App: Exchange Rates 4
Developer: Alexander Lindenstruth
Genres: Finance, Productivity

Tired of launching the macOS Calculator app and stepping through menu paths just for doing a simple currency conversion? Missing your favorite cryptocurrencies in Spotlight? Annoyed by the limits of both these system features? Here's a solution:

Exchange Rates is a convenient, versatile, and extensible currency calculator residing in the macOS status bar and supporting many cryptocurrencies – always available and always up to date. Nothing more, nothing less. It can also notify you automatically once an exchange rate crosses a certain threshold value and thereby help you to keep close tabs on the FX market.

Almost everything can be done using keyboard shortcuts to enable you to easily convert an amount between two currencies without interrupting your current workflow - e.g. by having to using the mouse or even launching another window-based application. It also provides two system services to make currency conversions even more convenient (one if it is shown on the third screenshot).

All exchange rates are being updated continuously in the background and you don't have to do anything about it. Besides, the fixed exchange rates of all euro predecessor currencies, such as the Austrian Shilling or German Mark, are available as well. And just in case you would like to know what your fiat money is worth in tangible assets: Exchange Rates also offers four precious metals (or more precisely: futures contracts for them) for conversions - in grams and troy ounces.

The most important features at a glance:

• All important world currencies, many of them alternatively available as weekday reference rates from the ECB (European Central Bank)
• All euro-predecessor currencies
• Supports various cryptocurrencies out of the box, such as Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple and several more.
• A Widget extension for your notification center showing a list of your favorite exchange rates (see the note below)
• You can get notified when an exchange rates reaches or crosses a certain value
• Extensible: you can add other cryptocurrencies and specify your preferred ticker feed for it (it has to be a publicly available JSON feed though)
• Precious metals in both grams and troy ounces are available as well (gold, silver, platinum, palladium)
• You can alternatively get the daily fixed spot prices of gold and silver from the LBMA (via NASDAQ Data Link, which requires a freely obtainable API key)
• A command line interface for currency conversions (the main app should be running though to ensure the exchange rates are up-to-date)
• Data minimization: no unnecessary data collection (e.g. no user tracking or profiling)
• Uses encrypted https connections for all built-in data sources

Please note: Exchange Rates is a research tool and cannot trade foreign exchanges on your behalf. It is however a fantastic tool to keep an eye on the FX market. But you have to keep in mind that the shown data is by no means real time data, especially if you should need timely updates for your investment decisions. All data shown throughout the app - which includes exchange rates and precious metal prices - are provided for informational purposes only, and do not constitute financial advice of any kind.

If you should find a bug in this app, please drop me an email (the address is to be found on my website) so I can fix it as soon as possible. Thank you!

Please note: the update frequency of WidgetKit extensions (the kind of Widget available on macOS Big Sur and later) depends solely on update slots assigned to it by the operating system, which in turn takes into account how regularly a widget is being shown/used. It will increase significantly if the main app is running in the background, so this is highly recommended - albeit not necessary.

Release notes:
This update fixes several glitches of the status bar item and improves keyboard control of the currency selectors.

New in Version 4.0:

It's been quite a while since the last major update (sorry for that) so a considerable number of bugs and requests for improvements have been piling up. I also took the opportunity to clean up the interface and implement several other improvements which have been sitting on my bucket list for quite a while, so I hope it was well worth the wait. And there's still more in the pipeline to stay tuned.

• Version 4 introduces an all new way of adding and managing user defined currencies as well as specifying custom data sources (ticker feeds) for cryptocurrencies
• The menu bar panel has gotten a facelift, particularly regarding its list view mode.
• The overhauled list view has now has become the default way of listing your favorite exchange rates on the main panel, but the tiled view is still around and has gotten a few UI improvements as well.
• The app can now fetch the exchange rates of the most important world currencies, such as CAD, CHF, GBP, or JPY, directly from the ECB (European Central Bank) instead of taking a detour via NASDAQ Data Link for that. As a nice side effect you won't be needing an API key for this kind of data any longer. 
• The app now shows the future contracts for Silver (SI=F), Platinum (PL=F), and Palladium (PA=F), replacing the old and defunct currency feeds.
• And it now supports the cryptocurrency MATIC (Polygon) out of the box.
• Ethereum has finally been renamed to Ether, since that's the actual name of the native cryptocurrency on the Ethereum platform.
• You can now choose between the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) and the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) to be shown next to the US Dollar Index (DXY)
• The preferences window has been cleaned up as well, all datasource-related configuration is now being done in the new "Data Sources" window.
• The Widget Extension is now able to keep itself up-to-date, whether or not the main application is running in the background. But it is still highly recommended to let the main app running in the background since this significantly increases the widget’s update frequency.
• I've also decided to remove the rather unstable Cloud synchronization feature again until I get around to implementing a more reliable and robust solution.
• And finally some work went into the somewhat neglected system services HUD panel.

A lot of other, minor improvements have been implemented, both UI-related as well as under the hood - particularly in terms of feed loading and internal data processing. This should make things run more smoothly. I also cleaned up the overall code base, removed lots of old and now unused code (which should improve the overall app stability as well), and fixed lots of other bugs I came across while doing all the testing.

Henceforth, Exchange Rates 4 will run only on macOS Monterey (Version 12.0) and later.

Please note: The new ECB data source is a more reliable way of acquiring the exchange rates of the most important world currencies and doesn't require an API key like Quandl/NASDAQ Data Link before. It is however updated only once per working day, so it is not enabled by default. But you can enable it or switch back to the previously used data source at any given moment. Nothing will change for all those currencies which are not covered by the ECB data. An overview of all the currencies covered by the ECB feeds can be found in the new "Data Sources" configuration window.

The Nasdaq Data Link API key is still required in order to acquire the daily LBMA fixing prices for gold and silver, since the LBMA does not provide direct and public access to this data.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and special thanks to all the users reporting issues to me which otherwise would have passed me by!