Problems with apps from the Mac App Store?

On Filed under 3Doku, Mac Software, News, Quick Sprites, Tablatures, Tablatures, TabView, TabView, Wiz Solitaire, Wiz Solitaire (for Mac)

Recently, Apple sent all developers this email, which contains helpful information in case you suddenly experience problems with applications obtained from the Mac App Store:

As a reminder, the Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority Intermediate Certificate expires on February 14, 2016 […].

[…], we want to make you aware of potential issues your users may encounter due to the renewed certificate. Users running OS X El Capitan (v10.11 or v10.11.1) may receive a notification that your Mac app is damaged if it utilizes receipt validation to request a new receipt from Apple. They can resolve this issue by restarting their Mac or updating to OS X El Capitan (v10.11.2). Mac App Store customers running OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6.8) will be unable to purchase new apps or run previously purchased apps that utilize receipt validation until they install the Mac App Store Update for OS X Snow Leopard, which will soon be available via OS X Software Update.

I bought it on the Mac App Store, where’s my license key?

On Filed under Tablatures, Tablatures

If you bought the application on the Mac App Store and it complains about being a demo version, it means that the one you’re using comes from this website or elsewhere instead. The ones from the Mac App Store don’t require any license key.

You might want to look in the Applications folder to see if you spot a second TabView/Tablatures (perphaps in a folder whose name is the one of the app).

Otherwise, to make sure that the App Store doesn’t get confused, you can simply delete the application, empty the trash and download it again. You won’t need to buy it again, of course: you’ll find it in your purchased apps section of the App Store.

TabView and Tablatures on Mountain Lion

On Filed under Tablatures, Tablatures, TabView, TabView 2 Comments

People are reporting that MIDI playback doesn’t work since they updated their system to Mountain Lion.

It appears to be due to a strange conflict between HIDRemote (the code used to support the Apple Remote) and Mountain Lion’s sandbox (which restricts what applications can do). Actually, it seems that sandboxed apps have no way to support the Apple Remote right now.

A new version of both apps has already been submitted to the Mac App Store, quite some time ago. They are currently being reviewed by Apple and will be available as soon as they publish them.

UPDATE: this appears to be worse than that, it looks like it’s an actual bug in Mountain Lion that affects sandboxed applications (ie. everything you might find on the Mac App Store). I’m getting in touch with Apple’s engineers to see if there’s a way to workaround it, or if the only thing to do is to wait for a new 10.8.x release (10.8.1 doesn’t fix it).

Beaming (grouping) notes

On Filed under Tablatures, Tablatures 4 Comments

Let’s see how it’s possible to change the rules which define the way notes are beamed together in Tablatures.

Tablatures allows to change the beaming pattern on a per-bar basis. The pattern is defined in the Time Signature page of the barline properties sheet:

Beaming Pattern
Editing the beaming pattern (click to enlarge)

There you would enter the number of 8th notes to group together. In the example, you can see that entering 2 will result in groups of four 16th notes (which are equivalent to two 8th notes).

When you add a new barline, Tablatures will automatically copy the settings of the previous bar.

Why doesn’t playback emit any sound?

On Filed under Tablatures, Tablatures

The typical requests can be summarised as “I hear the metronome clicking and then silence”.

The usual culprit is the lack of a Guitar In symbol at the start of the document. Tablatures uses Guitar In’s to determine which instrument (as defined using the Score -> Edit Guitars menu) should be used for playback.

When you create a new document, Tablatures already puts a Gtr I symbol at the beginning.
If you delete it or need to change instrument in the middle of a song, adding a guitar in symbol is very easy to do:

  1. Tick the Guitar In checkbox in the Musical Symbols Panel:
  2. Then choose the guitar(s) which should be start playing from the current caret position:

Finally, you might want to make sure that all the guitars you have used are actually defined among the instruments used by the score. So let’s use the Score -> Edit Guitars menu and edit them as needed:

Here you can choose the MIDI instrument to use, apply some effects and change its tuning.