The way I see it, this is something that has so far only been done using Flash, so it may be of interest to web designers & developers to see how they can achieve this without Flash, in a cross-browser compatible manner.

Our aim? To use CSS3 native support for multiple columns on the most “advanced” browsers (here: Safari, Chrome and Firefox), and to find a backwards-compatible technique for the others (in this case, Opera and Internet Explorer).

Basics: sources, …

These annotated files are used in this article:

• CSS: ie_multicolumn.css (for IE), main.css (for all browsers), multicolumn.css (for Opera)
• Javascript: css3-multi-column.js (for IE and Opera), pageturn.js, stylesheet.js

The web page that helped me the most with this design process was an article on A List Apart: “Introducing the CSS3 Multi-Column Module”, written by Cédric Savarese. In this article, Cédric not only explains the CSS3 multi-column module, but also the manners in which to emulate this behaviour using Javascript on browsers that do not support this CSS3 module. Cédric wrote a script in Javascript for this purpose.

There is, however, one issue with this article: the website to which it links, CSScripting.com, does not seem to respond (I’ve tried often). Using Google (or your favourite search engine), you can nevertheless easily find other websites using the script (“css3-multi-column.js”).

The HTML – containers

This may sound ugly, but the best way I’ve found to implement this trick, after much trial & error, involves as many as 4 DIVs around the content.

First, the DIV you would normally have used for the content. Second, the first DIV required by Cédric Savarese’s Multi-Column system (there must be a difference between these two, for reasons linked to the page turning effect – see below). Third, a DIV used for the transition between pages, for non-Internet Explorer browsers (this is linked to a fade effect, which doesn’t work as smoothly in IE – see below for the page turning effect). Fourth, the second DIV required by the Multi-Column system.

The HTML doesn’t look all that pretty, but I didn’t want to change the JS code too much, hence the remains of the “one” and “two” classes from the Multi-Column system:

<div id="article">
	<div class="one" id="content">
	<!--[if !IE]><!--><div id="columniser" style="margin-left: 0px;"><!--<![endif]-->
		<div id="columnified" class="two">
			[put content here]
		</div>
	<!--[if !IE]><!--></div><!--<![endif]-->
	</div>
</div>

The CSS – all browsers

There is one major issue with the CSS3 multi-column module: so far, the browsers implementing it are Firefox (since v3), Safari (since v3.1) and Chrome (since v2). Neither Internet Explorer nor Opera support it.

- Source

We will therefore define general CSS rules for all browsers, and then add some stylesheets specifically for respectively Opera and IE, as the latter will use the Javascript method of multi-column, whereas the others will not.

The first element for you to think about is the total amount of content you want visible. In the case of Arpia.be, I wanted two columns of a height of 430px and of a width of 330px to be visible, with a separation of 60px, i.e. a total width of 720px.

In experimenting, I found it better to add some “padding-top” to the columns, for better display of certain typefaces with a higher baseline. The height of the containing DIVs therefore takes into account this “padding-top”.

Non-annotated CSS:

div.one {
	height: 435px;
	width: 720px;
	overflow: hidden;
}
div#columniser {
	height: 435px;
	width: 720px;
	overflow: visible;
	opacity: 1;
}
div.two {
	column-count: auto;
	column-width: 330px;
	column-gap: 60px;
	-webkit-column-count: auto;
	-webkit-column-width: 330px;
	-webkit-column-gap: 60px;
	-moz-column-count: auto;
	-moz-column-width: 330px;
	-moz-column-gap: 60px;
	height: 430px;
	overflow: visible;
	display: block;
	padding: 0;
	padding-top: 4px;
}
#columnified {
	margin-left: 0;
}

See the annotated CSS here.

The CSS – IE & Opera

Because of the way the Javascript method for multi-columns work (see below), some additional CSS entries are necessary for Opera and IE. In addition, IE and Opera do not handle the multi-column Javascript in the same way, so it is necessary to have different CSS for each, in addition to the main CSS file.

Opera:

#article {
	width: 720px;
	text-align: justify;
	overflow: hidden;
}
div.one,#columniser {
	max-height: 435px;
	width: 15600px !important;
	overflow: hidden;
	margin: 0;
}
div.two {
	column-count: auto;
	column-width: 330px;
	column-gap: 60px;
	max-height: 430px;
	overflow: hidden;
	margin: 0 0 0 0px;
	padding: 0;
	padding-left: 0px;
	padding-top: 4px;
}
div.two .columns, div.two .wrapper {
	width: 330px !important;
	height: 430px !important;
}
.columns {
	padding-left: 0 !important;
	padding-right: 60px !important;
}

See the annotated CSS here.

IE:

Disclaimer: I have only attempted to get this to work on IE7 and IE8, as IE6 would most probably require a whole lot more work (I found that IE6 crashed using the current, modified multi-column JavaScript – I did not seek to find the source of the issue).

#article {
	width: 740px;
	height: 470px;
	text-align: justify;
	overflow: hidden;
}
div.one {
	max-height: 435px;
	width: 15600px;
	overflow: visible;
	margin: 0;
}
div.two {
	column-count: auto;
	column-width: 330px;
	column-gap: 60px;
	max-height: 430px;
	overflow: visible;
	margin: 0 0 0 0px;
	padding: 0;
	padding-left: 0px;
	padding-top: 0px;
}
div.two .columns, div.two .wrapper {
	width: 330px !important;
	height: 430px !important;
}
.columns {
	padding-left: 0 !important;
	padding-right: 60px !important;
}
div#columnified {
	float: left;
}

See the annotated CSS here.

The Javascript – Adapting css3-multi-column.js

Now that those basic CSS properties are defined, we must examine the multi-column script, to see how it will be used in Opera and IE, before looking at how we switch between pages.

Cédric Savarese’s script is brilliant at enabling multi-column layouts on browsers not supporting this CSS3 module. However, it was made with the idea of a fluid layout in mind, and one where all the content is visible. We, on the other hand, wish to hide some of the content.

There are some issues with the multi-page adaptation of multi-columns that led me to change certain elements within the code of the Javascript I use.

First, Cédric’s script creates DIVs within an “available width” generally limited to the browser window’s horizontal length. It is our aim, however, to have all these DIVs sitting right next to each other on a horizontal line, for as long as it takes to display all the content. It is therefore to fix the available width to an amount far greater than the browser window width. In the Javascript, the line is “var availableWidth = 15600;”, but you can choose to make it far larger. In my case, it was because I did not believe I would ever go beyond 40 columns of text (at 330px for a column, 60px for the gap between columns).

A second important change was fixing the height of the columns within the Javascript. I found this to be necessary, as the reading of data from the CSS did not seem to force the Javascript to create the DIVs exactly as I wished them to be (see “var newHeight = 430;” in the script, az well as all the instances of “430″, which force the value instead of “newHeight”).

These values, “430″ and “15600″, are the two main points in my modified version of the script that you will want to change to your own values.

As regards height, another important change was to replace “findSplitPoint(elem, newHeight*i, wrapper);” in the “processElement” function with “findSplitPoint(elem, newHeight, wrapper);”, to avoid the creation of DIVs greater than the newHeight limit (430px in my case), even if there are only 10px more to complete a tag (a “P”, a “DIV”, …).

Furthermore, whereas in Cédric’s script, the containing DIV, the “wrapper”, could have a random ID, in our case it is necessary to define this ID for the purpose of sliding it in Internet Explorer (see below for the page-turning effect). Therefore, ‘if(!wrapper.id) wrapper.id = “columnified”;’. On a similar note, to allow better control of the columns, it is useful to define a class: “elem.className = “columns”;” (I also defined the wrapper class: “wrapper.className = “wrapper”;”).

Finally, at the top of the script, there is a list of “splitableTags”. I expanded this list to contain table-related elements, because I use tables in certain areas.

You can find this adapted script here: css3-multi-column.js.

The HTML – Turning pages

Now that the infrastructure is there, it’s time to work on allowing the user to go between pages, i.e. to slide the content so he/she can view the hidden columns.

We’ll be using Javascript for this effect, so here is the HTML for calling the page-turning function:

<div class="nav">
	<ul class="arrows">
		<li id="previous"><a href="#" id="aprevious" onclick="changeColumns(1,'previous');return false;"><span>Previous page</span></a></li>
		<li id="next"><a href="#" id="anext" onclick="changeColumns(-1,'next');return false;"><span>Next page</span></a></li>
	</ul>
</div>

In the function “changeColumns()”, the first value shows the direction, while the second is the title of the ID of the element clicked.

Why “-1″ for “Next”? When the user clicks on “Next”, we want the two visible columns to go left, to leave space for the next two columns. Because we’re playing on “margin-left”, as you’ll see in the Javascript file, we want the value for “Next” to be negative.

The Javascript – Turning pages

To turn pages, one can proceed in several steps. First, we must ensure that when the user clicks on the “Next” or “Previous” button/link, the content moves, and it moves to the correct place. Second, to create a better experience, we can animate this change.

The essence of the sliding of the content is that we’re playing on “margin-left” of the relevant DIV (if IE: columnified; if not IE: columniser – this is linked to the animation).

For my website, I chose to do a “fade out/slide/fade in” animation, but found that it was sluggish on Internet Explorer. This is the reason for which IE users do not need the “columniser” DIV.

Other animation choices are possible: you may choose to fade out the entire content and show a page-turning effect, if you have a book design. This is what I did for a “book” proof-of-concept design on which I worked earlier (here, it seems as though the user is actually flipping through pages of a book).

Here are the three sets of functions (4 functions in total) we shall be using:

changeColumns()

In our HTML for turning pages, we defined the function as "changeColumns()", with two values: first, a value showing the direction, and in second instance the ID of the element clicked.

animateSlide()

animateSlide(), as its name indicates, will animate the transition between two pages by sliding the content. As was seen previously, IE users are not faced with this function, because of the transition lag it causes.

setOpacity() and fade()

The two last functions relate to the fading in/out of the content. These are very standard, and work in all browsers (through the use of "filter" for IE – I have retained this here for the sake of completeness, but it is not used, as IE users do not see the fade animation).

Full pageturn.js

As the JavaScript involved is long, I have not reproduced it in this post. You may view an annotated "pageturn" script to see the functions with explanations for each step.

Serving the CSS and the Javascript

Finally, how do we combine all of this? We want Opera users to have the main CSS file and the Opera one, as well as the multi-column Javascript, but we don’t want Safari users to have the additional Javascript, given that they have CSS3 Multi-Column support.

The solution is to feed different files to different browsers, using Javascript:

if (/MSIE (\d+\.\d+);/.test(navigator.userAgent)) { //test for IE x.x;
	document.write("<!--[if IE 8]><link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='main.css' media='screen, projection' /><link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='ie_multicolumn.css' media='screen, projection' /><![endif]-->");
	document.write("<!--[if IE 7]><link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='main.css' media='screen, projection' /><link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='ie_multicolumn.css' media='screen, projection' /><![endif]-->");
	document.write("<!--[if lte IE 6]><link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='http://universal-ie6-css.googlecode.com/files/ie6.0.3.css' media='screen, projection' /><![endif]-->");
	document.write("<script type='text/javascript' src='css3-multi-column.js'><\/sc" + "ript>");
}
else {
	document.write("<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='main.css' media='screen, projection' />");
}
if (/Opera[\/\s](\d+\.\d+)/.test(navigator.userAgent)) { //test for Opera;
	document.write("<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='multicolumn.css' media='screen, projection' />");
	document.write("<script type='text/javascript' src='css3-multi-column.js'><\/sc" + "ript>");
}

Note: the reason for which the closing "script" tags are split is because they break HTML code if kept intact.

As you can see, IE6 is given the "Universal IE6 CSS" file, but you are free to define a different stylesheet for these users.

Given that having this script in the <head> element of your HTML is invalid in XHTML 1.0 Strict, I made it an external script, and put this in my <head> element:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.arpia.be/public/wp/stylesheet.js"></script>

Then, the “pageturn” script must go in the footer:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.arpia.be/public/wp/pageturn.js"></script>

Closing comments

And… there we go, a fully functional multi-page, multi-column layout, applicable to any number of web pages, without the need to resort to Flash. See a demo, without all the graphics of Arpia.be and using these files only, or a "book" proof-of-concept design on which I worked earlier.

The only issue, as far as I can tell, is that it’s impossible to determine in advance how long the content will be, and one cannot therefore avoid having the “Next” button still visible beyond the end of the content. My workaround, as can be seen on Arpia.be, is to add “easter eggs” for those who click beyond that limit.

Perhaps you can come up with another solution…

I recommend trying things out, to find the hidden easter eggs and so on, to get used to the new functionality.
[Tested in Firefox 2-3, Safari 4, Google Chrome 4, Opera 9-10, Internet Explorer 7-8]

But to truly understand the design, I think a more extensive portrayal of the design process is in order.

In August 2009, I was working on a design for an online store of digital photos, based on the idea of a memory box. For one iteration of the design in question, I had the idea of scanning a paper file and using it to convey the idea of a file containing the photos. This idea was set aside for the project in question, because it did not perfectly fit the idea, but the design felt very well done (and I put some effort into it).
I therefore decided to slightly alter the design, and use it for my own website.

This “Arpia File” design boiled down to showing pages on documents linked to a file on a desk. See the design in action on the Arpia File design demo.
While working on this design, I realised that it did not fit the idea of science-fiction, so I attempted to make a specific page for the ARPIA2 plug-in, more “technical” through the use of a “blue prototype paper” pattern (click on “Game” on the Arpia File design demo).
I was somewhat pleased with it, and had the idea then of making a different page for the “Novels” section, closer to the idea of novels, creating an “old paper” effect (click on “Novels” on the Arpia File design demo).

Still, the Arpia File design didn’t feel right, not for my website.
I then had another idea, inspired by my last touches to the Arpia File design: to create a book-like experience, through the use of a “multiple column” layout.
This was the “Arpia Book” design, on which I poured yet more time and resources, making it look like an old book, with classical typography.
Getting this effect to work on CSS3-capable browsers, such as Firefox, Safari and Chrome, was easy. Getting it to work on Opera and, worst of all, Internet Explorer, was a true challenge. See the design in action on this webpage.
Once I had worked on it for some time, my enthusiasm was yet again damped by the realisation that it did not fit the website. I adored the layout, but most people visiting Arpia.be itself do so for the ARPIA2 plug-in and the iTunesque Mac themes. Why present them with an old book?

The latest version of this website is an attempt to reconcile the feel of a book with the science-fiction (and therefore more modern) setting of the Arpia universe.
It tries to look like a tablet, and with the constant rumours about an Apple tablet about to change the computing landscape, I hope the “Arpia Tablet” design brings an appropriate look to Arpia.be for 2010.

Of course, I’m sure it will undergo refinements as the year progresses.
And if you want to have a hand in that, just let me know what doesn’t work, what should be changed, what you like, what you don’t. After all, without feedback, a design is not worth anything!

PS: about being able to click beyond the last page, that is unfortunately a limitation of the design. Why not take a look at what it leads to?

There had been rumours of the “Marble” interface, but nothing (I repeat: nothing) has changed visually as regards the general interface (bar a few luminosity adjustments and the changes required by the new functionality). Icons, scrollbars, list headers, the “traffic lights”, …, everything with which Mac OS X themes generally deal, it’s all unchanged.

Except that Apple decided to change a couple of things in the structure of its theme files, which means that a) we can’t simply copy our theme files from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and b) we haven’t a clue how to decode one of the core UI files, “SArtFile.bin”. Hopefully there will be a decoder soon.

In the meantime, I’ll be using my external drive every now and again to boot under Leopard, because the only theming tool we can use (Themepark 4) works only under Leopard.
If you are an iTunesque user, expect a bunch of new packs for Snow Leopard in the coming days/weeks.

Edit: many iTunesque packages are now available. See the iTunesque page for more details.

This research, mainly focussed on internet liability (legal responsibility, for non-lawyers), was a true eye-opener, because I had never thought of the internet from that angle: how free is speech on the internet?

Filtering

If you want truly free speech on the internet, then you have to allow hate speech, (child) pornography, instructions on how to make bombs, …

For reasons linked to history and culture, some countries have decided to place “filters” and thus block access to some of this content. The most well-known example is China, with its “Great Firewall”, but some in Western Europe have done the same in a more limited way: in France, for example, Yahoo! was ordered by a court to block access by French users to auction pages for Nazi-related goods, and in the UK, CleanFeed is a mechanism whereby Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block access to child abuse material.

Now, I am a great believer in free speech.
For example, I am fully opposed to certain laws on hate speech, even more so those on negationism: if you feel like saying something, go ahead. If people can’t deal with it, too bad for them (dealing with this stuff is part of growing up, I’ve been told). If people are offended, they also can exercise their right to free speech and respond.
As it stands, for example, I could start saying that the Rwandan genocide never took place (note: I know that it did take place). Many would take offence, but it’s not a crime. Why should Holocaust deniers be punished, if people denying other horrors are not? The obvious response to such speech should not be punishment, but rather a display of evidence showing that the events did take place. And if the people aren’t convinced at that point, too bad.
[Note: I do have a problem with free speech in schools, because few question what a teacher tells them is a fact - as such, the teaching of creationism and the refuting of evolution in a classroom of 10 children is, in my opinion, worse than denying the Holocaust in a hall of 2000 adults]

As you can guess, I am therefore even more opposed to filtering. Indeed, filtering takes place before the information is even made public. It’s ex ante censorship (“prior censorship”, for non-Latinists), preventing you from becoming aware that the information exists.
The internet has quickly become the greatest medium of expressing ideas, and by installing a filter, one completely hinders free speech.

Moreover, an interesting thing about filters is that they don’t work. There have been many studies on the subject (if interested in references, do say so), and three observations recur in them:

• Filters (both automatic and manual) let through some content that they should block
• Filters block some content that they shouldn’t
• Filters can be bypassed

By the way, my research was done on a computer connected to a server on which there was a filter. My research led me to a number of links that I wasn’t allowed to access, because the filter considered them dangerous, when in truth they either discussed ways to bypass filters or published studies on the ineffectiveness of filters (I know that from visiting the websites at home).

Liability for web content

The second major aspect of my research did not concern filters, but rather another aspect of free speech: the liability for content on the internet.

Say you publish content on the internet, for example by writing a post on a webboard. If the content is illegal (hate speech in certain European countries, child pornography, …), anyone may bring an action against you for this content if it is your content.
Can they bring an action against an intermediary, such as the website owner, ISP, …? This is generally not the case, most fortunately, because otherwise intermediaries would be liable for content whose existence was unknown to them (this is an overly simplified answer, to avoid going into too much detail).

To cut a long story short, I would most probably be liable for content published by other users on this part of the website, because the few comments do not require a lot of effort to read. I can therefore edit comments I find offensive (so far, there haven’t been any).
Still, don’t test the system.

The link with free speech is pretty obvious: laws on illegal or offensive content have a direct impact on the freedom given by intermediaries to users, because intermediaries will tend to prefer censorship over liability (as shown in many cases brought before the courts – pretty normal, I would say).

“Conclusion”

As you can see, the internet is not so much of an ideal place for free speech nowadays. It’s still the greatest medium for speech, but there is no absolute free speech here.
Nonetheless, I hope to contribute to changing that in the future.

It had become bad to the point where in IE6 and Firefox, I seemed to systematically get an error when trying to access the ARPIA2 and iTunesque pages. Why on earth they worked fine in Safari and Opera, I do not know.

Anyway, as I saw the quality of OVH’s service decrease, I entered into contact with ICDSoft, a company with servers in Germany, the USA and Hong Kong, and whose reputation seems excellent.

In a moment of frustration, I finally decided to make the move. Hopefully all problems should be over. Let me know if you experience anything weird!

Edit: sometimes I feel so stupid. I forgot to check all caching systems. *hits himself on the head*

That break turned out to be spent on another kind of work, web design. In July, I will normally become the administrator for our Law Faculty student webboard & website, and I grew somewhat tired of the Cobalt theme for phpBB2, which is currently used.
I therefore got to work on another design, something fresh.

The result is a working board on www.arpia.be/droides/, only a test so far. The board is in French, but I’m looking for feedback on the general design, which shouldn’t require a great deal of linguistic skills. There’s a test user, “Test”, with the password set as “testpass”.
Anything that desperately needs changing? Suggestions? …?
There are two working themes, and you can switch between them in the footer (“Droïdes – Droïdes2″). Just click, and a whole new layout appears.

Edit: updated.

The problem is, they all use text to get users to select their language. If it were a bilingual website, it would be easy. But there are 23 official languages in the EU, and so it takes time to figure out which string of text is “yours”.
The worst front page, in my opinion, is the Council’s homepage, which I find impossible to use under five seconds.

I therefore decided to try (during a small break) my hand at another system: maps.

I may be crazy, but I’ve taken a liking to webdesign and coding, and I’m starting to brush up my Photoshop skills in the hopes of coming up with fresh designs (for my personal website, as I don’t go around offering my services to others).

So… I started playing around with a bunch of maps pulled from the web, and put my CSS and HTML knowledge to the test.
The result is the following:
www.arpia.be/europa/
www.arpia.be/europa/europa2.html

Opinions?

I like it a whole lot more than the version they have over at the Consilium website, so I contacted the webmaster to suggest taking a look. Who knows, someone over there might read the e-mail and like the result!

Edit:
Well, I got an answer:

Nevertheless, having in mind the linguistic divesity within the European Union, I have a strong preference for a list of languages.

Too bad!

So, the question is: when will that be?
Turns out the counter can help us have a certain strategy.

I decided to take a look at how the counter uses its data after reading an interesting post over at the MacRumors.com fora.

First, one should know that the counter displayed on the aforementioned contest page at Apple.com is a JavaScript counter that fetches its data from a .txt file, countdown.txt.
How is this useful? Knowing where it gets its data means that we can know what is the “hard” data. Basically, the counter isn’t “live”.

Here’s the data I collected:

11-APR-2009 21:00:00|938030517|275391
11-APR-2009 22:00:00|938271179|240662
11-APR-2009 23:00:00|938477072|205893 (8.43 AM in Brussels, 11.43 PM in CA [California, Apple's area])

7.40 (22.40 CA): 938477900
7.57 (22.57 CA): 938548000
7.57 (22.57 CA): 938503000 // => variation!
8.00 (23.00 CA): 938511841
8.40 (23.40 CA): 938673000
8.45 (23.45 CA): 938693000
8.46 (23:46 CA): 938638000 // => variation!
8.50 (23:50 CA): 938649000
9.00 (00:00 CA): 938682965

As you can see, the data from 11 PM was added at around 11.43 PM, and the counter data was adjusted at 11.46 PM.

The data of the countdown.txt file can be summarised as follows:
Date – Time – Number Sold – Delta
The last number, which I call “delta”, seems to represent the number of applications bought between 10 PM and 11 PM (as 938271179 + 205893 = 938477072).
The interesting thing is that the counter then uses the delta to calculate what it’s supposed to be at the following hour, i.e. 12 PM in this case. Thus, at 12 PM San Francisco time, it displayed 938682965 (I have just checked).

Therefore, the countdown.txt file is updated approximately 40 minutes after the hour, and the delta is then used to adjust the counter, though that can apparently take up to 15 minutes (see the examples of counter data between 10 and 11 PM, where the change occurred at 10.57 PM).

How can this be of use?
Well, it can be useful to take a look at the fluctuation of data, as collected by MacRumors.com member omahajim and posted at GoogleDocs, and see what is the average during certain hours over a few days. The idea is that you can then determine whether at a given hour, the “delta” found in countdown.txt will be close to reality or not (based on previous days – during hours where it’s night on the American continent, fewer apps are downloaded), and that will especially be useful during the last hour of the countdown.
One should note, however, that there is a good chance that, during the last hour of the countdown, the number of downloads will surge after a certain point (read: after 999.999.500, there could be something crazy like 5000 downloads a second).

Nevertheless, this might be of use to someone who hopes to win the mega (and only) prize of “a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro”.
I know I’d love to win it, but there’s a good chance the countdown will end while I’m asleep, so I figured that it would do me no harm to reveal such data.

If by a strange twist of fate you do win after reading this, may I ask for the Time Capsule or a couple of App Store purchases?

Anyway, if you use Aquaffic and don’t want to see the iTunes traffic lights, head over to the iTunesque page, or grab the Aquaffic updater directly here.

MacHeist is a web community of Mac users in which the Directorate (the big bosses) organise “Heists”, missions for the community members to solve in exchange for free software, and once the missions are over, a bundle of applications is revealed.
A few days ago, finally, the MacHeist 3 bundle was revealed, and I’ve shelled out 31 US dollars (thanks to my Heister discounts) for the nice applications that compose it.

It was loads of fun, and now it’s over. Well, almost: the Directorate should be revealing one or two other apps in the coming days, or something like it. We’ll see what happens next.
If you’re a Mac user, have the available funds and haven’t done so yet, go get your bundle now.

Proof of the advantages of MacHeist for users: in total, when all applications are unlocked, I’ll have obtained over 1500 USD-worth of applications during MacHeist 3, all for 31 USD. Awesome!

Still, I should add that I’m slightly disappointed in the bundle, which has many applications that I shall not be using all that often. Previous bundles, especially the MacHeist 2 one, seemed to be more interesting overall. However, this opinion may change in the coming days if the Directorate announces new applications to go with the bundle.