MarcEdit MacOS Updates

This past weekend, I spent a good deal of time getting the MacOS version of MarcEdit synchronized with the Windows and Linux builds.  In addition to the updates, there is a significant change to the program that needs to be noted as well. 

First, let’s start with the changelog.  The following changes were made in this version:

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** 2.2.30
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* Bug Fix: Delimited Text Translator — when receiving Unix formatted files on Windows, the program may struggle with determining new line data.  This has been corrected.
* Bug Fix: RDA Helper — when processing copyright information, there are occasions where the output can create double brackets ($c[[) — this should be corrected.
* Behavior Change: Delimited Text Translator — I’ve changed the default value from on to off as it applies to ignoring header rows. 
* Enhancement: System Info (main window) — I’ve added information related to referenced libraries to help with debugging questions.
* Bug fix/Behavior Change: Export Tab Delimited Records: Second delimiter insertion should be standardized with all regressions removed.
* New Feature: Linked Data Tools: Service Status options have been included so users can check the status of the currently profiled linked data services.
* New Feature: Preferences/Networked Tasks: MarcEdit uses a short timeout (0.03 seconds) when determining if a network is available.  I’ve had reports of folks using MarcEdit have their network dropped from MarcEdit.  This is likely because their network has more latency.  In the preferences, you can modify this value.  I would never set it above 500 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) because it will cause MarcEdit to freeze when off network, but this will give users more control over their network interactions.
* Bug Fix: Swap Field Function: The new enhancement in the swap field function added with the last update didn’t work in all cases.  This should close that gap.
* Enhancement: Export Tab Delimited Records: Added Configurable third delimiter.
* Enhancement: MarcEditor: Improvements in the Page Counting to better support invalid formatted data.
* Enhancement: Extract/Delete MARC Records: Added file open button to make it easier to select file for batch search
* Bug Fix: Log File locking and inaccessible till closed in very specific instances.
* Enhancement: Compiling changes…For the first time, I’ve been able to compile as 64-bit, which has reduced download size.
* Bug Fix: Deduplicate Records: The program would thrown an error if the dedup save file was left blank.

Application Architecture Changes

The first thing that I wanted to highlight is that the program is being built as a 64-bit application.  This is a significant change to the program.  Since the program was ported to MacOS, the program has been compiled as a 32-bit application.  This has been necessary due to some of the requirements found in the mono stack.  However, over the past year, Microsoft has become very involved in this space (primarily to make it easier to develop IOS applications on Windows via an emulator), and that has lead to the ability to compile MarcEdit as a 64-bit application. 

So why do this if the 32-bit version worked?  Well, what spurred this on was a conversation that I had with the homebrew maintainers.  It appears that they are removing the universal compilation options which will break Z39.50 support in MarcEdit.  They suggested making my own tap (which I will likely pursue), but it got me spending time seeing what dependencies were keeping me from compiling directly to 64-bit.  It took some doing, but I believe that I’ve gotten all code that necessitated building as 32-bit out of the application, and the build is passing and working. 

I’m pointing this out because I could have missed something.  My tools for automated testing for the MacOS build are pretty non-existent.  So, if you run into a problem, please let me know.  Also, as a consequence of compiling only to 64-bit, I’ve been able to reduce the size of the download significantly because I am able to reduce the number of dependencies that I needed to link to.  This download should be roughly 38 MB smaller than previous versions.

Downloading the Update

You can download the update using the automated download prompt in MarcEdit or by going to the downloads page at: http://marcedit.reeset.net/downloads/

–tr


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One response to “MarcEdit MacOS Updates”

  1. Stuart Rickard Avatar

    Your timing couldn’t be better. I have just found the need to validate some MARC, found your app and am doing it on my Mac. Worked first time and showed me where the problem was in a file of over 7000 records. Thanks a million!