I took some time to work on BetterSnapTool this weekend, and I made quite a bit progress. The drag-area feature I introduced here: http://blog.boastr.net/?p=2722 is pretty much done and I think it’s pretty cool

I’ll release an alpha of this by the end of the week, and hope to get a final version to the app store in the next 3 to 4 weeks.

//edit: arg some issues with multi monitor systems will delay the alpha release a  bit…

written by Andreas Hegenberg

Hey,

I’m sorry for all the unanswered mails, but university stuff currently eats up most of my time. (but it’ll pay off, I’ve developed a nice class during a seminar, which I’ll use in a cool upcoming project for mac iphone and ipad )

If I don’t answer your mails, please try again in a few weeks because I probably will not able to respond to all of t he unread ones in my inbox ;-(

written by Andreas Hegenberg

• fixed a bug with trackpad tip taps
• sorted gestures

//edit: 0.747 fixes a few issues with the new gesture & action dropdowns.

//edit: 0.749 contains some fixes and improvements (mini-releasenotes)

//edit : 0.75 fixes scrolling issues in the gesture dropdown

Available here or via alpha auto-update

written by Andreas Hegenberg

Hi,

if you are here because BetterSnapTool popped up this message:

Here a few infos:

• I may have to remove BetterSnapTool from the Mac App Store because Apple has introduced a new technology called “Sandboxing”, which was announced to become mandatory for Mac App Store apps starting in March 2012. Unfortunately this new technology is very restrictive and apps like BetterSnapTool can’t work with it. More on this topic here
• But no worries! In case it really comes down to this (I still hope Apple won’t enforce it). I’ll provide a mechanism to switch from the App Store version to non-App Store version for free.
• I think I’ll be able to release a new version of BetterSnapTool before the Sandboxing becomes mandatory. Here a sneak peek on the upcoming features ( it’s not ready to be released yet, especially the gui needs work, but it basically works ):
• It will be possible to define your own snapping areas in addition to the current ones.
  Here is a little video showing this in action:

written by Andreas Hegenberg

I always hated this behavior of Preview: If I double-click  a picture in Finder the picture will open in Preview. But I ALWAYS double-click the wrong one and then I just want to cycle through the pictures of the folder in Preview in order to find the one I wanted… which unfortunately is not possible. (As far as I know)

So I just wrote a very little tool. It’s completely faceless and doesn’t do much, but I hope it’ll save me some frustration. This little tool has only one purpose, if you open a jpg or png file with it, it’ll open all the other jpg and png files in the current folder with Preview too. The one you double-clicked will be the selected one in Preview.

I don’t know if I’m the only one who doesn’t like the standard Preview behavior here, but you can download my little tool here (Lion only) if you want.

In order to use it, just rightclick a jpg/png file, click on “get info” and change the “Open With:” to PreviewOpenAll (see http://d.pr/acBA ) then click “Change All”

//edit, uploaded a new version, improved the ordering of the files in preview a bit.

written by Andreas Hegenberg

So Apple finally announced that all App Store Apps must implement a technology called Sandboxing starting from March 2012. Sandboxing is a technology which forces Apps to run in a box with a lot of restrictions. It’s a bit like on iOS where every App only has access to its own data. Apple claims it’s for security reasons…

So what? This means the App Store will be even more crippled than it currently is. Many Apps which are currently in the Store will cease to exist.

Here a few types of applications that won’t be allowed to the App Store anymore:

• Nearly every App which controls another App in any way. (so many little helper Apps will just be dead)
• Apps which help disabled people, e.g. screenreaders or tools that help with typing or mouse movements
• Apps that need to access files on the whole disk may eventually be forbidden too. (e.g. syncing or backup utilities)
• All Apps which use the Accessibility API
• All Apps which rely on Event Taps
• Apps that control specialized external devices
• Apps which listen to the Apple Remote Control (at least in the current implementation of the Sandbox)
• In many cases developers who want to keep their Apps in the App Store will need to cripple them and implement a really bad user experience.
• many more…

This means, BetterSnapTool won’t be allowed in the App Store anymore starting from March 2012. But don’t worry, I’ll continue releasing updates for all existing customers here if Apple really enforces Sandboxing.
I’ve been working on a new version of SecondBar, unfortunately this won’t be allowed either.

Also in my opinion Sandboxing causes a big security problem. If developers won’t be able to release security /bugfix updates for their existing applications anymore, all remaining bugs will stay there forever without any possibility to contact existing customers and warn them.

Sure you may say “ok, so distribute not over the App Store”. But this will become more and more complicated because most users like the App Store and Apple invests in marketing the App Store as “the only secure way to obtain software”. Also new technologies like iCloud are only allowed to be used for App Store apps.

Many, many developers don’t want Sandboxing and I hope Apple will listen to them and at least make it an optional technology.
Some people think Apple will enforce Sandboxing for all applications with the next major Mac OS X update. I doubt this very much, but if they do this it will be my last day on Mac OS. (this would kill BTT, too)

written by Andreas Hegenberg

Hey,

for some reason autoupdate in 0.732 doesn’t work, so if you updated to this alpha you’ll need to update manually to a more current version. BTT 0.732 will automatically disable itself if it tries to check for updates the next time.(sorry, but this was the easiest way to get the affected users to check my blog )
If you can’t replace the BetterTouchTool.app file you may need to kill BTT via Activity Monitor.
I’m sorry for the extra work this may have caused you!

You can get 0.733 alpha with fixed autoupdate and some other improvements here: http://bettertouchtool.net/btt0.733.zip

written by Andreas Hegenberg

• very basic support for multitouch Wacom tablets, but gestures may not work as well as on apple devices yet (because they are not optimized for the different size etc.) but I really like my new Wacom tablet so I’m probably going to add better support soon Pinch & Rotate are currently not supported for those tablets.
• if you add a gesture more than once (see screenshot below) BetterTouchTool will now show a contextmenu instead of performing one of them randomly. Also if you add notes the notes will be shown in the menu instead of the gesturename / shortcut)
• fixes an issue with the middleclick action
• right-clicking a trackpad gesture allows you to select if this gesture should work on all connected trackpads, only on built-in trackpads, only on the magic trackpad or only on other trackpads.
• this version is available via alpha update on lion or can be downloaded here

written by Andreas Hegenberg

So I just uploaded 0.73 to normal auto update (for Lion users, alpha update for Snow Leopard users). I hope I didn’t introduce really nasty bugs, if I did please report them as soon as possible .

Here a short summary what has changed since the last normal update:

• added two new gestures for the Magic Mouse: “two finger double-tap” and “three finger double-tap” (disable doubletap gestures in your System Preferences if you want to use the ones in BTT)
• fixed various issues with the remote control
• added new predefined action “paste custom text”
• you can now copy all gestures from one app to an other by right-clicking on the app.
• various fixes for different predefined actions (launchpad, dashboard, middleclick…)
• rewrote the swipe recognition algorithms for the magic mouse completely (they should produce less false positives now)
• some window snapping fixes
• various other fixes & improvements.
• if you encounter any issues please let me know!

written by Andreas Hegenberg

• rewrote the swipe recognition algorithms for the Magic Mouse (they should work better and produce less false positives)
• various little fixes (e.g. for the two/three finger doubletaps, dashboard…)
• should work on Snow Leopard again (but I wasn’t able to test it yet, I’ll install Snow Leopard on a second partition soon)

//edit: 0.7293 allows you to copy gestures from one app to an other by right-clicking on the apps

Download or update via alpha update (auto alpha update is currently only available for Lion)

written by Andreas Hegenberg