Updates

Due to controversial changes to Paypal, in protest of them forcing a fee to refund (although we don’t do refunds on donations), in principle, we cannot accept donations through Paypal until they reverse this change that hurts customers and sellers. However, Fastspring, which is our payment processor for donation licenses are not affected by this.

You can see the video why we are doing this. If you want to support development, you may still do so by obtaining a donation license, through the Tip Jar on the iOS/macOS apps or supporting us through Patreon.

For developers who are using Tom Harrington’s original PHP-based backend, you should know that the last compatible PHP version that works with this script, 5.6 is now end of life. Since the script uses the out of date mysql_* methods and PHP 7 removed this entirely, the script will not work. Now, I updated the script to use mysqli_* so it can run on PHP 7 in addition to PHP 5.x. You can get it here.

I will be making future improvements such as refactoring the script and update it to use prepared statements for additional security against SQL Injection.

If you noticed something different, we moved to WordPress. Before we made the move, we used a static website generator called Jekyll. While the website loads fast, it’s a pain in the butt for me to maintain as I need to modify the markup files before generating the site. Afterwards, I have to sync it, which can become a pain in it’s own right.

With that, the old website that housed the development log have merged with the MAL Updater OS X site. You may notice that we renamed our twitter to MALUOSXDev. Since we are developing applications for Anime List Discovery sites, we have sunset our organization’s name. With that, follow us for future development updates on Twitter or subscribe to this site.

I hope that everyone had a happy new year’s. Due to being half way to the goal for 2018, there are some changes.  For MAL Library, a major version is being worked on. When 3.0 is released, it will become free, but with in-app purchases. The free version will be like what MAL Library is currently for free users, but with some features from the full 2.0 version. The pro version will unlock Manga Support, forum reader (eventually), custom lists with iCloud support (MAL Only), and syncing of lists with AniList and Kitsu for $4.99. Kitsu and AniList will be free for both Anime and Manga. The viewing of profiles, user libraries, characters and list statistics will be made free in 3.0. Users who own MAL Library will be able to upgrade to 3.0 for free as an in app purchase by selecting a copy of MAL Library bought from the App Store. It will be a separate application and I plan to rename it since it’s not just a tracker for MyAnimeList.

MAL Updater OS X will become and is donationware and there will be no restrictions and the reminder dialog will only appear once every two weeks for free users. Bittorrent browsing, video library monitoring and mass renaming tools, which will take a lot of work will be available for users who donated. Aside from that,there will be no restrictions to main functionality, revised from before as a failed experiment. Before starting work on 3.0, I would like to rewrite a bunch of code so it will run better. I also plan on redesigning the interface to only use a popover instead of what it is currently.

All donation licenses can be used on unlimited amount of Macs and will be good for all future versions. I no longer have plans for upgrade licenses and will no longer have.

Unlocking the program using Patreon, if you become a patron will be added soon. By becoming a Patron, as little as $1, you will get every update, even major ones for free. I am open to opening up a bounty system that allows users to post a bounty for something like feature requests.

There are no changes for Hachidori, except the addition of AniList support.

With that, I thank the supports who help us develop our programs to make managing Anime Lists easier on the Mac. I hope you continue supporting us in the future.

Next year, we will be working on MAL Updater OS X 3.0. This will be the first major release since 2010 when I started developing MAL Updater OS X into a native macOS application. 3.0 will mark a major release with new features like video file monitoring, mass renaming tool, automatic download of episodes and Discord presence support.

While our programs are open source, it doesn’t mean that development is free. It costs money to run the servers and maintain the Apple’s Developer Program needed to access the resources to distribute applications. This is why I lock out premium features in MAL Library and plan to do the same for MAL Updater OS X with the additional features mentioned.

If you like to see some of the features become free in the future, support our Patreon campaign. By donating as little as $1 a month, you can help support the development of MAL Updater OS X, MAL Library and Hachidori. You can receive a free license after contributing in total of $5 a month.

In addition, there are stretch goals. If a stretch goal is reach, I will begin work on that aspect and it will be free to everyone. If not, that aforementioned feature will be only be for people who donated.

If you are interested, head to our Patreon page. If you can’t afford monthly donations, you can still buy a one-time license for our existing applications.