I’ve made a little video to show you what I’ve changed in iMap 2.6.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

By the way … don’t think I am actually talking to myself while going through folders.

I am wanting to release the 2.6 version of iMap by tomorrow. If you are still interested in helping out with the help book, then check this post out.

Lastly, if you are interested in localizing iMap into languages than the ones listed below, go ahead and drop me a mail. Those who are interested in helping out in both help books and/or localizing will get the iMap 3.0 for free. If you have purchased iMap before, you can get the upgrade for free. Yes, iMap 3.0 will be a paid upgrade.

So over the last week, I have enhanced this help book to be way better. Now it not only includes solutions to errors – but whole articles and a documentation as well. The amounts that I have written are just vast compared to the previous one.
Some say lot’s of documentation is a sign of a not-working or hard-to-understand application. Though, I don’t think iMap is hard-to-use at all; on the contrary it has just two buttons and several textfields.

I don’t know how this new help book will help or just confuse, so I need some help myself. I am looking for some beta-testers who simply look at the book and read through it. Besides receiving spelling and grammatical errors, I hope to get some tips on the actual content and structure as well.
If you are interested, then let me know by sending me a mail from the contact page.

The new help book will go into iMap version 2.6. Here are basic other improvements for the 2.6 version that we are implementing:

• Buttons and textfields get enabled/disabled during runtime. For example, if a person wants to create a sitemap, the fields will only become editable if he checkmarks the option below. Same goes for hitting the “Create” button. That “Create” button will only be enabled if the user has chosen his site successfully already.
• MobileMe and .Mac switch will be more apparent. Fields and labels will change from “.Mac” to “MobileMe.”
• Improved label descriptions
• Slightly less cluttered main window interface

If you have any other ideas that can give last minute improvements to iMap, then let me know.

By my plans, iMap 2.6 is the last release of any 2.X iMap. This will also mark the end of Tiger compatible iMaps.
iMap 3.0 will be Leopard only. The 3.0 version will see a major change in the interface and licensing. The interface will be tabbed like Coda (or Safaris preference panes) and much more organized and easier to use. The licensing will also change. Currently, iMap is being sold as a download with no sorts of license numbers or registration framework. I originally favored that method – but by now, we have started to convert the new iMap to be license based as it is much more secure and easier to handle.
One last major change, is the name of iMap 3.0. iMap gets confused with IMAP servers way to often; bad for us. Thus, we are thinking of a new name. If you have any ideas for new names, let us know about that as well. Thanks!

Believe it or not, iMap 2.6 and 3.0 will kick ass!

So integrating and using this framework is just a charm. I really suggest that you use it! Although the framework works totally fine it really lacks a good documentation for those who are new to this whole developing community (or are coding in a different language other than Cocoa). So I thought I’d make a tutorial that should make life easier. I fiddled ages with the original documentation until I got it to work – which wasn’t that exciting.

BTW – The Foolworkshop (by K. Lawson) has also done a tutorial which includes larger images. Take a look at that as well.

So, let’s start this thing:

1. First you have to download the Sparkle framework.
   Note: The framework is currently at like version 1.1, apparently, this version does not work with AppleScript applications. I have modified the 1.1 version with the 2.0 beta stuff to create a working version for AppleScript applications. You can download it here (It works for Cocoa applications as well and I actually recommend using it because of stability reasons on Leopard).
   Then, open your project.

   

2. Now drag and drop the downloaded “Sparkle.framework” folder into the “Linked Frameworks” in Xcode:

   

3. Now toggle the “Targets” icon in the sidebar of Xcode and right-click to add a new “Copy Build Phase:”

   

   When the info window pops up, set the copy phase to “Frameworks:”

   

4. Then drag the “Sparkle.framework” from the “Linked Frameworks” folder in Xcode, to the newly create build phase:

   

5. Now open up the standard Info.plist file and add the SUFeedURL which is defined in the documentation of Sparkle. This is the part which tells Sparkle which RSS file on the internet it should check in order to receive the updates. It should look something like this:

   

6. Now you have all the steps you need in Xcode. Thus, we will move on to applying the “Check for updates” menu item to your nib file and binding it to the framework.
   So open up the nib file in Interface Builder and from the “File” menu, choose to read the class files of your “Sparkle.framework.” Simply navigate to the framework which is inside your Xcode project and select all the header files:

   

7. Getting a little bit more messy, we are going to have to add a NSObject. So, from the Library in Xcode drag the NSObject (the blue box) to your nib file and name it “Updater” from within the attributes tab in the inspector.

   

8. Then select the NSObject and go to the identity tab in the inspector and add a new “id” action named “checkForUpdates:” Don’t forget the colon at the end! Of course and most importantly, set the class to “SUUpdater!”

   

9. Short and easy: add a new menu item and right-click drag to connect it to the Updater NSObject:

   

   

   

10. Now you are close to being finished. You only need to create an appcast (you can find a sample in the Sparkle documentation) and finish your app. Then your ready to go to release updates.
    Optionally, you can also create a preference option that would allow the user to configure if they want to check for updates on start up or not. If you want to add it, what you do is you create your preferences window with a checkbox. Then bind it to the user defaults key of “SUCheckAtStartup.” Please not that this bind is only for versions before Sparkle 1.5. The newest release has a different binding value, which is “SUEnableAutomaticChecks.” Choose according to your Sparkle version.

    

Finished! Check if it works. If you wish you can download the sample AppleScript Xcode project that I have used if you wish.

If you have enjoyed this tutorial, then you might consider making a small donation. Feel free to do so by clicking here.