We’ve got some exciting news for customers of our password manager Codebook, just in time for the end-of-year holidays: a complete redesign of the app’s embedded database icons along with fifty new ones, expanding the set to 200! They are available now on all four platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows.

To get it done we worked with Icon Factory, whose work you may have seen around, and they really delivered on both the style updates and the new additions to the set. This is a big deal for us as it’s not something we can do often, and these icons tend to make up quite a bit of the interface of Codebook once it’s been populated with records.

For the new icons we drew in part from the many requests we’ve received over the last few years directly through our support mail account and in response to requests for comment on our discussion forum. We really appreciated all that input and welcome more, so if we’re missing something you’d like to see added, let us know, we do keep a list.

For the new style we wanted to go with a more business-friendly look that maintained the charisma and humor of the current set, with more depth and details to take advantage of today’s high-resolution displays. We hope you’ll agree that the result is impressive:

Before	After	Before	After

All the existing icons got updated to the new style should be recognizable, but we did repurpose one of the–three!–phone-related icons to something for the shortwave or radio enthusiast:

Before	After

As to the new icons, here’s a pseudo-random sampling:

Programming	CI / Dev Ops	Security Certificate	GPG / Keypair
Amazon	Home Security	TOR	Payroll
Rail	Transit Card	Outdoor Sports	Healthcare.gov

It was a pleasure to work with Icon Factory on this project, many thanks to them for a job well done. Enjoy the new icons, and Happy Holidays from all of us here at Zetetic! 🎄

As noted earlier this year on our discussion forum, we’ll be discontinuing the iPad-only version of Codebook that’s currently available in the iTunes App Store. We’d like all our customers who purchased that version of the app to install the other, universal (i.e. runs on iPhone and iPad) version of Codebook now that it runs on both device types.

Previously, both apps used the same blue icon and had the same name on the Home screen, “Codebook”, making it hard to tell the apps apart. To aid in the transition and help give our iPad customers a heads-up that things are a-changing, we gave Codebook for iPad’s app icon an update, switching it to black and white.

Transitioning to the Universal Codebook

First, you’ll want to install the newest version of the universal Codebook for iOS app on your iPad alongside the old version with the black and white icon (don’t delete anything just yet!) Visit this link directly on your iPad to be taken to the right page in the App Store. If you don’t already own the iPhone version, not to worry: we created a bundle in the App Store allowing you to credit your iPad purchase towards the iPhone version, which should result in no charge for most customers.

Once installed, launch the app and go through the first-time setup process, using the same password you usually use to protect your Codebook data.

During setup you will be given an opportunity to use Codebook’s Sync feature to copy your data over from another install of Codebook on the desktop via WiFi, or via Google Drive or Dropbox. You’ll want to set the switch on this screen to Yes for a restore.

Once you’ve loaded your data into the universal build of Codebook (the one with the blue icon) you can safely remove the version with the black and white icon. Currently Codebook for iPad is still being maintained, but everyone using it should switch over to the universal version as soon as they can, as we will eventually remove it from the App Store.

Properly configured projects using SQLCipher shouldn’t experience problems using Xcode 9. However, changes in the new SDKs can cause compile time errors for misconfigured projects, e.g.

Implicit declaration of function ‘sqlite3_key’ is invalid in C99
Implicit declaration of function ‘sqlite3_rekey’ is invalid in C99

We have prepared important recommendations for SQLCipher developers on how to resolve these problems on the SQLCipher support forums:

Important Advisory: SQLCipher with Xcode 9 and new SDKs

Apple has released XCode 8 and new SDKs. We have published important guidance for using SQLCipher with the new platforms (e.g. for iOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, etc.) on the SQLCipher support forums:

Important Advisory: SQLCipher with XCode 8, iOS 10, etc

Critical recommendations include:

1. Adjusting Project Build Settings to link SQLCipher first
2. Including an Application Runtime Check for SQLCipher
3. Testing and Validation

Please make it a priority to implement these recommendations and perform appropriate application testing when moving to these new platforms.

We’re happy to announce the release of Codebook for Mac 3.0.11 and Codebook for iOS 3.1.3 which introduce a new setup assistant to guide you through setting up Codebook for the first time, or on a new device.

The assistant guides you through:

1. Setting up your master password
2. Enabling Touch ID on iOS (if available)
3. Enabling Anonymous Statistics
4. Setting up Sync or, if this isn’t your first time using Codebook, restoring your data.

The new first time setup experience may sound like it doesn’t apply to you, a long time and valued customer, but sometimes we need to install Codebook fresh or on a new device. The new first time setup experience provides the option of restoring your data during setup.

Editing From Secret Agent:

Sometimes we find ourselves needing to create or change a password and we automatically trigger the Secret Agent keyboard shortcut only to realize as soon as it comes up that it currently can’t help us with this. The Edit button on the entry view displays the Main Window, looks up the entry, and puts the interface in edit mode.