Snow Leopard Compatibility?

Hi folks,
What is the status, if known, of WA extensions with the Snow Leopard update? Apparently, it is more a fix update than a new system? If compatibility is a known problem, what is the lead time on updates to WA extensions?
I don't want to upgrade and get caught in a bind...
Jeff

No issues have been reported, but we haven't done extensive testing either.

I want to upgrade to Snow Leopard. I have read about some issues with Google Maps, but anyone experience any issues with DataAssist, iRite, ValidationToolkit or any other WebAssist extensions?

Thanks

Most of our extensions have been tested to work correctly on snow leopard.

There were not major issues that were found after upgrading to snow leopard.

I have ran DataAssist and iRite on Snow Leopard with no issues.

According to the list posted by Apple, Adobe Creative Suite is still written in Carbon and has not been upgraded to Cocoa. Apple re-wrote the kernel in Snow Leopard going from 32 Bit addressing to 64 bit addressing. Rosetta, the emulator that runs programs written in Carbon, is installed only when needed and Adobe reports that DW CS4 and Extension Manager 2.1 do not function correctly.

I switched DW to 32 bit (in the Finder, choose the app and Select Get Info from the File menu -- there is a check box that allows you to switch from 64 bit to 32 bit) That will speed up DW but not fix the problem of EM thinking that Web Assist extensions are not complatible and refuse to install them.

This is not a Web Assist problem but rather an Adobe problem. No response from Adobe when Creative Suite CS4 will be updated -- they have to re-write each program in Cocoa for full compatibility.

That's not entirely correct... Dreamweaver CS4 does not use Rosetta at all on Intel based Macs - Older versions such as Dreamweaver CS3 had to run Rosetta which was compiled for PowerPC chips... this isn't a Carbon vs. Cocoa issue. This had to do with the binary that was compiled, instead. In fact, I am running Snow Leopard and don't even have Rosetta installed (you have to answer yes to dialogue box to install it when Snow Leopard encounters a program that requires it). Rosetta is the emulator needed to run code compiled for Power PC chips and does not directly correlate to whether Carbon or Cocoa is is used.

The Carbon vs. Cocoa issue that Adobe had was that CS4 had already been near finished when Apple announced it was going completely 64 bit and scrapping Carbon in the future in favor of Cocoa. So while Adobe brought 64 bit support to Photoshop CS4 on Windows, they did now do so with the Mac version... that is until when CS5 gets released which will put the Adobe products in Cocoa on the Mac, as well as, making them 64 bit apps. But the Carbon language has no problem running on the latest and greatest Intel Macs - the only issue was that 64 bit apps in Carbon would not be exposed by the new OS "dumbing them down" to 32 bit.

There was a great article about a year ago on this when Apple announced it was eventually go all 64 bit: wwdc-2008-is-mac-os-x-106-the-death-of-carbon/

So unless your specifically telling your OS to "Open using Rosetta" (which you would have to check the box in the Get Info dialogue box), Rosetta should not be needed for any of your Adobe CS4 apps. In fact, while Snow Leopard has gone completely to 64 bit architecture and Adobe is still 32 bit, I have noticed several performance gains in terms of speed in both Dreamweaver and Photoshop (probably because other tasks running in the background are made easier).

But Dreamweaver CS4 and Extension Manager ARE compatible with Snow Leopard... so I am not sure what you are doing on your system (maybe you want to check to make sure that the aforementioned check box for "open is Rosetta" is UNCHECKED.

As far as WebAssist extensions are concerned, I have all of them running on Snow Leopard. I have not used Google Maps, though, since my Snow Leopard upgrade so I cannot determine the severity of that issue. But, I have used nearly everything else (SecurityAssist, DataAssist, iRite, FormBuilder, Cookies Toolkit, etc.) and have not had any issues.

Happy developing,

Brian

I have been back and forth with Adobe on the issue of that Compatibility error message. Others have posted over at Adobe about the issue as well. Adobe's response to my support queries is that Creative Suite CS4 running on Snow Leopard and Extension Manager 2.1 have a bug and it is between Apple and Adobe about who will fix it. No known date for a patch is posted.

In the mean time, I got CSS Sculptor and CSSMenu installed by constantly deleting the .dat file from Dreamweaver CS4's configuration file. But, DW crashes when I try to use the products. I am currently running DW in 32-bit mode.

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted what is going on between DW CS4 and Snow Leopard as I'm not really a programmer -- just know enough to be dangerous. All I know is that I've been banging my head against a wall called DW CS4 and Web Assist because I love the products and they just will not run.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

rita,

You shouldn't have any real issues running CS4 on Snow Leopard... I have done so successfully since day 1 of the Snow Leopard release. Also, you shouldn't have to even explicitly run it in 32 bit... because Snow Leopard will run it just as Leopard ran the Carbon app. While Carbon is completely compatible with Leopard, it's core doesn't allow the operating system to "see" it as 64 bit. So even though a developer could, say, write a 64 bit app in Carbon, it will not get recognized as such. But that does not mean that it is incompatible.

As far as the bug goes you mention, the Extension Manager has been buggy on all Apple machine and I think somebody at Adobe is crossing their wires in making it sound as if it is because of Snow Leopard. The reality is that the extension manager has been buggy on all Apple OSX systems. I remember it having the same "cache" problem in Tiger, then Leopard, and Snow Leopard. Adobe has admitted that they are the culprit on this and have made mention that it would be fixed upon the release of CS5 (or whatever they may rebrand it to). The only other benefit is that the entire CS5 suite will be rewritten in Cocoa completely. While I am not sure how much better Flash and Dreamweaver will actually perform, I am told this will really fix the issues that Fireworks has had with instability on the Mac - which would be quite welcome. While I love Photoshop, it certainly does not compress images with the efficiency that Fireworks does.

As far as your WebAssist extensions, they all should work fine with maybe the exception of Google maps... I have yet to really test it. I would tackle each issue one at a time and if needed post the issue in the appropriate extension forum and the WA engineers will open a support ticket for you if needed. I am positive you will be able to get everything resolved on here rather quickly and be developing with no issues.

Best regards,

Brian

I have been running SL and CS4 w/o any problems. EM works fine too.
I do think CS5 will be better as it is suppose to be 64 bit.

--- My baby: