Archive for July, 2015

Default Folder X 4.7.3 : Compatibility fixes for El Capitan, iCloud, Strata 3D and Carbon apps

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015

Icon  shadowVersion 4.7.3 of Default Folder X just went live, bringing you a number of compatibility fixes, as detailed in the release notes. Among the improvements is conditional compatibility with the latest El Capitan beta.

“Wait! Didn’t you just say in your last post that Default Folder X won’t run on El Capitan?” Well, yeah – that’s why I stuck the word “conditional” in there. Default Folder X 4.7.3 works fine IF you disable El Capitan’s System Integrity Protection feature. That’s a pretty big “if,” and not something that should be considered a long term solution. But if you installed the El Capitan beta without realizing you’d lose Default Folder X and are really upset about it, this will carry you through to the release of Default Folder X 5 without feeling like you’re working with one hand tied behind your back 🙂

If you need instructions on how to turn off System Integrity Protection in El Capitan, hop over to the Default Folder X FAQ. If you’d like more info about System Integrity Protection, Glenn Fleishman’s article at Macworld.com is a good primer.

Other changes in Default Folder X 4.7.3 include improvements in the way it handles iCloud, Carbon applications and support for version 8 of Strata 3D. They’re worth the minute it takes to download the update, so download it with this link or select Default Folder X in System Preferences and hit “Check for Updates”.

Default Folder X and El Capitan

Friday, July 10th, 2015

ElCapitanScreenshot2 As some of you have undoubtedly noticed since installing beta 2 of El Capitan (aka Mac OS 10.11), the current version of Default Folder X is not compatible with the upcoming OS X release. The Default Folder X background application will run, but cannot enhance the file dialogs of many applications.

To dip into the technical side a bit, this is due to Apple’s new System Integrity Protection, which prevents Default Folder X’s scripting addition from loading into some applications and, most importantly, into the “PowerBox” helper app that presents Open and Save dialogs for all sandboxed applications.

Never fear, however – Default Folder X isn’t dead. I’ve been hard at work on a major revision of Default Folder X that will support El Capitan (yes, I saw this coming). It uses a completely different method for enhancing your file dialogs, and adds a number of handy new features and changes that you folks have requested.

I don’t yet have a firm release date – to be honest, I may have to scale back in a few places to get this into your hands before El Capitan ships, but it’s on the way. The upgrade will be free for anyone who purchases Default Folder X in the 6 months before the new version is released, which means if you buy now, you won’t be paying again for version 5 in a few months.

More news as things develop – for now it’s back to Xcode for me…

– Jon

P.S. And yes I KNOW the website relaunch is way overdue, but software comes first.

P.P.S. For more on System Integrity Protection, read Glenn Fleishman’s article at Macworld.com.