Inquisitor and NewsFire Updated for Leopard
If you are an Inquisitor or NewsFire user then you will be pleased to know that the man behind the software, Dave Watanabe, has released updated versions of both applications which fixes some “problems” while running them under Apple OS 10.5 “Leopard.” Do not expect any revolutionary new features in these updated releases, they are mere compatibility fixes.
Dave explained the issues surrounding both applications in two separate blog entries. In the first of the two blog posts Watanabe spoke about Inquisitor and the potential problems that might have been caused by a Leopard install:
The short story is this… Inquisitor works. The shipping Leopard did not completely remove extensions, it simply has imposed stronger security conditions on them. Because of the new conditions, Inquisitor installations carried over from Mac OS X Tiger will not work.
In his second post, Dave talks about a text shadow issue in NewsFire which may be due to some oddities in the architecture of Leopard, as well as a couple other problems. Although the issues are not major, nor will they be overly difficult to fix, Watanabe admits that these problems need reconciliation and will thus continue to be worked:
Another problem is that the new “set access for specific services and applications” firewall settings is creating issues by unexpectedly modifying the binary code of apps (by forcing a code signature on the unsuspecting binary). This has created issues for NewsFire as well as other third-party apps. Thus, during these early days I would advise using this setting with caution.
Much of the same bugs that plague NewsFire are also evident in other Watanabe projects, such as Xtorrent and Acquisition. Both applications will require upgrade treatment once Watanabe releases fixes for the irregularities.
It is worth noting that although there are acknowledged problems with Dave’s applications, these issues will probably not be noticed by the average, every day user. Most people will probably continue to use the software as if nothing is wrong, which I consider a very good thing.
I installed the update for Inquisitor and it appears to be running like a charm. I have yet to reinstall NewsFire after I performed a “clean install” of Leopard so I can not offer any reports on the feed aggregation software, though I expect it to work without issue just as Watanabe claims.
Has anyone noticed any other irregularities with Watanabe’s software under Leopard? Any other software for that matter?
Gotta love updates!
Since the development of newsfire seems to have stoped (one update for leopard.. yey!), i’ve abandoned ship, and am running NetNewsWire instead.