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Witch 3.9.1 solves the fat font problem—really!

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

Witch 3.9.1 is out today, and it’s got only one change—but it’s a good one, especially for those users who find the fonts in Witch 3.9 too thick, even after setting their preferred font for the switcher.

How did we solve the fat font problem? We added a font smoothing setting to the Font pop-up menu (on the Appearance tab of Witch’s settings panel). You can set font smoothing to Enable, Disable, or System Preferences Default. Enable and Disable are self-explanatory; the final option sets font smoothing to match the state of the “Use LCD font smoothing when available” checkbox in the Appearance System Preferences panel.

The differences are quite noticeable; here’s an example with the bold face of Eurostile, my Witch switcher panel font of choice. The top example is with font smoothing enabled; the bottom, with font smoothing disabled.

A big Many Tricks’ hat tip to Richard L., who helped us figure this out thanks to his use of a hidden OS X font smoothing setting. Once we were aware of the cause, it was relatively easy to add a method of disabling smoothing (without having to disable it system-wide, which wouldn’t be a good solution).

As always, direct purchasers can get the update via in-app updating (or from the Witch web page); App Store customers can get the update via the App Store application.

Note: Barring any changes in the App Store sandboxing rules, this is the last App Store version of Witch with any new functionality. From now on, any features we add will only appear in the direct sales version (as we’re not allowed to add them to the App Store version). For those interested in migrating (at no charge) to the direct sales version, here’s how to do just that.

Posted in Company News, Products, Witch | 1 Comment »

Touch up Tuesdays return: Moom and Witch updated

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Moom 2.4.1 and Witch 3.9 were released this morning, for both direct and App Store customers.

The big news in Witch 3.9 is the Font pop-up menu on the Behavior tab of Witch’s settings panel/window. This is our solution to the “fat font” problem introduced (thanks to Xcode) in Witch 3.8.

Click the Font pop-up menu—and be patient; the first load will take a few seconds—and you can then choose any font on your system for use in the switcher panel. I’m partial to Eurostile, but pick the one you prefer.


The use of Webdings is not advised, unless you’re a fluent reader of Webdings.

You can read about the rest of the changes in Witch 3.9 on the release notes page.

Moom 2.4.1 isn’t as big of an update in terms of eye-catching new features. We did, however, make Moom (and Witch, for that matter) work much better with the virtual keyboard apps Synergy and Teleport (and our own Butler). We’ve also made some changes to how Moom interacts with additional displays; we think it’s now ever smarter than it was. You can find all the changes on Moom’s release notes page.

Both apps can be updated within the app or by downloading a new copy from our site (for direct customers), or via the App Store’s Updates tab (App store customers).

Posted in Butler, Moom, Products, Witch | Comments Off on Touch up Tuesdays return: Moom and Witch updated

Name Mangler 2.5 and Witch 3.8 released

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Hot on the heels of Moom 2.4, we’ve just released Name Mangler 2.4 and Witch 3.8. These are both “full dot” version number increases; here’s a quick look at what’s new in each program:

Important note: Both Name Mangler and Witch now work only on Intel-based Macs and Mac OS X 10.6 or later. If you’re on a PowerPC-based system, and/or Mac OS X 10.5, you’ll want to remain on your current versions. If you accidentally update, you can download the prior versions from the sidebar on each program’s page.

Name Mangler 2.5

  • Added a File > Populate command (Command-O) to populate Name Mangler’s file list via the OS X Open dialog.
  • Advanced mode’s [pad] and truncate functions can now pad or truncate from the beginning of a string, by using negative numbers.
  • New name.extension and .extension variables ease some Advanced mode renaming tasks.
  • Full list of changes in Name Mangler 2.5.

Witch 3.8

  • The Witch switcher panel now scrolls to display all open windows, regardless of the length of the list. (Prior versions of Witch would extend the panel beyond the screen, but you couldn’t access items below the lower boundary of the screen.)
  • Witch’s debug mode now shows how long it takes for applications to provide their list of open windows. (More detail on this is in the release notes.)
  • Full list of changes in Witch 3.8.

App Store customers can find these new versions on the Updates tab of the App Store application (either now, or in the very near future). Direct customers can download new versions from our site, or use the in-app upates feature to update directly from the application.

Posted in Name Mangler, Products, Witch | Comments Off on Name Mangler 2.5 and Witch 3.8 released

How To: Use Lion, the Witch, and the Escape key

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Early in 2011, as we were testing our apps with the Lion developer previews, Peter and I noticed something odd with Witch in Lion: some, but not all, of our Macs were unable to dismiss the Witch switcher panel via the Escape key. Peter dug into Witch’s code, and could find no reason for this, so then we started looking at the operating system itself. What we found is that the problem is indeed in Lion, and it’s related to Front Row (which, ironically enough, isn’t in Lion).

In a nutshell, Lion is reserving the Command-Escape keystroke to activate Front Row, even though there’s no Front Row to activate. So if you use Command-Tab to activate Witch, and then press Escape to cancel the window, Lion sees a Command-Escape keypress, and captures it—Witch never sees it, and its switcher panel isn’t dismissed. (If you disabled Front Row in 10.6, or remapped its activation keys, and then upgraded to Lion, you’re probably not having this problem. But if you did use Command-Escape for Front Row, you’ll want to use this fix.) We filed an Apple bug report on this back in March of 2011, but it’s still open and unresolved.

To fix this problem, we’ve created a simple little application, Escape Key Liberator. Usage couldn’t be much easier: download and mount the disk image, then launch the program (right from the disk image; it’s fine). You’ll be greeted by this incredibly obvious dialog:

Click the Liberate button, then quit Escape Key Liberator. Now comes the only slightly annoying portion of the process: you must logout and login for the change to take effect.

But after that task is done, you should once again be able to use the Escape key to dismiss the Witch switcher panel. You can then delete (or zip and archive, for possible future use on another Mac) the Escape Key Liberator disk image; it’s a one-trick pony, and its trick is done.

(Note: If you’re the kind of person who prefers replacing the transmission in your car yourself, instead of taking the car to the shop, read on for instructions on freeing your Escape key without the ease of a couple of mouse clicks.)

(more…)

Posted in How To, Products, Witch | Comments Off on How To: Use Lion, the Witch, and the Escape key

Witch and duplicated TotalFinder windows in Lion

Friday, September 9th, 2011

If you’re running Lion and using both Witch and TotalFinder, you may (will?) see duplicated entries for TotalFinder windows in the Witch switcher panel. If that’s the case, you can try this method to fix the problem:

  1. Disable Witch (uncheck Enable Witch) and quit the app (App Store version) or close System Preferences (independent version)
  2. Open Terminal (in Applications > Utilities), copy and paste the following text, then press Return:
    defaults write ~/Library/Application\ Support/Witch/Settings "Work Around TotalFinder (Lion or Newer)" -bool YES
    (That’s one long line; just select it and copy, and it should paste fine.) You won’t see any response from Terminal (other than a new command prompt), but Witch is now set up to work properly with TotalFinder.
  3. Restart Witch.

If you’re running Witch in a pre-Lion Mac OS X with TotalFinder, use this solution instead.

Posted in Products, Witch | 9 Comments »

Our apps and OS X Lion compatibility

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

With today’s release of Lion, here’s an update on the status of all our apps in Apple’s latest Mac OS X release. Note that this is based on our testing only, and many of our apps are feature-rich: so if you run into something, please let us know via comments here, a tweet, an email message, or a trouble ticket.

  • Butler: Compatible, though it’s likely we haven’t tested 100% of everything that Butler can do.
  • Desktop Curtain: Compatible, but with some issues if you use Spaces or Mission Control. We’re working to find a solution to those issues.
  • Displaperture: Compatible.
  • Key Codes: Compatible.
  • Keymo: Compatible.
  • Leech: Leech’s browser integration feature only works with Firefox in Lion. We’re investigating getting the other browsers working again, and will post any updates here on our blog.
  • Menu Bar Tint: Compatible.
  • Moom: Compatible, as of latest 2.2 update.
  • Name Mangler: Compatible.
  • Open-With Manager: Not recommended and not tested in Lion.
  • Safari Guardian: Not compatible with Lion. It won’t cause problems if installed, but its features won’t work. (Note: Safari 5.1 in Snow Leopard also breaks Safari Guardian.)
  • Service Scrubber: Not recommended and not tested in Lion.
  • Time Sink: Compatible.
  • Usher: Compatible.
  • Witch: Compatible, as of the 3.7 update.

As noted above, if you find certain features in our apps that don’t work in Lion, please let us know!

Posted in Butler, Desktop Curtain, Displaperture, Key Codes, Keymo, Leech, Menu Bar Tint, Moom, Name Mangler, Open-With Manager, Products, Safari Guardian, Service Scrubber, Time Sink, Usher, Witch | 30 Comments »

Witch 3.7 is ready for the future…we hope

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Witch 3.7 is our Lion-ready (we hope) release. We made some changes to support Lion in 3.6.3, but this update contains even more Lion-ready changes. I say “we hope,” though, because we’re working with unreleased software, and anything can change before it’s officially released. If that happens, of course, we’ll be hard at work on another update.

But for now, Witch 3.7 should work very nicely for those using 10.5, 10.6, or the current pre-release version of Lion. There are a couple of other minor changes detailed in the release notes, but the major point of this update is Lion compatibility.

Updates are available via in-app updating for those who bought directly from us, and from the App Store app for those who purchased via the App Store.

Posted in Products, Witch | 4 Comments »

Witch and duplicated TotalFinder windows in the switcher

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

With the release of Witch 3.6.3, one of the described fixes was:

A problem causing TotalFinder’s windows to appear twice in Witch has been fixed.

Unfortunately, due to the length of time between when we submitted the 3.6.3 update to the App Store and its approval, both Peter and I forgot that this fix is disabled by default, and that it must be enabled via a hidden preference. I’ll explain why in a bit, but for now, here’s how to get Witch 3.6.3 working with TotalFinder:

  1. Disable Witch (uncheck Enable Witch) and quit the app (App Store version) or close System Preferences (independent version)
  2. Open Terminal (in Applications > Utilities), copy and paste the following text, then press Return:
    defaults write ~/Library/Application\ Support/Witch/Settings "Work Around TotalFinder" -bool YES
    (That’s one long line; just select it and copy, and it should paste fine.) You won’t see any response from Terminal (other than a new command prompt), but Witch is now set up to work properly with TotalFinder.
  3. Restart Witch.

So why did we make a bug fix a hidden preference, and disabled by default? Because of the way we had to code this particular workaround, we were concerned about possible other issues with TotalFinder windows. We tested as best we could, but we still weren’t confident that we’d tested everything possible, so we decided to ship with the setting disabled.

Now that Witch 3.6.3 is out, we can ask all TotalFinder users to try this fix, and let us know if they experience any other issues with it. If none are reported, then we can enable it by default in a future bug fix update.

Posted in Products, Witch | 4 Comments »

Witch 3.6.3 released

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Witch 3.6.3 is a minor bug fix release, available now via in-app updates for those who purchased directly from us, and soon (if not right now) via the App Store application for those who purchased through that channel.

Not a lot of big news about this minor update. It resolves an issue with double entries appearing for TotalFinder windows, and it works properly with Xcode 4’s new window structure. There are a couple other minor fixes which you can read about on the release notes page. Oh, and if you happen to be a developer running Lion, you’ll find that Witch works much better there now, too.

Posted in Products, Witch | Comments Off on Witch 3.6.3 released

Witch and Key Codes updated

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Today we released updates to Witch (version 3.6.2) and Key Codes (version 1.1). Both of these are minor updates, and here’s what was changed:

  • Witch now properly treats the backtick/tilde key on US keyboards as a ‘cycle backwards’ shortcut (just like Mac OS X does with the Command-Tab switcher). We also fixed a problem that was causing double entries to appear for certain programs, most notably Path Finder.
  • Key Codes now lets you ‘unfloat’ its window (via the Window menu), and contains (for the App Store version) our In App news module, to provide updates to users of the App Store version of the program.

Witch users can update via the App Store or in-app updating (depending on which version you use); Key Codes doesn’t support in-app updating, so you’ll need to download the new version if you got it from our web site. (The App Store version will, of course, update via the App Store program.)

Posted in Key Codes, Products, Witch | 2 Comments »

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