Archive for August, 2023

Default Folder X 6.0b3: Translucent toolbars, UI refinements and drag-and-drop improvements

Friday, August 25th, 2023

A new public beta of Default Folder X 6 is available, sporting two new styles for the toolbar that it attaches to Open and Save dialogs. In macOS 11 Big Sur and higher, you can now choose a translucent look. I have to admit that I didn’t think I’d personally like it because I expected it would impact legibility, but it actually works well – Apple deserves kudos for the latest incarnation of the visual effects view!

Default Folder X’s existing bezel and toolbar styles also gain a hint of translucence, but it’s much more subtle.

In addition, beta 3 includes a host of user interface improvements, including updating the “computer” icon to an M1 iMac, better harmonization of icon and font sizes and colors, improved support for the macOS “increase contrast” mode, and fixing issues on older versions of macOS.

Drag and drop has been improved, supporting Command+drag to always move items even when dragging them from one volume to another. And the menu that you’re given to choose a destination for the dragged items has been stripped of extraneous menu items.

Several annoying bugs have been fixed, including the keyboard focus being incorrect after using a Save dialog in some apps. This would result in the app’s keyboard shortcuts not working until you clicked on one of its windows.

The full list of changes and download links are on the Default Folder X Testing page, as usual. And if you’re already running a beta build, just choose “Check for Update” from its menu to get the new version.

And yes, to reiterate, the Default Folder X 6 betas support macOS 14 Sonoma.

Posted in Default Folder X, Sonoma, Version 6 | No Comments »

App Tamer 2.8 eliminates sound stuttering, supports Sonoma and more!

Friday, August 18th, 2023

I’m pretty excited about a new setting in App Tamer because it eliminates the one down-side to using it. In earlier versions, if you used App Tamer to slow down Safari when it was in the background and then tried to play music or a video, the sound could stutter or skip if Safari wasn’t frontmost. Now, App Tamer can detect when sound is playing and keep specific apps awake – just turn on the new “Don’t stop or slow when sound is playing” checkbox and the problem is solved 🙂

Actually, App Tamer 2.8 will automatically turn on this setting for most browsers, music players and audio / video chat apps, so you don’t have to make any changes. Just launch the new version of App Tamer. There is no Step 2 – it just works.

In addition, as the title says, version 2.8 contains bug fixes to make it run smoothly on Apple’s public beta versions of macOS 14 Sonoma. It will also helpfully warn you if you try to slow down an important system service that might negatively impact the performance of your Mac, and delivers fixes for several bugs as well.

Go grab a copy from the App Tamer Release page. You’ll also find a complete list of changes in version 2.8, and a full change history if you’re into that kind of thing.

Posted in App Tamer, Sonoma | 6 Comments »

App Tamer 2.8b1: I’m looking for people to test “Don’t slow when sound is playing”

Wednesday, August 9th, 2023

I’ve come up with a solution to an annoying issue in App Tamer. When you throttle the CPU usage of apps, their attempts to play audio can result in the sound stuttering or cutting out if they’re getting too few CPU cycles. In some cases, this can even affect the sound played by other apps.

Version 2.8 of App Tamer adds a new checkbox to an app’s settings: “Don’t stop or slow when sound is playing”. App Tamer detects when there’s audio playing and runs those apps at full speed until the audio stops. This lets you throttle a web browser to 2% CPU when it’s in the background, but if you’re playing a YouTube video and put it in the background, the video will continue playing normally instead of (possibly) slowing down and stuttering.

So far this works very well – at the expense of letting those apps use more CPU while sound is playing, of course – but I’d like to get more feedback before officially releasing it.

The biggest issue is that there seems to be a bug in Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma that prevents apps from determining whether sound is playing when playback is going through AirPods or other Bluetooth devices. I’ve worked around the problem so it correctly handles all the devices I have here, but I’d really like to have more testing done with other system configurations and devices.

So – it’d be really helpful if you would:

  1. Download the beta build of App Tamer and launch it.
  2. Check the settings for the web browser you’re using – the “when sound is playing” checkbox should be turned on by default.
  3. Play some audio. You’ll see a little speaker next to the app in the process list (see the image over there → ).
  4. Make sure this works with a number of different audio output devices. Use your Mac’s speakers, your AirPods, AirPlay devices, Bluetooth speakers – whatever you’ve got.
  5. Shoot me an email at AppTamer@stclairsoft.com and let me know what version of macOS you’re using and what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully there aren’t any reports in the latter category 🙂

Thank you!

Posted in App Tamer, Development | 2 Comments »