MAL Updater OS X

Open Source macOS Scrobbler for Kitsu and AniList

Updates

Web Server Operating System Migration

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In the coming weeks, we will be migrating the operating system that hosts all our APIs and websites from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. This is because Ubuntu 10.04 LTS has recently ended mainstream support and extended support is not free outside of personal use. We decided to go with Red Hat Enterprise Linux since I use it at my day job and for longer support period of 10 years.

We have migrated the main MAL Updater OS X website back to the old server including all the databases for everything, which is now running Red Hat. In the coming weeks, we will be migrating more sites over to make sure everything runs stable before moving my main blog and shutting down the old server, which is running on a new virtual private server, but cloned from this server before I reinstalled the operating system.

If you experience any issues, file them in the respective Github repo. I hope to have everything migrated by the end of June.

New Year, New Plans

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I hope everyone stayed safe and had a nice New Years. With 2021, we have some exciting things planned.

In 2020, we spent a good amount of time getting our apps ready for iOS 14 and the new Apple Silicon Macs. While it took two weeks to get our apps ready for Apple Silicon, it was relatively simple. I had to recompile all the frameworks and afterwards, we had a working Universal Binary 2 version. That took about 2-3 months.

Now, we plan on releasing a final version of Shukofukurou for macOS 3.4, which will finally have universal binary 2 support and some UI tweaks for Big Sur. However, more changes are planned as we are working on Shukofukurou for macOS 4.0.

It has been over two years since we last released a major version. The goal with 4.0 is to incorporate more UI additions in Big Sur, bunch of rewriting for the main interface window since it’s somewhat a mess, and list syncing. When 4.0 comes out, it will be a paid upgrade since it’s a major release, but existing users will be able to upgrade to the new version with a large discount as I plan to bundle the old version with the new version with a special pricing. From my understanding, if you own one of the app in the bundle, you just need to pay the difference in the bundle. More details on 4.0 will be shared for active Patrons along with test releases.

Note that 4.0 will only work on macOS Big Sur or later. The older 3.x release, which we will name as the Classic Branch will still be maintained for at least 2 years, but no new features will be added.

In addition, we need to work on an alternative to provide legal stream links in the title’s information view. Apparently, Because.moe stopped updating their dataset, leaving with AniList with a possible alternative. The only issue is that it doesn’t provide specific region availability. LiveChart also have this data too, but there is no accessible API or JSON file we can use the data from. However, we added LiveChart to the list of related sites for users to view additional information, including where to watch a particular show.

As for Hachidori, we plan to work on adding Emby support in the near future. It’s an alternative to Plex and some users have been asking for this. We will investigate how to add support for this in the coming months.

With that, we plan to release the stable version of Shukofukurou for macOS 3.4 later this month. Note that you can already use the beta version by going to its product page.

Discussions for Our Apps are Now Open

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In the past, we relied on separate Clubs/Threads on MyAnimeList, Kitsu, and AniList to provide support for our apps. Note that since I have a full time job and developing these apps are done on my free time, I don’t have the time to check the clubs and threads for support and feature requests.

Now, we have enabled the discussion feature in our Github repos, which allows users to discuss about the app while providing support. Issues should only be used if you encounter a bug and not general questions or discussing feature requests. The list below shows the discussion forums for the following apps:

We will be adding links to these discussion forums on our website.

macOS 11 Big Sur Compatibility and iOS 14/iPadOS 14

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Now that the dust has settled, we have finally tested our apps on macOS 11 and it seems that nothing broke. However, we want to start working on bringing some of macOS 11 Big Sur new features to Shukofukurou for macOS. With Shukofukurou for macOS 3.5, we will be dropping support for macOS 10.11 El Capitan, which is more than 5 years old at this point and we do not have any machines running that anymore. New versions will require macOS 10.12 Sierra or later. We will also work to get Shukofukurou compiled for Universal Binary 2 so it can work on Apple  new chips. This mean recompiling all the frameworks to Universal Binary, which we will be doing for Hachidori as well.

For Shukofukurou for iOS, once we release 2.0.9, which will have some fixes, we will begin work on 2.1, which will have support for iOS 14/iPadOS 14 support. Note that iOS 12 support will be dropped in the future after 2.1.x and we will only be supporting iOS 13 and iOS 14. This is because I do not have any devices that have iOS 12, which makes it difficult for me to test. Once a test version is ready, hopefully when public beta testing is underway, I will make the 2.1 beta builds available on TestFlight for active patrons. If you want to test the latest builds for iOS, you can learn how to support our projects by going to the donation page.

SwinsianDiscord 1.2.1 Now Released

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SwinsianDiscord is now updated to support the Music app under macOS 10.15 Catalina. Note that there is one limitation that elapsed time will not show since the app doesn’t provide this information. This update will appear in the AppCast for software updates later today.

Change log is below.

Adds support for the Music.app under macOS 10.15 Catalina. Note that elapsed time does not work with Music.app since the app does not provide this information.

SwinsianDiscord requires macOS El Capitan (10.11) or later.

New Features

  • Music.app support added (macOS 10.15 or later)

 

Year in Review and Future Plans

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With 2019 coming to a close, it’s time to take a look at what we have accomplished:

  • Raised about $374 in donations for 2019
  • So far, 4 active patrons supporting the development monthly.
  • Refined the releases of Shukofukurou for iOS/macOS and Hachidori
  • Implement MultiScrobble feature in Hachidori (including support for MyAnimeList as well)
  • Created a title id mapping service to help aid in episode notifications, exporting to MAL XML from AniList/Kitsu lists and also future implementation of list syncing between services
  • Restored MyAnimeList support (finally!). The macOS versions with MyAnimeList support is still in beta testing.
  • Added iOS 13/iPadOS 13 support for Shukofukurou including native dark mode support
  • Improved Patreon benefits unlocking (users can unlock donor features easily by using a Patreon key from the portal)

Of course, 2020 will be a big year. While I will be working full time, I will still actively develop the software on whatever free time I have after work, including weekends. These are what I want to implement in the near future:

  • List Syncing support in Shukofukurou.
  • History syncing between devices and the Mac version.
  • Implementing the finer social features such as the activity timeline in AniList/Kitsu and Forums in MAL (When the API becomes available).
  • Restoring Tags support for MyAnimeList
  • Possibly Expanding legal stream support with the Scrobble share extension in the iOS version of Shukofukurou. We are still investigating creating an in-app web browser to provide similar functionality as Hachidori for legal stream detection.
  • Improved Local List Statistics.

Since I will still be actively using the apps I develop, expect semi-fequent updates (at least once or twice a month) for the apps going forward. With that, I thank everyone who help support the development of these apps from downloading it off the App Store, obtaining a donation license or becoming a Patron. We hope to keep providing helpful apps that help you track of your anime and manga progress.