Dear beta testers,

I’m mortified to give you a second update related mostly to IT infrastructure, as opposed to pure systems programming goodness. Bear with me for one more blog post! After this I’ll feel secure in marching ahead to wrap up the promised feature of better UTF-8 support (while also closing down most of the current GitHub issues.)

So what’s been going on?

Notarized Apple Builds

Thanks to a beta tester, who valiantly persisted in asking me for months, I’ve managed to notarize Terminal Click for Mac users! Very simply stated, the act of notarization will stop Apple from screaming bloody murder: “Abner’s terminal is broken! Too dangerous! We’re not letting you open this!” And all it took to solve it was a cool one hundred dollars… for a license I must renew every year, along with a cryptic process (at least to me) to secure a terminal build and submitting it for Apple’s approval. I need to perform notarization each time there’s a new terminal version.

I took pains to automate notarization through zig build. As long as I keep paying the Apple mafia, new versions of Terminal Click (starting with v0.8.2, see below) are finally considered safe downloads.

Note: When opening the latest terminal you might still get a “You downloaded this from the Internet” message from macOS. However, this is a benign warning - far better than Apple claiming my app is borked.

Switched to Paddle: Our Merchant of Record

Speaking of digital mafias, payment processors might be the worst out of them all: it’s wild how they beat even big players into total submission. In any case, I’ve been using Stripe for Terminal Click, but I’ve noticed that despite cheap processing fees, Stripe’s add-ons start to eat you alive over time.

I started to look for alternatives.

After weeks of research into Paddle (yes, weeks. This is literally serious business!) I came to appreciate that they’re not just a payment processor, but also a so-called Merchant of Record. Paddle’s standard processing fees are higher, but as my MoR they offer everything else my small business needs for free. If you’re super into fintech, start studying the specific differences between Stripe and Paddle here.

Paddle applies extra scrutiny to businesses and I had to talk to several staff members after submitting my application. I even appeared on Paddle’s latest webinar during Q&A. Build relationships early and often!

For our purposes here, all you need to know is that after switching to Paddle:

  • New subscribers can now choose PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay (in addition to regular debit and credit cards)
  • New subscribers can manage their subscriptions without my intervention
  • Paddle handles tax collection, customer disputes, refund requests etc. on my behalf

I am still supporting legacy Stripe users without issue. However, if you want to switch to Paddle, shoot me an email to get that ball rolling. The Terms of Service were updated to reflect these changes.

Latest Version: v0.8.2

While we wait for the next major release, which aims for proper Unicode rendering, I’m releasing a minor one that closes a couple GitHub issues. Mac users especially will benefit from notarized builds. Current beta testers should be getting an email shortly.

I have my fingers crossed for shipping v0.9.0 by the start of the new year, and I appreciate your patience as always. Merry Christmas and all the rest of it!

Your indie dev,
Abner