My site has been in a state of minimal support for a while now. Over the past couple weeks I've decided to finally devote the time necessary to get the new server (with the new site) launched. So here's what's worth noting.

Site updates

The site got some reskinning and is more friendly on small screens. I've tried to maintain as many of the urls as possible. I've decided to strip away all the excess too. No fonts, no externals, not even Google Analytics. I've ditched the Lightbox gallery as that was beginning to seriously show its age, and didn't work at all on small screens. I'm now using a library called PhotoSwipe because it's really nice, and doesn't have any external requirements such as jQuery.

The Syntax Highlighter has been updated to use the PHP library I've hosted on GitHub, including the new features.

Downloads are much faster now, probably because the new server is running on all solid state storage, and they no longer need to do a version control checkout.

I'm still not going to be supporting comments on my site. Besides the fact that they always become a spam nightmare, they also don't work well with my version controlled site setup. They could be made to work, but it isn't something I'm going to pursue.

Animation Kit 3

Animation Kit has been the best animation library for REALbasic and REAL Studio. I've officially launched version 3, which easily the best animation library for Xojo. This new version has been rebuilt from the ground up using the new Xojo Framework. It even has limited support for iOS and web projects. An excellent migration guide is included for developers wishing to upgrade from version 2.

Why upgrade? Version 2 had some design problems, including a memory leak. The new code is much cleaner, using zero "hacks" or workarounds. Version 3 is extremely reliable. It also supports custom cubic bezier timing curves in place of the older timing functions. Most of the old timing functions have been ported to the new timing curves though, so don't fret.

Zircon Controls

As explained here, ZirconKit is now Artisan Kit which brings support for 64-bit projects. As such, each of the Zircon controls (ZirconBreadcrumbs, ZirconCropper, ZirconSwitch) have been updated to use the new Artisan Kit module, including their own 64-bit support.

Previous purchasers should download new versions from the downloads page at any time.