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Mar 19
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Hi,
just a little update: I have finally finished my master’s thesis and will soon continue to work on BetterTouchTool, BTT Remote, BetterSnapTool, and maybe even Secondbar 
Cheers,
Andreas
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Feb 22
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Apple moved the deadline for sandboxing to June 1. In addition to that they made clear that the sandboxing requirement only applies to new apps, submitted starting on June 1. We’ll even be able to submit updates after the deadline for existing apps.
This is great news for BetterSnapTool and maybe for the new SecondBar version I’m working on
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Nov 03
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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)
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Aug 01
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I wanted to add many features to SecondBar but I just don’t get the time to do it.
Here a new version which may at least be a bit faster and look better.
//edit: 0.00968 should fix a problem with screensavers
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Mar 10
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Hi,
as SecondBar got featured on Lifehacker today (thank you!!) and thus many people came here, now a few words to SecondBar:
I know there are a lot of things that don’t work good and I didn’t work on it for quite a while because of the success of BetterTouchTool and limited time… A few days ago I began working on SecondBar again and I hope to release a updated version tonight. Unfortunately it will never be possible to support all apps perfectly because apps like adobe photoshop don’t support the accessibility api very well and make it impossible to fetch the needed data or slow the process down extremely which causes the menu in SecondBar to behave very slowly.
A solution I thought about was to allow you to create own menus for programs which are not supported well. So you could define menu items and then define actions those menu items should trigger. So e.g. you add a Menu “Drawing” and add various menu items to it like “Add Circle” and then assign a shortcut this menu item should trigger like “ctrl + cmd + c” or something. Do you think this could be useful for you? (You can assign shortcuts to every MenuItem in every program you use in the System Preferences =>Keyboard => shortcuts)
Also I hope to add the possibility to have multiple SecondBars (for systems with more than two monitors) soon.
//edit: here a first bugfix release download & use at your own risk It’s currently not on autoupdate because it’s the first version after a long time and maybe I missed some things.
These features will take at least one week to program so be patient but I hope this will be a good solution.
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Nov 18
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Hi,
thanks for all your comments.
The two finger tab has some bugs and doesn’t work perfect yet. I’ll fix this today. Also I’ll add something like a two finger click. Also it seems the three finger click is a bit broken, so just stay with the previous version until the evening.
Now I have to do some “real” work 
so wait until the evening (GMT+1)
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Nov 17
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//edit: please use the previous version, because this one has a silly bug that should be fixed soon. If you want to use it, you have to restart it everytime you opened the preferences window in order to work properly.
This version introduces the first step into a new user interface… atm it just puts the “advanced” prefs in a separate tab but in future trackpad and magic mouse gestures etc will be in own tabs too.
I’m using this for the interface: http://www.mere-mortal-software.com/blog/details.php?d=2007-03-11 so thanks to Dave Batton!
Additionally you can now select parts of the surface that are ignored, atm they are just ignored for two finger tap and single finger tap but I’ll add this for everything.
//edit 0.33 => two finger tap shouldn’t be triggered after swiping anymore
//edit 0.331 => scrolling with more than one finger down allowed if no custom up / down gestures are set
Sorry download link removed because this version sucks Please read the last few posts before using
Todo for tomorrow:
- make seperate swipe left / two finger swipe left and right for touchpad and magic mouse (atm they are the same)
- make seperate three finger click for magic mouse and touchpad
- scrolling behavior
- debug debug debug….
- add new features
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Nov 17
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Here an experimental version with tap2click (you have to add single tap as gesture and then set Leftclick as action.
Important Note:
There seem to be some programs that are not compatible with BTT and may make your system freeze (in combination with BTT). I’ll add a list of those to the documentation soon. These programs have in common that they need the Accessibility API (access for assistive devices) enabled (but not all programs that need this API can cause crashes).
One program I know about yet is TypeIt4Me
I’ll try to find a solution to this asap.
To clear things up: Macbooks without mutitouch touchpads are not supported. Still, if you connect a magic mouse to your “old” macbook you can configure the mouse with BTT (therefore the selection of your mactype)
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Nov 17
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Hi everyone.
In very rare conditions every version of BetterTouchTool (in combination with other programs you have installed and may use an interfering technique) could cause your system to freeze so you’d have to restart. (From ~10 000 downloads 3 -4 user reported a freeze but still this is an important issue)
This version brings a new global shortcut which you should remember.
CTRL+ALT+CMD + Q
this key combo quits BetterTouchTool immediately and should work even if your system froze. After hitting this combo everything should work again.
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Nov 17
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- fixed three finger swipes, rotate etc on macbook
- added experimental two finger tap to magic mouse
Download here, use on your own risk
//please don’t use btt if you do important work atm. I’ll release a version which can’t crash your system soon.