multiXFinder 0.4.1


It's back!

multiXFinder 0.4.1 is now available from the project page or using the built-in software update feature.

Sometimes software just doesn't want to die. They're used by a small niche of users that care for them and treat them almost like they were living entities, old friends that accompanied each day for many years and that would be deeply missed if they disappeared. And sometimes some of those users take on the baton of development and try to bring new life to the software they care for. And when such software is Open Source it's actually easy to began developing it again, bringing it in par with the most recent technologies and addng new features. That's more or less what happened with me in 2009 and still today I got the impression of being part of that small niche of persons who actually use the menu and care about it: many mails arrived in the last few months from dozens of users worried about the future of multiXFinder and seeking for a way of accomplishing the same tasks in the same way. not bad for an user interface item conceived in the early '90s and removed from the operating system ten years ago.

In the last couple of years I didn't do muych programming, i spent most of my time on a completely different thing (that I will probably write of soon), when Lion came out I consideres pros and cons and, seeing that the new features didn't balance the loss of functionality I would suffer I chose not to update. This is the first time since 2002 I willingly do this choice, I will probably never update to Mac OS X 10.7 (unless i buy a new computer, something very unlikely to happen soon) but I will surely consider again 10.8.

multiXFinder didn't run properly on the new OS, the feedback I got was rather confusing and without having a way to test it myself I could not identify the problem. I hoped that at some point someone would mail me with more precise informations and that's exactly what happened a few days ago when Jacalyn Newman, a long time ASM and multiXFinder user, mailed me, did a few tests and sent me very useful details about the behaviour of the software. details that naturally led to this update.

Version 0.4.1 is the first update of multiXFinder in over two years. It's mainly a compatibility update but it actually includes a very minor bugfix, so it's recommended even to those who, like myself, have no plans about updating to Lion. With this update the software will probably remain up and running at least until 10.8 comes out.



Articolo tratto da: Jack Overfull Home Page - http://www.jackoverfull.com/
URL di riferimento: http://www.jackoverfull.com/index.php?mod=read&id=1328426310-en