FastScripts 2.7.3 is now available for download from the FastScripts home page and has been submitted to the Mac App Store.

FastScripts 2.7, which I released earlier this month, was a fairly minor update in terms of functional changes, but a dramatic change in terms of the version of tools used to build it, and the system requirements of the app itself. FastScripts 2.6.13 and earlier were built with an older version of Xcode, on an older Mac, and supported OS releases as old as Mac OS X 10.6. As part of a solution to get FastScripts working as expected on macOS Mojave betas, I finally updated it to require macOS 10.12 or greater, and switched to newer tools.

The rapid-fire releases of FastScripts 2.7.1 and 2.7.2, were the result of unexpected bugs resulting from that shift, and my prematurely thinking I had ironed out all the issues before releasing the follow-on updates. In the lead-up to today’s release of 2.7.3, I spent a longer period of time examining the remaining issues that have surfaced, and I hope that things will be quieter in terms of bug-fix updates moving forward.

This update includes another subtle fix for “path to” handling, and a fix for a crash when running JavaScript for Automation scripts:

• Remove FastScripts’s custom “path to” handler as it appears the system handler behaves as we expect now
• Add an Apple Events usage explanation string to accompany the system prompt for approving Apple Events
• Fix a crash that occur when running JavaScript for Automation scripts

An important note for users who use FastScripts to perform GUI scripting: After updating from FastScripts 2.6.13 to 2.7 or later, you may experience trouble running scripts that rely upon the Accessibility framework. To work around this problem, go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility, and uncheck any existing copies of FastScripts listed. Then restart your Mac before adding back FastScripts 2.7.3. This should restore functionality as it was with 2.6.13.

If you enjoy FastScripts, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, or spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter! Thanks for your support. Questions or concerns? Get in touch at [email protected]. Thank you.

MarsEdit 4.1.3 is now available for download from the MarsEdit home page and has been submitted to the Mac App Store.

This update fixes several bugs to improve the overall usability of the app:

• More improvements to the reliability of the Safari extension
• When a dragged image contains both higher resolution and lower resolution versions, MarsEdit now prefers higher resolution
• Improvements to the List formatting macros to make them transform several selected lines into a single list
• Fixed a bug to avoid recompressing images when no changes are made to them
• Fixed a bug that caused selected custom colors to be unset when clicking out of the color panel
• Fixed a hang that could occur if authentication fails while trying to upload an image to a blog
• Fixed a bug that caused blogs to re-expand their Posts/Pages subsections even if user had collapsed them
• Fixed a bug that caused some standard formatting macros to lose their functionality when a custom keyboard shortcut was set
• Setting the Featured Image is now supported via VoiceOver

If you enjoy MarsEdit, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, writing about the app on your own blog! Thanks for your support.

FastScripts 2.7.1 is now available for download from the MarsEdit home page and has been submitted to the Mac App Store.

This update fixes a bug that was introduced in FastScripts 2.7, affecting scripts that use the “path to me” AppleScript command to get a reference to the location of the running script.

FastScripts 2.7 is now available for download from the MarsEdit home page and on to the Mac App Store.

This update is particularly important for folks who have already installed Apple’s macOS 10.14 Mojave beta OS. A change in those betas causes FastScripts 2.6.13 and earlier to fail when running scripts that control any other app. If you’ve run into problems with FastScripts where the system reports that it “is not allowed” to control other apps, this update should address those problems.

Although FastScripts is not a very visual app, I also took the opportunity to update it to support Mojave’s forthcoming Dark Mode. The Preferences and alert panels will now adapt to Dark Mode styles, and the option to set a custom color for FastScripts’s menu icon is now adaptive to dark or light mode: you can set a custom color while in either mode and your choice will stick to that mode.

Summary of changes in FastScripts 2.7:

• Preliminary improvements for macOS Mojave 10.14
  • Fix an issue preventing running scripts that control other apps
  • Initial Dark Mode support for Mojave
• Fix the “Automatically Check for Updates” option
• Improved error reporting on script failures
• Removed old, unused PowerPC code from app
• Now requires macOS 10.12 or higher

I hope you enjoy the update!