Future of CocoaDialog?

[AVmcclint]

I was reminded this morning that High Sierra will be the last macOS to run 32-bit apps. I decided to do a quick check of our installed apps to see what will need updating within the next year or so. I saw CocoaDialog was listed as 32-bit. I then remembered that CocoaDialog hasn't been updated in 11 years. Are we pretty much at the EOL for it or does anyone know if there is movement to update it for 64bit? If it truly is abandonware, is there an alternative?

[thoule]

For me, BitBar (getbitbar.com) has been awesome for communicating with my users. It's very very flexible.

[mm2270]

I hold little hope that cocoaDialog will be updated to work with High Sierra. The original developers are basically MIA and I haven't seen anyone come along and show interest in picking the project up and modernizing it. I had emailed the developer on a couple of occasions to ask if he would ever update it again and the answer was always "maybe" if he gets some time to do it. It doesn't seem like there's much interest there though.

It seems like 10.12 is the end of the line for it sadly. :(

[Sichas]

@mm2270 Well that makes me very sad :( RIP CocoaDialog

[boberito]

Nooooooooooo :(

I love CocoaDialog.

[boberito]

However, you can do some of the things using jamfhelper or using AppleScript.

Pulldown menus being the one you can't though

[talkingmoose]

I like AppleScript/osascript because they're built into the OS and incorporate well into Bash scripts.

Python with Tkinter is also built in. @brysontyrrell has done some amazing stuff with it.

Pashua is nice too, but hasn't been updated for a couple of years.

[tlarkin]

There are some good options still:

There is Yo which does notification center style dialog boxes.

There is Python ObjC bridging to write your own notification tooling. Greg Neagle did some PyObjC stuff in his conference runs this year, found here. You can watch the keynote videos as well to learn how to use them.

Applescript is still an option for now.

Swift is becoming more and more robust/prevalent these days, and if you ship the swift binary to your Macs you can use it as a scripting platform. The downside is you now have a dependency of shipping that binary or installing the Xcode command line tools, but it is an option. Here is random blog post I found a while back

Also as already mentioned Tkinter in Python can do dialog boxes and interaction as wel.

You do have choices and Cocoa Dialog while a nice tool, looks like it was from the 10.4 era as far as UI/UX goes.

[gda]

Pls see the last update from April 2017 on cocoaDialog v3.0.0b7
https://github.com/mstratman/cocoadialog

[markcarver]

Hello all,

I help maintain/develop https://github.com/mstratman/cocoadialog and have been working on it quite a bit this year.

There have been a lot of changes since the last "beta" (which really should have been alphas, but meh, whatever).

My goal is to have a full 3.0 release sometime this year. However, in an effort to keep things simple and actually get it out of the door, it will contain quite a few backward compatibility changes. Many are trivial to "fix" and commands can easily be adjusted in a few minutes to accommodate the changes.

---

Side note:

I do see that there has been a lot of activity/discussion around this project here on JAMF but unfortunately, that does not seem to translate well to the actual GH project.

I indeed do this in my spare time and has always been more of a fun little side project I like to keep up with from time to time.

I would strongly recommend getting involved there first and foremost if you wish to provide feedback and keep my interest on point.

[matt_stenger]

Since there's activity on this, what's the correct deploy process for Cocoa Dialog using Casper?

There's a number of deploy scripts here that leverage it, and I'd like to use a few of them in my own deployments.

[markcarver]

The project has been converted into a proper GitHub organization with both Mark A. Stratman and I as owners: https://github.com/cocoadialog/cocoadialog

There is also a new website: https://cocoadialog.com

[markcarver]

Also, I've created the https://cocoadialog.slack.com workspace. Working on getting an automated invitation system up, but for now you can use this link (expires in 30 days):

https://join.slack.com/t/cocoadialog/shared_invite/enQtMjU2MTMyMDgwOTk2LTA1NjQ1MWMzMzk0ZWE5NmZiNGRiN...

[mm2270]

Hi @markcarver I'm really glad to see cocoadialog get some attention from you and the other Mark :) Thanks for your posts here to keep us updated on this! I've been a long time user of CD, and really love the flexibility and ease of use it offers for generating custom dialogs. I'd hate to lose the use of it, so I'm happy that it looks like we'll be able to continue using it in current and future versions of macOS.
Thanks for picking this up again!

[markcarver]

https://slack.cocoadialog.com now exists and can send users invitations.

https://cocoadialog.com now has a Slack button at the bottom that inlines the above site when clicked.

Note: this will be my last post on this issue since we now have an official dedicated communications medium via Slack.

[troyewebster]

I need something that is VERY similiar to jamfHelper in HUD/lockHUD mode (always modal, launched from script, etc)... but with the ability to further control the text formatting and window sizing ... any suggestions?

[mm2270]

@troyewebster I don't know of anything out there like that unfortunately. In terms of windowing/dialoging tools for macOS, it's pretty slim, which is why so many of us are anxious to see cocoadialog kept alive. It's one of the few tools that has a level of flexibility we really want. But even CD can't really do what you're asking as far as the hud style window.

I would perhaps suggest looking at Pashua, but it's far from easy to use or understand. Pashua lends itself well to incorporating into double clickable "app" types of things where the info you need to display is known and static, but not so much if you need it to be a more flexible "on the fly" windowing tool. Also, Pashua to my knowledge doesn't do the hud window style either.

[sdagley]

Anybody know what the latest is with cocoadialog3? The https://slack.cocoadialog.com page no longer loads, and https://cocoadialog.com no longer has a Slack link, so there appears to be no way to access the cocoadialog Slack channel to check.

[cgiordano]

I'm wondering the same myself. I like the idea of using AppleScript, however, it doesn't support the option for dropdown menus / picklists so it, unfortunately, won't work for me.

I don't know python but I've been looking to learn so I may need to python in order to use Tkinter.

[boberito]

Check out Pashua - https://www.bluem.net/en/projects/pashua/

It's got A LOT more options. I moved to it in the last year or so from CocoaDialog and even JamfHelper.

[andrewseago]

We've been running what seems to be a 64-bit version of CocoaDialog. It was originally listed as 3.0beta7

[mgorton]

@andrewseago Where were you able to download the binaries for it?

[mgorton]

Anyone have a code signed version of the beta7? Can't really deploy in its current state, would require users to authorize it. There's no TeamID when you check the app.

[tkimpton]

check this out https://github.com/giladdarshan/gdialog

[bradtchapman]

@mgorton : just before you package the application, remove the quarantine bit:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/cocoaDialog3.app

If you are using Jamf Composer, right-click the app and then “Show in Finder” to locate the source tree.