Mitchell Allison created an Xcode plugin that flashes a set of Philips Hue light bulbs red in case of a failed build. I wish I used Xcode just to try this out.
Posts in Linked
Xcode WarningLights for Philips Hue→
Retiring Fontcase→
Bohemian Coding:
Fontcase saw its first light in 2009, and the Mac landscape has changed a lot since.
The App Store came along and we jumped in enthusiastically, but with the advent of enforced sandboxing, and the tightening up that every OS release brings, things have become rather difficult.
Fontcase was one of my first app reviews for MacStories in 2009 and we even had a “behind the scenes” look at Fontcase 1.0 with prototypes and mockups shared by lead developer Pieter Omvlee. Retiring Fontcase allows Omvlee and his team to focus on Sketch, which is great news.
Marked 2 Tips for Long-Form Reading→
Brett Terpstra:
Marked 2 is great for live previews while you write Markdown, but it’s also very handy for reading long form articles. There are a variety of themes and many features for quickly navigating through long pieces.
I use Brett’s Marked when I’m writing on my Mac. With Sublime Text, it’s easy to run a custom build command (preview) for Marked and I love that the app (unlike many others) supports header IDs when it converts Markdown to HTML. When I was working on my Editorial review, Marked was essential in the editing process to preview images, code blocks, and navigate through the final 25,000-word document.
Nothing beats Marked’s Markdown preview tools. It turns out, it’s pretty great at enhancing long-form web reading too. Who else thinks this would be fantastic on an iPad?
OvershareKit→
Justin Williams:
A few weeks ago I was trading war stories with Jared Sinclair of Riposte fame as we were inching towards the finish line for our respective new apps. In Jared’s case, he is working on a new RSS client for iOS 7 called Unread and was mentioning how his biggest hurdle remaining was integrating a variety of sharing services for the posts in a user’s RSS feeds.
Luck would have it that I had been working on a similar feature already for my new app, so we decided to collaborate on something that would hopefully eliminate the need for anyone to write the same sharing code over and over again. The initial release is a pretty substantial rewrite of my initial code-base speerheaded by Jared to account for more than just image-based sharing. It’s a fantastic piece of code that I’m truly proud to be associated with.
It’s 2013 and we still have apps with archaic list-based sharing menus that were created in 2009 and barely updated for iOS 6. Developers, go check out the OvershareKit documentation on GitHub.
The Prompt: TAKE ACTION→
Nintendo Doesn’t Need to Make Games for Mobile→
Kris Naudus of GDGT writes about Nintendo, how it won’t cede control, and backs up Nintendo’s motivations with some history, including a brief deal with Philips of all companies.
Nintendo won’t make the switch to iOS because it means ceding control to a company that doesn’t make gaming its #1 priority. And that’s important to the people there – Nintendo is a culture. And they will go to great lengths to preserve that culture; for example, where most companies flush with cash would go on a spending and acquisition spree, Nintendo doesn’t.
iPad mini as the Absorber→
I think it becomes apparent, then, why everyone assumes the iPad Air is the creator and the iPad Mini is the absorber. While both now have the same internals, the preconceived notion that the iPad Mini is not meant for creation has overruled analytical and advisory minds. It actually makes sense to associate “smaller” and more “portable” as an absorber.
Joshua Ginter makes some good points in his article on iPad Air vs. mini for content creation. My guess: many will reconsider the mini after they’ll try the Retina display in the smaller form factor.
Justin Williams’ Ultimate Developer And Power Users Tool List For OS X→
This year’s edition of the list takes into account the new tools I am using as part of my transition to working exclusively on iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, as well as an amateur designer.
Lots of good links in Justin’s annual list.
John Gruber’s iPad Air Review→
Last week, I made the case for thumb-typing (among other things) on the iPad mini. Last night, John Gruber published his review of the iPad Air, which covers this aspect. Exactly what I wanted to know.