Helium Foot Software

Second Time Around

After the recent C4 conference i felt really inspired to get to work on a new product. I've put a lot of work into MercuryMover, but i'm not going to be able to retire on it. My plan has always been to develop a broad stable of apps upon which to build the company. I had had this particular idea for a long time, and i knew that i could build something very useful relatively quickly. I present to you: Highbrow. If you can't commit to either Safari or Firefox, then Highbrow is for you. If you dabble in Opera and appreciate Camino, then Highbrow is your friend. If you love Omniweb, but are curious about iCab, you guessed it, you want Highbrow. Highbrow manages your system wide default web browser so that you're never surprised by what app comes up when you click on a link in Mail, iChat or anywhere else. Highbrow displays the icon of the current default browser in the menubar and from it's menu you can select your preferred web browser. You can also select one of the following modes:

• Always use my preferred web browser
• Use the most recently used web browser
• Use the most recently launched web browser
• Ask me which web browser to use (A terrific suggestion from my good friend Scott Morrison)

After making that selection, Highbrow does the rest. I like to set it to "use the most recently used web browser". This lets me switch back and forth between Safari and Firefox, but only keep one of them open at a time. Whichever one i'm using automagically becomes the system wide default. This way, when my wife sends me a link while i'm working in Firefox, i won't have to wait for Safari to launch when i click on it (this happens with startling frequency).

Something i learned when developing MercuryMover is not to treat your in-progress application like a state secret. I had been using builds of MercuryMover for almost two years before i released it to the public. Having learned from this mistake, i'm releasing a development build of Highbrow today. It's not fully polished, nor are all of the features implemented. The temporary icon is not that pretty and probably infringes on multiple copyrights. Despite all of this, Highbrow is useful today, and i'd like for people to get some benefit out of it and to hear what does and doesn't work.

Here is some of what's missing:

• "Ask me which browser to use" is unimplemented
• nicer interface for automatic updates
• The icon is temporary
• Highbrow needs to be restarted in order to recognize new browsers on the system
• There is no first-run window

So...what are you waiting for. Try it out, already.

Highbrow 1.0 Public Beta

After a three week sprint, Highbrow 1.0 beta is away! Since the app was mostly finished a few weeks ago, i figured that this release would have come sooner. I had forgotten how much work it is to launch a new product! With a groovy new icon, a very decent help file, a nice custom Sparkle based auto-update, a pretty (though currently troublesome) disk image, a web page, a homepage redesign, a screen movie, some wordsmithing, a press release, and i'm sure a few other things that i've forgotten and we've made it to the beta release. If you ever use more than one web browser on your Mac, either at the same time, or in serial, you definitely owe it to yourself to try Highbrow. For me, all of the annoyances of using that second (and third) browser have completely disappeared now that Highbrow automatically changes my system wide default browser on the fly as i move from one browser to the next.

Do you feel some web browser frustration? Get your Mac web browser zen with Highbrow. Look for the v1.0 release on 15 December 2008.

Highbrow 1.0

Other than, "Highbrow 1.0 is out the door", there isn't too much to say about the release. Highbrow's development has been well chronicled. One thing that i did want to say is, thanks! Helium Foot's users have been extremely supportive and have given me some great feedback that really got Highbrow to where it is today, and will take it much further.

Do you use more than one web browser on your Mac? Download Highbrow and find out how much easier your life should be.