Sunday, December 26, 2004

Thoughts

So I've heard several different responses to the recent announcement. Many of the e-mails that I have received have been positive, which I appreciate greatly. There had been many people wondering in the past why this didn't happen a long time ago. So I felt emboldened by that. But some people seem to have the wrong idea about what is going on. I am not selling MacJournal to Mariner software. I will still do all the same things that I do now, but at the same time they will be out there telling people about it and raising its visibility. This isn't about the money at all. If time is money then I am in the red so far that it is not even worth considering. But that's not why I had been doing MacJournal and not why I will continue. Products have to evolve to survive and this is the next step in the evolution. Some people trust a product more if it is guaranteed to be around in a few years. While a few others seem to trust anything less if it costs money. So I guess the only conclusion there is that you can't please all of the people all of the time. I'm just going to keep trying to make the best application I can.

MacJournal has been free for a long time but it also wasn't very good for a while at the start. There was a point a while back when I was ready to stop developing it. I actually took about nine months off. But I got excited about working on it again and now this guarantees that I will be working on it for years to come. You don't want to put all of your data in a place where it's just going to get stuck and now it will keep evolving and improving for years.

I hope this clears up a little of the confusion. I know not everyone will agree with me and my reasoning. Some people will always think that I sold out because any time something costs money it must be inherently bad. All software should be free, perhaps because it is intangible. But I thank everyone out there for their support in this transition.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

MacJournal 3.0b2 is out

This is the second beta release of MacJournal 3.0, formerly called 2.7. There was a development in the availability of MacJournal 3.0 that you should know about as you read this. MacJournal 3.0 will be republished by Mariner Software as a commercial product. It will be $30 with a $15 upgrade price for existing users. I will continue to develop MacJournal and still creative control over it. For scheduling reasons, 3.0 will have to be English-only. I regret this as I am very proud of the localizations that MacJournal supports and they are of great importance to me. But there just isn't time. After 3.0 is finalized and sent off to the CD factory, localization will begin and I hope to have a (free) update to it that includes all previously supported localization.

Important: MacJournal now has serialization. If you don't have a serial number it will time out after 7 days. For this beta only use the serial number "MacJournal Beta Serial Number" to get it to serialize.

Here are some of the changes for beta 2:

- Reorganized the menu bar. It's different, but I think it will be better. It fits in with the system more.
- Fixed some things like Underlining for Full Screen mode
- Improvements to List Style (current line will switch to the new style correctly now)
- Improved the Auto-scrolling in Full Screen mode (Shift-Command-2 for now)
- Added support for Smart Quotes (enabled by default)
- Blogger and LiveJournal sheets will respect the system settings for Web proxy.
- More Jaguar compatibility (Full screen mode should be working now)
- Implemented some new windows to deal with being a Commercial Product:
• End User License Agreement (EULA)
• Welcome window asking you to register
• Registration window for serial number

There are plenty more fixes; be sure to read the Version History.

Some of the larger changes and/or additions in 3.0 as a whole:

- Nested journals. Drag a journal into another journal to put it inside the other one. This has been a long time in the making.
- Manual sorting of entries. Drag entries (or journals) around inside their journals to manually place them were you want them. Note that this disables sorting for every journal when you do this. Re-enable it in the Entry menu if you choose.
- Wiki links. Create links that link to other entries automatically by formatting it in the "wiki" style (Google for "wiki" for a full explanation). Short version: something like "CamelCase" in your entry text will become a link to an entry named "CamelCase" or "Camel Case" or even "Camel, Case!" in the same journal.
- Sort Lines, Change Case, Remove Line Breaks. New text clean-up options in the normal place.
- Copy As HTML. The same functionality found in exporting to HTML but without all the hassle of creating a file.
- Full Screen. View menu item, toolbar item, and the F8 key all bring the text area of the window full screen so you can concentrate just on the text, or make a presentation.
- Menu Item Reorganization. Moved some menu items to make the menus shorter and put things in the expected places.
- Bug Fixes. Bugs have been fixed. High priority fixes will be in 2.6.1. The crasher in "Multiple Spaces to Space" has been fixed here.

Those are just the big ones. There are smaller ones (like Smileys) that are also there. Please read the version history file! If you had the Hidden Preferences window enabled in 2.6 (via the "IncludeHiddenPreferencesMenuItem" preference) note that it has changed. You need to re-set the preference in the Terminal using the new key "IncludeHiddenPreferences" since the Hidden Prefs are now found in the actual Preferences window.

Reporting Bugs

Please let me know about any bugs you find in this release as soon as possible. Use the "Report A Bug" menu item in the Help menu to see a list of known issues for your current build (as they arise). You can also automatically create a new e-mail.

If MacJournal crashes on you, look for a crash log in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter and include that in your report. If there's some funny behavior, try looking in the Console (in /Applications/Utilities/) and include any output related to MacJournal in your report. Please be specific about things that you are doing that aren't working out, whether it's a crash or a behavior that you don't like. Also, include what release of MacJournal you are using in your e-mail. I appreciate your feedback

Thursday, December 23, 2004

More Questions Answered

How much will it cost?

$30

Who will develop MacJournal in this new deal?

All development of MacJournal will continue to be done by me. Mariner's job begins when I hand off the final code for a version. I also retain control of what features will be added. I will just keep doing my thing and they will work to let people know about MacJournal in the meantime.

The Big News

There are big changes afoot for MacJournal. For the past three years, MacJournal has been a freeware product with no marketing. It has survived on word of mouth and a good review here and there. But that doesn't reach a large portion of the potential users. If you've got a quality product you have to let people know about it. That's why MacJournal will now be republished by Mariner Software as a commercial product! With this new arrangement, MacJournal finally has the marketing attention it deserves and it is poised to reach a whole new audience. In time you could see MacJournal in a box at your local Apple Store. It wasn't an easy decision because I like how things work right now and I could easily go on as before, but I think MacJournal deserves more. It has evolved into a very capable application and it is only getting better. I'm confident this will be a positive move for MacJournal and will ensure it's survival for years to come. More details will be available in the coming days, but here are some answers to questions you might have right now

When will this happen?

Soon. The goal is to have a new version of MacJournal for the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. This will be MacJournal 3.0 (formally known as 2.7). MacJournal 2.6 will be the last version of MacJournal as a freeware product.

What will happen to 2.6?

Version 2.6.1 will be released shortly before 3.0 and will address any serious issues with 2.6. The biggest issue that exists is with Multiple Spaces To Spaces (it can produce unexpected results over long selections of text).

Will there be upgrade pricing?

Yes, there will be an upgrade path for current users of MacJournal. Contact sales@marinersoftware.com for upgrade details. I will handle a few special cases personally.

What does this mean for the future?

Good things. This will ensure the future of MacJournal better than I can by myself. Who knows what the future holds and this deal will put MacJournal in a better position should anything unexpected happen. Mariner Software has competed against Microsoft™ Word for many years and is still around so they know a thing or two about that. I will continue to develop MacJournal for many versions to come. I have big plans for the next version after 3.0 and I already know it will be great

Is this just so you can get more money?

No, this is to gain a greater exposure for a product that I feel deserves it. I am not a good marketer (marketeer?) and I can't get it into stores by myself. There are a lot of people that might like MacJournal and this is a great way to let them know about it. Expect to see MacJournal show up in more places and be more visible.

When is 3.0 coming out?

3.0 will be out on January 4th. It will be available on CD and as a download with a time-limited trial. Stop by and see us at booth #2410 at MacWorld in San Francisco to chat if you can and pick up a copy. I'll try to post on the News page when I will be there.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

10.3.7 is good for you

Mac OS X 10.3.7 was released today via Software Update. Users of MacJournal should update to 10.3.7 because it fixes a bug in the operating system that has afflicted MacJournal for quite some time. If you copied some text out of Safari that contained pictures and pasted it into MacJournal (or used a Service to get the text in), MacJournal might crash when saving the text. There was nothing I could do about it except wait for Apple to fix it. And fix it they did today. So 10.3.7 is a recommended update from me; I'm running it right now with no problems.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

MacJournal 2.7 hits beta

Download the release at danschimpf.com.

Welcome to the first beta release of MacJournal 2.7! This release fixes a lot of problems with the newer stuff introduced in the alpha. Specifically, Full Screen mode is much improved. It now has its own preference pane and some cool settings that you can customize for it. There is a new look for the scrollbar that should make it fit in a little better. Tagging along with Full Screen mode is Text Zoom, which finally has working line wrapping when zoomed past 100%. Huzzah!

As a refresher, this is how the different milestones for this release will look:

Alpha: all features are in and functional. No known crashers. No features will be added afterwards.
Beta: all UI is frozen and localizations will begin to be updated. No known bugs.

This is an beta release which means there might still be bugs lurking. A backup of your data will be made automatically, but whenever you use pre-release software (from any source) it's good to back up your important data.

Here are some of the changes for beta 1:

- New preference pane for Full Screen customizations
- New scrollbar for full screen mode
- Text zoom new can wrap lines
- No longer fully capturing the display when entering full screen mode (a la games). This means some other things will start working, such as Exposé, Command-Tab, text dragging, and contextual menus.
- Selecting a number of lines and then changing the List Style will apply that list style to each selected line (not just the first as before)
- Fixed a bunch of preferences that were broken by a big rewrite of the Prefs window
- Journals created in the Journals drawer will end up at the top-level in more cases, which is usually what you want. You can always drag them around.

There are plenty more fixes; be sure to read the Version History.

Some of the larger changes and/or additions in 2.7 as a whole:

- Nested journals. Drag a journal into another journal to put it inside the other one. This has been a long time in the making.
- Manual sorting of entries. Drag entries (or journals) around inside their journals to manually place them were you want them. Note that this disables sorting for every journal when you do this. Re-enable it in the Entry menu if you choose.
- Wiki links. Create links that link to other entries automatically by formatting it in the "wiki" style (Google for "wiki" for a full explanation). Short version: something like "CamelCase" in your entry text will become a link to an entry named "CamelCase" or "Camel Case" or even "Camel, Case!" in the same journal.
- Sort Lines, Change Case, Remove Line Breaks. New text clean-up options in the normal place.
- Copy As HTML. The same functionality found in exporting to HTML but without all the hassle of creating a file.
- Full Screen. View menu item, toolbar item, and the F8 key all bring the text area of the window full screen so you can concentrate just on the text, or make a presentation.
- Menu Item Reorganization. Moved some menu items to make the menus shorter and put things in the expected places.
- Bug Fixes. Bugs have been fixed. High priority fixes will be in 2.6.1. The crasher in "Multiple Spaces to Space" has been fixed here.

Those are just the big ones. There are smaller ones (like Smileys) that are also there. Please read the version history file! If you had the Hidden Preferences window enabled in 2.6 (via the "IncludeHiddenPreferencesMenuItem" preference) note that it has changed. You need to re-set the preference in the Terminal using the new key "IncludeHiddenPreferences" since the Hidden Prefs are now found in the actual Preferences window.

Reporting Bugs

Please let me know about any bugs you find in this release as soon as possible. Use the "Report A Bug" menu item in the Help menu to see a list of known issues for your current build (as they arise). You can also automatically create a new e-mail.

If MacJournal crashes on you, look for a crash log in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter and include that in your report. If there's some funny behavior, try looking in the Console (in /Applications/Utilities/) and include any output related to MacJournal in your report. Please be specific about things that you are doing that aren't working out, whether it's a crash or a behavior that you don't like. Also, include what release of MacJournal you are using in your e-mail. I appreciate your feedback!

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Beta 1 later tonight or tomorrow

Expect 2.7b1 to come out either late tonight or tomorrow evening. Things are going well and it's in late testing. Localization is the concern here as all of the localization files will be sent out after beta 1 is finalized. It should be a great release though. Full Screen and Text Zoom are the big winners for this release.