It's been 19 months, actually - St. Clair Software

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Saturday, December 15 2007 @ 12:27 AM PST

Facts, Forums, APE and MAC_1984 - decadence

Thanks for sharing your perspective, Jon.

Here are some of St Clair Soft's comments:

• Bugs...

  Folks - if Default Folder X appears to be causing problems, you have to let us know! VersionTracker is not the place to post bug reports - if you send them to us at support@stclairsoft.com, I'll see that they are addressed. Posting here that "Default Folder X crashes" doesn't get it fixed. It doesn't crash on our machines or our testers' machines, so without a crash log from your system, we've got nothing to work with. Also, check the FAQ on our web site. 95% of the crashes that do occur (and they're pretty infrequent these days) are due to a damaged preference file or some other problem that's very simply fixed.

• Very Unstable

  You've probably got a damaged Default Folder X preference file. We've tested with Quark XPress, and version 3.0.5 works fine with it, so there's got to be something out of whack on your machine. Please follow these instructions to delete your preference file.

  In the future, please contact us at support@stclairsoft.com if you're encountering problems. This is not a tech support forum, and we'd like to know about issues like this and…

There you are twice, telling us not to post in VersionTracker, but to contact you directly. Strange that you don't have a forum. Forums are great for ironing out issues - other users have a collective experience of using software with various applications and debugging individual configurations far richer than any solo developer (or for that matter including Apple or Microsoft).

What is your relationship to MAC_1984?

• Why Didn't You Contact the Developer First

  Instead of lambasting the developer with a demoed star rating over a GUI that you question (I like the new GUI) why didn't you contact the developer. I have contacted the developer in the past, and he is more than willing to listen to what you have to say and consider changing matters or add options.

• Laughable at Best

  So now there is a hidden APE in Default Folder 4? Bloody laughable. Somehow I do not think that Unsanity would release a new APE without the rest of us knowing about it. Unsanity has long been attacked by others since Unsanity has no issue with speaking their minds (there are several developers who constitute Unsanity, Rosyna being the most vocal) about matters in the Apple world.

• Not an Issue, but a Benefit

  Since DF is such a daily staple to the Mac OS diet, I am glad that beta's are posted. The sooner the bugs are ironed-out the sooner everyone who uses DF benefits. Keep those beta's coming!
  

• First Thing Done - Version: 3.0

  Today when I saw version 3 was released I installed and then updated without hesitation or a mind to the upgrade price. For me, this is simply an indispensable app that I use constantly so I could care less about the upgrade fee. I also like to support those who have done an outstanding job in the Mac community and this is one Developer who most positively has done so.

Curious chap this MAC_1984. It seems to me he should be better informed than this.

APE was in Default Folder until very recently.

I'm surprised you'd take that risk. I do everything possible to keep APE off of my computer after hours of troubleshooting and restarting (multiple time) back in 10.1 and 10.2 days. I would never have bought Default Folder if I'd thought you'd pull a stunt like foisting APE or other Unsanity onto us without our knowledge or accord.

I can understand you wanting to cover your footsteps now (erasing any mention of APE on your website and in your changelogs).

I previously wrote:

• And while APE lite is in DefaultFolder X, avoid getting hooked if you can. Half the error messages in any application crash in OS X belong to Default Folder X.

It looks like it's worth giving the old horse another run. But I'll be watching my crash logs! And I recommend others do the same.

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Saturday, December 15 2007 @ 02:24 PM PST

Facts, Forums, APE and MAC_1984 - St. Clair Software

To follow up with tpv:

• Posts

  I have no argument with people posting whatever they want to Version Tracker - I do have an issue with them posting bugs here and not telling me about them. There's no way for me to have a meaningful discussion with a single user here (our conversation being a notable exception) and I need information like crash logs, system details, etc to figure out what's going wrong.

  My point in my posts was that discussing bugs here doesn't get them fixed, and I want to fix them. I find that very frustrating when I see someone ranting about a problem here and I'm not able to address it. You'll see that on a number of occasions I've asked people to contact support@stclairsoft.com (you seem to have missed a lot of my older posts, or VT deleted them in their latest upgrade of their system). When I can get in contact with a user, we almost always have the problem solved that same day.

• MAC_1984

  I have no idea who MAC_1984 is. You'll find several rabid DFX users posting here - they like my software and the support I provide, but whatever they say is theirs. I'd prefer they didn't chastise others for posting - I think the recent complaints someone posted about the UI are valid - and I'll be addressing some of those issues - and would have preferred that MAC_1984 just let it be .

• APE and APE Lite

  Regarding APE and APE Lite - there's a big difference between the two. DFX used APE Lite up until version 4, and I make no attempt to hide that. However, DFX has never used APE (the 'non-lite' incarnation) and I do make a big deal about that, because it matters.

  APE Lite is a static library that can be linked into an executable. It provides a means of replacing one function with another. I can, for example, replace a function called SetWindowAlpha with my own version called JonsSetWindowAlpha. This would make calls to change window transparency go through my own function. Replacing function pointers like this is a relatively simple and bulletproof operation - though the possible side effects may not be, if the replacement function does something stupid. The ramifications are pretty limited with APE Lite, however, because it only lets you do this within an application's own address space - not in other applications.

  Now APE, on the other hand, is a different animal. The last time I checked (and my information on this may be old - I haven't looked at the details in a couple of years now) APE patched loginwindow so that it got fairly tight control of the application launching process early on. It would intervene when an application was launched, stop the application, inject an APE module into the process' address space, initialize the module so it could make patches using the technology in APE Lite, then let the launch continue. This was initiated from within loginwindow, which meant that APE had administrator privileges while doing this - which I personally find troubling.

  The things that bothered me about APE were that it had admin privileges, and that it hooked itself into various parts of the system - it wasn't easy to just throw away by dragging something to the Trash. So I chose not to use it, and did a lot of work in order to make DFX work without it.

  Despite what you may think, I'm not trying to be secretive. Check out the DFX FAQ - there's an item called Does Default Folder X patch my system? that plainly explains that DFX injects code into applications so that it knows what the Open and Save dialogs are doing. That's a necessary part of the way it works, and users have a right to know that. As a long-time DFX user, I'm sure you've seen this - it's been in the FAQ for years. I don't believe I ever mentioned APE Lite on the web site or in the change logs - honestly, it was just part of the infrastructure and never caused any problems, so there was no need to. It was credited in the DFX about box, and that has gone away in version 4 because it's no longer used, but I'm not erasing mention of it to "cover my footsteps".

  I'm just a developer trying to make a good product. I don't spend my days scheming to deceive users, hide things, or pretend to be someone else. It's not worth my time and energy. And that wouldn't be treating my users as I want to be treated - which is how I run my business. I respect you and your rights, and expect the same in return.

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  Saturday, December 15 2007 @ 09:41 PM PST