MyAnimeList

MAL Client OS X 1.5 Beta 2 Released

May 31, 2010 by chikorita157

Second Beta release is now released (Version 1.5 Beta 2 or 1.5b2)

Changelog:
– Fixed Inline Updating for a series that have an unknown total episode count
– Removed unnecessary message box when manga status is updated
– Melative support added for Manga updating
– Interface Tweaks.

To install this update, go to Preferences > Misc and check “Check for Prerelease Builds” and then check for updates. This will show you the 1.5 Beta.

If you don’t have the software, you can download the beta here:
http://malclientosx.googlecode.com/files/malclientosx-1.5b2.zip

Melative Library and MAL Client OS X Future

April 14, 2010 by chikorita157

Melative Library is close to being feature complete and a Release Candidate build should be out, depending on if there is going to be any more API changes (not likely). In the next versions of Melative Library for Windows and Mac OS X, they will include native scrobblers which I have been working on a while and will be included in the Disk Image/Installer by default. All you need to do is enter your login information and start using them. Also, with Ryan returning in April 21, Melative development should accelerate…

Now MAL Client OS X. Just a few days ago, Manga support have been added to the Unofficial MAL API as listed below:

13 April 2010
————-
* Added the following manga API methods – thanks to Guillaume Cassonnet (gcassonnet):
  * /mangalist – Read a manga list.
  * /mangalist/manga/manga_id – Add, update or delete a manga in a user’s manga list.
  * /manga/search – Search for manga.

Since MAL Client OS X doesn’t have Manga support built in yet since this change was committed yesterday, I will have to spend some time adding that support, but it shouldn’t be hard. I have to figure out how to do a switch between Anime/Manga and how to use the existing windows to achieve this. This may take two weeks to implement, but once it is added, a beta release will be released. To upgrade to this beta release once it is release, check the “Check for Prerelease Builds” in Misc under Preferences. This will make Sparkle Updater use the experimental Appcast instead of the stable branch. Once everything is stable, I will release it as a final build. The build that have Manga support will be marked version 1.5.

However, this won’t impact the Cocoa rewrite of MAL Client OS X since I haven’t done much work on it since I still need to learn Objective C and Cocoa.

Never say never…

March 13, 2010 by chikorita157

After several hours of frustration on trying to make it work.

I got it to work… Well, I just used ASIHTTPRequest, an open sourced class to make http networking a bit more easier to use. Still, a lot needs to be done before it catches up to 1.0 version of MAL Client OS X.

I’m beginning to like Objective-C and Cocoa… Yes it’s a bit harder, but I can do alot more than what I could in RealBasic.

Anyways, if you want to track my progress, the git repo for the MAL Client OS X Rewrite can be seen at: http://github.com/chikorita157/MAL-Client-OS-X-Rewrite

The Future of MAL Client OS X

March 12, 2010 by chikorita157

As you heard, I have recently released MAL Client OS X 1.0.1 and even the final version just last month. I haven’t been doing much development on it since the whole program is rather functional and stable compared to iMAL, which makes MAL Client OS X a suitable replacement for iMAL, except the lack of Manga support and Scrobbling.

As I recalled on my blog, MAL Client OS X was written primarily in RealBasic. However, the project is becoming a bit more constrained and limitations arise. Sure, everything work and I tried my hardest to make it more Mac-like as I can, but in the end, a few things still aren’t what I wanted it to be. Another thing is that since MAL Client OS X is built from RealBasic, it is still using Carbon, which Apple is not seemingly want to support anymore. This is why I come to the decision that starting with 2.x, MAL Client OS X will be rewritten in Objective C and Cocoa.

Why would you do such a thing? Sure I have to learn the whole language (I have books on Objective C 2.0 and Cocoa), but in the long run, it will be worth it. With RealBasic, you are pretty much limited to what you are provided, but with Cocoa, you can call other frameworks to add functionality and MAL Client OS X can grow and become more like a Mac OS X application than it is currently. Also, Objective-C have Garbage Collection like RealBasic, so I don’t have to worry much about memory management, although this means that the 2.x branch will require Leopard and higher, although it will still support PowerPC Macs.

When you will expect 2.x preview builds to come out? After Spring Semester, but probably in June/July since I need to take some days to learn the Objective-C language and have some knowledge of it before diving in and start rewriting the whole program. In the mean time, if Manga support comes, it will be added to the 1.5 branch of MAL Client OS X. From this change, expect the interface to be the same, except that I may put the Search in a HUD panel than on the same window.