witchmymac

What it is

BetterCraft Launcher installs, updates and opens the apps of the Craft App Suite (PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, PdfCraft, EffectCraft, DesignCraft, WordCraft, DeckCraft, GridCraft, CADCraft, SoundCraft and FigCraft), just like the original. What changes is the experience: only what matters stays.

What's better

• No visual noise. A compact list, one row per app: icon, name, version and one button. App pages, release notes, announcements, social links, search, sorting and the grid/table switch are gone.
• Straight to the point. The toolbar has two things: Which icons? and Update. Each app's menu has only Open, Show in Finder, Reinstall and Uninstall.
• Redesigned icons. With Redesign, every installed Craft App gets a new, clearer and more consistent icon in Finder, Launchpad and the Dock, even while the app is running. Craft originals puts the stock icons back. Each row shows which one the app is using.
• Updates without surprises. The version is read from the app itself, so updates work with either icon. The launcher never touches an app while it updates and dresses the new version right after.
• Lean settings. Updates, appearance and the icon style. Nothing else.
• Always in step with the original. A workflow brings in the changes from storytold/craft-launcher every 6 hours. All new code lives in crates/ui-egui/src/bettercraft/, with one-line hooks elsewhere.

Study mode (unofficial)

In Settings, the Study card swaps the apps' icons and names for those of the programs they imitate (PhotoCraft → Adobe Photoshop, WordCraft → Microsoft Word…), with a yellow CRAFT ribbon on the icon's corner. It is a test mode, not official. Those programs' icons and names are trademarks of their owners.

Install

macOS

Pick one:

1. Terminal, one line (recommended). Paste this into Terminal:

   curl -fsSL https://witchmymac.com/install.sh | bash -s bettercraft
   

   It downloads the latest release from GitHub, checks its SHA-256, installs BetterCraft Launcher in Applications and opens it. There's no macOS warning, because files downloaded by curl don't get the "downloaded from the internet" mark. Run the same line again to update. The script is open: install.sh.
2. Download the DMG from Releases or witchmymac.com, drag BetterCraft Launcher to Applications, then allow it once with:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/BetterCraft Launcher.app"
   

   It only removes the "downloaded from the internet" mark from that app.
3. Download the DMG and allow it in System Settings: open the app, click OK on the warning, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

Prefer to build it yourself? You need Rust and the Xcode command line tools:

git clone https://github.com/matthfaria96/bettercraft-launcher.git
cd bettercraft-launcher
scripts/install-mac.sh

The script builds the app, installs it to /Applications/BetterCraft Launcher.app and opens it. To pull in the original's latest changes and reinstall:

scripts/sync-upstream.sh && scripts/install-mac.sh

Windows and Linux

Build and install with one command (needs Rust 1.90 or newer; on Linux, the windowing headers listed in BETTERCRAFT.md):

.\scripts\install-windows.ps1

./scripts/install-linux.sh

Windows installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\BetterCraft Launcher with a Start menu shortcut; Linux installs ~/.local/bin/artcraft-launcher with a menu entry and icon.

Technical details in BETTERCRAFT.md.

License

Same as the original: MIT or Apache-2.0. The ArtCraft name and mark belong to their owners (docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt).