This release includes changes that some users asked for. It is working in macOS Catalina so far up to the latest beta. What's New in This Version: - New: Export project tasks to Apple Calendar as new events. - New: Document numbers now can have a custom prefix. - New: You can set a starting number for documents when you create a new activity. - New: Task progress can now be shown as a circular progress in the dock icon.

I installed macOS Catalina Beta 3 today and also the latest Xcode 11 beta. I launched Xcode 11, opened the FreelanceStation project, and then hit Cmd+B to build it. The build failed with an error indicating Xcode couldn’t open a particular storyboard. I first thought the new Xcode was the problem, but it also happened with version 10. So I opened the storyboard as source code and started cutting pieces of it until Xcode was able to open it in IB mode.

This new version includes the following changes: - New: Export transactions to QIF. - New: FreelanceStation can now be automatically launched at login. - New: Help menu includes the What’s New in FreelanceStation item to show this changelog. - Changed: All date field now expand to show a date picker. - Fixed: A bug in the UI. You can download a 30 day trial here.

The title might look like a blanket statement, but there is enough evidence that the world is moving towards independent workers providing their services from home or a near coffee shop. It has been happening for many years, but the advent of work related social networks such as Linkedin, UpWork, Freelancer and others have made it easier to enter the field. Neither companies nor individuals can ignore this trend, because the market could be disrupted at any time.

I have just released FreelanceStation 1.0 to the Mac App Store. I expected the review process to have me waiting for longer that it did, so kudos to Apple for improving it. I think it was roughly 18 hours since I submitted the app. I was also expecting to fail the review, for some odd reason, but I didn’t. I’ll take a couple days off and then resume developing the app.

Michael Tsai posted two links with different authors opinions on the subject. The HN conversation that ensues from the original link, by Seth Godin, is highly interesting for the myriad of points of view. Let me share mine. I grew learning Turbo C and Turbo Pascal (after some Z80 assembly). Later I developed an enthusiasm for Delphi, a truly complete environment for Enterprise Windows GUI development, which included the excellent VCL and some data-binding.

HTML5 and Javascript Everywhere There is an ongoing and absurd trend from some groups of web developers to build their desktop applications using web technologies, of which Electron is the main vector. I get the web is an easy target for the hurried, the lazy or the single-tool developers who think hammering out a cross-platform app is only possible with the HTML+CSS+JS triplet. There is absolutely no excuse to go so low as to embed an entire web browser where there are better choices.

NSTokenField is particularly tricky to use with Core Data bindings. I wanted to model a to-many relationship between an object (specifically Client, Project, etc.) and multiple Tags. The user would select e.g. a client from a table view, and in the inspector panel a token field would represent the assigned tags, which the user can edit. It’s a typical master-detail configuration. Tags that already exist are autocompleted; non-existent tags are created once the focus leaves the field.