t killed an entire week like I have…)
Update: WideStep has issued an update to Elite Keylogger Pro to fix this problem. Get version 1.2.027 or higher from their website to ensure that Default Folder X runs correctly with their software.
– Jon
Posted in Default Folder X | 2 Comments »
January 22nd, 2014
 App Tamer 2.0 is finally available, and the changes are pretty exciting. The user interface is faster and easier to use, both for checking on the performance of your Mac and for managing applications that are sucking up too much CPU time.
And even more importantly, App Tamer can now slow down applications as well as stop them, so you can use it to reduce the CPU usage of some annoying applications even though those apps still need to work while they’re in the background. Think Spotlight, Mail, Time Machine – things that seem to randomly spike the processor usage on your computer, slowing down what you’re doing or making the fans suddenly roar like a Boeing 747. Tell App Tamer not to let Spotlight take more than 25% of your processor time and those CPU spikes magically go away!
If your Mac’s fans are driving you crazy or your battery life is suffering at the hands of some self-important app that thinks it needs to hog the processor, grab App Tamer 2.0 and let it take care of it.
Get it here: App Tamer 2.0
Posted in App Tamer | No Comments »
January 20th, 2014
Default Folder X 4.6.3 includes fixes for several problems, the biggest of which was the propensity for some applications (like InDesign, Pro Tools and Word) to start their Open or Save dialogs in the wrong folder. In addition, it gives Default Folder X’s SetSaveName AppleScript command the ability to understand UTF-8 text and fixes a bug that caused the popup path menu in Save dialogs to disappear in Mac OS 10.8.5.
This version also works reliably on Mac OS 10.6.8 – though Snow Leopard users should be aware that it does not support PowerPC applications. If you’re still running old PowerPC apps in Rosetta, stick with Default Folder X 4.5.12.
You can get the new version from the Default Folder X release page.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
October 30th, 2013
 Jettison 1.3 is out and bundles up a bunch of improvements to our little app for auto-ejecting your external disks. You can download it here.
For all you Nifty MiniDrive owners out there, this version will remount your drive when your Mac wakes back up from sleep. And for owners of all types of devices, if a disk can’t be ejected, Jettison will look to see if there are open files on the drive and tell you what they are. No more guessing why OS X won’t let go of one of your disks!
This version also contains a number of internal fixes for various errors, timing problems, and odd drive and bus setups that could cause Jettison to hiccup before. There will undoubtedly be situations where Jettison still won’t be able to eject a disk – I can’t fix hardware problems or flaky device drivers – but beta builds of version 1.3 have remedied most problems that I’ve seen reported.
And one more thing: Version 1.3 also has shiny new retina display-compatible graphics so the icon and graphics look nice on your killer screen 🙂
And now – about the Mac App Store… Version 1.3 can’t go up on the App Store in its present form because it prompts you for your admin password to remount SD cards. That’s an unfortunate but necessary requirement, and is something that Apple prohibits in App Store applications. I’m considering separating the SD card remounting functionality and providing it as a free “helper download” outside the App Store so the rest of Jettison can be sold there. In the meantime, if you purchased Jettison through the Mac App Store, you can still use a copy of version 1.3 downloaded here – just make sure you run it from the disk image once before replacing your App Store-purchased version with it. Launching it once will give version 1.3 a chance to copy your Mac App Store receipt from the old copy of Jettison – then you won’t be pestered to pay for it again.
Posted in Jettison | No Comments »
September 17th, 2013
“How the heck do I change the sort order of my files in Open and Save dialogs?” We get this question a lot, and I can’t blame you for being confused. The controls for sorting the list of files in Open and Save dialogs are a bit of a mess. They’re the result of new features being layered on top of older user interface controls, leaving you with some odd and confusing combinations.
In the beginning – well, OK, not The Beginning beginning, but quite a few years ago – you could only sort in file dialogs by clicking on the top of the columns in list view.
 If you want to sort by date, you click on the “Date Modified” column header. The little triangle at the right side of the header shows you whether you’re sorting in ascending or descending order. Clicking the header again toggles between ascending and descending. To sort by name, click on the “Name” header. Pretty simple, right?
Wait, what column headers?That original method still works today, but only in List View, because there aren’t any column headers in Column View or Icon View. I know, you may not even be aware that there are different views in file dialogs. This is column view:
Click on those little buttons I’ve marked in red to change views. Note that they’re on the bottom of the file dialog in some applications, but at the top of the dialog in others. Don’t ask – that’s just the way it is.
So.. Method #1 for sorting your files: Click on the List View button and then on the column header you want to sort by.
But that doesn’t always work. Yeah, I just told you how to do what you want, but now I’ll screw it all up by showing you the new sorting controls, which completely disable method #1. In Mac OS 10.7 and later, there’s this nifty little sorting button at the top of the file dialog:
 Selecting a sorting method from this menu gives you the new Finder-style sorting with interspersed headers saying “Today”, “Yesterday”, “Previous 30 Days”, “Earlier” etc – you can see them in the screenshot above. The confusing thing is that this will also sort List View windows that way, and will completely disable your ability to click on the column headers to sort the Old Way (what I called method #1).
So… Method #2 for sorting your files: Click on the Sort Menu button and select a sorting method.
And now the inevitable question: What if I don’t want those “Today, Yesterday, Previous 30 days” things in the way? I’m glad you asked – mostly because I don’t like them myself 🙂 If you want to go back to the Old Way of sorting in list views, start with the Sort menu and choose “None”. Then click on the List View button and click the column headers to select your sort method.
Posted in Default Folder X, Tips | No Comments »
July 25th, 2013
Version 4.5.10 of Default Folder X is now available, updating compatibility with the latest developer release of Mavericks (if you’ve been under a rock, that’s the next version of OS X currently in development at Apple). This release also fixes a bunch of annoying little things that affect folks using all versions of OS X, so it’s something you want to grab even if you’re not a developer. The most significant changes other than Mavericks support are:
- Default Folder X no longer pauses for long periods when the OS X metadata server (mds) is very busy.
- A glitch in the rebound feature is fixed. This one was really annoying because rebound would work most of the time, then unexpectedly fail to select a file once in a while. That really bothered people who’d come to depend on it (which is apparently a lot of people :))
- The background for previews of text files is white again. They’d become transparent in Mountain Lion because of a minor change in the Cocoa framework, making it pretty hard to read the text.
- The “DFX” AppleScript applet that puts Default Folder X in your Finder toolbars was misbehaving due to a change in AppleScript in Mac OS 10.8.4 – that’s been fixed. You’ll find the updated version in the Extras folder on the Default Folder X disk image.
- And finally, for the many people that were upset that Default Folder X is no longer available in their Dock, I’ve added an unofficial setting to put it back. See the Read Me for details – and don’t blame me if Default Folder X doesn’t show up in full-screen applications under Mountain Lion. There, you’ve been warned.
Since I’ve been a slacker about blogging, there have also been a number of other Default Folder X releases since the last time I posted, including some important fixes for Preview, TextEdit and other sandboxed applications, support for Java apps, better keyboard traversal, correct behavior in full-screen mode, and more. Just grab 4.5.10 and install it – a bunch of stuff works better. You can get it on the Default Folder X page.
Posted in Default Folder X | No Comments »
|
|
|
|
|
