→ AppFresh Development Preview 2.1 (Mac OS X 10.4 only)
We just finished a new bugfix release to Development Preview 2 that resolves some issues related to overall stability and includes some minor improvements. Please keep up sending in crash reports to help AppFresh get stable.
As I mentioned yesterday I want to post some hints on using AppFresh and maybe tune it a bit to get better results out of it.
- First of all, and certainly most important, use the preferences to change defaults to your personal settings. Specifying include and exclude paths might lead to a significant scanning speed improvement. If you do not want AppFresh to scan for Apple updates disable it to save some time as well, since this is a very time consuming task.
- You can add an applications parent path, for example
Mail Scripts/*, to your exclude list by using the context menu itemAdd Parent Folder to Exclude List. This is much straighter and excludes all applications in that directory at once. - For some applications you might need to set a different name for an app with that it is registered with at iusethis.com. So for example the iusethis.com name of
Disctopneeds to be set toDisctop Pro. You might need to check the name by searching for it at iusethis.com yourself and set it using the context menu itemChange iusethis.com name of Application. We will add an online database that AppFresh can use to track this automatically as soon one user adds an entry. - Double click (or use right / left arrow) on an entry in the application list to show some details. This is no standard functionality so you might need to get used to it. You can also show details by using the context menu item
Show Details. - Use context menu
Skip when Checking for Updatesto ignore an application when checking and updating. This might be improved in future versions. Ideas highly appreciated.
I think tuning and setting the iusethis.com name of an application will help you find more updates and reduce applications in state Unknown. For some applications there is no version information set on iusethis.com so AppFresh will not detect new versions and set it to state Unknown (for example VMWare Fusion, Vidalia, Think, …). You can only try to get the maintainers to correctly set version informations.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
This a totally awesome application, no more messing around manually with AppUpdate. But, it’s not perfect yet
- Option to mark an application version as “installed” if local app doesn’t provide the correct version information. If the version changes, I am notified, but as long as it’s the same version as marked by me, it behaves like “skip when checking” (grey and not counting to the total number of apps having more recent versions)
Candidates for this features are the most recent versions of YamiPod, Lingon, SuperDuper! or ffmpegX.
- Context menu Cmd-Shift-U or -R don’t work for me. Maybe you should also add them to the screen menu bar?
March 27th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
AppFresh updated Transmission 0.6.1 to the older version 0.6.437. It might because the information about Transmission on iusethis.com is not up-to-date?
March 27th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
when i choose “install update” it says that it’s downloaded the update to the desktop but i don’t see it there??
March 27th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
If the downloaded file is in .dmg (Apple Disk Image) format, it takes some time to open and extract it (up to 20 seconds). Does the folder appear on the Desktop after that time? Anyway, we’ll work on displaying the message not before the extraction process is completed.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
it’s not showing the .dmg file at all.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Nice app, I could really get into this. I have some feedback for you if you like.
•First and foremost the feature I’d like to see is the status of a license (freeware, shareware, ect.)
•In my opinion, the update button is missleading. I expcted it to update the app that was currently selected. It would be nice to have update specifc app and an update all
Other than that it’s a cool app. Thanks!
-Edward
March 27th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Getting the status of a license is not supported right now since it is not included in the iusethis appcast. As soon as this will be available it will be in. We will change menu and toolbar items since your opinion is shared by lots of others. No problem for us. Thank you for the feedback.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
The requested feature will be in the next preview. Its been requested by lots of…lots of people so we’ll add it next. Stay tuned for preview 3. The menu will be redesigned as requested.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
We’ll have a look at this. Please use the report broken app feature within AppFresh so we get some more information. Thank you for pointing us there.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
what i was doing that resulted in the crashlog the app just sent you:
clicked Snapshot button in toolbar; clicked Create Snapshot (i think that was the name) –> crash
this was on my first launch of the app
now on relaunch my minor prefs changes were saved but clicking the Snapshot button doesn’t do anything and choosing Create Snapshot from the menu brings up a sheet that says “Please Wait”, the progress bar is filled (blue all the way across), but nothing happens; have to Cancel; still scans apps normally after that
March 27th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
nice tool!
feature suggestion: download updates in background; allow me to start one update, then continue to use the interface or even start another update while the first is still going
thanks,
March 27th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
One thing I would really love : Say I use Stuffit Deluxe with all its applications installed, instead of having 1 known application and 8 unknown, why not giving the user the ability to define the master application and have just this master application appearing in AppFresh ? That would clean up the “unknown” a little bit ! No ? (Candidates : Stuffit, Zinio Reader, and maybe other ones I don’t know)
That would apply too for applications with separated uninstallers (which appear as standalone applications) and Named “Uninstall X, Y or Z”
all that applying to applications in the same subfolder !
March 27th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
feature request: i would prefer that AppFresh did not disembowel dmgs; i like that AppFresh creates a wrapper folder with the version number (since many download archives don’t have a version number), but i’d prefer just the dmg dropped into there, no mounting, no copying of files
March 27th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
bug: if there are two versions of the same app (both under /Applications) AppFresh only finds one, and seems to prefer the lower numbered; i had this happen for at least three apps; all my non-Apple apps are in subfolders under /Applications, such as /Applications/_net, /Applications/_test, etc.
another bug: for application CyberDuck, the version number displayed at iusethis.com is 2.7.3, which i have, however AppFresh told me i needed to update to “(r2855)”; perhaps this is a problem with the appcast …
March 27th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
problem: consider the helper application GrowlTunes; this comes with a Growl download and afaik can’t be downloaded separately; the only version is 0.1
AppFresh thinks 0.1 is out of date, and that there is a version 0.7.4 available, because that is the version listed at iusethis.com; however when it downloads, i get the whole Growl 0.7.4 package (which is out of date); is this entirely a problem at iusethis.com, or is there something AppFresh can do about it?
March 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Want that too and so it will be in there some time for sure. Can’t say when, because its more a nice to have.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
One response for all your entries. In the next release we will add the possibility to set the preferences to not unpack before copying to the final location. Nice idea.
The version detection will be the next thing to work on. There are probably some thing with AppFresh and some with iusethis. Hope developers will maintain their release more reliable. We will probably add some fallback checking with other soures.
Your problem is #9 is unfortunately not as easy. We’ll have to think about his.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:55 am
more bugs:
a) when AppFresh downloaded Flip4Mac, the disemboweling went way too far; it stripped the .mpkg and i got a folder containing only:
Info.plist
PkgInfo
Resources/
b) after running AppFresh, downloading and then manually installing several updates (carefully overwriting previous versions), it still lists the same old versions of several of the updated apps; if i do a Reveal in Finder, then a Get Info, i can confirm that i already have the current version, even though AppFresh lists an older version; relaunching AppFresh does not change this situation
March 28th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I totally love this app. I do have one quiet annoying issue. I use PathFinder as a replacement to the Finder and AppFresh doesn’t seem to like that. First after updates are downloaded they are not moved to the desktop, but don’t stay in the temporary files either and basically just disapear. The “reveal in Finder” option also does not play nice and fires up Finder.app instead of opening in PathFinder (which has it’s PkgInfo changed to FNDRMAC so it behaves like the Finder). Please fix!
Thanks!
March 28th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I’ll have a look at this. There is no Pathfinder user among us
March 28th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I ran AppFresh the first time and it scanned the 150 apps I have installed and downloaded updates for many of them, but after installing the updates I’m left with 28 still reported as needing to be updated. A few of these are misreported version numbers, but several of them are things that the updates never appeared on my desktop for, and attempting to re-download the update results in AppFresh telling me that the update is on my desktop (it isn’t), and the following in my console.log:
unpacking file /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/TMPExtract PackRat 1.0.5 Update/PackRat.dmg (3540775 bytes) failed NSError “Could not unpack file /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/TMPExtract PackRat 1.0.5 Update/PackRat.dmg” Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=0 UserInfo={ deactivated
2007-03-28 13:49:12.159 AppFresh[21197] task
NSLocalizedDescription = “Could not unpack file /private/var/tmp/folders.501/TemporaryItems/TMPExtract PackRat 1.0.5 Update/PackRat.dmg”;
}
2007-03-28 13:49:12.159 AppFresh[21197] queue
Also, AppFresh seems to ‘extract’ .pkg/.mpkg files, rendering them a little useless
March 28th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
(Replying to my own comment)
I’ve just noticed that at least one of the files it downloaded does exist in the TemporaryItems folder, but is a .dmg with a license agreement that must be agreed to by the user in order to open it (if I ‘open’ the .dmg from the command-line, the license agreement dialog appears and the image opens fine if I agree to the terms).
March 28th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
would it be possible to add an ‘update in place’ option? so when a new version is downloaded, it will replace the old version in it’s current location? basically, like the sparkle framework does
March 29th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
First of all, I would like to say that this is an excellent app, and I would love to see further development.
From a preliminary use, I noticed that trying to delete Snapshots sends you into a never-ending circle of validation, I therefore just doesn’t work.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
as a Path Finder user myself, i would not expect an app to support Path Finder used as a “full replacement” for FInder; i leave Finder running but with no open windows, as it is needed for some system expectations; for example, Path Finder does not handle all the Finder Apple Events; i think the better approach, which many apps support, is an option to call Path Finder directly for “reveal in…” type behaviors (DragThing, e.g.); however i would place this at a much lower priority than properly handling multiple app versions
March 29th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Great app! About time someone did this. I was just thinking I should write some scripts to comb the VersionTracker RSS feeds to figure out what installed apps need to be updated, but you seem to have saved me the trouble
A lot of great suggestions above (and very nice to see the devs’ open and positive responses to them), but I have a few more to add:
1) The ability to group or sort apps by location to make managing apps stored in non-default locations easier to manage. For example, I maintain an F&OSS collection CD for customers and this would make keeping it up to date much easier.
2) Better integration with iusethis.com to make it easy to add an unknown app to the site, thus ensuring that AppFresh will be able to keep track of the previously unknown app going forward and making AppFresh more and more useful to a wider range of users as time goes on.
3) Key combination shortcuts for adding an app or it’s enclosing folder to the skip/exclude list.
4) Perhaps the additional use of VersionTracker/MacUpdate/Apple Downloads RSS feeds?
BTW, I strongly second the request for the option to link subsidiary and helper apps to their parent app as suggested by Michel above (#7).
March 29th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
We are quite amazed about the positive feedback, so we try to do our best to make it better.
1.) we probably need custom groups, but it will not be in a development preview release
2.) Yes, we were talking to Arne and Marcus about an improved interface. Hope we can use this soon. iusethis is supposed to be the main db for AppFresh.
3.) Will be added.
4.) Not a problem. Will be probably added as fallback.
The next preview will be out pretty soon with lots of feature in it suggested. Linking apps will not be in there, but you will be able to exclude Apps as well, so you can do this as workaround.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Downloading will be fixed in next development preview. Expect this pretty soon. You will also be able to configure if updates will be unpacked or just copied. DMGs with licens agreements will not be copied in 0.2.1.
Installing is only in private testing right now. Will be available as soon as we are sure it really works
March 29th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
We’ll fix this in next preview.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:51 am
*I love it* 8-). Still have to figure what does each thing. However, I don’t know why, it worked differently on my iMac G5 and on my Powerbook. On the iMac everything seems ok (I only scanned the features). While on the PowerBook the preference pane has the Scan widgets is disabled.