Dashcode Beta Expired

Looks like Apple made good on their original expiry date for Dashcode Beta. Starting yesterday Dashcode will simply display a dialog saying the beta has expired. Annoyingly, this date was originally set to be after the release of Leopard allowing developers to upgrade the OS and keep working and supporting their widgets. Apple slipped the release of Leopard, but didn't similarly move the Dashcode expiry date.

Choices now are:
- Upgrade to Apple Select (for $500) and install a pre-release (flaky) version of Leopard.
- Wait patiently till October.
- TextEdit + Safari + Webkit debugger + a big headache.
- Set the date back on your machine while starting Dashcode Beta - this, amazingly, works. You'll have to have downloaded the beta already as it's no longer available on Apple Developer Center.

Safari 3 Public Beta vs Dashcode Public Beta

I just installed the Safari 3 Public Beta, it's very nice but without AdBlock and to a lesser extent Greasemonkey it's never going to replace Firefox. Anyway, after firing up Dashcode Public Beta I noticed that there are rendering problems. Just creating a simple widget and resizing the front design is suddenly very problematic. I suppose Safari 3 has an updated version of Webkit that Dashcode Beta isn't ready for.

Uninstalling Safari 3 fixes things with Dashcode. A bit of a pity as Safari 3 was noticeably quicker that Safari 2 and much much faster than Firefox.

Incidentally, maybe a bonus reason for the release of Safari on Windows is to increase the number of plugins available. Plugins are certainly a big differentiator between Firefox and the other browsers, and while Safari is marginalized only on OSX it won't get the volume of [quality] plugins developed by 'the community' that Firefox does.