MAL Updater OS X

Open Source macOS Scrobbler for Kitsu and AniList

Dev Log

Sukofukurou for macOS 3.6 Beta 1 Now Released

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A public beta of Shukofukurou for macOS 3.6 is now out. This release finally takes advantage of macOS Big Sur’s new design language. It also adds new columns, which allows users to customize what information to show in the list view. This release is expected to also support macOS 12 Monterey when it release this fall.

Why we are dropping support for macOS 10.15 Catalina or earlier?

It’s been a bit difficult to keep maintaining the app for older versions of macOS. It’s mostly because I have moved on to more recent version of macOS. Not to mention, since Apple will be leaving Intel behind in the next few years and Apple Silicon being the future, I want to take advantage of the newest APIs.

The 3.5.x branch will be maintained for some time for only bug fixes. For App Store users who need to use the older version, you can request a serial number. You need to send in proof that you have purchased the Shukofukurou app for macOS on the App Store by screenshooting the purchased list with the app listed. Send this email to chikorita157 at ateliershiori dot com with the name you want to use for the registration. Note that the App Store version will only have the version only compatible with macOS Big Sur or later.

The beta is available for download on Github.

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.

Shukofukurou for macOS 3.5.2 Now Available

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After a delay, Shukofukurou for macOS 3.5.2 is now released. It has a bunch of fixes such as users not able to enable Air Notifications. There was a bug report of this, but apparently, the user needs to have notifications enabled for Shukofukurou for macOS enabled first before air notifications can be enabled. This is due to a change of how notifications work in macOS Mojave with the new API for notifications.

Besides the changes for Streaming Link data as previously mentioned, I had to redesign the authorization dialog. Apparently, Apple is being picky since the tester clicked on something and complained about the scrolling.

To make things easier, I added back and forward controls, the ability to refresh and start over. Additionally, the authorization window is now resizable. Hopefully this will resolve any issue in the future to prevent the app from getting rejected. The same authorization window will apply to a future version of Hachidori.

As always, the update is now available on the App Store and via Software Updates.

Shukofukurou for iOS 2.1.8 and Streaming Links

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Shukofukurou for iOS/iPadOS 2.1.8 is now out. After nearly a year, the streaming links for currently airing Anime is now back. When we heard that Because.moe stopped updating their legal streaming data, we haven’t find a workable alternative until now.

We will be using AniList to provide these streaming links since it’s the only data provider that has an API to obtain them and are the most up to date. I also contemplating over creating a Anime legal streaming search engine like Because.moe using Python with the same idea, but it will be open source.

Note that with this change, it’s not possible to change regions and only view streaming sites that are supported by your country. I will figure out a workable solution in the future.

Shukofukurou for iOS 2.1.8 is now available on the App Store. The Mac versions, 3.5.2 with this change will come out soon with a few fixes.

Note that 2.1.x will also be the last release supporting iOS 12. Frankly, I do not have any device with iOS 12 and it’s becoming difficult to support. Now that iOS 12 is becoming 3 years old, it’s becoming difficult to implement features in newer iOS versions. The next major release, 2.2.x series will require iOS 13 or later as we support the current version plus two previous versions of iOS. If you have a device that only supports iOS 12, please consider upgrading your iPhone or iPad that has current OS support.

Hachidori 3.3.3 Released

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Hachidori 3.3.3 is now out. This release fixes the Anime Relations feature, meaning that titles with continuous numbering will detect properly.

In addition, support for the beta version of Crunchyroll’s website is now added. You are able to detect titles from the episode viewing page and the watch history. The difference is that Javascript is required to make detection possible, meaning it will only work on Safari and most Google Chrome-based browsers. Instructions on enabling this can be seen here.

The change log is below. You can install this update by checking for updates.

This release fixes Anime Relations feature and adds support for Crunchyroll Beta stream detection.

MAL Updater OS X Users: To receive a new format license, upgrade to the latest version of MAL Updater OS X 2.4.x and open the about window. The license key will appear. Copy that and use it to register Hachidori

Hachidori requires macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later.

New Features

  • Add support for Crunchyroll Beta Site (Requires Javascript)

Bug Fixes and Enhancements

  • Fixed Anime Relations feature

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.