Well, nothing has changed with regard to development — I won’t be resuming work on the Mac version of SwordSearcher in the foreseeable future as all of the reasons I suspended work on that project still stand – but I received an email from a long-time SwordSearcher user who wanted to share his success at using SwordSearcher on his Mac with Crossover.  Here’s an excerpt:

“And I’m pleased to announce it WORKS! And it actually integrates so well, I wouldn’t even know I was using a mixed setup of Windows and Apple, they BOTH seem native mode in operation, and I use them at the same time.”

Complete details have been posted on the SwordSearcher Mac website.

Additional thought: do software compatibility layers like Crossover for Mac and WINE for Linux make native development irrelevant?

Well, certainly not irrelevant in every case.  But in my case, it certainly reduces the need to expend development energy targeting multiple platforms when Linux and Mac already have excellent “emulation” alternatives. (And yes, I know WINE is not an emulator!)  A single developer like myself, on a project as complex as SwordSearcher, is better off focusing on doing the best on Windows — where almost all the customers are — rather than trying to spend time writing multiple versions of the software, or worse, using cross-platform development tools that invariably result in a “lowest common denominator” feel for the application. And with WINE and Crossover Mac, a viable solution already exists that allows me to continue to focus my efforts on one platform.

“…But by the same token, I have to admit to being a bit shocked by how childish Apple is about Vista. Say what you will about Microsoft (heck, I do), but the company is at least deferential to its customers in public, about as far from smug as is humanly possible, and it very rarely takes pointed shots at the competition. From the opening PC guy video (“Widgets, gadgets… completely different. They are their own thing. Just like Aqua. I mean, uh, Aero.”) to the last moments of the keynote, Jobs and company unleashed a never-ending, tireless diatribe against Microsoft and its upcoming Windows Vista release.”

Steve Jobs, as Apple’s “Chief Evangelist,” is really quite the snob when it comes to Mac OS. In his view, only Apple develops innovative things, and Apple does it right. And the rest of the world simply needs to get with it. (And even when Apple gets its ideas from someone else, “Apple invented it!”)

On the other hand, my own experience is that Microsoft “Evangelists” tend to be very conciliatory with regards to Windows. They know it’s not perfect and they are more than willing to engage developers and try to be better. They’re not concerned with who came up with what first, though I guess if you have over 90% of the market, it’s a moot point.

Neither company is perfect, but it’s just interesting to me that Apple is doing exactly the opposite of what their position in the Desktop OS industry actually affords them.

And speaking of their position, Thurrott writes:

“…Apple’s explosion growth in 2005 did nothing to help the Mac’s market share, which is still mired at 2 percent worldwide. In other words, Steve’s claim is baloney: Apple hasn’t really gained any appreciable market share at all–indeed, Apple has lost market share every year since Jobs took the CEO helm…”

First, let me say that Mac OS X is great from a user standpoint. It looks good, is stable, and for the most part is easy to use (though whether or not it is any “easier” than Windows is debatable).

However, there are reasons why the Mac has only 2% of the computer market. And spending lots of money and time on Mac software development has made many of these reasons even more clear to me.

Bottom line: What takes me minutes to code in Windows can sometimes take hours on a Mac. A big company with lots of cash can afford to fund development on Mac and Windows concurrently. And if I were designing a trivial application, I could too. But SwordSearcher is not by any means trivial, and I’ve finally accepted the reality that I need to focus on one platform. So Windows it is.

I am quite sorry to have to make this report as I know many people have been awaiting SwordSearcher Mac. And I really, really wanted to make it. But with limited time and money (that’s me), one needs to set priorities, and as long as Apple can’t get even 5% of the computer market and until they come up with better development tools, my priority will be Windows software.

I want to send a heart-felt thank-you to the many people who have emailed me on this issue, especially the Mac users who have extended me their encouragement. I truly am sorry to not be able to complete this project. But hey, sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses and move on!

Here’s an interesting short blog about the problems Apple faces in capturing more of the market: What will it take for the Mac to grab 5 percent of the PC industry?

Well, if the news of Apple switching to Intel processors, after years of claiming Intel’s processors were inferior to PowerPC chips (which was never true), now Apple is adding more buttons to their mouse. Either Apple has decided that their customers’ IQs are rising and realized that if they can operate a car with more than one pedal they can click more than one button, or they finally got with the 21st century and made a decent mouse.

Although, after looking at pictures of the new mouse, one wonders if they simply don’t understand how a mouse is used. Oh well, looks like I’ll be keeping my trusty IntelliMouse for a few more years, even on the Mac Mini.

I’ve blogged here previously about being impressed with Apple’s development tools for Mac OS. I have been working with XCode and Interface Builder, using the Cocoa Framework. After several months of development, here is what I have learned.

The initial shine of XCode and IB has worn off. In the beginning of my development work on SwordSearcher Mac, I was primarily writing my “database” code for the Bible, commentary, dictionary, and book storage, search, and access functions of the program. This basically meant that I was enjoying coding stuff in Objective-C –- a language I find that I really enjoy working with. But it also meant I was not doing much of the user-interface design and didn’t have to work with Interface Builder much.

Well, I finished most of that “database-ish” work and moved on to creating a user interface for Bible display and other stuff. What happened? Well, it’s kind of like seeing a really pretty woman, then all of the sudden she pulls out a cigarette and lights up. Not attractive.

Apple’s development environment is practically in the dark ages when it comes to “rapid application development.” Maybe I am just spoiled with Delphi, but really, when I put a button on a form, I want a property list and want to be able to start writing an event handler for that button with a double-click. With XCode and IB, you simply can’t do that. The amount of hand-holding you have to give the IDE is absurd in comparison to Delphi. And it’s not just Delphi – I’ve used Visual Studio 2003 a bit, and I get nice, easy-to-work-with property lists with my UI components there, too.

The reality is that even though I have already put several months of real, nose-to-grindstone development into SwordSearcher Mac, bumping up against this fundamental weakness of the development environment means that continuing down this path will make me a frustrated, inefficient developer. It’s not that it’s hard –- it isn’t. But when I am developing SwordSearcher on Windows, I can be fast and efficient and write good code. I don’t have to waste time manually connecting methods to events, write IBOutlet and IBInlet, etc, when I should be able to just code the function! Switching between Windows and Mac development has become too much of a “shock” and I just don’t want to deal with it.

What does this mean? Am I abandoning SwordSearcher Mac? NO!

There is a nice little company called REAL Software that makes a cross-platform, visual development environment called REALBasic. With REALBasic, I can drop a button on a form, and, (imagine this), look at a list of all of the properties of that button, and click an item to write the code to handle events! Sound familiar? Delphi has been doing that for Windows developers for over a decade.

So I am going to give REALBasic a try. My preliminary plans are to design a new version of Daily Bible and Prayer in REALBasic – this way I can learn the language and the environment with a smaller project. I have lots of things I want to do with DBAP – and with REALBasic I will be able to write it for Windows, Mac, and Linux all at the same time. No more duplicated effort.

Then, once that is done, I will come back to SwordSearcher Mac. I am really committed to doing a Mac version of SwordSearcher –- but I want to enjoy the work. Using a more Delphi-like IDE will let me enjoy coding without feeling like I have one hand tied behind my back by an antiquated development paradigm.

What this means for SwordSearcher Mac is a delay. Not a delay of Longhorn proportions, but a delay nonetheless. Now I am looking at late 2006 for SwordSearcher Mac. And of course, development of the Windows version of SwordSearcher will continue in Delphi for the foreseeable future.

So, off to work I go! I will keep this blog updated as time progresses.

Also, I’ve put Nave’s Topical Bible online. This one is different from the others already on the internet: it has verse references quoted inline. (Of course, if you have SwordSearcher, you don’t need a website!)

I’ve really been enjoying writing code for the upcoming Mac OS X version of SwordSearcher. I’ve passed a few self-placed milestones in the code and I am progressing about as quickly as I had hoped to. I have people lined up for beta testing. My understanding of Cocoa (the framework for programming Mac OS X) has hit critical mass and I am able to think out problems in my head without having to refer to reference books.

Imagine my surprise when I read that Apple is now planning another architecture shift.

I really, really don’t understand this move. According to some recent news stories, Apple has actually managed to increase its desktop computer market share recently. They are on the right track. Now it looks like they are set to undo the progress and success of OS X.

The problem with a fundamental architecture shift, like switching from Power PC chips to Intel chips for the central processing unit, is that it will require all existing programs to be re-compiled for the new chips. As someone who has just invested a lot of development time on the current archetecture, I am not pleased.

I can only hope that XCode will allow me to easily cross-compile for both archetectures. In theory, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem — the underlying compiler is already cross-platform. As long as Apple takes care to make the frameworks the same on the new system, we (developers like me) just might be spared the agony of platform migration. But all programming is as much an archane art as it is science, and these kind of changes inevitably cause problems for developers, and by extension, end users.

For now, I will continue my development work as I have. But I do have to admit to being a little bit disheartend at Apple’s move. I can tell you one thing for sure: if I had read this news late last year instead of this month, I would have had a much harder time convincing myself to embark on this new Mac adventure of mine. No doubt other developers will feel the same way, which is not good for Apple.

Anyway, I wanted to write a small update.

On Windows, I use a program called Wnbrowse to view the contents of any file on my hard drive in hex or ascii. This is quite useful, as I design my own data file formats for SwordSearcher and like to look at the raw data in a file I have generated while doing so.

I had to find an equivalent for OS X because Finder (the Mac equivalent of Windows Explorer) doesn’t include a “hex viewer.” After a little searching, I found Separator. It’s not quite as good as Wnbrowse for my use (I like how Wnbrowse lets me show any file as if it were a text file), but is good enough. Until I found this program I was doing things a really awkward way: I would use my Windows machine to browse my Mac hard drive and use Wnbrowse to view the files I wanted to see over the network. Obviously, using a native Mac program is a better solution.