Gatekeeper

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is out and it’s a great release. One of the most important new features of Mountain Lion is a security setting called Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper allows you to specify what kinds of applications are allowed to run on your Mac. The default setting allows applications from the Mac App Store and identified developers. What are identified developers?

 

Identified Developers

An identified developer is someone who has signed up for the Mac Developer Program. With this program membership, a developer can get their application digitally signed by Apple. This application will run without complaint in Mountain Lion.

 

AppTrap Today

So what happens when you try to install AppTrap in Mountain Lion today? This happens:

Note that this only happens when you try to install the preference pane. If you already had AppTrap installed before upgrading to Mountain Lion then you won’t see this dialog at all and AppTrap will run just fine. However those who are trying to install AppTrap in Mountain Lion will see the above dialog.

 

Workaround

In the meantime, you can avoid this issue by right-clicking on AppTrap and clicking Open. The resulting dialog box looks very similar to the standard Gatekeeper one above, but it also has an Open button. Click that and AppTrap should install itself into System Preferences and run normally.

End Goal

The only way for me to make this dialog disappear is to sign up as a Mac Developer Program member for a $100 annual fee. With that membership I can digitally sign AppTrap. But I simply don’t have the money. I’m already paying for the iOS Developer Program membership which costs another $100 per year and I’m a student whose last term and associated tuition is coming up in September.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t get the membership. I just won’t be able to get it until next year. In the meantime, the above workaround will have to do.

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Where Art Thou?

As evidenced by version 1.1.6 I am still working on
AppTrap. However there has been a noticeable lack of communication
on my part. For that, I am sorry. With this post and others soon to
follow I will try to rectify that.

If you want to follow my terrible ramblings on subjects that are not AppTrap, you can follow
me over at my tumblr blog.

AppTrap Google Group

Here’s a new Google Group for AppTrap!

I’m also working on version 1.2 of AppTrap. I’m not going to say when I’ll be able to share information with you guys, as I don’t want to get any hopes up. All I can say is that I’ve recently been putting more time into development. If you want, you can find what I’ve been working on in this branch of SVN repository. 🙂

AppTrap 1.1.2 and 1.2

I just released AppTrap 1.1.2. The biggest addition would have to be the French localization, contributed by Ronald Leroux (Thanks!). The background process is also 32/64 bit and now uses Garbage Collection.

For the next version, 1.2, I’d like to get in a better updating mechanism, where the background process checks for updates as opposed to the preference pane, and I’d also like to build an uninstaller for AppTrap. An AppleScript seems like the best way to go about achieving that last change, but I’ll have to learn that language.

I’d also like to mention that my classes will be starting on Thursday. That will restrict the amount of time that I’m able to devote to AppTrap. I won’t be able to work on the code as much as I’d like and I won’t necessarily be able to respond to emails in a timely manner. I’ll start a Google Group, that way everybody can post their suggestions and issues and help each other out.

AppTrap for Snow Leopard

AppTrap for Snow Leopard is pretty much done. I just need to get my hands on a copy of the OS to do some final testing. If there aren’t any crazy last-minute bugs, it should be released sometime between Friday and early next week, depending on when I get my copy. The current version should work fine on Snow Leopard, so you’ll be OK while I get the next release ready.

The main improvement for the Snow Leopard version of AppTrap, henceforth known as 1.1.1, is 64 bit support. Specifically, 64 bit prefpane support. The change isn’t for the imperceptibly small performance improvement, but for convenience’s sake. Snow Leopard’s System Preferences supports the loading of 32 bit preference panes, but, being a 64 bit application itself, it must restart in order to load them.

It’s akin to a 64 bit application requiring 64 bit plugins. If one of the plugins is 32 bit, then the application will run as a 32 bit process instead of as a 64 bit process. In the case of System Preferences, because it’s already running, it has to quit itself and then restart as a 32 bit process.

1.1.1 will also be dropping support for Tiger. That’s mostly because of the 64 bit-ness. Some of the code I’ve had to change to get AppTrap to compile as 64 bit also requires Leopard.

I’ve tried compiling the background process as 64 bit, and although it compiles, the warnings freak me out just a little. I’d like to learn a bit more before I start to delve into stuff that I’m not as familiar with.

Anyway, this post was longer than I expected it to be. I hope it gave you some clarification on what’s going on with AppTrap. Post in the comments if you have any questions or suggestions, or you can email me. 🙂