Our new accounting software for Macintosh now runs OK on a clean older machine, but it still has a ways to go before it can run on newer Macs. Those require code signing to ensure than the app is legit. It is not an easy process. Our staff is making progress, but there are many steps. It’s still uncertain how long they will take. Mac apps are way more complicated, these days.
Looking ahead, we can just add download links on this blog and on the current website for the first release. It’s not a good long-term solution, because the current TurtleSoft website is ancient. The basic design was written in 2003: two centuries ago in web years.
People complain that our site looks old. Even worse, every page needs lots of html, css and javascript code to make it work. The text that renders each page is cluttered, and hard to maintain. Just “view page source” on any of our non-blog pages to see what a mess lurks there.
We started SmartKnives.com in 2006, after buying up many Swiss Army knives from airport confiscations. It was a fun distraction from programming, and a chance to research e-commerce. The site (and eBay) also pay the bills now that Goldenseal is reaching end of life.
We copied the first SmartKnives website from TurtleSoft.com, but gave it a complete redesign in 2015, using current best practices. The site looks good on any size of desktop, tablet or phone. Navigation is better. And best of all, the source code for each page is short and tidy. It’s so much easier to revise or expand.
Our staff will base the new TurtleSoft site on SmartKnives. Basic pages shouldn’t be too hard to set up. The real challenge will be getting a few thousand support pages moved over. That will be a tedious project that we may be able to subcontract. With luck, we can do some clever text-replacing to handle interface differences between Goldenseal and the new software. They do the same stuff, but how they get there is often a bit different.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
