Milen’s Software: EventBox

EventBox

EventBox was the first social network aggregator for the Mac. The idea came about after talking to Chris about how much of a chore it was to keep refreshing so many Safari tabs and if there was a way to automate it.

As we kept refining the idea, we decided to create a standalone app to aggregate information that we could pull from various Web APIs and present it in a nice interface. As we had just finished our first year at university, we started working on it in May 2008 with the first public beta available in November 2008.

The app was co-developed with Chris Emery and graphics were designed by Na Wong. In October 2009, it was acquired by Realmac Software. I also wrote about the lessons we learned from the experience.

EventBox Walkthrough →

The interface of EventBox consisted of a classic macOS sidebar, coupled with a NSTableView-like main interface. EventBox was one of the first apps to utilise the brand-new Core Animation technology which debuted as part of macOS 10.5 Leopard. When new content arrived from the social networks, it would animate nicely instead of just popping in like other apps behaved at the time.

The interface of EventBox consisted of a classic macOS sidebar, coupled with a NSTableView-like main interface. EventBox was one of the first apps to utilise the brand-new Core Animation technology which debuted as part of macOS 10.5 Leopard. When new content arrived from the social networks, it would animate nicely instead of just popping in like other apps behaved at the time.