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Combining the power of Unix and Kaleidoscope – Tips for using ksdiff

This article covers a few lesser known tips and tricks that can dramatically increase productivity when working with Kaleidoscope. Using ksdiff, you can integrate Kaleidoscope into any workflow that produces text or images and benefit from its comparison capabilities.

There are three powerful features we want to highlight in this article, using the –label option to name the target window, piping content into ksdiff, and process substitution. And there is an advanced bonus hint…

Combining the power of Unix and Kaleidoscope – Introduction

Kaleidoscope comes with a hidden gem that drives many integrations with system technologies and software programs: the ksdiff command. We’ll show you how to make the most of Kaleidoscope by harnessing the power of this gem in this two part series.

This first article describes the basic usage of the ksdiff command line tool, and why you should consider using it.

Resolving Merge Conflicts in VSCode with Kaleidoscope’s 3-way Merge

  • catlan 

VSCode is a powerful IDE that can be used with all the world’s programming languages through a vast ecosystem of extensions.

And now there is one more. The new Kaleidoscope extension for VSCode allows you to compare entire files, compare a selection of text, show git difftool results and run git mergetool.
The extension provides these functionalities through a comprehensive set of menu choices and toolbar buttons.

Kaleidoscope Developer Tools for Safari, Part 2

  • Florian 

As announced last week in Part 1 of our article focusing on JavaScript debugging, this second part shows how to take advantage of Kaleidoscope Developer Tools for Safari when working on web page content and layout.

The extension allows you to send HTML or CSS to Kaleidoscope, enabling you to compare the changes you are making, while you iterate on your latest web page or web app.

New Extension: Kaleidoscope Developer Tools for Safari

  • catlan 

We are thrilled to bring you our new Safari Extension for Web Developers. It offers 4 distinct features to cover your development needs. In this article, we will focus on the more advanced usage, ksdiff for the Safari JavaScript Console.

When it comes to debugging tricky issues, there is no single solution. It is about having many different tools, and knowing which one to use when, or how to combine them to achieve the goal. We want to introduce you to a new tool for your toolkit that works great with the ones already provided: ksdiff for the Safari JavaScript Console. It will allow you to send text directly from the JavaScript Console to Kaleidoscope at any time.

Mac App Store: App Bundles, Unlisted Apps, and forgotten purchases

  • catlan 
Kaleidoscope 3 Upgrade Bundle

Our company has a long history with the Mac App Store. Letter Opener has been available since January 2011, the day the App Store opened. Kaleidoscope was released on the App Store in January 2013, when version 2.0 launched. Many of our customers appreciate the App Store, and as users, so do we. It is a platform that is trustworthy. Installing an app from the App Store won’t ruin your Mac, your payment is secure, and the convenience is welcome.

With the recent major upgrade to Kaleidoscope 3, the first in 8 years, our goal was to provide a reasonable upgrade option for all of our existing users, including our App Store customers. Of course, the App Store has never had support for upgrades. App Bundles looked like a potential solution…

Less drudgery, more fun: using Kaleidoscope with XCTest failures

  • Florian 

Most developers for Apple platforms deal with tests in some way or another. XCTest is probably the most popular framework because it’s built directly into Xcode and can be integrated with build processes and automation.

However, one problem with those tests is that more complex failures are not easy to interpret. And if things aren’t easy (and fun) to use, developers will have a resistance to using them. Wouldn’t it be nice if Kaleidoscope could show XCTest failures in a useful format?

What’s new in the macOS Monterey command line

  • Florian 

The other day we found a helpful command line tool option, only to discover later that the option was only available in macOS Monterey. Since we also need to target Big Sur, this would not be an option for us. So we created something to help us overcome similar issues in the future: a way to compare man pages between macOS system versions. And that’s what we want to share with you today.

Acquiring A Product: Our Kaleidoscope Journey

  • catlan 

At the end of 2020, we acquired the app Kaleidoscope. As longtime Mac developers, we were already fans of this powerful tool that makes it easy to spot and merge changes in many different kinds of files, and we were confident we could bring it back to its former glory. In this post, we want to highlight the challenges we faced along the way and share our vision for Kaleidoscope’s future.

Meet the new Kaleidoscope

  • catlan 

For the past year, we’ve been working hard on modernizing Kaleidoscope, and today we’re proud to release Version 3!

Kaleidoscope 3 is a milestone for the app. We have listened to your feedback and enhanced the app accordingly, with new tools for inspecting version control changesets and more settings for text comparisons. We have also brought a fresh new design specifically tailored for macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey, including support for the Apple M1 chip.