How did Alfred 3 get smaller than Alfred 2 ?

[porteous]

Alfred 2 is 9.2Mb, Alfred 3 is 6.2Mb.. How did you manamge to add that much functionality and actually reduce the applicaiton size by over 30% ??

Is Alfred developed with Xcode 7 ? 

[Andrew]

Alfred 2 is 9.2Mb, Alfred 3 is 6.2Mb.. How did you manamge to add that much functionality and actually reduce the applicaiton size by over 30% ??

Is Alfred developed with Xcode 7 ? 

 

 

There are a number of ways Alfred's distributable has become smaller (2.9MB zipped download at the point of 3.0 release).

 

- Tidying and consolidating framework code, removing defunct code and resources

- Replacing many png resources with SVG or PaintCode resources

- Switching from using some frameworks to Apple internal frameworks (e.g. OpenSSL / Growl), aided by the switch to OS X 10.9+

 

My general ethos when it comes to developing Alfred is making sure that Alfred carries no defunct or legacy code, and that all code is written by me and internally. Without reliance on 3rd party code, it makes it much easier to tune Alfred and make him bug / crash free. This is particularly important for an app that runs the entire time your Mac is running - i.e. if a normal app crashes, you don't think too much about it. If Alfred suddenly doesn't appear when you use one of your hotkeys, it's extremely obvious.

 

And yes, Alfred is developed with Xcode 7.

 

Cheers,

Andrew