Version 3.8.0 of StitchBuddy for macOS / StitchBuddy HD for iOS was just released after beta testing for over a month. It is mainly focusing on thread colors, with an additional thread chart, search capabilities for threads on iOS, and - maybe most important - support for Bernina EXP+ designs: (aka “Bernina USB EXP“).

The last improvement was tricky as Melco EXP and Bernina EXP+ designs are sharing the same file extension (although the latter comes with additional files, holding color information and thumbnails). Therefore StitchBuddy on macOS cannot distinguish the correct target file format based on your selection in the “Save As…“ dialogue, and you need to enable Bernina EXP+ in the app’s preferences. StitchBuddy HD on iOS always saves in the current file format of a design.

Both In-App purchases to save designs with more than 1,000 stitches were called “StitchBuddy Pro“ on macOS and iOS / iPadOS: When these licenses were introduced nobody thought about cross-platform applications, but it was a bad decision in hindsight leading to some confusions:

Customers of one app assumed their purchase would unlock the other. Especially when moving from StitchBuddy HD to macOS it looked like a bargain, and I can understand frustrations when users realized another purchase was required. On the other hand both apps - StitchBuddy on macOS and StitchBuddy HD on iOS / iPadOS - are quite different in their feature sets and ecosystems, justifying different prices.

I’m currently working on StitchBuddy to support Bernina EXP+ (often called Bernina USB EXP), a design format actually persisting of three different files:

1. A design file (*.exp) which is a standard Melco EXP design.
2. A thread file (*.inf) holding the thread colors not supported by Melco EXP.
3. A thumbnail file (*.bmp) for illustration on the embroidery machine.

The EXP part is well-known and supported by StitchBuddy for years, but I’m lacking any Bernina test environment to verify the others: The .inf and .bmp files seem to be correct when analyzed on my Mac, but there’s nothing like the real world.

I cut some corners when testing yesterday’s emergency fix (StitchBuddy 3.7.2), as it was correcting an error effecting all users. That’s a tough decision as it comes with some risks, and I was trading quality assurance for response time.

Today I ran further tests and still found some issues when undoing changes or reverting to the last saved version. All of these problems were related to changes of the design’s size, which was implicitly changing the canvas’ dynamic dimensions.

StitchBuddy’s last release had a serious bug regarding window positions and scrolling: I made a mistake when rewriting internal code managing windows and views, and the results were confusing: Visible areas were moved off the screen, windows grew to extreme sizes and more.

This bug was reported by two customers, providing detailed error descriptions including screen recordings. Here is the corresponding discussion in the forum. Fortunately, I could reproduce the behavior, identify and fix the root cause, and submit a corrective update.

I’m currently revising my way of tracking news, moving from visiting individual sites to a single news reader, listing condensed views of multiple sources.

This feels a little like the 90^th, but honestly I can significantly reduce my online time while still being informed. If I feel to involve, the detailed web page is only a touch / click away, and I can engage much as before. Just to be clear: I use news reader for decades, but now - looking critical at my social media consumption - it might become my digital hub to some extent.

StitchBuddy 3.7.0 wasn’t releasing memory when windows were closed, causing a continuously increasing RAM allocation. This bug was introduced with the new user interface in November last year, and it is corrected, now.

This post will address some technical change behind StitchBuddy’s website - for those who are interested in news from the “machine room“. Be warned, it will contain some serious mumbo jumbo! I apologize in advance to all the others and promise: Next time I will focus on embroidery topics, again…

StitchBuddy’s updates for macOS and iOS / iPadOS are supporting Apple’s new “Liquid Glass” design.

After some weeks of intense work I’m proud to release StitchBuddy with a new, modern user interface:

A completely new design with larger workspace, collapsable thread list, and many other improvements: StitchBuddy’s next release will take advantage of new options in macOS 26.

Join the beta program if you want to test StitchBuddy 3.7.0 before its release.