Witch and RAM usage, both real and not so real

November 28th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Witch, our window switching application, is designed to be always-running (what good is a window switcher if it’s not active?). The program itself exists as two components: the user interface, where you modify Witch’s settings, and the background process that watches for the Witch activation keystrokes and builds the list when activated. The background process is named witchdaemon, and some users have emailed us with concerns about the RAM usage of this background daemon.

The emails we receive come in two flavors:

  1. Why is Witch using so much real RAM?
  2. Why is Witch reserving gigabytes of virtual memory (VSIZE in top)?

Read on for the details on both real and virtual RAM usage by Witch—the explanations are somewhat detailed and technical (especially relative to virtual memory), so put on your geek glasses before proceeding.

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Avoid a Mountain Lion bug that can affect Name Mangler

October 31st, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Recently, we’ve been getting a few complaints from users, complaining that Name Mangler won’t accept dragged and dropped files.

We were trying to figure out what was going on, given we haven’t changed those apps. It seems the answer is a bug in Apple Events (which handle inter-application communication) that was introduced in 10.8.2. This blog entry explains the problem relative to “Open in Finder” no longer working.

Most importantly, that blog entry also contains a number of fixes. The least painful, though most geeky, is to open Terminal (in Applications > Utilities), paste this command, and then press Return:

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

When prompted, enter your admin password and press Return again, and you’re done.

This command forces the Apple Events engine to relaunch; once that happens, the issues you’re experiencing will go away, at least for a while.

Hopefully Apple will fix this in 10.8.3, as it has the ability to interfere with any program that communicates with another application.

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Moom and Tweetbot for Mac

October 19th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

If you use Moom and Tweetbot, get Tweetbot 1.1, as it addresses the issues discussed below. This article remains here for historical purposes only.

There’s been quite an explosion of Twitter discussion about Tweetbot for Mac and Moom this morning. The key issue, of course, is that Moom doesn’t work with Tweetbot for Mac. Instead of trying to carry on numerous 140 character conversations explaining the issue, we thought we’d use this blog post to explain exactly what the issue is, what we’ve done as a short-term fix, and what the long-term fix should be.
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Butler 4.1.14 released

October 12th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Butler 4.1.14 is now out, and if you’re running OS X 10.8.2, it’s a very highly recommended update. That’s because the main purpose of this release is to work around a bug that Apple introduced into inter-application communication in 10.8.2. The result of this bug is that Butler would appear to hang at times, typically when it was talking or listening to iTunes.

We’ve worked around that bug, and fixed a couple of other things, and the result is Butler 4.1.14. Get it via in-app updating, or by downloading it directly from the Butler page here.

Obligatory footnote: Yes, we’re still planning on releasing Butler 5. We don’t yet have a beta or release date, but as soon as we have either, we’ll make sure everyone knows about it.

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Moom 3.0.1 adds retina support

October 2nd, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Hot on the heels of the retinaized Witch comes Moom 3.0.1 with the same high resolution support for the stunning retina Macs. There are also a number of other bug fixes in this release, so it’s highly recommended for all Moom users.

Direct purchasers can get the update via in-app updating, or by downloading a new version from the Moom product page. App Store users should soon (if not already) see the update in the Updates section of the App Store application.

Note: Because this is a bug fix release, we were able to update the App Store version of Moom, too. Long term, barring changes in Apple’s policies, App Store users will want to (for free) migrate to the direct sales version. Here’s how (and why).

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Witch 3.9.2 brings retina display support

October 1st, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Witch 3.9.2 has been released, in both the App Store and via our web site. The big news in this release is support for retina Macs, along with a workaround for duplicate entries for Total Finder windows in the window switcher. We’ve also done our best to make Witch work better with Desktops in Mountain Lion, and fixed a glitch that could prevent preview images from displaying.

Direct purchasers can get the update via in-app updating, or by downloading a new version from the Witch product page. App Store users should soon (if not already) see the update in the Updates section of the App Store application.

Note: Because this is a bug fix release, we were able to update the App Store version of Witch. Long term, barring changes in Apple’s policies, App Store users will want to (for free) migrate to the direct sales version. Here’s how (and why).

Witch 3.9.2 requires 10.7 or newer, due to changes in Xcode. If you’re running 10.6.8, you’ll want to remain with Witch 3.9.1. We’ll do our best to bring back 10.6.8 support in a future update, if we can.

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Key Codes 2.0 released

September 27th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Key Codes 2.0 is now available via the Mac App Store and directly from our web site. This free utility is of interest mainly to developers, and anyone else who’s curious about the actual codes their keyboards send to the OS.

Version 2.0 of Key Codes is Many Tricks’ first retinaized application (Moom and Witch will be next, and will hopefully be approved for sale shortly; stay tuned for news on that front.)

Beyond support for retina display Macs, Key Codes 2.0 will keep the last entry visible as you scroll back through history, and includes a handy Clear button. Direct versions now include Sparkle, for easy in-app updating.

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Usher 1.1.6 released

September 17th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

We’ve just released Usher 1.1.6 (direct version only; see this post for details on why you should migrate, for free, from the App Store version). This version includes a couple important changes to Usher’s support for media in iPhoto, iTunes, and Aperture, and restores YouTube downloads, which were broken by a recent YouTube update.

All Usher users should upgrade to 1.1.6, either via in-app updating or from the Usher web page; the changes we’ve made to the external media section of Usher will prevent you from accidentally removing media from those external sources. App Store buyers will have to migrate to the direct version, as explained in the linked post, in order to get 1.1.6.

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Help us beta test some Witch/Mountain Lion fixes

August 2nd, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Thanks to our dedicated Mountain Lion testers (that’d be all of you), we’ve been able to identify and, we hope, resolve a couple of issues with Witch. But before we release this in general, we’d like your help testing it—we’re particularly interested in those who use Spaces, image previews, and Total Finder.

Here’s what we fixed in this beta:

  • The pop-up window previews should now work again; some users reported they failed to work in Mountain Lion.
  • Multiple Desktop (Spaces) support is back, mostly. In Mountain Lion, Witch can once again display entries for windows on other Desktops, but we can’t provide Desktop numbers for those windows. (Those numbers, though, were mostly bogus in Lion anyway, as the OS could and did change the numbering at any time.) Instead, you’ll see a gray outline rectangle around the icon for windows on other Desktops.
  • While not directly Mountain Lion related, this build also includes a workaround for duplicate Total Finder windows in the Witch switcher panel.

If you’d like to help test this release, please read on for the details…

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Mountain Lion status report (bonus: three app updates)

July 25th, 2012 by Rob Griffiths

Now that Mountain Lion (aka OS X 10.8) is officially out, we can officially update the status of our apps.

The short version: They all work.

The slightly longer version: To the extent that we were able to test all features in all apps, they all work in Mountain Lion. But there are just two of us, and thousands of features to test. So please, let us know if you find any issues. You can do so by going to the support page for any app (i.e. Moom’s support page), which list a few ways to report issues.

We also have three app updates today that fix minor issues in Mountain Lion—and resolve some other bugs and add some new features.

Get Leech 2.1.1 (release notes), Usher 1.1.5 (release notes) and Butler 4.1.13 (release notes) via in-app updating.

Note: If you’re an App Store purchaser of Usher, you should migrate (for free) to the direct sales version. Here’s how and why.

Posted in Butler, Desktop Curtain, Key Codes, Keymo, Leech, Moom, Name Mangler, Products, Time Sink, Usher, Witch | 3 Comments »

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