Probably best in Bil Cheesemanl’s own words:
UI Browser has been a labor of love for me, its sole developer for almost twenty years. Now that I am 79 years old, it is time to bring this good work to a conclusion.
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Sad to see, but wow. Almost 20 years. Age 79. UI Browser was and still is a very useful tool.
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Oh no 
! It was the last resort so many times.
Some of us have been using it from before the start (beta). Saved my bacon many a time.
Definitely the second most useful app on my Mac.
I assume it’s not possible to open source it.
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One of the best tools ever!
I thought somebody should take it over. PFiddlesoft’s accessibility framework is too difficult for me to understand. Hmm…
For the past nearly 20 years, when I needed a GUI script, UI Browser made it simple.Thanks Bill, enjoy your time.
Is there a way to convince Bill Cheeseman to release the code under a free software license ?
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I’m sure Bill has considered all the options, and has good reasons for doing what he has.
The clip above is a little misleading. It almost looks like PFiddlesoft will be maintaining UI Browser going forward, but that’s not the case according to what’s posted on the PFiddlesoft website:
“Sure” as in “I checked with him and he convinced me he has checked all the options” ?
Because it seems to me that he is killing a product that works well and in the same time killing all possibilities to use it in the future. Just because he does not want to be concerned anymore with his labor of love (which is totally fair by the way).
It sounds more than suicidal. It sounds like “burn my house after I’m dead, because I own it and I have the right to burn it if I want” (which is not fair at all by the way).
Making a code donation to a code foundation/archive would certainly seem to be the only good choice.
By the way, exactly just like your book about ASObjC.
As a person who has struggled for the past 20 years to propose/promote free software to fellow mac using translators, I find such “options” extremely condescending, especially when the author does not want to/can’t take care of the projet anymore.
He’s 79, and seems to be done with it. I respect that.
He didn’t say what he’s doing with the code or the technology, but he is shutting down the company, with adequate warning.
Also, before he retired, he was a top-notch lawyer and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he’s chosen a strategy that best protects his estate and heirs.
I haven’t been in touch with Bill for some time but I worked with him on some projects over the years and have always found him to be helpful, generous and committed.
Now, controlling menu items is very easy by using my Piyomaru Dynamic Menu Clicker.
It search menu items by Application name, target menu name and terminal menu item name.
It is a kind of “Dynamic UI element search program”.
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I’ve purchased UI Browser on May 14, 2018 which means I currently need to run it using Rosetta. I’d like to use UI Browser as long as possible but am not sure whether purchasing a new license that doesn’t require Rosetta would make sense.
How do other UI Browser users handle this? Is it likely that even without using Rosetta UI Browser can’t be used anymore after a future macOS update? Obviously I only want to purchase a new license if necessary.
Never used it.
But there’s mmore to his farewell remarks on his website, notably:
“I am currently making arrangements for a permanent download site for the version 3.0.2 disk image for licensed users and for public access to the source code.”
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Good old Bill! One of the coolest appleScript people ever!
I was paying customer Number ONE
A terrific piece of work. But hey, time for a little break, Bill. Your app was (still is, in some of my macs) much loved.
Did you purchase a new license just in case Rosetta is going away in some years? I’ve no idea whether purchasing a new one would make sense.
Edit: Haha @uimike, I knew I’ve seen your handle before! Thanks once again for your advice about backups on the DEVONtech forum 