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Gamma Board 1.3: Presets

There’s a new version of Gamma Board out today with new features helping you color-manage screens from a distance. Three highlights:

• Presets are a new feature allowing you to save and restore settings for screens and groups. Tap the sliders icon in the setting panel to create or apply a new preset.

• Propagation of a group settings to all the screen settings. Tap the group icon at the top of the group settings and you’ll be offered to merge the group settings into each individual screen settings. You can also reset individual settings for all the screens in the group in the same way.

• The document browser has been changed to use the standard iOS document browser (if running on iOS 11 or later). You can now save set documents on iCloud, locally on the device, or using other storage services.

Gamma Board 1.3 also includes a couple of minor bug fixes.

You can download it from the App Store for $79.99 USD — a 20% reduction. Or request a custom branded version for your organization.

Gamma Control 6.3: Color Profiles

One feature that has been requested for a long time in Gamma Control is the ability to create a color profile. Now it’s there. If you choose a color profile in System Preferences, in the Screens pane, the operating system takes charge of applying the gamma correction curve you’ve chosen in Gamma Control.

So in Gamma Control 6.3 you can calibrate your screen, export a profile, select it in System Preferences, and never have to open Gamma Control again. Yeah!

This feature is mysteriously unavailable during the free trial though, so you’ll need a purchased copy of the app.

Tip for better Storyboard & XIB localization

When localizing text extracted from a storyboard or XIB file, what you get is a list of strings to translate with a note attached to each telling you what kind of object this is about. But the strings come in no particular order, and the intended meaning can be hard to decipher at times. This can result in a poor translation or require some time lost trying to figure the meaning if you have a dedicated translator.

The good news is that, as a developer, you can help translators by leaving a note. Inside of the Identity inspector, under the Document section, you’ll find the “Localizer Hint” field. Leave a comment there and it’ll show up in the XLIFF exported by Xcode.

Gamma Board Test Flight

Gamma Board is a bit hard to market given most people will want to experience it before purchasing, but at the same time the App Store is a bit in the way when you want to offer a trial.

Here’s the solution I came up with: I’ll occasionally open beta testing to all. For instance, right now I’m working on version 1.3 and you can try it out using TestFlight.

I think this will work for a tech-savvy audience.