The sandbox also limits what APIs you can use, and which system components you can communicate with. This means that the app will run in a container which will have the same structure as your home directory, but with mostly empty folders. # The SandboxĮvery app that is submitted to the App Store must be compiled to run within a sandbox. It turned out we needed to do quite a few hacks if we wanted to publish this app in the App Store. This last question is what led me to write this article. How do I only listen to the Right Command key?.How do I filter those out? The others could be: There are dozens of running apps while only about 10% of them are actual apps launched by the user.Should I launch the app when the key is pressed?.What if the user assigned the key to an app that’s no longer running?.How do I persist key assignments if necessary?.How do I get to the other apps with less priority in as few key presses as possible?.How do I decide which one gets priority so that I meet user expectations?.What do I do when there are multiple running apps with the same first letter?.Just for this simple app we had to solve the following problems: What most people overlook when they have a simple idea is that 80% of the effort goes into handling edge cases that are not visible in the original idea. We just kept pressing Right Command X and staring at the screen like complete idiots, not understanding why Xcode wasn’t being focused. In less than a day, rcmd became so ingrained in our app switching that we got incredibly annoyed when we had to quit the app for recompiling and debugging. We created the first prototype in about a week (icons and graphics take so much time…) and started using it in our day to day work to see if it made sense. I pitched this idea to Ovidiu Rusu, a very good friend of mine, who surprisingly seemed to have the same need as me. So simple that people were offended by it… My idea sounded a bit simpler: Right Command + the first letter of the app name But that needed a bit more key presses than I wanted (that is 1) and more attention than I wanted to give (which is none). I remembered using Contexts for a while, which provides a Spotlight like search bar for fuzzy searching your running apps. Using the app name felt the most natural. When I used Windows for reverse engineering malware, I liked switching apps using Win + Number where the number meant the position of the app icon in the taskbar. What if I use it exclusively for switching apps? We have two Command keys on a Mac keyboard, and the right hand side one is almost never used. So what does my brain do when I feel burnt out? Gives me ideas for even more apps… # rcmd Maybe pressing Tab 4-5 times while visually assessing if the selected app icon is the one I want to focus, isn’t the best solution for this kind of workflow. I start to feel my fingers again, press Command Tab once more, and while looking at the list of app icons I realise something. Those features should have probably been their own independent app. Why am I adding all the features the users are asking for, then deal with the flood of frustrated emails saying “what an overcomplicated stupid app, I just want to make my screen brighter!!”, then try to hide advanced features to make it simpler, then get assaulted with the confused “I can’t change volume anymore fix this ASAP!!!” because UI changes can very easily introduce bugs by simply forgetting to bind a slider to a value, then get back to scotch taping broken parts slower than the users can report them? It’s probably only funny for a small group of workaholics, but the reality of those words struck me in the middle of the hysterical laughter I was trying to stop. Wasn’t that what I ran away from when I quit my job to make apps for a living? I stop switching apps and just stare at the Xcode window, containing what I knew was Swift code but looked like gibberish right now. I feel my brain pulsing and my ring finger going numb on the Tab key. So, it’s Tuesday night and I’m Command Tab-ing my way through 10 different apps, some with 3-4 windows, while trying to patch bugs in Lunar faster than the users can submit the reports. Home Blog Notes Stuff Contact Résumé RSS Why aren't the most useful Mac apps on the App Store? A case study into developing an app for the Mac App Store, and all the limitations I ran into while doing that
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