My Books

• NSTableView scroll bug in macOS Tahoe

  Recently. I was working with an AppKit app that uses an NSTableView to display long list of items. While testing the app on macOS Tahoe, I noticed a bug in the scrolling behavior: when I scrolled down from the top, the content rows would scroll into the header, making the top messy and unreadable. This sort of overlapping and unreadable text is a feature of the various OS 26s, but in this case, there wasn't a hint of transparency, so it looked like a bug to me.

  I did a lot of searching online, but couldn't find any references to this specific issue, so once I worked out the cause and a workaround, I thought I'd share it here, for anyone else who encounters this issue.

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• Moving from Process to Subprocess

  For many years, I've used Process to call Terminal commands from my macOS apps. Process is an old technology, formerly known as NSTask. It works, but it's complicated to set up and it can have issues. The Swift language team have now published a modern alternative called Subprocess. Since I'm currently using Process in my Man Reader app and in my macOS Apps Step by Step book, I thought it was time to assess the new option and see if I should swap to it.

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• Black Friday Sale

  For Black Friday 2025, my self-published books: macOS Apps Step by Step and Escape from Tutorial Hell are on sale for 30% off, from now until December 1st.

  If you're looking for a discount on macOS Apprentice, check it out the Kodeco web site when their Black Friday sale is live.

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• macOS Apps Step by Step 4.0

  macOS by Tutorials has a new name and a new edition!

  The book is available for purchase or update at Gumroad.

  macOS Apps Step by Step was previously titled macOS by Tutorials and was released in 2022 by Kodeco. Since they transferred the rights to me, I have released two updates under the same name, but now it feels like time to move on from the Kodeco naming convention and give it a name that is more part of my brand. After considering several options, I put a poll on Mastodon and macOS Apps Step by Step was the winner.

  If you bought the first edition of macOS by Tutorials from either Kodeco or Amazon, please email me for a 50% discount code.

  If you bought a previous edition of macOS by Tutorials from me via Gumroad, version 4 is a free update that you can download from your Gumroad library.

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• Apple Has Two Problems

  Over the last few years, Apple Inc. has come in for its fair share of criticism. In my opinion, this boils down to two main problems: politics and software quality.

  The company has lost its way several times over the years but it has always kept going and eventually bounced back. Now it's a massive company with more money than any human can imagine, and it's losing its way again. What can they do to bounce back this time?

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