ChordMate for Windows first screenshot

I love the way ChordMate looks on Leopard, so I decided to make ChordMate for Windows just like that. Although the work is far from complete, the basic search is already working, and the main window is functional.

Renewed temporary licenses

Yesterday I found that our web host broke our server scripts and made it impossible for people to try ChordMate after the first run. The problem is fixed now. If you started your trial after 1/1/2008 and it got interrupted, you can start a new trial. My apologies to everyone who got affected by it. I hope that some of you will read this announcement and will give it a second shot.

Sharps and flats on your screen

When I recently saw sharps and flats on Windows while working on the Windows version of ChordMate, I was shocked how thin they looked. I could barely see them! Microsoft and Apple both use antialiasing, but their approaches are very different. Microsoft tries to make letters look better on the screen while Apple tries to make them closer to what they really are on paper.  The end result is that Microsoft’s letters are much thinner, so symbols that should be thin by design become very hard to see. That’s what happens with sharps and flats. At first, I was trying to find different fonts that would make them look normal and then I gave up when I realized that the problem was with the operating system. If you are curious, there is a very interesting article about the way different operating systems handle showing letters on the screen.