TOKYO (MacHouse) – We’ve been absent for quite some time. It’s been almost a month since we sent our last software title to Mac App Store. Well, we all need a break from time to time. Anyway, we submitted a new software release to Mac App Store a few hours ago. This software submission is called Texture Series 1.

Texture Series 1 is a collection of high-resolution texture images, many of which are designed to look like satins, curtains and cloths. They are suitable for background images behind presentation slides. This collection comes with 64 6,480 px x 6,480 px royalty-free pictures with 180 dpi, which can be adjusted to 72, 96, 144 or 180 dpi. It’s quite easy to use. Choose a texture image to work with from the sidebar. And a larger picture (800 x 800 points) will appear at the center display. You can flip the selected texture image horizontally, vertically or both. Opening color adjustments panel, you can alter hue, saturation, contrast, exposure, gamma, sepia levels. What you see at the center display is a picture with a size of 800 x 800 points (not pixels). What you get is a picture with a size of 6,480 x 6,480 px. If you choose TIFF as an export format, a file size can be as large as 180 MB.   Continue reading →

Apple, Inc. made an e-mail announcement yesterday concerning Gatekeeper, a security Preferences pane, involving Mac App Store applications. The company intends to update the current version of Mac OS X Mavericks to 10.9.5 before releasing Yosemite. With the release of 10.9.5, the current code-signing signature will no longer be validated with Gatekeeper under Mavericks. The following is the exact message from Apple.



With the release of OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, the way that OS X recognizes signed apps will change. Signatures created with OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 or earlier (v1 signatures) will be obsoleted and Gatekeeper will no longer recognize them. Users may receive a Gatekeeper warning and will need to exempt your app to continue using it. To ensure your apps will run without warning on updated versions of OS X, they must be signed on OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later (v2 signatures).



The statement above is not clear as to what will happen to Mac App Store applications with a v2 code-signing signature under Mac OS X Mountain Lions or lower. Meanwhile, we will gradually update our Mac App Store applications accordingly. For now, please open System Preferences and set the radiobutton option of Security & Privacy Preferences Pane to Anywhere. Click here for more information on Gatekeeper.

I guess the rainy season isn’t over yet here. It looks like it’s going to stay for another week. Meanwhile, we’ve finished doing taxes, closing the book for the last accounting year. So we are back to software development business. So what’s the first software title to introduce? Well, we managed to submit the first Mac software title of the month to Mac App Store several hours ago. This new software submission is called ShapeWorks.

ShapeWorks is a desktop application that lets you easily work with vector graphics. Speaking of vector graphics, you don’t play with bezier curves as far as this application is concerned. All hard work is already done. ShapeWorks is loaded with more than 100 clip art vector shapes. So you’ll just have to pick one to work with. You can apply a simple color gradation map with two colors to the selected vector shape. Or you can open the gradation editor window to create a complex gradation color map with as many as 50 color stops. What you select is a vector shape, which is size-flexible. So you can easily resize the selected shape with your mouse by grabbing one of anchor points. And you can add a stroke to the selected shape with a color of your selection and a line type.   Continue reading →

The rainy season is almost over, hopefully. And a long summer will probably start in a week or so. July is the month when we close our accounting book and do taxes. Before we close our book, we have one more software title to introduce. We submitted a new Mac software title to Mac App Store several hours ago. This new software submission is called justRound. It should be the 7th software release of the month.

justRound is a desktop application that lets you create good-looking annotation images with rounded corners and a color border.  There are many ways by which you can make an annotation image appealing.  You can cast shadow around the background layer and the text layer seperately.  You can choose seperate colors for text layer, background layer, border layer, underlines and strikethrough lines. If a background layer with a single color is not appealing enough, open the gradation editor to create a color gradation map, which supports as many as 50 color stops.   Continue reading →

The other day, we introduced SVG2Img. It lets you convert SVG files into images one file at a time. A new software title we submitted to Mac App Store about an hour ago is a batch process version. The sixth software title of the month is called SVG2Img Batch.

The objective of this application is to batch-convert Scalar Vector Graphics (SVG) files into images with a graphic format of your selection (BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF). Simply, drag and drop a folder containing SVG files onto the top section of the application window. Then click on the Convert toolbar button.   Continue reading →