NiftyFeatures and Shovel for MacPAD

I recently discovered MacPAD, which is a file format that allows developers to keep information about their applications (download URLs, manufacturer web site, latest version, etc.) on their web server and then send out the URL to that file to software update web sites.

So, I updated UKUpdateChecker (in NiftyFeatures) to work with MacPAD files as well as its old .plist files. So, anyone who uses MacPAD, can now point NiftyFeatures at that file.

And I wrote a "Software Update" clone called Shovel that scans your hard disk for MacPAD-enabled applications and checks them for updates, and even optionally installs those updates. Shovel is still in development, but I hope that by the time Shovel is ready for prime-time, more developers will support MacPAD in their applications.