Apple’s accelerated schedule of releasing new Intel-based Macs has put Helix users in a bind once again. The new Intel-based Macs do not support the Classic environment, which Helix RADE, Engine, and Client currently require. It is becoming more and more difficult to purchase a new Mac capable of running these Helix components.
Shortly after the release of Helix Server 6.0 (compiled using CodeWarrior) we began the arduous process of converting our entire code base to Xcode. Although this is fairly easy for small projects, large projects present difficulties that must be addressed.
Some of our customers are understandably nervous about the situation, and we field calls daily asking for updates. The purpose of this page is to document the progress we are making in short form, keeping you up-to-date on the status of this project. For a better “long range” view of where we have been and where we are going, be sure to read The Latest Word.
Some of this information was formerly found on our Intel-compatibility page.
Another bon mot from one of our engineers:
As always, the question is not always what to fix, but often how much to fix…
It's been a difficult journey these last few weeks. The three major changes (printing, networking, and document managment) have made our code quite unstable as we work to refine a lot of new code. But progress continues and with luck we'll have a new (and much improved) Preview Release before too long.
The latest updates were rolled out in the September 5th edition of The Latest Word, but here’s a summary: printing has been completely revised and is now razor sharp. Performance has improved — it would be most accurate to say that we’ve made a fundamental change to the way Helix works, paving the way for significant improvements down the road a bit. And we’re well on the way to reinstating the basic components of Document Management.
One of our engineers wrote something that made me chuckle, so I thought I’d pass it along:
I have fixes for the window closing problem and some related “once in a million” timing issues. As we all know, once-in-a-million bugs seem to occur at a more frequent rate than advertised; too bad they are not lottery tickets.
Based on overwhelming feedback from the Preview Releases, we’ve been working on two things: printing and Client/Server performance. We think you will be quite pleased with the results.
Two fairly large but simple to fix bugs were reported after the release of Helix 6.1.1. Both are fixed and Helix 6.1.2 is now available.
Helix Server for Intel ships!
The document corruption bug that affected a few users (we had just 2 reports) has been fixed in both the Intel and PowerPC Servers.
A new Preview Release of the OS X Client and Engine is available, including (for the first time) the Intel-native products.
Lots of little bugs are being knocked off and it looks like we’ll meet the June 30 ship date for the Intel-native Server (and Client/Engine Preview Release).
Well, hey! hey! We have solved the problem that kept the Intel-native products from running on Mac OS X 10.4.
QSA ToolWorks, LLC today announced Helix Server for Intel 6.1, with an expected shipping date of June 30, 2008, along new Preview Releases, available immediately. See the Press Release or The Latest Word for more details.
It also looks like we have solved a problem that kept the Intel-native products from running on Mac OS X 10.4.
Progress continues steadily, and it looks like we should be able to ship Preview Release 3 of Helix Engine along with the first Preview Release of Helix Client soon.
And in a change that will warm the hearts of many of the Helix Engine Preview Release users, we’ve fixed the “no frame = no space” bug. Two unframed text rectangles no longer have their text mashed together.
Helix Server for PowerPC 6.1 shipped today. Immediately available with a Classic Client, this is nonetheless a very important milestone. This is our first official release since we were forced to switch from CodeWarrior to Xcode, and it is the first version of Helix Server that supports Clients running natively in OS X.
Up next are two exciting developments. First: testing on Helix Server for Intel 6.1 can take center stage. (We could still use a few Helix Universal Pioneers to help us out here.) Our preliminary tests lead us to believe that this is very close to ready.
Second: now that Helix Server 6.1 is stable, we can work toward shipping a Helix Client Preview Release.
Current Entries: Client & Engine Preview Releases (Present – April 2008)
Part Two: Beta to a Shipping Server (March 2008 – Sept 2007)