TOKYO (MacHouse) – Life can get unexpectedly brutal, sometimes. In the last seven days I’ve struggled to find a solution to a software development issue, due to which Mac App Store rejected three new software submissions and three software updates. They say all the binaries that I submitted to them contained an entitlement (com.apple.developer.maps) that they didn’t need. Well, I didn’t put it. It seems that I’ve finally located the root of the problem. Anyway, I submitted a new software title to Mac App Store yesterday. I managed to submit a good copy to them just half an hour ago after fixing the entitlement issue. This new software title is called deskShots 2.

deskShots 2 is the first major upgrade to an existing desktop application that lets you take desktop screenshots effectively. Taking a desktop screenshot can’t be any easier with deskShots 2. Take a screenshot of the full or a partial desktop area with a click of a button without letting the application prompt you to name each file. Select a shape like a circle, a triangle, a square, a heart, a diamond that surrounds the mouse pointer.   Continue reading →

TOKYO (MacHouse) – Xcode is a great IDE application. But it has made us difficult to design application icons since it no longer supports ICNS files. Instead, you have to place 10 PNG files in the small squares of an AppIcon box, which can be painful if you end up redesigning the icon over and over again. So this icon issue has made JustTomato (an existing desktop application) near-useless.

These days, I’ve been thinking about upgrading JustTomato. I need a desktop application that lets me create icon files such that I can use them with Xcode easily every time I change icon design. And that’s how I have come up with justIcons 2, a successor to JustTomato.

justIcons 2 supports three different development platforms, letting you create icon files for all of them out of a single image. As far as the OS X platform is concerned, by default, justIcons 2 no longer generates ICNS files. Instead, the application will create a folder containing an AppIcon (.appiconset) folder with 10 icon files and a Contents (.json) file in it. So you can just drop this folder into the Images (.xcassets) folder of your Xcode project. Furthermore, on top of OS X and iOS, justIcons 2 also supports the watchOS platform and lets you create six different icon files for the 42mm screen.   Continue reading →

TOKYO (MacHouse) – Before installing new fonts, I sometimes wish that I could test them with some text. FontsView, an existing Mac App Store application, lets you view styled text with different fonts that are already installed on your computer. Well… Maybe, I can develop a new application that deal with fonts that are not yet installed. In fact, I submitted a new desktop application to Mac App Store a few hours ago. This new submission is called FontsView NIF Edition.

Most desktop applications out there work with fonts that are installed on your computer. By contrast, FontsView NIF (an acronym for not-installed fonts) Edition works with fonts that are not installed. FontsView NIF Edition lets you view styled text, using font files that you select, whether they are already installed or not. You can save styled text with the selected font as a picture or a rich text to your disk.

Since this application is largely based on FontsView 3, the initial release starts with v. 3.0.0.
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TOKYO (MacHouse) – It’s been almost a month since I released the last software title. I sometimes get lazy. Sometimes, I get depressed when I cannot come up with a new development idea. Oh, finally, I have something new. I submitted a new software title to Mac App Store more than 12 hours ago. This new release is called NewsRoll.

I often go to news web sites to keep myself updated with international news. Instead of going to this web site and that web site, what if I can read news from all those web sites that I regularly visit altogether? NewsRoll does just that. It’s a desktop application which is designed to extract news data (RSS feeds) from remote servers such that you can read horizontally-scrolling (right to left) news from multiple sources at a time.
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TOKYO (MacHouse) – When I run out of development ideas, I often end up with a graphic application. And I submitted a new application of this sort to Mac App Store more than 10 hours ago. This new release is called LittleTrim.

LittleTrim is a simple desktop application that lets you cut round corners off a picture. You can of course control corner roundness. If you have multiple pictures, you can cut round corners off them with the same settings at a time.   Continue reading →