SIMBL
- Problem:
- Some applications do about 90% of what I want.
- Solution:
- Develop my own applications.
- Better Solution:
- Patch the application myself...
SIMBL (SIMple Bundle Loader) - pronounced like "symbol" or "cymbal" - enables hacks and plugins. For instance, SIMBL enables PithHelmet to enhance Safari.
Recent News
2009-09-10 - SIMBL for Snow Leopard
SIMBL-0.9.7a works for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications running on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).
Existing plugins that are 32-bit and run in 32-bit applications will work fine, but 64-bit applications will require a new 64-bit versions of the plugins. Please direct your 64-bit questions to the plugin developers themselves not to me!
If you are having a problem, you can check the list of current bugs.
If you are interested in a more in-depth technical explanation, you can can read the SIMBL developement notes.
Installing SIMBL Plugins
Most plugins should come with an installer, however it's easy to do it yourself.
Plugins can be copied into /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins for all users, or ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins for just your account.
SIMBL plugins are nothing more than standard Cocoa bundles created by XCode, with the addition of one key in the Info.plist. For further information, you can read the SIMBL section in my brief tutorial on Cocoa hacking.
SIMBL was originally created when I was working on PithHelmet, but here are now a bunch of SIMBL plugins available. If you don't see yours listed, feel free to edit the list on the wiki.
Questions | Comments | Feedback
Please feel free to contact me via email - I'm interested to here your criticisms and thoughts.
Developers
Developers can get more information on the SIMBL Project.
Licensing
A few people have asked about licensing terms, etc. SIMBL is licensed under the GNU GPL v2
Let me explain in terms I understand:- You can use SIMBL for anything you like.
- You can include the SIMBL.pkg with your distribution, but you need to include the original license and ReadMe files so people know what they are getting.
- If you want more from SIMBL, check out the source and make change suggestions. You can modify the code, but if you release it, you must release the source code as well. On a more general note, please do not distribute a modified version of the code under the SIMBL name -- it would make my life a nightmare. If we can't work your changes into the real SIMBL, give it another fairly different sounding name!
- There is no warranty of any kind. (I'll do my best to help you if a problem surfaces, but no guarantees...)
- If you are using SIMBL in a commercial product, please make a donation to support this project.
The point of the license is to be as flexible as possible - basically, it shouldn't get in the way of writing some cool hack. One of the main reasons I wrote SIMBL was because I didn't like the somewhat draconian terms of the APE license.
Revision History
v0.9.7 - released 2009-10-04
- blacklist for applications that cause the agent to crash
- adjustable logging for debugging
- quieter logging by default
v0.9.6 - released 2009-09-16
- fixed installer to repair even worse permissions (repackaged on 2009-09-20 due to another permissions bug)
- injection mechanism is now much more efficient - only affect applications that have plugins
v0.9.5 - released 2009-09-10
- fixed installer to repair bad permissions
- added uninstaller
v0.9.4 - released 2009-09-08
- fixed event targeting - no more dialog asking for missing applications
v0.9.3 - released 2009-09-07
- fixed for garbage collected applications
- fixed installer to remove old conflicting SIMBL InputManager
v0.9.2 - released 2009-09-06
- Snow Leopard compatible
v0.8.2 - released 2006-10-17
- minor fixes to error messages
- Leopard compatible
v0.8.1 - released 2006-03-01
- rebuilt as a universal binary
v0.8 - released 2005-06-01
- improved 10.4.x Tiger compatibility
- better error handling in some extreme corner cases
- warning on deprecated SIMBL interface
- changed the installation package at the request of an informant I shall refer to only as "Deep Throat"
v0.5 - released 2004-08-12
- Fixed version checking bug
v0.4 - released 2004-07-02
- Added version as a new match criteria
- Implemented legacy compatibility for old plugins
v0.3 - unreleased
- Added preflight load mechanism to schedule bundle loading once all system libraries have been initialized
v0.2 - released 2003-06-23
- Changed the search paths
- Added conflict resolution
- Built an actual installer
v0.1 - released 2003-02-03
- Designed to prevent runtime load errors after installing PithHelmet