ironcoder

Mac Developers using the SparklePlus auto-update framework in their applications should note that the project has moved to a new online home, at Google Code hosting. Previously the project was at ironcoder.org, but a number of factors (not least of which being trouble with the hosting provider) made Google seem like a better choice. The old SparklePlus mailing list has also been superseded by a Google group.

• SparklePlus home
• SparklePlus Google group

The project page includes some migration information for those of you who have been using SparklePlus already.

Sparkle, for those of you who might not know, is a cool Mac OS X framework that makes it easy to have applications check for updated versions, and then optionally download and install those updates. It was written by Andy Matuschak. SparklePlus expands on Sparkle by adding anonymous system information with the update checks– things like what version of Mac OS X the software is running on, and how much RAM is available. That kind of information is useful to developers when they’re trying to figure out what version(s) of Mac OS X (etc…) they need to support. Without it, a developer can only guess if any of their users are still running older versions of Mac OS X, and whether dropping support for a version is likely to cause trouble for people.

The Adium team has a nice example of what can be done with this information at their Sparkle+ stats page.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.