CODE2K:LABS Blog
Howto re-enable Mac Mail plugins after updates
Written on June 16, 2010
Today I upgraded my MacBook to the new released Mac OS X 10.6.4. Everything worked fine except that the update contained a new version of the Apple Mail application which disabled my Growl-Notify plugin (not for the first time!). As I really need this plugin and I didn’t want to wait for an update I did a little web research and came up with the following solution:
- Quit the Mail application
- Get the UUID of the new installed Mail and and Messages.framework
To do this open the Terminal application and execute the following two commands:
$ cat /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Info.plist | grep UUID -A 1 $ cat /System/Library/Frameworks/Message.framework/Resources/Info.plist | grep UUID -A 1
You will find the UUIDs between the two string elements. For Mail 4.3 I got:
B842F7D0-4D81-4DDF-A672-129CA5B32D57
E71BD599-351A-42C5-9B63-EA5C47F7CE8E
- If the plugin already got moved to ”~/Library/Mail/Bundles (Disabled)/” move it back to ”~/Library/Mail/Bundles/”
- Open ”/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info.plist” with the Property List Editor (If no editor opens on double click you probably have to install the Xcode tools from your Mac OS X DVD)
- Insert the two UUIDs under SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUID and save the document
- Start the Mail APP and be happy :-)
This should also work for other Mail plugins. But if the plugin is incompatible with the new Mail version you will probably have problems starting Mail. If this happens you will have to remove the plugin again and you will have to wait for a plugin update.
As always try this at your own risk and don’t forget to make a backup before you start. Good Luck!
MacBook on Snow (Leopard)
Written on December 31, 2009
Two weeks ago I decided to upgraded my MacBook to Snow Leopard. I must admit that I’m really late with this update :-) Normally I’m an early adopter who is pressing the update button while it is hot, but this time I was a little more careful.
First of all I’m using my MacBook productive for my software development projects. So I had to be sure that I’m still be able to do my work after the update. After reading several forums and the list of incompatible software I was surprised how many software had problems with the new OS! A main show stopper was also that my Line6 sound hardware was not supported and switching to windows just to play guitar wasn’t an option for me.
Then after 3 months I finally had the time and confidence to do the upgrade. Just before the upgrade I’ve gone to the list of all my hardware and software and checked if there is a new version available and if is necessary to update (AppFresh is really helpful for that!). After that I did the mandatory Time Machine backup and I was read to go. The installation of Snow Leopard went very smoothly, after inserting the DVD and clicking “Install Max OS X” the upgrade process started and was finished in about 1 hour. After that the system rebooted and voila…. my MacBook was running with the latest Apple OS.
The first thing after the reboot I noticed was that I noticed nothing. At the first sight everything was looking and behaving the same. After some days I recognized the following things:
- The new Expose and Dock Expose is really nice
- QuickTime X looks nice but the interface takes a while to get used to it
- Bugfix No. 1: On my system I’m not logged in as an admin user. So every time when I install or update a software I’m asked for an admin login. Leopard had the very annoying bug that sometimes when you tried to replace an application you had to enter the credentials many times. This is fixed now.
- Bugfix No. 2: When using FileVault it was not possible to change the default application of a file type. On every reboot Leopard forgot your settings and the file had the wrong icon again and on double click the wrong application started. Works like a charm now.
I must say that I’m happy with my Snow Leopard. Though there are some minor bugs the system feels a lot more mature and I’m looking forward what Apple is going to do with it in the future. OS X 10.6 doesn’t have many new features and I can’t see any performance improvements on my system, but at least It has fixed two annoying Leopard bugs and I can use XCode 3.2 for my projects.
A Happy New Year 2010 to everyone!
Improving an iPhone App - Part II
Written on September 29, 2009
This is part II of my recent blog post Improving an iPhone App. After having some trouble getting an update of Virtual Voodoo into the App Store I thought it might be a good idea to add some additional tips to my blog.
From the customers point of view it would be good if the initial version of the application is feature complete. But besides the point that it takes a very long time to build a complex application there are also some other point to consider.
One thing is that you never know if Apple “likes” your application. You can find so many cases on the net where people have troubles getting there applications into the App Store. They get always rejected and time goes by while they are trying to find out what Apple wants to have changed in their application. During this time they don’t earn any money! That’s why I think that it is much better to start with a small subset of your application, build it the way Apple wants it and start to improve it afterwards. You should always build the smallest feature subset as possible.
Then release regular updates of your application and provide bug fixes and new features to your customers. This way you can enhance your application due to the feedback of your customers and you can also take profit of the good position in your iTunes category every time you release your application.