scott-stevenson
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Delicious Library 2 will track your media and your tools
Scott Stevenson has taken another look at a program I am pretty much drooling over at this point-- Delicious Library 2. Earlier, he walked us through the overview of all the items in your library, and this time, he goes a little more in depth on what the app can tell you about each item that you own.First off, everything is Quicklook-capable and can be viewed in CoverFlow, which is awesome. You can thumb through your books just with a few keystrokes. You can share your library via .Mac and Bonjour, which means while using Wi-Fi at Barnes and Noble, you can actually get book recommendations from anyone else on the network with you.Finally, Scott reveals a strange but interesting new feature. Apparently, in its pre-release incarnation, you can also track tools. That's right-- the screenshot above is not Photoshopped (not by us, at least). Scott even suggests there might be other possessions to track, but we'll have to wait for the official release to see just what the Delicious team have cooked up.
Delicious Library 2 preview
Scott Stevenson has posted a very short but sweet preview of Delicious Library 2, due out sometime after Leopard hits next week (according to Wil Shipley, it may be as late as February). The already beautiful program (that coined a generation) looks better than ever, and it's made better, we're told, by all the great stuff going into Leopard, from Core Animation to the new Quicklook (you'll be able to drag books and DVDs out of the library to make little files of their own, which will then be viewable in Quicklook itself). And there's other touches, too-- selected items glow, when you delete a book it "shatters," and details don't just appear, they "pop into view" like on the iPhone.And there are updates behind the graphics, too-- a faster barcode scanner, some super seekrit features (that is "worth the purchase price" for parents-- ??), and sharing features, which means finally, this program has a real purpose other than just staring at the stuff you own. You'll be able to share your collection with friends and even strangers-- can't wait to see how that works.Sounds like fun. Stevenson says he wants Delicious Library 2 to set the benchmark for the first generation of Leopard apps, so we can definitely expect big, shiny stuff from these folks. Please, Delicious, show us how it's done.
THCanvasView: Icon viewer for Cocoa apps
Scott Stevenson has dropped a pretty handy Finder-like view interface for Cocoa applications called THCanvasView. I don't do a ton of Cocoa programming, but even I can see how handy this is-- Scott's coded almost all the functionality of Finder, including resizing of icons, image previews, Cocoa bindings awareness, and repositioning within the view, and it's available right there as a free download under a BSD license for your own application.He's also included a short wrapper app called CorkBoard designed just to show off what the viewer does. Very cool indeed. If you're working on a new Cocoa application (at least before Leopard comes out and shows us all how applications should really look in 2008), it could be just what you're looking for in a file interface.
Learn Cocoa, Part II
When we posted about Part I of Scott Stevenson's Learn Cocoa tutorial, some people complained that there wasn't actually any coding involved. Well Part II at least introduces what Scott calls "Thinking in Code" and begins to dig a little deeper into what is required to actually use Xcode to write a Cocoa application. Obviously, Scott is moving very slowly, as yet again he requires no previous experience, but his lavishly illustrated guide is a pleasure to behold. He holds out the promise of more such guides in the future, provided some donations are forthcoming. Given how well he's done so far, I hope that comes to pass. Check it out at Cocoa Dev Central.
Scott Stevenson on why upcoming apps are going Leopard-only
Scott Stevenson, blogger of many things developer-related, has penned an in-depth explanation that answers my assumptions as to why developers would (or should) go Leopard-only with their apps. The explanation Scott provides is pretty thorough, offering brief examples of what is so new and fancy in Leopard that would appeal to a developer. To be more specific: Leopard offers some powerful tools and major changes in code that can really propel many apps to be all they can be, and as Scott puts it: "Forgoing Leopard APIs until some arbitrary point in the future can actually hold the app back from its full potential." A lot of the points Scott makes seem to boil down to a couple of fundamentals, with one of them being the tried and true mantra of "know your audience." Scott is right on when he points out that Mac users are Mac users by choice, which means many of them who have a vested interest in 3rd party software (like TextMate and Delicious Library - both of which have announced future Leopard-only updates) are far more likely to be early adopters; i.e. - they're also likely to be first in line for Leopard. Even though he can roll with the devs, Scott writes in a language everyone can understand. His post is a great read if you're interested in the dynamics of why a Mac OS X developer would release an app on the bleeding edge of an OS update. [via The Apple Blog]
The secret of Apple's success
Scott Stevenson has been thinking about why Apple has been so successful for the last few years. He points out that in each market that Apple is an unmitigated hit (MP3 players, music downloads) they were not first to market. So why do people dig what Apple is doing?Scott's answer: Apple doesn't care what the crowd thinks. They are doing things without consulting with focus groups, or months of market research (we imagine, you never know what is going on in Cupertino). Apple seems to be fearless, and that is what is helping them soar while other companies are limping along (just look at Vista's ever receding ship date).So, TUAW'ers, what do you think is the secret mojo that keeps Apple in the black?
