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Is anyone able to use Unsanity haxies with Lion?

I really like Unsanity's WindowShade X and Labels X haxies which I began using with Tiger and also installed last December on a Snow Leopard machine. I have not had any trouble with them on either system. Checking the Internet, I can't find any info about whether or not they work in Lion, which I have not yet upgraded to. Anyone else dealing with or interested in this issue?

Posted on Jul 24, 2011 11:02 AM

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223 replies

Jul 27, 2011 1:27 AM in response to Keith Richardson

I've actually just completed a full investigation into this.


Application Enhancer has a built in compatibility checker for new OSes. It's sensing there's a new operating system major point update and is hence turning off all Ape modules automatically.


Ape Modules have a entries in their info.plist that denotes what OS they can load on. I can see a "APELeopardCertified" and a "APESnowLeopardCertified" but no "APELionCertified". Adding it seems to do nothing. It appears APE has to be updated so the modules can load - aped doesn't seem to be running at launch.


And no despite what other may tell you it is not because they need PPC code - that's a misunderstanding caused by the requirements on the website not being well written - Rosetta is only required to run it on PPC macs. Application Enhancer and hence any of Unsanity's taxies has been Intel ready since APE 2.0.


In fact since Ape 2.6 no module is even allowed to load unless it has a PPC code , Intel code and 64 bit intel code in it's module. Unsanity need to do a round of updating here.

Jul 27, 2011 2:44 AM in response to Keith Richardson

I love Windowshade aswell but on Lion for the time being, "Don't even try to to install any 'haxies' that change things".

Best practice is to wait and see who has the problems and what work arounds and updates have proved stable.


There is an update to Lion due to fix some of the major faults that have appeared. You risk a bad update which will make you cry. I know because it happened once to me, and I learnt my lesson and never did it again.

Cheers

Aug 2, 2011 8:45 AM in response to herrbutzie

Can I politely ask you if you read a single word of what I typed above ?


Unsanity Haxies not working on Lion has _nothing_ to do with Rosetta.


In fact since APE 2.6 they are required to have code in them for PPC , Intel and Intel 64 bit. You can confirm this yourself by pulling apart any application enchancer .ape file and running the file under Contents-> MacOS past a file command :


$ file /Library/Application\ Enhancers/WindowShade\ X.ape/Contents/MacOS/WindowShade\ X


/Library/Application Enhancers/WindowShade X.ape/Contents/MacOS/WindowShade X: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures

/Library/Application Enhancers/WindowShade X.ape/Contents/MacOS/WindowShade X (for architecture i386): Mach-O bundle i386

/Library/Application Enhancers/WindowShade X.ape/Contents/MacOS/WindowShade X (for architecture ppc): Mach-O bundle ppc

/Library/Application Enhancers/WindowShade X.ape/Contents/MacOS/WindowShade X (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit bundle x86_64


See the i386 & x86_64 architectures ? That's for Intel Macs and Intel Mac 64 bit respectively.


Like I explained above.


APE checks at boot that it's certified to work with that OS. If it's not and it detects a newer Operating system it disabes itself. It has nothing to do with Rosetta. Absolutely nothing.


The only thing Unsanity need to do is put in APE that the maximum O/S version is 10.8 , put in a info.plist value for Lion then put out new haxies with this new APELionCertified. It has nothing to do with not having Rosetta at all.

Aug 3, 2011 11:05 PM in response to Bluspacecow

Great information - but is Unsanity still going to support HAXIES? Their web site seems outdated, and many Haxies are only just Snow Leopard ready. I use Labels-X to color-code the icons (not the icon label) and that works great in Snow Leopard (but not 10.5 Leopard…) - and I'm waiting on updates to LION before moving to LION - but don't see that Unsanity is even talking about LION now - it seems their last updates are months old…


Any and all comments appreciated!


Best regards,


Steve Schulte

Thursday 4 August 2011

Aug 9, 2011 6:45 PM in response to Keith Richardson

This happens over and over again w unsanity.

Can anyone give me a rational or technical reason why Apple stopped this feature/user interface.


I find it incredibly useful, functional, et. al. And having learned since Snow Leopard, Lion will have to wait

while unsanity gets their act together. ***** really, but to me it's Apple's fault as much as unsanity's.


WS

Aug 11, 2011 9:42 AM in response to Working Stiff

I totally agree with the above statement. There's no technical reason Apple couldn't support a WindowShade feature in OS X. They just have refused to listen to users who want it back from OS 9. Thus leaving it to Unsanity alone to pull off the hacks. It's very frustrating situation. I waited a month or more to upgrade to SL, and then lived uneasily with SL without WS for months after that. Still one of the major reasons I'm holding off on Lion.


I hope what BlueSpaceCow says is true. If that's the case, wouldn't it amount to something that could be easily hacked by modifying the info.plist file? Then we could see whether WS works "as-is" or not on Lion.


Even better, Apple would recognize this is a feature a small but loyal group of very, very, long-time Apple users really, really want, and at least provide it as an option.

Aug 11, 2011 10:59 AM in response to Loren Ryter

It's definately possibly considering a competing utility company has already put out something that does something like Windowshade does.


The only issue is it's not perfect and doesn't have the same feature set WS does. And it's also more expensive to register then WS. It's not as highly polished as Window Shade is.


The issue isn't being able to hack a value into the .plist. The ape framework has to be aware of what that value means. Currently I haven't found any place to change this.


It's like this. You easily add whatever value you like into any plist but if the program reading that doesn't understand what that value is used for and further more understands what code to run because of it the programs just going to ignore that value. It will just look at you funny as it's not something it understands or has been coded for.


There's a APELeopardCertified as well as a APETigerCertified. The ape process understands these 2 values in it's code so will load a haxie with those in it. It doesn't have any code for APELionCertified - that was just my exstrapolation at the time.


But in theory. _IF_ You could make the ape process understand it should load for Lion you should _in theory_ make it load the framework on Lion and _in theory_ load the haxies. Only problem is - I don't have access to their source code. And I wouldn't know the slighest idea on how to modify it to make it load.

Aug 11, 2011 11:54 AM in response to Bluspacecow

I have also sent several inquiries to Unsanity and no response. During the meantime, I am doing what I have done a couple times before --- using FinderPop --- until Unsanity gets around to updating FruitMenu. It works in a similar manner, is a preference panel and does not require haxies or APE. The price is right; it is donation ware.


At the moment, it is in its final Lion beta and is totally stable on my system. It is at http://www.finderpop.com/

Is anyone able to use Unsanity haxies with Lion?

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