We’re now roughly three weeks into the Mac App Store’s existence, and both Peter and I have been thrilled with how it’s gone. We’ve found it generally pleasant working with Apple (they’ve yet to reject one of our apps or updates), and the users we’ve chatted with have found the store to be a pleasant place to browse and shop.<\/p>\n
With that said, there’s one feature missing from the store that impacts our ability to interact with customers and prospects: there’s no mechanism for developers to respond to questions or comments in users’ reviews. (We could modify our program’s descriptions, but using that space to answer questions seems like using a hammer to crack an egg.)<\/p>\n
So we’ve decided to start an occasional series here on our blog, of which you’re reading the first installment: Conversations with the App Store. Each installment will address some of the questions and comments raised in reviews on the global (those we can read, at any rate!) Mac App Stores.<\/p>\n
While this isn’t an ideal feedback mechanism—Apple should really allow developers to post responses directly—we hope it provides useful information to those who may have similar comments or questions about our programs. So without further ado, here’s the first edition of Conversations with the App Store.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Desktop Curtain<\/p>\n
mikebenda<\/b><\/i> [USA, Jan 26 2011] writes: The standard “curtain” backdrop is elegant and works well. For under $2 it’s a steal.<\/span> I have a few small suggestions though. First, please give us to option for a black-and-white menu bar icon, to match the others already there.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We’ve submitted an update to the App Store that contains not one but two black and white icon choices.<\/div>\nmikebenda…<\/b><\/i> Give us the option to change the color of the curtain. Green is nice but variety is better.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A future version may include a translucent curtain, so you can simply set the color behind the curtain. We may or may not include more colored curtains as well.<\/div>\nmikebenda…<\/b><\/i> Animate the curtain opening and closing rather than having a static picture suddenly appear. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We’re not sure if we’ll animate the curtain—it presently fades in, which means it’s not really instant.<\/div>\nmikebenda…<\/b><\/i> And if possible, keep the curtain in place when using Expos\u00e9 (except the reveal desktop function of course)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The aforementioned update also provides options for how Desktop Curtain interacts with Expos\u00e9.<\/div>\nNicholas Burch<\/b><\/i> [USA, Jan 29 2011] writes: It would be great if all you had to do was to set what you want once and right when you press it, it would cover your screen not having to choose to do it is just shows up.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We’ve submitted an update to the App Store that offers this option—you’ll be able to optionally show or hide the settings panel at launch.<\/div>\nName Mangler<\/p>\n
Somerandomguy<\/b><\/i> [UK, Jan 13 2011] writes: Fast and effective renamer<\/span> \u2014 the option to populate with the FInder selection saves a lot of dragging, and the regular expression support actually works<\/span>, unlike some other renaming apps I’ve tried. The help on the terms list could be a bit clearer, though \u2014 it says what it does, but doesn’t really explain how to use it.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sorry about that, Somerandomguy<\/i>. In the next update to Name Mangler, we’ll provide a clearer explanation of the terms list. Basically, Apply Terms List lets you repeatedly apply a list of terms to a group of files. So if you had a series of 12 files, each of which represented a three-part series, you could create a Terms List that read:<\/p>\nPart 1
\nPart 2
\nPart 3<\/p>\nWhen you use Apply Terms List with this list, and by specifying the prefix and\/or suffix, all twelve files will be renamed to reflect their proper part numbers—the items in the Terms List will be repeated as necessary, in order, to rename all the files.<\/p><\/div>\n
Witch<\/p>\n
CoopAndy<\/i><\/b> [USA, Jan 27 2011] writes: Very good tool for switching between open applications<\/span>, more functionality than command\/tab. Especially like being able to activate a window for an application that is active but has no open windows. One really big request: allow switching to any open tabs in the browser, currently only active tab is available.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We’d love to support all tabs in browsers (and in BBEdit, Coda, CS5, etc.). The big issue here is what information those programs can provide about their tabs. We’re investigating for Witch 4, and hopefully we’ll be able to display at least some programs’ tabs.<\/div>\nairic<\/i><\/b> [USA, Jan 27 2011] writes: I’ve wanted this one for awhile now, love the preview mode<\/span>. However, I would like to see previews in mail comp windows.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So would we, really! Unfortunately, the way Witch works, it’s heavily dependent on windows having titles—without window titles, those windows are essentially invisible to Witch. So what we really need is for the Mail team at Apple to assign some title to those composition windows—even something as simple as New message<\/em> would let us show them in the switcher.<\/div>\nsimtre<\/i><\/b> [UK, Jan 28 2011] writes: Nice app, works well<\/span> and makes life easier for those of us who switch between Windows & Mac (oddly enough, there are elemenets of Windows that are actually better than Mac OSX!!!) Don’t know if this is even technically possible but it would be even better if it could recognise the tabs in the popular browsers and allow you to switch between them.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
See above; we’d love to support tabs if we can.<\/div>\nsimtre…<\/i><\/b>Also a touch expensive for what it does – even at their ‘on sale’ price. I’d have thought a price of $5\/\u00a33 would be closer to the mark<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Unfortunately, at prices that low, we’d be unable to suport the app long term—no money to fund future development, or to hire support personnel to handle an increasingly-large user base. Sure, in a perfect world, everything is free…but that model simply doesn’t work for small shareware developers who rely on income from their apps to sustain their business, and to support their customers going forward.<\/div>\nAnd that’s a wrap on our first Conversations with the App Store—stay tuned for future installments, though, as other questions and comments arise. (Also, feel free to ask your own questions here in the comments!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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