Archive for June 23, 2022

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Festival of Artisanal Software: Summer 2022

SummerFest:

The new season brings new plans, fresh projects, and great new ideas. Whether you’re mapping out your next novel, finishing your dissertation, planning a product, or writing memories for your grandkids, these great tools will help. As is our custom in this season, we’re hosting a gathering of software artisans who are working to transform research and writing for a new era. We’ve all finished our latest updates, we’re working together to save you lots of money. Get the tools you need at a terrific price, for a very limited time.

This is your chance to get EagleFiler and SpamSieve, both recently updated, for 25% off with coupon code SUMMERFEST2022. They’re joined by some great apps from indie Mac developer friends, including: Hook Pro, HoudahSpot, MailSuite, Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, and Tinderbox.

Also check out the apps from Flying Meat, which are now $20 to celebrate 20 years in business.

Finding the “To” Address in iOS Mail

Matt Birchler:

Mail helpfully shortens the “To” value to just me, which is fine, but I would expect to be able to tap on my name and see which email address this was sent to. Instead, I get this[…] It just loads my contact card with all my emails listed.

This has been bothering me for a decade, too.

I’ve gotten a few messages from people suggesting that the contact card should show the “recent” tag next to the email I’m coming from. If that’s the intended solution, I still have two questions, though. One, why is the label “recent”? Something like “this email” or anything more descriptive would be nice. And two, maybe it’s a longstanding bug, but as I mentioned above, the correct email wasn’t the one labeled “recent” in my example, so I don’t feel like this is a reliable thing to look for.

Testing SwiftUI for Mac After WWDC 2022

Sarah Reichelt (tweet):

In December 2019, I wrote a series of articles about using SwiftUI to build a Mac app. And in July 2020, I re-visited the sample app to apply the new SwiftUI features made available in macOS BigSur. Now that macOS Ventura and Xcode 14 are in beta, it’s time to build the app again while learning how to incorporate the new APIs.

[…]

macOS apps can have multiple windows open at once, and in previous iterations of SwiftUI, it has been difficult to detect the active one. Last year, we got @FocusedBinding but it didn’t really work. This year it works, but we also have a new EnvironmentValue called controlActiveState.

[…]

This year, we have a new method that uses another new EnvironmentValue called openWindow. […] If you create a Window scene instead of a WindowGroup, not only does this become a single presentation window, but you get a menu item for it in the Window menu without any extra work. You can add a keyboard shortcut to the Window scene too. Supposedly, you can add default sizing and positioning, but they don’t appear to work yet.

[…]

I achieved something I was unable to do last time and that is to make the text edit field have focus when the view opens.

Previously:

Update (2022-06-24): Thomas Clement:

Unfortunately, [List has the] same terrible perf in Ventura.

Update (2022-07-05): See also: Hacker News.

Flag Icons to Change the Input Source

John Gruber:

[As] part of a company-wide effort to decouple national flags as icons to denote languages, the Input menu in MacOS now uses two letter codes instead (“US” for U.S. English, “GB” for British, etc.). [The] new policy does make sense for Apple — national flags carry political connotations that languages alone do not — but it’s unfortunate for users accustomed to scanning the menu for colorful icons at a glance when switching.

Two third-party developers have come to the rescue, with similar apps that restore the “pick a flag to change input sources” functionality[…]

Previously:

Verified Brand Logos in Apple Mail

Joe Rossignol:

iOS 16 and macOS Ventura add support for the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard in the Mail app, helping users to easily verify authenticated emails sent by brands by displaying the brand’s logo alongside the email’s header.

[…]

For a brand’s logo to be displayed, the sender’s domain must pass DMARC authentication checks, according to the BIMI Group website. If the email passes authentication, the Mail app queries the DNS for a corresponding BIMI record.

Maybe this will help with phishing.

Previously: