About that alert message in BBEdit with application enhancers

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
December 5th, 2005 • 10:53 am

If you use Bare Bones Software’s BBEdit and also some third-party “application enhancer,” you’ve probably encountered this alert message when starting BBEdit after a crash:

Alert message in BBEdit

There has been a “discussion” lately about this on DrunkenBlog, with the latest post by the blog’s author in answer to a “clarification” from Bare Bones’ own Rich Siegel.

I won’t get into the whole debate. But I have one question for Bare Bones Software. Why does this alert appear after a power outage?

My computer was abruptly shut down by a power outage, but that has nothing to do either with BBEdit or with my application enhancers. Yet the phrasing of the alert box clearly implies that I did something wrong.

If Bare Bones cannot tell when an abrupt shutdown was caused by a power outage rather than a crash or force-quit, then it should phrase the alert text differently.

In that respect, I agree with DrunkenBlog that there is an underlying arrogance in that particular alert box. (The fact that Bare Bones are the only software company using such a warning does not help. Other software companies might not be pleased with the fact that we use third-party enhancers, but at least they don’t remind us in a condescending tone every time we have a power outage.)


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