Using the 1999 app for the Mac
by 1999.io Thursday, April 14, 2016

Now there's another way to create and edit posts for 1999.io -- using the 1999 app for the Mac. Here's how to do that.

  1. It's only available for the Mac. There may be other platforms supported in the future.
  2. Download the app. Show it in the Finder.
  3. Right-click on the file and choose to open it with the Archive utility. (This step may not be necessary, depending on the browser you used to download the app.)
  4. You should now have a file called 1999.app. Double-click on it. 
  5. You may get a security warning that prevents you from opening it. Open the System Preferences app, go to the Security & Privacy panel. There should be an option at the bottom of the General tab that allows you to run the app. 
  6. Now with the app open, you should get the default screen for 1999.io, asking you to sign on to your Twitter account. Do it exactly as you would for the web version. If you had already used 1999.io on this computer you might have to sign off first. 
  7. You're now logged onto your chatlog on my.1999.io. For now, the app can only work with sites on that server. Once we've shaken out any problems, I'll add a feature that lets you point the app at your own server. 

If you have any questions or problems come up, please post a note on the 1999-server list. 

Hope you like it! :-)

Update 4/15

Thanks to the early testers on the 1999-server list. In the first release the app didn't support the clipboard. Cut, copy and paste didn't work. Turns out the reason is that there wasn't a system-level Edit menu, which is required for the clipboard to work. 

Also, there was no way to open the JavaScript console, which is essential for error reporting. At this stage in the product cycle, not having this available to users is a big problem. If you see something behaving badly in the app, choose JavaScript console from the Window menu. You may see some error messages there that could help us figure out what's going wrong. 

Update 4/16

The desktop app now has a version number. This is v0.40a.

The About command in the system-level menu now tells you about this app, not the Electron environment. (We mention Electron in our version of the box.)

Most important, all the extra windows and browser tabs that were created when you authenticate should now be gone. In fact, it's even better, the entire authentication process appears to take place entirely within the Electron app. In reality, three servers are involved, and one client. Amazing how much is going on in such a small space.

Update 4/18:

This is version 0.40b.

The only change in this version has to do with how the app opens URLs.

In the previous release, URLs pointing to external pages would open in the app itself. There was no way to get back. And this isn't right. Those pages should open in your default web browser. So I made that change.

But it's tricky, because the same code has to open URLs in the app itself when you're authenticating with Twitter. So there's an internal flag, and setting it is tricky, so there could be problems. 

To test, log off and back on again. If it worked, we passed the first test. You might want to try this several times to be sure. It's the kind of thing that if it fails it will do it intermittently.

Then create a post with a link in it, say to scripting.com. Update the post, then click the link. DId it open in your browser, not the app? That's good.