Over the last three days, we've released the final versions of Application Enhancer 2.5, Smart Crash Reports 1.5, and FruitMenu 3.7.

Application Enhancer 2.5 and APE SDK 2.5

There were no changes other than a version bump between APE 2.5b2 and APE 2.5. Well, the Updater (a separate executable) did not have an important fix in 2.5b2 as I had forgotten to commit it to the Subversion Repository. My bad. Here are the now condensed release notes for the final APE 2.5:

• Added compatibility for Mac OS X 10.5.
• APE now requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and will not install on older versions of Mac OS X.
• The APE preference pane will now state why it is disabled on Mac OS X 10.6.
• Added an updater to APE, set to automatically check weekly, by default.
• Reduced the number of unpatchables on PowerPC (includes APELite).
• Addressed some cosmetic issues in the preference pane.

• Application Enhancer will now refuse to load any APE module that is not marked as compatible with 10.5 on Mac OS X 10.5.
• Addressed some problems with some unpatchables due to the wonkiness of the x86 ABI (Includes APELite).
• The APE prefpane now shows why some APE modules cannot be loaded.
• Removed all references to the Rosetta workaround as Apple fixed that bug in Mac OS X 10.4.9 and the workaround no longer has any beneficial results.
• Worked around a prebinding bug in Mac OS X 10.4.10 and earlier that made APE treat some applications as if they were on the exclude list.

Remember, if you want to know more about the background of APE 2.5 or any other release mentioned here, see the post entitled "Enthusiastic Trepidation".

Download APE 2.5
Download APE SDK 2.5

Smart Crash Reports 1.5

There were no changes from SCR 1.5b3 to SCR 1.5 final, other than the version number.

The now condensed release notes are the following:

• Updated to support Mac OS X 10.5
• The Installer plugin now checks to make sure SCR has the correct permissions on 10.5.
• Now supports registering for SCR in Info.plist entries of bundles (Frameworks, QuickTime plugins, Photoshop plugins, Safari plugins, et cetera). Developers no longer need to call UnsanitySCR_RegisterMatchSpecifier() bundles (in most cases).
• SDK: UnsanitySCR_Install now installs Smart Crash Reports with the correct permissions required to work on Mac OS X 10.5.
• SDK: UnsanitySCR_Install now pretends as if SCR is not installed if it is installed inside the user's home folder on Mac OS X 10.5.x as Mac OS X 10.5 will not load SCR from the user's home folder. Behaves as before on Mac OS X 10.4.x.
• SDK: Worked around a problem on Mac OS X that led to repeated calls UnsanitySCR_RegisterMatchSpecifier creating new entries in SCR's preferences when Mac OS X thought that two equal CFTypeRefs were not equal.
• SDK: On Mac OS X 10.5.x, UnsanitySCR_Install no longer allows you to install in a non-global manner due to the new restrictions in Mac OS X 10.5.x. Behaviour on Mac OS X 10.4.x is unchanged.
• Important Note: On Mac OS X 10.5.x, Smart Crash Reports must not be installed in the user's home folder (~/) as it will prevent SCR from loading even if SCR is installed globally. If you are a developer installing SCR, make sure SCR is not in the user's home folder on Mac OS X 10.5.x and move it to the trash (FSMoveObjectToTrashSync()) if possible.

The biggest issue with SCR, by far, was making sure the permissions were correct for Mac OS X 10.5 and making sure SCR wasn't installed previously in ~/Library/InputManagers/. If it was, remove it from the current user's Library.

Download Smart Crash Reports 1.5

FruitMenu 3.7

There's a bit more to say about FruitMenu 3.7. There was some change between FruitMenu 3.7b5 and 3.7 final. This mostly had to do with removing logs and fixing the installer to make sure that "Install for current user" is the default choice again.

Here are the condensed final release notes for FruitMenu 3.7:

• Note: The price of FruitMenu has increased from $10 to $12. (This increase will take effect sometime Tuesday.)
• This is a free upgrade.
• Added support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard v10.5 and later.
• Dropped support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. FruitMenu now requires Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger v10.4.11 or later.
• Removed all references to QuickTime. Now uses the superior ImageIO functionality to work with images. This has an unintended side effect of decreasing FruitMenu's load time at application launch.
• Removed a lot of deprecated APIs and replaced them with modern, non-deprecated versions.
• Removed some calls to the private CPS (CoreProcess Services) APIs when there was a public replacement (many CPS functions still lack a replacement in 10.5.x).
• Changed the gather option to choose a folder name based on the current user's locale settings.
• Added some spin locks and less trans fat.
• Significantly reduced application launch time by only loading preference panes on demand.
• Includes APE 2.5.
• Includes SCR 1.5.
• Plea: If you've bought FruitMenu around four years ago and have never paid for it again (we've not charged for an update of FruitMenu) we kindly ask if you wouldn't mind paying a voluntary upgrade fee. This fee is completely voluntary, is not required, and FruitMenu itself has no knowledge of whether you have volunteered or not. There are no perks to volunteer and we only ask that only registered users volunteer. To volunteer, please go to http://www.unsanity.com/store/add/fruitmenu_vuf.

A lot of people have commented on this blog and via email that they would gladly pay for FruitMenu again once the final release was out. However, if you feel you want to "give" money but don't want to give the whole amount, then the voluntary upgrade fee (vuf) might be more kosher to your tastes (Ketchup or Catsup?).

Please Note: There are no perks or benefits to paying the vuf. FruitMenu is not aware of anyone that opts to pays the vuf. And paying the vuf will not get you an additional code as the vuf is not tied into the SN system. It's completely optional, there is no pressure. The vuf is mostly targeted to users that purchased FruitMenu some four years ago. Since we've never charged for an update to FruitMenu so far, the amount of revenue coming from FruitMenu is low as we've nearly saturated the market of people that would install FruitMenu and thus, would pay for it.

The reason FruitMenu was the first non-free software we released for Mac OS X 10.5 is that it was the product where the least amount of changes were required to run on Mac OS X 10.5. Most of the changes in FruitMenu 3.7 were done to decrease application launch time (the performance factor) when FruitMenu was installed.

A few people have complained that the performance increases cause the System Preferences item to take "forever" to load on the first display per application. We figured it was a decent compromise to reduce the application load time. In order to decrease the first display time of System Preferences (and improve the performance of other parts of FruitMenu), FruitMenu is going to need some logic rewrite. We figured it'd be best to get a final version of FruitMenu 3.7 now and include more performance optimizations in a future update.

Download FruitMenu 3.7

Other stuff

Expect a new Menu Master beta sometime around when a new fansubbed episode of Detective Conan is released.

Please note that we will not update this blog when a new beta of a product already in beta is posted. However, all the links in previous posts will download the new betas, even if they say they are for old betas. And new betas will be available via the updater if you have an old beta installed.