Our staff restarted work on Goldenseal Pro for Windows last week, and it’s moving right along.
There are two cross-platform libraries that use one code base to run for both Mac and Windows: QT and wxWidgets. We checked them 5 years ago, but eventually decided to write native code instead. Last week we revisited them, since they might be a way to get a Mac version out more quickly. Both have improved, but they still have a steep learning curve. Their end results still don’t look as good as native. So I think we are better off continuing with MFC for Windows, and then returning to using Cocoa for Mac after that is finished.
One of our staff members posted to Apple’s Cocoa Developer mailing list last week, explaining the problems we have had. Several other companies responded with their own complaints. We are not alone.
Apple has earned many, many billions from the iPhone. They probably feel a bit of hubris because of that. But maybe they will respond to developer feedback, and make Cocoa easier to use before we return to programming the Mac version. It would sure be nice for the work to go faster.
At the moment, the estimated timetable for Goldenseal and Goldenseal Pro looks like this:
2019:
Macintosh– Goldenseal runs on Mojave (OS 10.15) and anything earlier. It does NOT run on Catalina (OS 10.16)
Windows– Goldenseal runs on any current or recent Windows OS (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10). Some annoying screen problems caused by QuickTime dependence.
2020:
Macintosh- no change.
Windows– Goldenseal Pro released for current 64-bit Windows 10. Maybe also for some recent Windows versions. Easy platform swaps for Mac users.
2021 ?????:
Macintosh- Goldenseal Pro released.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
