Just to let you know, 1.02 could be some time coming, so hopefully 1.01 will be okay for a while… I have just ordered myself an Apple Developer Connection Select membership, which comes with a Leopard seed (now I’m just waiting anxiously for the seed keys to come through in the next few days). I have already heard that Scrivener has some serious issues with Leopard, so the next few weeks will be dedicated to getting Scrivener working happily with the new OS. Obviously it is paramount that when Leopard is released, Scrivener works without a glitch, so I hope you will all understand if other updates are delayed because of this essential updating work.
Seems wise. Do you have an educated guess as to Leopard’s release date? I know Apple has said this spring and I’ve seen the end of march rumors but they don’t seem particularly well backed up. What are you expecting, oh great cocoa developer? While we’re at it, have you seen any hint of changes in the text engine?
just curious,
You mean Keith is an initiate of the hidden knowledge? An enlightened one? Now I am impressed.
Jeez don’t say anything. Next thing you know men with tinted windows drive up at 3 am. We wouldn’t want our favourite programmer to be disappeared.
Heh heh, I am no “enlightened one”. Literally, you just pay £300 to get a developer seed of Leopard and certain other benefits (developer technical support, hardware discount etc). I can’t talk about Leopard (not that that is an issue right now, given that I haven’t received the seed just yet ), but even if I could (or had it yet), Apple don’t tell the developers when the release date will be. Honestly, it could be tomorrow and I’ld be slapping myself for paying for the seed. Like everyone else, I hear the rumours of end of March, but I always add a month to any rumours.
In all seriousnesss, I obviously wasn’t expecting any insider info. I just assumed that your guess would be better than mine - late April then? NDAs aside has there been any open rumor mongering about the text engine? I can’t believe the list feature and style creation interface would stay so lame forever.
I think the release date is dependent on a number of entertwining factors and therefore is very much a still-moving target. In some ways, strategically, late March or early April makes sense: it’s midway between the Iphone preview & Vista release and the iPhone release. I think it’s not just going to be Leopard (and Leopard will probably have some surprising new spots). iWork (with its possible spreadsheet), iLife updates, a Pro tower upgrade, possibly a laptop or two are all definitely in the pipeline. In other words I think they are going to try pulverizing Vista and there are enough development threads nearing the end of their cycle that they plan a big commotion.
Unfortunately for you, Eiron, I’m not convinced much will happen with the text engine. It’s not very glamorous you see. If they’ve gussied-up Pages there may be some nifty spillover, though.
Anyway, speculation is fun but this time it’s too complicated to be definite.
Thanks for the answer Dafu even though it’s none too promising. It’s a shame if they ignore the text engine; it seems to lie at the core of a lot of the new independent programming and it may not be sexy, but it’s important.
Did a search and found the following widely reported: Text engine improvements include a systemwide grammar checking facility, smart quote support, automatic link detection and support for copying and pasting multiple selections.
A bit of a yawn, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for “nifty spillover”
Smart quote support? Dang! All of that work will need to be edited out of the Leopard version! I would imagine that there would be a number of text engine improvements, myself (and remember, I have yet to receive my Leopard seed, so this is just wild speculation - after I receive my seed I’ll have to remain mum ). Apple have a team of developers dedicated, as I understand it, to the text engine, such as the excellent and always helpful Douglas Davidson and Ali Ozer (may have spelled Ali’s name wrong). Whilst others are glamming up the “big” things, I find it hard to believe that these talented developers are doing nothing more than bug fixing and twiddling their thumbs.
Best,
Keith
Thanks Keith. That gives me a little hope for better implemented lists, tables, and styles. The rumored system-wide to do items would also presumably affect the text engine.
But I’m mostly keeping my fingers crossed for system-wide Scrivener Links.
Oops. Sounds like there will soon be a Scrivener for Tiger and a Scrivener for Leopard (with all the extra work stripped that was necessary to overcome limitations of the text engine in Tiger, plus the new text engine features)
This may well be the case… I don’t know. I have yet to get my Leopard seed, unfortunately, but I’ve seen some screenshots of the new dev tools posted on the internet, and it looks like there is a completely new Interface Builder (the program used to build interfaces, duh) for Leopard, with the old IB kept around for Tiger compatibility:
I am speculating that HUD panels and single-pixel split views will be the norm and provided in IB (despite the fact that these UI features were introduced in Tiger, they have so far been unavailable to independent developers unless we create them ourselves), which may mean that Scrivener has to go over to the single-pixel divider for Leopard (despite the fact that I rejected this from the interface originally because I like some room between the binder and the text), and that all HUD panels (which I coded myself) will probably need replacing with Apple’s standard ones.
On a more positive note, it does look as though there is added support for exporting from the OS X text engine to Word - whether that support has been enhanced to include images and so forth remains to be seen.
All in all, quite a daunting prospect. I am frothing at the mouth waiting to get the Leopard seed, I really am. Come on Apple, can’t you work weekends?
Just for the record, after a serious weekend of coding, Scrivener now seems to be working beautifully on the latest Leopard seed, so as of 1.02 - hopefully, and pending future updates to Leopard before the official release - Scrivener should work fine when it comes time to upgrade.
I can already see that 2.0 will be Leopard-only. (Don’t worry, that is a year or two away, by which time we’ll be waiting for Lion or Tabby or whatever…)
