{"id":3109,"date":"2016-08-05T12:02:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T17:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?p=3109"},"modified":"2016-08-10T11:17:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T16:17:27","slug":"about-that-neato-macos-sierra-public-beta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/?p=3109","title":{"rendered":"About that neato macOS Sierra public beta…"},"content":{"rendered":"

All the cool kids were\u00c2\u00a0doing it, so you\u00c2\u00a0took the plunge. \u00c2\u00a0You installed\u00c2\u00a0the latest\u00c2\u00a0public beta of macOS Sierra.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Update: \u00c2\u00a0macOS 10.12 Sierra Public Beta 4 got everything working again, so no worries.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Pretty nifty, ain’t it? \u00c2\u00a0Your apps\u00c2\u00a0seem to be working. \u00c2\u00a0Everything feels a little\u00c2\u00a0snappier. \u00c2\u00a0Siri’s truly helpful. \u00c2\u00a0Even the Mac App Store version of\u00c2\u00a0Audiobook Builder<\/a> and any recent version of CheckBook<\/a> and CheckBook Pro<\/a> are running well, making your life easier as\u00c2\u00a0always. \u00c2\u00a0Aside from a user interface layout glitch here and there, things look super great.<\/p>\n

But when\u00c2\u00a0you try to create a new document or add tracks to Audiobook Builder or you’re in CheckBook and try to save a backup…<\/p>\n

…the app just…<\/p>\n

…hangs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The open or save window appears, but it’s blank. \u00c2\u00a0So you give it a sec. \u00c2\u00a0OK five. \u00c2\u00a0Ten? \u00c2\u00a0Fifteen? \u00c2\u00a0Wow, it’s been thirty\u00c2\u00a0seconds and…nothing. \u00c2\u00a0Five minutes later you’re hitting the Send button and we get a plea for help in our inbox. \u00c2\u00a0It might mention the public beta. \u00c2\u00a0Might not.<\/p>\n

So why’re things hanging? \u00c2\u00a0It’s all related to the SDK – “S<\/strong>oftware D<\/strong>evelopment K<\/strong>it”, a\u00c2\u00a0collection of files defining everything needed to build code that’ll work with other code, like an operating system – used when an app is built\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0sandboxing, the security feature that prevents apps\u00c2\u00a0from accessing certain parts of your Mac without your permission or\u00c2\u00a0doing things they weren’t designed to. \u00c2\u00a0Sandboxed apps don’t get to display open or save panels in quite the same way as in olden times. \u00c2\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0“Powerbox”<\/strong> background process handles these panels for them, automatically and usually\u00c2\u00a0without a fuss, but right now the Powerbox in the Sierra public beta isn’t quite\u00c2\u00a0as good at it\u00c2\u00a0as in El Cap and earlier. \u00c2\u00a0When apps built with the 10.7 or earlier SDK that are also sandboxed, like the three in question, ask for an open or save panel, instead of the usual, you get a blank window and we get an email.<\/p>\n

This isn’t really a true hang, though, where the app is completely unresponsive, so\u00c2\u00a0hit the Escape key<\/strong> on your keyboard and the window will disappear and you’re back to using the app just like before.<\/p>\n

So why’re we still using the Mac OS X 10.7 SDK? \u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Welllll, we\u00c2\u00a0try\u00c2\u00a0to support older versions of Mac OS X for as long as possible, so we have to be careful with newer\u00c2\u00a0SDKs. \u00c2\u00a0They introduce new features, making it easier for us to accidentally throw in something that just won’t work for all versions of the OS. \u00c2\u00a0And sometimes, older features\u00c2\u00a0just behave differently\u00c2\u00a0from one version to the next. \u00c2\u00a0Moving\u00c2\u00a0up to a newer SDK usually keeps us busy for a few days, adjusting or working around a handful of things, and then we get to test on each version of Mac OS X.<\/p>\n

We let\u00c2\u00a0Apple know about this on July 20th (and it seems to be all better in macOS 10.12 Sierra Public Beta 4)<\/em>.<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0The bug report hasn’t been acknowledged or assigned to an engineer yet, but we’re hopeful they’ll get on it before the official Sierra release. \u00c2\u00a0We’ll have new builds of the Mac App Store version of Audiobook Builder, CheckBook, and CheckBook Pro ready before then, though, built with the OS X 10.11 SDK so we’re all set for a while. \u00c2\u00a0If you need any additional details in the meantime, though, please get in touch at support@splasm.com<\/a> and we’ll help out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All the cool kids were\u00c2\u00a0doing it, so you\u00c2\u00a0took the plunge. \u00c2\u00a0You installed\u00c2\u00a0the latest\u00c2\u00a0public beta of macOS Sierra. [Update: \u00c2\u00a0macOS 10.12 Sierra Public Beta 4 got everything working again, so no worries.] Pretty nifty, ain’t it? \u00c2\u00a0Your apps\u00c2\u00a0seem to be working. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,3,1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-3109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobook-builder","category-checkbook","category-development","category-general","tag-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3109"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3121,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109\/revisions\/3121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splasmata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}