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Enter at Your Own Rift: Off the beaten path
Conventional MMO wisdom says that one should stick to the roads as much as possible when questing. Roads have become the "safe zone" of online games, a place where mobs are less likely to attack and adventurers are less likely to become lost. RIFT, however, turns this MMO convention on its head and does everything it can to break us of this predictable -- and boring -- habit. For one thing, the roads in RIFT are not safe. At any moment, a rampaging invasion or event boss may be wandering down them, looking for easy prey. I've seen more than one jaded MMO vet express a type of dawning pleasure when this has happened, especially considering the reputation modern games have for coddling their populations. For another thing, there are a lot of incentives to strike off the beaten path and explore the world instead of staring at a packed trail that's been walked a million times before. RIFT encourages players to do so in subtle ways, ways that I deeply appreciate as an explorer type. In today's Enter at Your Own Rift, we're going to look at three reasons that blazing your own way in the wilderness is more fun -- and even beneficial -- than sticking to the highway. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
Sparkle Labs' Papertronics are the gift you'll never admit to wanting
Sparkle Labs -- an online DIY electronics kit maker filled with pep, cheer and other such disgustingly sweet things -- has just announced its new Papertronics kits. As the name suggests, these are paper toys with electronics inside them, with the kicker being that you have to construct your Spaceboy (above) or Aliengirl yourself, before activating them via contact with their "landers." Hey, it's not like you can be a gadget geek and not have an appreciation for the fine art of papercrafting. If your inner child still lives, you can check these out at the source link, and we'll just tell everyone you're buying them for your nephew or niece.
Mac 101: Keep an eye on the trash for auto-updated apps
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. This isn't so much an actionable "Here's how to accomplish X" sort of Mac 101 as it is a "Aha, so that's what's going on there" reminder. If you've ever been prompted by one of your favorite applications to download and install an updated version, chances are you've been served by the Sparkle framework. Andy Matuschak's open-source updater code is at work in hundreds of Mac apps, saving you the aggravation of having to go and track down new versions yourself. It's a beautiful thing. One of the nice features of the Sparkle approach to updates is that the code gracefully moves the old version out of the way when the new version is installed. Those old versions may wind up in your Trash, and if you have a program like Webkit installed (which commits new versions every night) those expired builds may soon represent a sizable bit of disk space. A quick Empty Trash will take care of the old stock. (If you're an iPhone or iPod touch user, the .ipa files accumulating in the Trash are the previous versions of your installed iPhone apps.) If your Trash is sporting several programs (as in the screenshot above), but you don't remember throwing them away, don't worry; you're just staying current.
WebKit adds some Sparkle
Sparkle, Andy Matuschak's software update framework for Cocoa applications, is no stranger to TUAW. Now, it's found its way into WebKit, the developmental version of Safari. This feature, often requested on the WebKit mailing lists, allows WebKit to update itself with the click of a button. Sparkle has become a standard for Mac applications. I tend to shudder a little bit every time an application has the smarts to tell me there's an update, but then sends me to a web page to download it. Not because I'm lazy, just because I know there's a better way. There are several variations cropping up, including one from Google. I haven't worked with the newcomers, but I can testify that Sparkle is so utterly simple to implement that developers who fail to do so should be scolded repeatedly until they capitulate (see WebKit). A hearty thanks, though, to the WebKit team, from all of us who surf the bleeding edge of browser development. Thanks to Chris Pirillo for the tip!
Pixelmator releases 1.3.1
The good folks at Pixelmator have released version 1.3.1 of their lightweight and smooth photo editing software. While the update is mostly "bug fixes and minor improvements" (isn't that exciting, unless maybe you really were waiting for "iSigh support" -- which probably means iSight), but there are two big changes: the Color Management panel has been updated (as you can see above), and the Refine Selection tool has a very nice, real-time masked UI that lets you see exactly which parts of your selection are being feathered or smoothed out.Definitely not as big an update as the 1.3 Tempo that we posted about a while ago (although 1.4 Sparkle, we're told, is being worked on right now), but it is free to all users, and in fact ready to download right now in Pixelmator. The app itself costs $59, but if you're looking for something a little more refined than GIMP that's not quite as pricey as Photoshop, it's your new bicycle.
Sparkle 1.5b1
There's a good chance our developer readers will be excited about the release of Sparkle 1.5b1. Among the new features you'll find support for .pkg installations and the ability to update non-.app files. Depending on your platforms, you'll also note the improved garbage collection support and 64-bit compatibility. Check the release notes for the full list. If you provide software for the Mac community and you don't use Sparkle, consider it. It's a donationware framework which makes it easy to add auto-update functionality to your software. Because its parameters are all contained in the info.plist file, it's easy to maintain and upgrade. Among the hundreds of applications that make use of Sparkle, you'll find favorites like Coda, Miro, Adium, Transmission, Cocktail ... it's a long list. Check out the new release and give your users some auto-update love. If all goes as planned, we'll be sitting down with Sparkle author Andy Matuschak for a chat at WWDC!
Cocoa developer time-saver: SparkleZip 1.1
Sparkle is an open-source module for Cocoa that allows developers to add that cool "Check for Updates" and auto-install feature with relative ease; it's used by some of our favorite applications. If you already knew that, then you might be part of the small but important group of people who would be interested in SparkleZip. SparkleZip is a free utility with a very self-explanatory name. Drag your application onto its icon and it will read your CFBundleVersion and generate a properly named zip file, ready for appcasting. It's a few seconds shaved off of release time and a great way to prevent mishaps, given that the current version of Sparkle is not overly forgiving once an appcast is published. Meanwhile, those seconds you just saved can go towards working on your next release which, by the way, we heard was going to be awesome. Update: Due to an editing error, the post originally implied that TextMate is a Sparkle-enabled application. Although it's listed among the apps on the Sparkle wiki, Allan has said that he does not use Sparkle to handle TextMate updates. Our apologies for the mixup.
AppFresh updated for Leopard
For finding updates to all your installed applications, you can go with an annual subscription to VersionTracker Pro or MacUpdate Desktop, or try the free alternative: metaquark's in-development AppFresh (first reviewed here in March). With tight integration to the iusethis application info repository, AppFresh does a spot-on job finding updates to mainstream and indie apps alike, and it's getting better with each release.Earlier in November, the first preview release with full Leopard compatibility popped up on metaquark's site. I've been using it for a couple of weeks and it works like a charm -- downloading and optionally installing updates found via iusethis' appcasts or Sparkle updates without fuss or complication. If you're a serious update maven, you probably already have one of the pro apps, but if not you ought to check out AppFresh.
Do It updated to version 2.5
Jim McGowan's Do It is a handy little todo manager we found back in February that is fairly feature-packed and well integrated with Mac OS X. It offers .Mac syncing of todos, an Address Book plug-in, iCal export/import and even a Quicksilver plug-in for quick todo entry. The app has been progressing nicely over the months, and just this morning I noticed a small but useful update notification for v2.5 that brings Japanese language support and a Dutch version of the help files. In addition, Do It has joined the quickly expanding ranks of apps that use Andy Matuschak's excellent Sparkle module to enable self-updating for new versions (users of apps like Adium should be familiar with this). From now on, a simple update notification will appear, allowing the app to download the new version, install it and relaunch - all with only two clicks from you, the user. As a happy user of Do It since we found it, I'm glad that it will be one less app that I have to deal with downloading, quitting, dragging somewhere to overwrite and relaunching. Automation, my dear readers, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Do It is provided surprisingly as donationware from Mr. McGowan's site.
AppFresh - software update for the rest of your apps
Apple's Software Update is great and all, but unless you've purchased a membership to MacUpdate or VersionTracker for their software management clients, it might be tough to stay on top of new versions of all your non-Apple software. Sure, more and more developers are building in support for Sparkle, the auto-update framework from Andy Matuschak, but that's on a per-app basis and it simply isn't a development standard yet. Luckily, for the rest of us, there is AppFresh, a new utility that is perhaps best described as 'Software Update for the rest of us.' It can scan your Applications (though, for now, we suspect only apps in your main directory; not any that might be in ~/Applications if you've created it), AppleScripts, widgets and even Preference Panes to see if any updates are available. We don't know how and where AppFresh is checking for new versions, though Apple's own Downloads section and possibly MacUpdate and VersionTracker are the likely candidates.Since AppFresh is truly brand new (only at v0.2 so far), its developers warn that it is certainly a work in progress. Still, this looks like a great tool with a lot of potential. AppFresh actually does seem to use Sparkle to help you stay on top of its own updates, and you can also read up at the development blog for more info on just where AppFresh is headed.Thanks, Nathan
Sparkle
This one is for all the Cocoa developers in the house (when I say 'Core' you say 'Data'!). Isn't writing your own auto updating procedures for your applications a drag. Yeah, I though so. Luckily, there is Sparkle! Andy Matuschak wrote up this little marvel that will allow you to add intelligent auto updating to your Cocoa applications in 5 steps. The price is right as well, as in free. Why not give your applications a little Sparkle?
