soma-zone: software for apple computers

New

• ⌥⇧-clicking on a service type in the filter section exclusively selects all service types matching the same service domain (Thanks, Evgeny!)
• Generating entries for StartCalendarInterval from cron-style time specifications now works around macOS bug FB7740271

Fixed

• Excessive logging by fdautil while LaunchControl is running (Thanks, Philip!)
• When an empty logfile is created the stdout/stderr log viewers keep displaying "File does not exist"
• Crash when creating a job when a non-plist file exists in the same domain
• Issue reading limits for daemons
• Defaults for HardResourceLimits/SoftResourceLimits not displayed on macOS Ventura
• After deleting a job which made LaunchControl display suggestions on how to fix it the suggestions remain visible although no job is selected anymore (Thanks, Philippe!)
• Two broken links in table of contents in help file

Improved

• Don't allow jobs without key Label to be saved
• Don't allow jobs with empty value for key Label to be saved
• Improved validation of cron-style time spec input field

New

• Support for notes; To add a note to a service select Job>Add Notes from the menu (Thanks, Mike

Fixed

• Crash on startup after upgrading from LaunchControl 1
• LaunchControl silently terminates after running for hours (Thanks, Édouard!)
• Problems removing log files from some daemons
• Error in label/tooltip in LaunchControl Settings

Improved

• Show toolbar in log viewers even if the log file is empty to allow for deleting the log file via LaunchControl
• Text input field for Program/ProgramArguments key is now dynamically resized (Thanks, Mike!)

Fixed

• Some bundled services do not appear in the service list (Thanks, Sergei!)

New

• Filter by job status in System Settings
• Mark jobs as disabled when they are disabled in System Settings>General>Login Items>Allow in the Background
• Note in manual about how jobs using fdautil appear in System Settings an macOS Ventura

Fixed

• When selecting a service the info/warnings section sometimes starts not at the first page
• Replacing a subview may modify layout
• Loading/unloading a job modifies its "modified" status (Thanks, Édouard!)

New

• Note in manual about how jobs using fdautil appear in System Settings an macOS Ventura
• Inform user about existence of hidden files in QueueDirectories (Thanks, Jason!)

Fixed

• Yet another crash related to session handling (Thanks, Joe!)

Fixed

• Crash on startup due to corrupt settings (Thanks, Robert!)

New

• Temporarily maximize subviews
• Show verbal description for StartCalendarInterval configuration
• QuickLook menu item can now indicate failed jobs; Default: Off (Thanks, Mike!)
• Edit>Replace Job Definition from Clipboard replaces the current job definition with the job definition in the clipboard; The key Label won't be copied and the keys StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath will keep the directory but the file name will reflect the job's label
• Shift-selecting a filter selects all filters of its kind

Fixed

• Creating a new Global Daemon via File>New from Clipboard (⇧⌘N) silently fails for certain property lists (Thanks, Édouard!)
• Window menu items in Window menu always shows subtitle "No service selected"
• Column width of tables in Find Job panel and Export as Crontab is not persisted across restarts (Thanks, John!)
• Filter section can be moved using trackpad (Thanks, John!)
• Double space in menu item "Save Current Session as Startup Sessiion" (Thanks, John!)
• Opening LaunchControl after it was closed without a window open brings up the default window instead of the window saved with Window>Use Settings of Current Window/Tab for New Windows/Tabs (Thanks, Alexander!)

Improved

• Warn about bug in launchd related to key StartCalendarInterval
• Note about differences between launchd.plist documentation and launchd behaviour regarding the coexistance of StartCalendarInterval subkeys Day and Weekday
• Added missing tooltips to LaunchControl settings (Thanks, Brother J!)
• Warn about bug in launchd related to key StartCalendarInterval

Fixed

• Removing a Custom Service from the service list without deleting it does not update the service list
• Updated help file: Checkboxes in the Enabled column of the service list are either blue or grey (if Disabled key has not been overridden), not grey as stated in the help file (Thanks, Hans-Peter!)
• JobWatch fails to send notifications (Thanks, Simon!)
• LaunchControl opens without a window and File>New Window/File>New Tab do not work (Thanks, Pertti!)
• ⌃-clicking on the header of the services table does now work (Thanks, Mychailo!)

Fixed

• Closing a window breaks ability of remaining windows to adopt current macOS appearance
• Switching the location of two subviews can result in the layout being modified
• Changing a control in Standard Editor after modifying the Program text field creates a single undo action instead of two (Thanks, Édouard!)
• Only the first separator item in QuickLaunch can be selected
• LaunchControl does not bring up a new window when opened (via Finder, Dock, QuickLaunch, …) while already running without any open windows (Thanks, Ian!)
• Restoring some more complicated subview arrangements does not work; the sizes are off
• Crash when selecting group header in service list (Thanks, Yossi!)
• Wrong tooltip in LaunchControl Settings (Thanks, Yossi!)
• With fdautil installed LaunchControl can only be run on one account on a computer (Thanks, Craig!)

Improved

• Increased height of separator items in QuickLaunch preferences (Thanks, Ian!)

Fixed

• Updated tooltips in Utilities section of LaunchControl settings
• Crash when keys UserName, GroupName, RootDirectory or WorkingDirectory have invalid type (Thanks, Kevin!)
• Bundled services do not appear in Find window
• Icons in browser in QuickLaunch settings not visible in Dark Mode
• Crash on startup (Thanbks, Craig!)
• Status of service with a type not selected in the filter panel not displayed correctly
• Bundled services not displayed on macOS Ventura 13.1β
• Crash when sorting the service list by Disabled key while displaying System Daemons on macOS Ventura (Thanks, Stefan!)
• QuickLaunch does report generic error "The operation could not be completed" (Thanks Mike and Selim!)
• With fdautil installed LaunchControl can only be run on one account on a computer (Thanks, Craig!)

Fixed

• Old icon in help file
• Double border around Session toolbar button in Preferences window (Thanks, Édouard!)
• Improved accessibility of Preferences panel (Thanks, J!)
• Selecting the custom text editor in the LaunchControl settings does not work (Thanks, Arie and Jan!)
• Help file not displayed

Improved

• Tooltip gets in the way when selecting text in Program/ProgramArguments key (Thanks, Édouard!)
• LaunchControl now restores the previos session on startup by default; This behavior can be changed in the Session panel of the LaunchControl settings.

LaunchControl 2 is a major update

If you have purchased your license for LaunchControl 1.x on April 1st 2022 or later this update is free. It is a paid update otherwise.

New

• Support for macOS Ventura
• Modern UI
• Support for multiple windows
• Support for tabs
• Configurable layout for new tabs/windows
• New on-demand palette view with optional keyboard navigation
• New palette icons
• Services of all types can now be displayed in a single list; no more switching service types
• Integrated XML view showing the textual representation of a job; synced with the Standard and Expert editors
• Integrated viewers for standardout/standarderror files
• Undo support
• Detect new service definitions at runtime
• Detect changes to currently edited service made by other process
• New filter: override database
• Support for bundled services (macOS Ventura)
• Support for keys AssociatedBundleIdentifiers and BundleProgram
• Improved error reporting
• Keyboard shortcuts for showing previous/next hint
• Cron importer now supports global variables
• Privileged Helper Tool no longer required to look at daemons; Without the helper tool installed the status of daemons cannot be displayed and modifications to non-user agents and daemons cannot be saved.

Fixed

• cronInput error indicator (if displayed) stays in old position when adding/removing records from the list of timestamps
• fdautil does not handle commands containing white space in their path

Fixed

• Crash when loading job with multi-line inline scripts containing brackets and curly braces (Thanks, Chris!)
• Save as Template… dialog does not honor macOS light/dark theme setting

Fixed

• Crash on empty string in WorkingDirectory (Thanks, Yasunori)
• Deleting the first and second word of a three-word command line in the "Program to run" text view will result in the first word as the only word remaining (Thanks, Craig!)
• Deleting the first word of a multi-word command line in the "Program to run" text view by selecting and pressing ⌫ will move the insertion point to the end of the command line

Fixed

• QuickLaunch sometimes fails to show the correct status of jobs; If this problem does affect you please remove the problematic job via the QuickLaunch preferences panel and add it again.
• LaunchControl hangs when program arguments contain a block special file (Thanks, Fabien!)

Improved

• Improved error reporting in fdautil on macOS Monterey

Fixed

• Some configurations of System Integrity Protection not properly detected on macOS Catalina and older (Thanks, Rene)
• Crash on macOS Monterey

Fixed

• Label text field is sometimes editable although no service is selected
• Spelling error in About text (Thanks, Trev!)
• Selecting a job sometimes does not work, instead the previously selected job is selected again.
• Jobs with GroupName key may freeze the application for minutes on Big Sur/M1 (Thanks, Édouard!)

Improved

• Don't offer to save modifications to a system service when System Integrity Protection is enabled or when running Big Sur or later.
• Provide information why it is not possible to save system jobs on Big Sur or when System Integrity Protection is enabled

Fixed

• Table views inside maximized key controls show their (useless) scroll bar on Big Sur (Thanks, Craig!)
• Scroll wheel events don't scroll central view when mouse pointer is over a key control's scroll view
• LaunchControl sometimes hangs when switching domains

Changed

• Reverted back to old icon due to popular demand

New

• Button for reloading the job list (⌥⌘R) (Thanks, Eelco!)
• New Big Sur style icon

Fixed

• Job file name column is not resized if job list panel is resized
• Crash when validating job

Improved

• LaunchControl now requires macOS 10.9 or newer
• Viewing global/system agents does no longer require admin privileges

Fixed

• StartCalendarInterval, LimitLoadToHost, LimitLoadFromHost and MachServices display glitch when collapsed and reopened
• Problem detecting System Integrity Protection
• On Big Sur the preferences window does not show all toolbar icons at once

Fixed

• Problem sanity-checking certain jobs on Apple Silicon Macs

New

• Native support for Apple Silicon Macs

Fixed

• Override database is ignored when filtering by Disabled key
• EnvironmentVariables, WatchPaths and QueueDirectories controls layout is broken after left-clicking disclosure triangle twice
• WatchPaths and QueueDirectories controls cannot be maximized by right-clicking the disclosure triangle
• Removed instructions on how to remove System Integrity Protection in order to to save system services on macOS Big Sur. This procedure does not work anymore due to the sealed system volume.

Improved

• Don't allow removing/disabling of the LaunchControl helper as it would render LaunchControl unusable

New

• Indicate keys containing whitespace/newline characters and offer fix action

Fixed

• (Again!) Get rid of "Operation now in progress" dialog when unloading a still running job via QuickLaunch on macOS Catalina (Thanks, Christopher!)
• Changed descriptive text in the Look #description#amp; Feel section of the preferences window (Thanks, Ted!)
• Help bubbles are drawn off-screen when window id too far to the right screen edge (Thanks, Steffen!)
• Misleading tooltip on "Import from Shell…" button in EnvironmentVariables control
• Jobs using fdautil are sometimes erroneously marked red in job list (Thanks, Duncan!)

Improved

• Improved warnings when shell globbing symbols are found in ProgramArguments
• Improved error message for non-existent executable/script specified with an absolute path

New

• Key panels containing one or more tables may be resized to display all data in the tables by right-clicking on the disclosure triangle (Thanks, Craig!)
• Non-writable stdout/stderr files will now be marked as errors on macOS 10.10 and newer. A quick fix action is available.
• Non-readable stdout/stderr files will now be marked as errors on macOS 10.10 and newer. A quick fix action is available. (Thanks, Todd!)

Fixed

• Get rid of "Operation now in progress" dialog when unloading a job via QuickLaunch on macOS Catalina (Thanks, Christopher!)
• False error reported ("no such file") when specifying an executable with relative path and without arguments

New

• fdautil: A safe way to grant Full Disk Access to individual scripts
• Columns in in table for key StartCalendarInterval can now be sorted (Thanks, Craig!)

Fixed

• QuickFix action "Check Standard Output" did not work on macOS Catalina (Thanks, Luke!)
• Edit Script… in the Program key panel did not work on macOS Catalina unless the user specified a custom text editor
• Table in section 1.3 (Enabling/disabling a job) of the help file contained confusing descriptions where one part a description contradicted another. (Thanks, Steve!)

Fix

• Some save dialogs did not work on macOS Catalina (Thanks, Luke!)

Fixed

• Reduced CPU load
• Job states would not be updated anymore after a job's override db record has been modified
• Checkbox in the “Override Disabled Key” submenu did not reflect the override status of the job
• Opening a job's stdout/stderr output in Console.app was broken on macOS Catalina (Thanks, Luke!)
• Provide instructions on how to remove a job's record from the launchd override database on macOS 10.10+
• The update dialog would show up on a separate screen if LaunchControl was in fullscreen mode. (Thanks, Koen!)

New

• Improved validation of/extended information about StartCalendarInterval

Fixed

• Shrinking job list horizontally too much would hide part of the Job Filter UI

Improved

• Rewritten custom tooltips routine to avoid misleading privacy dialog on macOS Catalina

Fixed

• Crash when collapsing "Program to run" control while program input field is empty
• Improved detection of use of shells is ProgramArguments key
• Improved detection of 'sudo' command in ProgramArguments key
• JobWatch did report agents as daemons and vice versa
• Palette preferences would sometimes take effect only after switching domains for the first time.

New

• Added key MaterializeDatalessFiles for macOS Catalina
• Changes to validation routines of KeepAlive and EnablePressuredExit on macOS Catalina
• Job list column headers can now be used for sorting the job list (Thanks, Josh!)

New

• Additional warning before saving changes to job definitions having the prefix com.apple. in their file name (Thanks, Adam!)
• New filter criterion "Invalid" to show only files which either cannot be parsed or do not resemble a valid job definition according to launchd.plist(5).
• Provide additional information in case a property list cannot be parsed
• Warn about job labels ending with whitespace
• Several quick-fix options for problematic labels

Fixed

• Sometimes LaunchControl would not properly install its bundled helper tool
• Don't flag missing Label key as an error in case a job definition cannot be parsed
• Crash when changing type of Label to something other then String in Expert Mode
• The demo version did not allow users to see the dialogs for cron import and export

Improved

• When creating a job from clipboard content or from a template set new job label to filename of new job definition
• LaunchControl now refuses to save a job definition if its label is not unique in its launchd domain

Fixed

• Don't show .DS_Store files in Find Job window (Thanks, Luke!)
• Path completion (F5) would sometimes not work as expected
• Improved readability of selected item in QuickLaunch preferences editor
• Keyboard navigation between text fields in key controls did not always work

Fixed

• Random crash (Thanks, Arne!)

Fixed

• Tooltips would stop working on Mojave when LaunchControl had been without focus for a while (Thanks, Luke!)

New

• On macOS 10.10+ all problems with WorkingDirectory are flagged as errors as they prevent the job from being loaded
• New warning/error when WorkingDirectory begins with ~
• On macOS 10.7/10.8 warn when QueueDirectories/WatchPaths begins with ~

Fix

• Random crash when using path completion (F5) in path text fields

New

• Notarized by Apple
• Support for partial Dark Mode (dark Menu and Dock only)
• Added job search option: Every Key and Value

Fixed

• Dark Mode related issues in LaunchControl and the QuickLaunch preferences editor (Thanks, Arne!)
• Crash when parsing job definition with empty Program key (Thanks, Nikolai!)

Fixed

• Label text would sometimes become unreadable in Mojave Dark Mode (Thanks, Luke!)
• Yet another bug in 'Go to job'

Fixed

• Custom prefix would not be honoured when creating daemons (Thanks, TJ!)
• When selecting "Go to job" in the Find Job dialog the job would sometimes not be selected. (Thanks, Luke!)
• Switching between Normal and Dark Mode twice would cause Tooltips to stop working

Improved

• Mojave Dark Mode adjustments

New

• Mark jobs without proper .plist file name extension as broken (error instead of warning) on macOS versions 10.10 and newer; offer quick fix.

Fixed

• Find Job Definition would not find jobs by file name when the .plist file could not be parsed (Thanks, Luke!)
• Find Job Definition should never show directories
• Find Job Definition now does find jobs without proper .plist file name extension if 'Hide jobs without .plist file name extension' has been switched off
• Don't warn about missing run condition if job definition cannot be parsed at all

New

• Preferences option to only show job definitions with the .plist filename extension. Defaults to off. (Thanks, TJ!)
• Updated documentation for QuickLaunch

Fixed

• Switching between tasks w/ log viewer open would not work (Thanks, Ian!)
• Don't show directories in job list (Thanks, Craig!)
• Wrong tooltip in preferences window (Thanks, Greg!)

Fix

• Improved stability

New

• Preferences option to restore session when starting LaunchControl (Thanks, Sergei!)
• Built-in log viewer for launchd now also works on non-privileged accounts and across all supported OS versions
• Redesigned Preferences dialog
• JobWatch may now be configured to ignore jobs matching a pattern

Fixed

• Crash when changing divider thickness and closing preferences window
• Remember visibility of palette view
• Remember size of job list, editor, and palette view
• Crashes on Mac OS X 10.9 (Thanks, Fabio!)
• Crash in Mac OS X 10.8 and earlier
• Graphic glitch in menu bar when using LaunchControl with LTR languages (Thanks, Sergei!)

Fix

• Wrong colors on macOS versions prior to Mojave having 'Dark Menu Bar and Dock' enabled. This bug was introduced in version 1.42. (Thanks, Ruurd!)

New

• macOS Mojave (10.14b6) compatibility
• Support for macOS Mojave Dark Mode

Improved

• Reduced energy impact

New

• Updated descriptions of many supported keys
• Warn about KeepAlive/EnablePressuredExit conflict
• Support for rare (but since MacOS X 10.10 valid) string values for key Umask
• Support for Sockets/SockServiceName subkey of type Integer
• Warning about unsupported value for subkey Sock/SockProtocol
• Configuration option to delete files instead of moving them to the Trash (Thanks, Arne!)

Fixed

• Layout problem in Umask key panel
• some unsupported palette items would be displayed even though 'Show keys unsupported by launchd' has not been checked.
• Jobs renamed/created/deleted/saved by LaunchControl would sometimes be reported by JobWatch
• Crash related to QueueDirectories key (Thanks, TJ!)

Improved

• deprecation/support notes in key palette are now placed below description

Fixed

• Loading/unloading of jobs with LimitLoadToSessionType/Background (Thanks, Chris!)
• Show error message and fix when a job cannot be loaded/unloaded because of LimitLoadToSessionType value
• State Inspector would not work properly for jobs with LimitLoadToSessionType/Background
• Flag jobs with LimitLoadToSessionType key with an empty array as value as broken

New

• Warn about KeepAlive/SuccessfulExit <> RunAtLoad conflict
• Added trouble-shooting tips for jobs which are completely valid but still fail to run

Fixed

• Crash when cancelling installation of helper tool when switching to Custom Daemons (Thanks, Carsten!)

New

• Warn about use of KeepAlive/OtherJobActive on macOS Yosemite and later
• Job filter and job search now optionally support regular expressions (Thanks, Sergei!)
• JobWatch: A background process watching for changes to launchd jobs. Changes are announced via Notification Center. JobWatch has to be enabled in the LaunchControl Preferences. It requires OSX 10.8 or newer.

Fixed

• QuickLaunch would sometimes not work properly for Daemons (Thanks, Roberto!)
• Action Go To Job for KeepAlive subkeys OtherJobEnabled and OtherJobsActive would sometimes not work
• Crash on action Go To Job for KeepAlive subkeys OtherJobEnabled and OtherJobsActive
• Keyboard shortcut conflict: ⌘⇧T was sometimes used by View>Show Tab Bar in addition to Job>Start Job

Improved

• Removed obsolete menu items from View menu

Fix

• Stability improvements

New

• QuickLaunch menu now marks failed jobs with red status indicator (Thanks, Arne!)
• QuickLaunch now allows grouping of services; Actions may be performed on groups
• Added menu item Job>Disabled (⌘⇧D) for setting Disabled key via keyboard shortcut

Fixed

• Typo (Thanks, ѕтeғan)

Improved

• Services are now added to/removed from QuickLaunch via the new QuickLaunch "Preferences…" status item menu; The "Job>Accessible via QuickLaunch" menu item has been removed from LaunchControl

Known Problem

• Random crash at startup. Crash reports are much appreciated: http://www.soma-zone.com/support

New

• Send Unix signals to jobs via Job>Send Signal or context menu (Thanks, Arne!)

Fixed

• If two agents or daemons share the same Label the error is now only displayed when selecting these jobs
• If two agents or daemons share the same Label these jobs are now marked as broken in the job table
• State inspector did not handle symlinked jobs (Thanks, Sam!)
• LaunchControl got stuck when trying to trash loaded system jobs with SIP enabled (Thanks, Luke!)

Improved

• Added check marks to override db menu items to indicate current setting (Thanks, Greg!)
• Faster update of State Inspector

New

• Context menu for job table (Thanks, Vincent!)
• Added a button to the Program/ProgramArguments control to allow editing of files. Defaults to 'TextEdit.app'. Use LaunchControl Preferences to change. (Thanks, Arne!)
• Jobs may now be created from existing jobs using File>Import… (Thanks, Ranjit!)
• Jobs with improper file name extension (i.e. not '.plist') are listed in the job table as well. They are properly marked as 'not automatically loaded'.

Improved

• Status indicators in QuickLaunch now have a modern flat look
• Dropping a job .plist file on the service table now imports this job into the current domain
• File>Import Custom Job… has been renamed to File>Import… (if the current domain is Custom Agent or Custom Daemon this menu works as it did before)

Fixed

• Tooltips were broken when running LaunchControl on a headless machine (Thanks, James!)
• Random crash at startup

Fix

• Random crash on startup on macOS versions 10.7–10.10 (Thanks, Peter!)

Starting with version 1.34 LaunchControl requires Mac OSX 10.7

New

• Program/ProgramArguments: Executable may now be set/changed with a file panel
• Indicate missing/existing path in WatchPaths/QueueDirectories/KeepAlive

Fixed

• MachServices/WatchPaths tooltips would be shown regradless of 'Show Tooltips' option
• QueueDirectories warning tooltips would not be displayed with 'Show Tooltips' option off
• Random crash when using auto-complete in text fields expecting a path as input

This version does no longer support Mac OS 10.6!

New

• Ready for macOS High Sierra

New

• Added QuickFix for LegacyTimers key when key ProcessType is not set to Interactive
• Updated info text for key OnDemand; Added QuickFix to remove key (offered only if 'Warn about deprecated keys' is enabled).
• WatchPaths: Warn about relative paths
• WatchPaths: Indicate missing paths
• QueueDirectories: Warn about relative paths
• QueueDirectories: Indicate missing paths
• QueueDirectories: Warn about non-directory paths

Fixed

• Focus on authentication dialog when moving global/system jobs to the trash

Fix

• Crash when specifying an empty file as executable

Fixed

• Keep list of custom jobs ordered alphapetically
• List of Custom Jobs would sometimes not be persisted (Thanks, Sergei!)
• Excessive logging on macOS 10.6 (Thanks, George!)

Fixed

• Improved stability on legacy macOS versions 10.6–10.9 (Thanks, Peter and Michael!)

Fixed

• Fixed an issue with the code signature which prevented the installation of the bundled helper tool
• Random crash when dialog for helper tool installation pops up

Improved

• Accessibility (VoiceOver) improvements (Thanks, Scott!)
• Updated documentation

New

• Allow creation of custom jobs from crontabs
• Added menu Edit>Copy Path of Job Definition
• EnvironmentVariables control now allows for importing selected environment variables from the job's user environment

Fixed

• Removing of jobs was broken in version 1.30
• Provide unique value for Label key when creating a new job

Improved

• Ask only once for admin password when switching to global/system jobs

New

• Preferences option to display PID of job instead of static text 'Running' (Thanks, Sergei!)
• Support for jobs in non-standard location (Thanks, Sergei!)

Fixed

• QuickLaunch-enabled jobs not deleted with LaunchControl would still appear in QuickLaunch menu (Thanks, Ozkan!)
• Job label/status of selected job in job list hardly readable when LaunchControl has no input focus (Thanks, Sergei!)

Fixed

• Memory leak
• Rare crash that was introduced in version 1.30 (Thanks, Luke and Michael!)
• Truncated labels in preferences view on macOS 10.10 and older

Fixed

• Crash on macOS 10.11 (Thanks, Dave, Shaun, and Christopher!)

New

• Display keyboard shortcuts in job category selector
• Improved check for System Integrity Protection (SIP)
• Added support for Socket>SockPathOwner and Socket>SockPathGroup

Fixed

• "Don't show this message again" setting did not work for warning panels of override db actions (Thanks, Jonathan!)
• Crash when entering specific cron timespec to generate StartCalendarInterval entries
• Random crash when switching to Template category
• Refresh Socket display when adding new socket identifier
• Display correct default permissions for sockets
• Graphic glitch when switching from State Inspector to Default View while an unloaded job was selected
• About window can now be closed with ⌘W
• Info View would sometimes not show in State Inspector

New

• Warn about use of sudo in Program/ProgramArguments keys

Fixed

• Icon is now properly displayed in macOS 10.12.2
• Rare crash when parsing cron files
• Improved error messages when encountering commands the user has no permission to access
• Problem importing cron records prefixed with , , , , , , and (Thanks, Maurizio!)

New

• Made pane divider thickness configurable for easier resizing (Thanks, Paul!)

Fixed

• QuickLaunch menu would sometimes not open (Thanks, Brian!)
• Proper handling of exception in job status update thread

Fixed

• Random crash crash (Thanks, Luke!)
• Syncing issues between expert and standard view (regression from 1.28.1)
• Rendering issues of Default View when switching back from Expert View while focus is on input field

Fixed

• Graphic glitch when renaming a job on macOS Sierra (Thanks, Luke!)
• Text could run into "previous page" control in the info view on macOS Sierra (Again, thanks, Luke!)
• Crash when handling job definitions with empty ProgramArguments array (Thanks, Patrick!)

New

• Job definitions with a label starting with a digit will be flagged as broken on OSX 10.5.3– OSX 10.8.1. Exceptions are OSX 10.6.3 and 10.7.5.(Thanks, Jared!)

Fixed

• Better handling of write access errors due to System Integrity Protection
• Crash when searching on systems with malformed job definitions (Thanks, Luke!)
• Rare crash on macOS Sierra (Thanks, Davi and Patrick!)
• Cancelling installation of privileged helper tool (Thanks, Cocoanut3!)

New

• Added QuickFix for execute permission errors

Fixed

• Execute permission errors were not properly reported for daemons

New

• Added Help>Disable all warnings/tips (Thanks, TJ!)
• Warn about use of 'sudo' in shell scripts in agents

New

• Warning about UserName/GroupName in an agent now contains instructions on how to convert an agent into a daemon

Fix

• Import of cron jobs was broken (Thanks, Martin!)

Improved

• Sparkle updates now available via secure connection

New

• Added 'Go to job" button for KeepAlive/OtherJobEnabled / KeepAlive/OtherJobActive
• Dim daemon-only keys in palette while working with agents
• Added preferences option to hide daemon-only keys in palette while working with agents; Default: NO
• Warn about non-existing or empty file in StandardInPath

Fixed

• Opening a job definition from the "Find Job" panel while the current job is modified did not work properly
• Improved tooltips behaviour
• Warn before adding SessionCreate key to an agent
• Sync issue between standard and expert editor

Fixed

• Keyboard shortcut ⌘6 to access Server Daemons did not work (Thanks, Luke!)
• Always show tooltip for "Enable/Disable Tooltips" button

Fixed

• Stability improvements when running on OSX versions < 10.10 (Thanks, Daniel!)

New

• Suggest to remove log files (StandardOutPath/StandardErrorPath) when moving a job to the trash
• Improved error reporting for some cases of launchd error 78

Fixed

• Compatibility fix for OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard (Thanks, George!)
• File>Save As… was broken (Thanks, Michael!)

New

• Added File>New from clipboard (⌘⇧N)
• Suggest applicable man pages to get a description of a program's exit code
• El Capitan: Added state inspector (⌘⌥I)
• Terminate QuickLaunch if LaunchControl is deleted

Improved

• Always display tooltip when mouse pointer is over an error/warning indicator

New

• Import jobs from crontab
• Export jobs to crontab
• Improved error descriptions for failed jobs
• Improved documentation

Fixed

• Restored update functionality on OSX 10.11 El Capitan
• Don't offer to delete files in /dev when removing StandardOutPath/StandardErrorPath (Thanks, David!)

New feature

• Added more helpful information about why system services cannot be changed on El Capitan with System Integrity Protection turned on.

Fix

• Changes selection handling when reloading job list

Fixed

• Stability improvements for OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

Fixed

• (Find Job) pressing ⎋ in search field while it is not empty will just clear it and not remove input focus
• (Find Job) reopening the Find window will not change the selection in the result list
• Improved performance and stability of reading Yosemite launchd override db

New

• Support for the launchd override database now available on OSX 10.10 Yosemite as well
• Provided an additional, more readable interpretation of durations > 60s (ExitTimeout, StartInterval, ThrottleInterval, TimeOut)

Fixed

• Don't scroll back to first entry in service list when saving a job
• Removing a key while keyboard focus is still on one of its controls does now work properly
• Prevent deselecting a modified job by filtering

New

• Added support for OSX Server

Fixed

• Address family would sometimes wrongly be displayed as "IPv4" instead of "IPv4/6" for key Socket (Thanks, Robert!)
• Made QuickLaunch menu item play nice with Yosemite's Dark Mode

Fixed

• Visual glitches on OSX 10.11 El Capitan

Fixed

• Removing a row from the EnvironmentVariables table would sometimes remove the wrong row (Thanks, Brian!)

New

• Highlight undocumented keys in standard view (Thanks, Tobias!)
• Added preferences option to hide deprecated keys from the palette
• Added preferences option to hide keys unsupported on the current machine from the palette
• Deprecated/unsupported keys are now dimmed in the palette (Thanks, Tony!)
• Added preferences option to order items in key palette alphabetically (Thanks, Greg!)

Fixed

• (Regression) Always scroll to first job when switching job types (Thanks, Cüneyt!)

Fixed

• False error (AppleScript has to be interpreted by /usr/bin/osascript) when trying to run .applescript with correct shebang line (Thanks, John!)
• Improved error reporting when Program/ProgramArguments starts with a tilde (~)

Fixed

• Brought back Edit>Select All (Thanks, TJ)
• False warning in Socket key when using port numbers > 32767 (Thanks, Alex!)

New

• Optionally trash log files after changing/removing StandardErrorPath/StandardOutPath keys
• Find window now supports searching for jobs by content of StandardOutPath/StandardErrorPath keys
• Provide file names based on the job label when adding StandardOutPath/StandardErrorPath keys to a job
• Suppress warning about jobs without run condition when key LaunchEvents is present

Fixed

• Mark „Go to job definition“ button in Find window (Cmd-F) as default button

Improved

• Updated help file
• Made searches in Find window case insensitive

New

• Added quick-fix for attempts to execute AppleScripts without interpreter
• Added quick-fix for attempts to run application bundles as regular executables

New

• Global Search (Cmd-F): Search by file name, Label and/or Program/ProgramArguments
• Added „Edit in LaunchControl“ to items in QuickLaunch menu
• Dropping a job definition from one of the standard locations on the LaunchControl icon will open it in LaunchControl

Fixed

• Repairing permissions of a symlinked job definition did not work (Thanks, Jake!)

Improved

• Dropped support for 32bit Intel architecture

Fix

• Fixed a random crash when quitting LaunchControl

Fixed

• Mark key Debug as unsupported on OSX 10.10+ (Thanks, Jeff!)
• Random crash at startup (Thanks, Dominik)

Improved

• File>Revert To Saved (Cmd-R) is now enabled even if the file has not been modified.
• Follow symbolic links instead of overwriting them when saving job definitions.

Fixed

• Display glitch on Yosemite/Retina (Thanks Arie!)
• Mark key EnableGlobbing as unsupported on OSX Yosemite

Fixed

• Compatibility issues on OSX 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8
• Mark key TimeOut as unsupported on OSX 10.10
• Mark subkey KeepAlive/NetworkState as unsupported on OSX 10.10

Fixed

• Crash installing helper tool

New

• Added support for OSX Yosemite (Override DB not yet supported)
• Added View>Filter Palette (Cmd-Shift P)
• Added tooltips for value column in expert view. (Thanks John!)
• Added key LowPriorityBackgroundIO
• Added key SessionCreate
• Added key EnablePressureExit
• Added Edit>Copy Job Definition as XML (Cmd-Shift C) (Thanks Nicholas!)
• Added File>Save As… (Cmd-Shift S)

Fixed

• Changes to KeepAlive/PathState would sometimes not stick
• Renaming a label in KeepAlive/OtherJobsEnabled / KeepAlive/OtherJobActive could result in creating another entry in the respective section
• Adding a label to KeepAlive/OtherJobsEnabled / KeepAlive/OtherJobActive would fail when OtherJobsEnabled was is disabled
• Crash when resizing the warning column of KeepAlive/OtherJob(Enabled|Active)
• Graphical glitch when changing the job label in KeepAlive/OtherJob(Enabled|Active)
• Cmd-selecting a service now deselects it
• Use proper key pictograms when referring to modifier keys in the help file (Thanks Tony!)

Improved

• Moved Edit>Filter Job List to View menu
• Changed hotkey for filtering jobs to Cmd-Shift J
• LaunchControl>Hide Others now uses the standard hotkey Cmd-Opt H
• Changed the Job>Start shortcut to Cmd-Shift T to avoid a conflict with the new File>Save As…

Fixed

• Only show "Did you already know…" dialogs if the suggested action has not yet been performed by the user (Thanks Cüneyt!)
• Consider the default launchd paths when checking validity of a relative ProgramArguments key (Thanks George!)

Fixed

• Fixed another memory leak
• Properly update Sockets view when changing SockFamily from IPv4/6 to Unix and vice versa

Fixed

• Crash when switching to daemons (Thanks Thomas!)

New

• Added support for new key LegacyTimers (introduced in OSX 10.9.2)
• Added support for undocumented KeepAlive subkeys Crashed, OtherJobActive and AfterInitialDemand

Improved

• Quit application when closing window (Thanks Fred!)

Fixed

• Expansion of cron-style time specifications for StartCalendarInterval did not work on OSX10.6
• Memory leaks (Thanks Oliver!)
• Reduced system load caused by periodically updating job status

New feature

• Warn about too large values in ExitTimeOut, StartInterval, ThrottleInterval and TimeOut

Fix

• Problem entering values greater 9999 for ExitTimeOut, StartInterval, ThrottleInterval and TimeOut with specific locale settings

New

• It is now possible to generate values for StartCalenderInterval by evaluating a cron-style time specification

Fixed

• Enabling/disabling a job would only stick if the job definition was explicitly saved; This bug was introduced in version 1.13.1 (Thanks, Arie!)

Fixed

• Crash when clicking "Save" after switching from a modified job definition to a new one (Thanks, Arie!)

Fixed

• StartCalendarInterval/Month is not zero-based (Thanks, Jeff!)
• Random crash when switching between job definitions (Thanks again, Jeff!)

Fixed

• Verify keys of dictionary values case insensitive to avoid false warnings about use of undocumented keys
• Problem with selection/insertion point position in Program/ProgramArguments editor (Thanks Chris!)

New

• Remember "Show Tooltips" state across restarts.
• Added keyboard shortcuts to switch between job categories. See menu View>Goto.

Improved

• Improved performance. Scanning/validating 250 job definitions now takes about 1 second on a late 2011 17" MBP (compared to ~6 seconds in v1.13).
• Optimized drawing code for improved responsiveness.
• Saving a job definition will always replace any occurrence of "#Label#' with the current job label. Previously this would only happen right after creating an instance from a template.

Fixed

• Disable save button in template save dialog when template name is empty.

New

• QuickLaunch: This feature adds a small menu extra to your menu bar containing selected jobs and their respective status. It also allows for ad-hoc starting, stopping, loading or unloading of jobs. It runs independently from LaunchControl.
• Added configuration option to synchronize job Label with job definition file name. Synchronization is triggered when a job definition is renamed and not when a job label is changed. (Thanks, TJ!)
• Added configuration option to specify a custom file name prefix to be used when creating a new job (Thanks again, TJ!)
• Added configuration option to specify a default value for key Program (used when creating a new job)
• Added support for dynamic templates. Read help file section 'Templates' for details.
• Improved validation of ProgramArguments
• Added support for key ProcessType, introduced in OSX Mavericks

Fixed

• Helper would not be properly updated on OSX10.6 (Thanks again, Edouard!)

New

• Added i386 support

Fixed

• Native tooltips would show up along with custom tooltips (OSX10.6)
• Display default Hard/SoftResourceLimits as placeholder for agents as well
• Crash when selecting a daemon with Hard/SoftResourceLimits key on OSX 10.6 (Thank you, Edouard!)

New

• Added support for OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
• Offer to reload a job after saving changes to a running/loaded job
• Warn when specifying an IP address for Sockets/MulticastGroup w/o an explicit socket family
• Warn when specifying an IPv4 address for Sockets/SockNodeName or Sockets/MulticastGroup when SockFamily is set to IPv6 (and vice versa)
• Improved reporting of warnings/errors when loading a job
• Report warning when agent has configured a privileged Socket/SockServiceName
• Validate Socket/SockNodeName and Socket/SockMulticastGroup
• Warn about invalid Nice values for LaunchAgents
• Implemented custom tooltips to work around the ten-second time limit of standard OSX tooltips. This feature has to be explicitly enabled by clicking the 'Show Tooltips' button in the title bar or by pressing (Cmd-Shift ?)

Fixed

• Verifying a job with multiple info sheets would make LC forget the previously selected sheet
• Selecting a socket would mark the job as modified

Improved

• Improved warning when referencing an unknown job in KeepAlive/OtherJobEnabled
• improved speed of dulicate label detection

New

• Suggest output redirection on job error
• Inform about available output from stdout/stderr on job error
• Continuous job validation

Fixed

• Disable filters before creating a new job to avoid creating a seemingly invisible job

Fixed

• Problem when changing filter attributes saved in a previous session
• Save exposed/hidden state of filter view

Fixed

• Proper error reporting when encountering jobs with invalid names
• Fixed console warning about NSAlert being called from a background thread

Fixed

• Graphic glitches on Retina displays (Thanks Sven and David!)
• Selecting "View>Toggle Filter" would not work (as opposed to selecting the filter button or pressing the keyboard shortcut) (Thanks David, again!)

Fixed

• Handle job definitions without a Label key and broken links to job definitions gracefully (Thanks Brian and Kem)

New

• Improved validation of Soft/HardResourceLimits
• Improved usability of Soft/HardResourceLimits: Entering a non-numberic character will set field to 'unlimited', default values are displayed in grey
• Warn about incorrect input/output redirection
• Improved Umask config section: Display new file/directory permission example
• Improved Socket config section: Display socket permission example
• Added a link to http://launchd.info (Help>A launchd Primer)

Fixed

• Always scroll to first job when switching job types (Thanks, Cüneyt!)

New

• Improved validation of LimitLoadToSessionType

Fixed

• Crash with invalid plist files

New

• Mark jobs with non-unique job labels as broken
• Improved validation of KeepAlive:OtherJobsEnabled: Warn about jobs which have not been configured
• Added stopping of jobs without unloading: Job>Stop (Cmd-Shift-S)

Fixed

• Clear file specific warning panel when trashing a file
• Loading/unloading and starting/stopping a job does not reset the fold state of configuration sections

Improved

• Streamlined editing of EnvironmentVariables, KeepAlive, MachServices, QueueDirectories, Sockets, StartCalendarInterval and WatchPaths

New

• The job name filter is now accessible via Cmd-F

Fixed

• Enabling/disabling a job would not update the expert mode editor immediately
• Corrected wording in menu for KeepAlive:OtherJobEnabled. This key checks if another job is loaded and does not care about its Disabled key.
• Clearing the "Override Disabled Key" record would not update the display immediately

New

• Added hot-fix button when key Label has invalid case
• Warn about use of globbing symbols when EnableGlobbing has been disabled
• Warn when StartInterval lower than ThrottleInterval
• Warn when job has no valid run condition (when it can be loaded but never executed)
• Warn about use of shell globbing symbols in EnvironmentVariables
• Color coded Disabled Override in job list
• Info panels can be disabled individually in the preferences

Fixed

• Rare crash when editing in Expert Mode
• Toggling 'EnableGlobbing' would not mark the job definition as modified
• Switching between "Default argv[0]" and "Custom argv[0]" would not mark the job definition as modified
• Suppress unnecessary log output

New

• Quick creation of "Keep-this-app-running-no-matter-what"-Agents. Just drop an application on the LaunchControl icon (in Dock or in Finder) and the job will be created and loaded automatically.

Fixed

• When selecting jobs containing the MachServices or Sockets key the display would always scroll to these keys.
• Only explain problems related to the wellformedness of a job definition when the user selects it.

New

• Added support for the launchd override db: Jobs w/ overridden Disabled key are marked, the Disabled key can be overridden and overrides of the Disabled key can be removed
• The job status is now updated every five seconds.
• Added preferences option to mark deprecated keys as warnings; default: off

Fixed

• Modifying the search string in a way that the currently selected job is not visible in the job list anymore would not update the selection marker in the job list
• Wrong tooltip for LowPriorityIO (Thanks, James!)
• Expanding/collapsing a section via click on the section title may be aborted by dragging the mouse cursor outside the title area; Changed orientation of the closed disclosure triangle
• Dialogs now support standard key bindings for aborting an action (Cmd-., Esc)
• Controls in expert mode editor would sometimes be displayed when no job has been selected (Thanks Nicholas!)

Improved

• Lighter shade of green for valid sections

New

• Missing agent/daemon directory can now be created from within LaunchControl

Fixed

• Random crash when requesting admin password while scanning job definitions (Thanks, Cüneyt!)

New

• Check permissions of agent/daemon directories
• Permission issues with job definition files or daemon/agent directories may now be fixed from within LaunchControl

Fixed

• Small memory leak
• Graphic glitch in the 'Trash job' button while no job is selected
• Enabling/disabling a job definition having unsaved changes would revert those changes

New

• Improved validation of RootDirectory
• path validation/auto-completion now also works for inaccessible directories
• added validation of EnvironmentVariables (warn about referencing of environment variables like PATH=:/new/path, warn about relative paths in *PATH variables)

Fixed

• path validation/auto-completion now properly honors key RootDirectory
• path validation/auto-completion now properly handles ignored keys (e.g RootDirectory key in an agent definition)

Improved

• Turned some errors into warnings for clearer distinction: errors make it impossible for launchd(8) to run a job, while warnings may just lead to unexpected behavior)

New

• Added job filter. User may now filter by job attributes: enabled/disabled, validation results (ok, warning, error), loaded/unloded and status (running, ok, error, signalled)
• Added validation of job definition file properties (file name, owner, permissions, etc)

Improved

• When creating a new job definition the input focus is moved to the file name, allowing the user to immediately choose a proper name without having to do an extra double-click on the file name

Fixed

• Crash on startup when current user id is associated with a primary group which has no name
• When renaming a job definition would change its position in the job list, the selection would not be updated accordingly

New

• Added button to trace StandardOutPath and StandardInPath in Console.app

Fixed

• Moving a job definition to the trash could expose a graphic glitch displaying the deleted item twice
• Adding/trashing a job definition would not always update the title bar

Improved

• Improved validation of StandardErrorPath and StandardOutPath
• Improved validation of ExitTimeout, StartInterval, ThrottleInterval and TimeOut

New

• Improved validation for Hard/SoftResourceLimits

Fixed

• Clear label input field and disable Load/Unload button after trashing job definition
• Crash when parsing a job definition without Program and ProgramArguments key
• Don't rescan every service after renaming a job definition

New

• Added path auto-completion for Program, ProgramArguments, RootDirectory, WorkingDirectory, StandardIn/Out/ErrorPath, EnvironmentVariables, WatchPaths, QueueDirectories, Sockets and KeepAlive; Press Esc to trigger.
• Added descriptions for all errno codes accessible as tooltip when hovering over the error code in the status column. No more guessing at “Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 2“ and friends.

Fixed

• Prevent LaunchControl from using the discrete gfx card
• Stability improvements

Fix:

• Automatic updating 'Default argv0' in Program section did not always work (Thanks Kem!)

New

• Added support for OSX 10.7 Lion
• Added log view to check for launchd(8) messages while testing/debugging a job
• Added functionality to start a job regardless of its run conditions. Useful for testing/debugging jobs. Accessible via 'Jobs>Start' (Cmd-Shift S)
• Added keyboard shortcut and menu item for loading/unloading jobs. Accessible via 'Jobs>Load' (Cmd-Shift L)
• Added 'Job>Validate' (Cmd-Shift V); Validation is still automatically triggered when an action is performed inside LaunchControl. Use this command to re-validate a job after you've made changes to your system outside of LaunchControl.
• Added 'Fold/Unfold All' (Cmd-Shift ,/Cmd-Shift .). Sections in folded state now provide more information. Clicking on a section header now toggles the folding state.
• Improved status reporting
• Improved validators for various keys
• Updated help file

Fixed

• Fixed a random crash that could happen when loading a modified service
• Visual glitches when collapsing/expanding some panels
• Modified jobs may now be unloaded without having to save the first

New

• Added safety dialogs for all destructive actions (enable, disable, move to trash, save, rename); Each dialog may be suppressed
• Added keyboard shortcuts for 'File>New' and 'File>Move to Trash'

Fixed

• Mouse pointer was not always updated properly when dragging items from the palette
• Error message about invalid key Label would stick
• Removed unnecessary log messages

Fixed

• Clicking the 'Dismiss' button in the Acknowledgements window would crash the application