Howard Oakley: There’s a bug in Spotlight that can prevent it from indexing any of the contents of susceptible text files. This has been present since macOS 13 Ventura if not before, and is still present in Tahoe 26.0.1. […] To demonstrate this bug, all you need is a single UTF-8 plain text file, created […]

Joe Kissell, writing at TidBITS:

For more than a year, we’ve heard scattered complaints: problems with Nisus Software’s website, particularly the user discussion forum; slow or absent responses to support requests; assorted bugs; and other issues. But earlier this week, on 22 October 2025, the reports changed to: “Did you know the Nisus website is completely down, and that Nisus Writer is no longer in the Mac App Store? Does this mean Nisus is out of business?”

On the one hand: The site is back online as I write this. The app still works. I’m writing the first draft of this article in Nisus Writer Pro on a Mac running macOS 26 Tahoe, and it’s fine. You can still download it and buy a license. At least one person is actively involved in the company, to some extent. It’s (mostly) alive!

On the other hand: All available evidence suggests that development and support for Nisus Writer have ceased, and barring some new information, its future is doubtful. It’s (mostly) dead!

I’m going to tell you what I know. (Well, most of what I know.) I’m also going to speculate a bit, because despite my best efforts, I have been unable to obtain verifiable information about certain topics, though I have a pretty good idea of what’s likely the case.

Seems like an ignominious demise for a once-great app. Nisus Writer has been an acclaimed Mac-only (and Mac-assed) word processor since 1989. I never got into it, but I could always see the appeal. Nisus had a macro language for automation and regex-style advanced search and replace. But when I wanted features like those, I wanted them in a plain text editor, not a word processor, so I got into BBEdit.

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The best time to adjust the rules of the App Store — its exclusivity on app distribution for the entire iOS platform, the exclusivity of Apple’s IAP for purchasing digital content, the commission percentage splits on IAP — was over a decade ago. The next best time to make those adjustments is now.

I was reminded of this post from former Nisus developer Martin Wierschin: How does does an emoji do that in text? By using a zero-width joiner character between its constituent characters. That way software knows to display all the codes together as a single glyph or image on screen. This joiner trick is used for […]