A small update on the development state of Shrugs.app, as a follow up to the Development Roadmap.

Work is still in progress on the cache database rework. That will take some more time, don’t expect a Shrugs 1.1 before October. Two Marzipan (beta) versions with parts of the work have been release already, but carry no user visible changes.

The cache rework is done to address a set of things:

  • reduce memory consumption (current Shrugs is aggressively caching in memory and performs a lot of operations in memory, much of that moves to the database)
  • enable editing of messages (load it from the cache, then edit)
  • enable efficient local searches (using the cache database)
  • fix issues w/ unread counts, specifically in direct message and thread contexts (currently handled in memory, moving to the database)
  • get the cache working on mobile devices
  • prepare the move of the syncing into an XPC

There is progress, more beta’s will be released to ensure nothing breaks.

macOS 11 (Big Sur) and Apple silicon

Apple is preparing the release of macOS 11, code named “Big Sur”. Shrugs runs on it but has a few graphical glitches due to the massive UI redesign in macOS 11.
The plan is to address the glitches by adjusting the Shrugs main window to use the new “column aligned toolbar” design (i.e. it’ll look slightly different on macOS 10 and 11).

Since there is no release date for macOS 11, this may not be available on launch date. If the release happens before Shrugs 1.1, a Shrugs 1.0 will be released ASAP.

Finally Apple announced the transition from Intel CPUs to “Apple silicon” (an ARM based architecture). The current Marzipan (beta) release is already built for both CPU architectures, the transition is expected to be a no brainer from a Shrugs point of view. In the unlikely case that an Apple silicon based Mac is released before Shrugs 1.1, a 1.0 ARM version will be provided ASAP.

Helge Heß

Helge likes to build nice solutions.