Mon 22 Oct 2007
As of last Friday, release 4 of Moneydance 2007 is available to anyone who clicks the “check for updates” link on Moneydance’s main screen. This update includes a few very important bug fixes as well as support for Apple’s upcoming release of Mac OS X, Leopard.
We here at Moneydance HQ are eagerly awaiting getting our hands on the new Mac OS release and can guarantee that any unforeseen problems with upgrading to Leopard will be swiftly remedied.
I’ve also heard good things about Moneydance running on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon.”
October 25th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Where does MoneyDance tell me which version it is? My copy has a build number (583) but in the About MoneyDance menu or in the Finder’s Get Info window, there is no v#. How do build numbers relate to version numbers? How do I check to see if I have, or need to download the 2007r4 version?
October 26th, 2007 at 1:51 am
The 583 number is a more specific version than the 2007r3/r4 label, but it was an oversight that the human-friendly version is not displayed in the about window. If you go to http://moneydance.com/other you can see the current version (2007r4) and build (583) which indicates that you have the latest release.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:01 am
I’ve been seeing a lot of people complaining about a lack of Java support in OS X Leopard. What, if anything, does this mean for the future of MD on OS X?
October 31st, 2007 at 10:08 am
Thought I might add a little more about why I’m concerned. One writer says: “Not only did Leopard not ship with Java 6, but Apple, in typical fashion, apparently thinks it has no obligation to its customers to inform them about why the plans changed, and when (or even if at this point?) Apple will ever have a working copy of Java 6. Apparently, Apple has even been just deleting threads in their forums where people are complaining that Java 6 doesn’t exist, rather than actually respond to them and let them know if there is any kind of time line for Java 6. But wait… It gets worse… Java 5 on Leopard is so broken, that some of it is flat out unusable. For example, I recently tested an application I wrote that uses Java2D for image zooming. On Linux, Windows, and on Java 5 in OS X Tiger, it worked fabulously. The scaling and zooming are very smooth. On Leopard, it is not even usable. It’s slow, and manages to rescale during zooming at about 1 frame every 5 seconds. Working with IntelliJ IDEA in Leopard has been no picnic either. On a fairly regular basis, it will seem to just hang for 10 seconds or more and then start working again. I suspect the garbage collector is having problems, but once again, these are problems that did not exist in Java 5 with the previous version of OS X.” (http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t102936.html)
October 31st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I also read the article you are discussing and I couldn’t disagree more with the sentiment it contained.
I am quite happy with Apple’s support of Java and still consider Mac OS X to be the best platform on which to develop and use java software. The article makes two primary points, both of which I’ll respond to here and, if time allows, on my personal blog (seanreilly.com).
The first point the article makes is that in Java 5 for Leopard both informational and error message windows use the same icon. The article claims that this is a bug in Java 5 for Mac OS X. I actually think that it is a feature and here is why: The purpose of those dialogs is to present the user with a dialog that looks like a native “alert” window. Native alert windows on Mac OS X show the application’s icon so that the user can easily connect the window with the application that spawned it. I would rather have this behavior (which wasn’t possible before) than the cheesy icons that were in their place before. It might be a matter of preference, but I’d hardly consider it a bug. Especially as I believe this can be overridden.
The second point is that the author complains that Apple isn’t communicating their release plans for Java 6. Apple has always been known, by developers, for not commenting on their plans until they were ready to release. This is extremely well known on the java-dev mailing list, yet people continue to clog it up asking the same questions repeatedly. It gets to the point where the java-dev becomes useless because of all the repeated messages and bellyaching about Apple not wanting to commit to a release date of certain versions of java. I really don’t blame them (Apple) for not committing to releasing Java 6 in synch with Leopard. I’ve met several of the people on Apple’s Java team and I know that they are working hard and will release Java 6 for Mac when it is ready - not sooner. Those guys (the people I met were guys, I expect there are also women on the team) are doing amazing work connecting Java up to the Mac GUI framework and making java apps look like they could be native. I’d like to give them the time they need to finish the job and make a proper release. If they were to push Java 6 out before it was ready then *that* would be the real disaster. Java is nearly an operating system all on its own. I think it is too much to ask that Apple either predict exactly when v6 will be released or to synchronize that with the major release of OS X.
Finally, if a developer requires Java 6 (or even Java 5) to run a desktop application then they are writing off a large number of potential customers. Personally, I still ensure that all Moneydance code will work on Java 1.3 which means it will work on just about every version of Mac OS X ever released. It’s not that hard.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
This is really great info. If/when you put this info up as a blog post, I’ll plan to link to it. Thanks.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:31 pm
There’s an unfixed bug still in Leopard: when editing a transaction the columns are cropping in slightly from the left and this means the first character in a field is cut into - also, the cursor is hidden. Cosmetic, but very annoying!
November 1st, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Tim: yeah we’re more than aware of this bug, and having to glare a it everyday is annoying everyone here as well. Rest assured we’re on a fix and we’ll have it out as soon as we can.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
After installing Leopard, I installed an older copy of MD, then did an update. It downloaded it but then said I had to manually copy the moneydance.jar into the proper location. Previously, MD would do this for me and exit. Is this a problem with Leopard and the “internet download safety” metadata they’ve added or is it something else?
November 24th, 2007 at 3:48 am
The editing bug is fixed. But under OS 10.5 and 10.5.1, entry actions (the “Record” button in “Download transactions”; the “Enter” button when editing a register line) that used to take less than a second now take about six seconds.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Larry: I’ve tested this version on OS X 10.5 and 10.5.1 and am not able to reproduce the problem. The only explanation I can think of is that the “beep” that Moneydance produces when recording a transaction has something to do with it. Can you turn off that beep in the preferences window and let us know if you have the same problem?
November 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I’ve been using MD build #531 for a while now under Linux Fedora Core 3. I checked the update button a few days ago, and discoved an update was available. However, when I selected “update now”, the “update” I got was build 514–a considerable step back!!
After recovering from the update, and since my latest purchase was in June, 04, I downloaded the latest build (apparently 583) and installed it. The default install was to /opt/moneydance rather than my current install to /usr/local/moneydance.
Finally, and here’s the questionable part, I copied the new .jar files to the old directory, /usr/local/moneydance. That seems to work using the old (small m) moneydance startup script, but when I try using the new (capital M) Moneydance script, it exits with the error, “Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/install4j/runtime/Launcher”. My Java version is 1.5.0_03.
Since the old script seem to work, I’m using it with my old desktop application links and the old script for the present. Is there a “gotcha” lurking in my future with this arrangement? Any clue what went wrong with the original update?
December 5th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Hi Larry,
The “small m” and “capital M” moneydance scripts/launchers are not compatible with each other and should not go in the same directory. I think the “update” to 514 was probably because the updater couldn’t tell the difference between the two installer/launcher systems. At this point I would recommend using the (small m) moneydance script with the new jar files. However, one gotcha with that approach is that the self-installed version of Moneydance (the capital M one) should prevent you run from running two copies of Moneydance at once.