u/AndyDentPerth — reddlx

Have people's lives ever been directly at stake because of software you work on?

I'm not sure what I was listening to that prompted this thought.

Most of what I've done has either been creative/developer tools or libraries (like Realm and my own OODBMS). It's possible someone's life might be threatened by one of my bugs, but only as a result of someone else's software that embedded it.

However, back in 2010, I got a job at a company that was the Microsoft of Mining Software, working on a specialist 3D CAD product.

Think open-cut mines, tunnels, pretty much any aspect of mineral mining.

Stuff I worked on included road design for 150T trucks, spiraling down the side of the mine, and blasting patterns for explosives. We had world-class QA (NASA class?) but I always felt more weight of responsibility than any other job.

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u/AndyDentPerth — 7 days ago

▲ 3 r/iOSProgramming

I've an app which lets you design particle animations, running on iOS and macOS.

Current version uses SpriteKit and mirrors XCodes editor, plus some goodies, plus video export and generating Swift source.

I'm about to add support for CAEmitterLayer and possibly Paul Hudson's Vortex library.

My app obviously includes a view of the effect in action but I want more for devs who want to fine-tune their animations inside their UI.

I was considering ways to support pulling in video of their app as a background, or easy ways to share screenshots, when I realised I may be thinking backwards 😊.

How about the code generator including an option to have comms to their app from the design app?

That way, debug versions of their app could be in regular testing and someone can edit the particle settings using another phone or Mac.

Does this sound appealing?

If so, as a developer, would you prefer BlueTooth, TCP or UDP connections? Depending on your organisation, this might be something you would include in test builds so the question is both about technical feasibility and what you would be happy with alongside any other comms stacks.

The data to be transmitted is mere bytes but want very low latency for responsiveness.

The current architecture has the particle emitter isolated from the UI controls of my app and so it's basically just adding a comms layer in between. It was designed anticipating expansion to other particle libraries.

u/AndyDentPerth — 13 days ago

▲ 1 r/macOS26Tahoe

I finally got around to testing the claims in @ser_melipharo's Are screenshot apps ready for macOS Tahoe’s Liquid Glass? but unfortunately too late to comment on that thread.

The built-in system screenshot has an Options popup with Capture Format down the bottom. Choosing HDR will save HEIC files that contain the glass effects, as seen below.

I use HEIC Converter (from an Indie!) to convert them to JPEG.

Result of using HDR for screenshot

reddit.com

u/AndyDentPerth — 17 days ago

▲ 5 r/macapps

I finally got around to testing the points in @ser_melipharo's Are screenshot apps ready for macOS Tahoe’s Liquid Glass? but unfortunately too late to comment on that thread.

The built-in system screenshot has an Options popup with Capture Format down the bottom. Choosing HDR will save HEIC files that contain the glass effects, as seen below.

I use HEIC Converter (from an Indie!) to convert them to JPEG.

Screenshot that includes glass effects

reddit.com

u/AndyDentPerth — 17 days ago