escapepod 1.0.0d2 available (Mac OS X only)

moki

escapepod 1.0.0d2 has been released (Mac OS X only) -- grab it here:



<a href="ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/pub/freebies/escapepod.sit"; target="_blank">ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/pub/freebies/escapepod.sit</a>; (140k)



What is it?

-----------



escapepod is a little application that lets you terminate the frontmost application by hitting Control-Alt-Delete, terminate the Dock by hitting Shift-Control-Alt-Delete, or do a force-logout by hitting Command-Control-Alt-Delete.



escapepod is free; if you have any questions or comments about it, please feel free to contact me at:



Andrew Welch &lt;andrew@AmbrosiaSW.com&gt;



WARNING: this is developmental software; use it at your own risk. While it performs as advertised on the machines I have tested it on, I make no warranty about how it will operate on yours.





Why would I want it?

--------------------



There are times that Mac OS X appears to be hung (especially in some games) when it really isn't -- just the frontmost application's GUI is wedged. The Dock also occasionally stops responding under some circumstances, which can be cured by terminating it. Additionally, when the entire GUI appears to be hung, it is safer to do a force-logout than to simply reboot your machine (and it is quicker, too).



Thus, escapepod was created.





Version history

---------------



Version 1.0.0d2



-- Fixed a bug that caused escapepod to not be able to do a force-logout on Mac OS X 10.2.x. Apple apparently changed the bundle identifier for the loginwindow.app



-- Added the ability to force-quit the Dock by hitting Shift-Control-Alt-Delete



-- If another copy of escapepod is running, we kill it before starting up



-- Fixed a minor problem with escapepod's bundle identifier



-- Included a spiffy new icon that is much more OS X-ish -- many thanks to the talented folks at ATMOS for the escape pod graphic from EV Nova



-- Fleshed out the documentation a bit, clarifying the "Alt" and "Delete" key terminology, as well as a few other issues



-- You can now turn off the sounds EscapePod uses, should you so desire. Launch Terminal, then paste this text in to turn escapepod's sounds off:



defaults write com.ambrosiasw.escapepod "Play sounds" '&lt;false/&gt;'



-- If you *really* don't want escapepod to display its splash screen when it launches, you can turn this off as well. Launch Terminal, then paste this text in to turn escapepod's splash screen off:



defaults write com.ambrosiasw.escapepod "Display splash" '&lt;false/&gt;'





.....





Version 1.0.0d1



-- Initial release

whyatt thrash

Great,thanks!



love.that.app

ghost_user_name

Yay! Finally!



Thanks Andrew.



Any chance we'll ever see an update to classihack? Pleeeease?

moki

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:

<strong>Any chance we'll ever see an update to classihack? Pleeeease?</strong><hr></blockquote>



hrm. I'll have to look into seeing whether it is still doable or not on Jaguar. It was only marginally useful anyway, though.

ghost_user_name

Classihack would be extremely helpful for EV:Nova developers since the good tools only work in ResEdit under Classic (grrrr...).



That alone should be incentive to investigate if it is still possible. I'm sure others could find it helpful too, but ENV development in ResEdit is the #1 priority here.

rampancy

I'm hoping that it will be able to get me out of the hard freezes that Quake 1 and Quake 2-engine based games seem to get me into. Even Undying seems to do it, and I still have no idea why. Back when I used 10.1.x escapepod didn't seem to work, so maybe this time I'll get lucky.

code master

Yeah, my problem is always with big games because I have a problem with X and my graphics card (just the ATi RagePro128) and games always lock up, but the last escapepod didn't ever help.

spart

Just so you know, it works perfectly on my Rev B. iMac w/384MB RAM and 10.2.3.

moki

[quote]Originally posted by Code Master:

<strong>Yeah, my problem is always with big games because I have a problem with X and my graphics card (just the ATi RagePro128) and games always lock up, but the last escapepod didn't ever help.</strong><hr></blockquote>



If this is a kernel-level bug in the device driver, it is possible that escapepod will not be able to get you out of that situation.

bunge

I like the icon.

zo

the best... thanx moki



it has (unfortunately) been very useful to me.



this should be standard in OSX

logan cale

Excellent program. Gotta love the sound.

code master

[quote]Originally posted by moki:



If this is a kernel-level bug in the device driver, it is possible that escapepod will not be able to get you out of that situation.<hr></blockquote>



It happens in all of the games that do hardware rendering and from what I gather, I'm not an isolated incident. Do you know of any such kernel level bugs with the default cards on G4 400 Sawtooths?



A few games seem to have no problem (EV Nova behaved while demoed it), but I don't know if they use hardware rendering.



I also have issues with things like screensavers and iPhoto going into full screen mode.

moki

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>the best... thanx moki



it has (unfortunately) been very useful to me.



this should be standard in OSX</strong><hr></blockquote>



One other thing that i think should be standard...



If the OS runs out of disk space, really weird stuff starts happening. Settings aren't retained, programs just fail to work -- all sorts of weird stuff.



Mac OS X should warn you if you are running low on disk space, and it should keep a 10mb temp file that it can decrease the size of on a dynamic basis, to keep the machine running properly so the user can free up some disk space.

thuh freak

[quote]Originally posted by moki:

<strong>One other thing that i think should be standard...



If the OS runs out of disk space, really weird stuff starts happening. Settings aren't retained, programs just fail to work -- all sorts of weird stuff.



Mac OS X should warn you if you are running low on disk space, and it should keep a 10mb temp file that it can decrease the size of on a dynamic basis, to keep the machine running properly so the user can free up some disk space.</strong><hr></blockquote>



i agree. that frickin memory problem has borked my iTunes library more than a few times [pavlov will never lern]. i quit itunes so infrequently (and therefore save the library infrequently) that when i get this memory shit, i lose several days of additions. and i [acquire] a lot of "legitimate" [music] in that time. arrgh.

zo

oh come on El Presidente, I thought you woulda known <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/</a>; pretty well then



Thats where to gripe and suggest... kinda useless here.



zo

zo

oh, and by the way, the download link for Escape Pod is really flakey. Takes a dozen attempts to download it, usually zero K files appear. I finally got it but it was a hassle n a half

thuh freak

[quote]Originally posted by moki:

<strong>One other thing that i think should be standard...



If the OS runs out of disk space, really weird stuff starts happening. Settings aren't retained, programs just fail to work -- all sorts of weird stuff.



Mac OS X should warn you if you are running low on disk space, and it should keep a 10mb temp file that it can decrease the size of on a dynamic basis, to keep the machine running properly so the user can free up some disk space.</strong><hr></blockquote>



i'm working on a lil' prog, should be done and on sf.net later today.

moki

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>oh come on El Presidente, I thought you woulda known <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/</a>; pretty well then



Thats where to gripe and suggest... kinda useless here.



zo</strong><hr></blockquote>



We've already submitted the bug through developer channels, actually.



I suggested it here, because I was thinking of building something like that into escapepod. Would anyone find it useful?

moki

[quote]Originally posted by ZO:

<strong>oh, and by the way, the download link for Escape Pod is really flakey. Takes a dozen attempts to download it, usually zero K files appear. I finally got it but it was a hassle n a half</strong><hr></blockquote>



hrm, strange... were there any errors? What if you do curl -O &lt;url&gt;

jbl

[quote]Originally posted by moki:

<strong>

I suggested it here, because I was thinking of building something like that into escapepod. Would anyone find it useful?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Yes!!!! I am always nervous about running anything with Photoshop Elements on my PB because I keep running into this problem.