What's the deal with the next development version of MacJournal? I was hoping to have it out today (the 22nd) before the weekend Holidays. But then I got sick as all get-out and my mobility was... limited. And by "limited" I mean non-existent. So it didn't happen today. It will likely happen at some point next week now. I was planning on attacking more audio recording things next week so the release might include that (although it may not be enabled).
See you next week and a Happy Holidays to everyone!
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
MacJournal 4.0d4
Welcome to MacJournal 4! This is the fourth developmental release. The biggest thing going on here is the all-new blogging system. The old stuff has been thrown out (or will be eventually) in favor of a much more integrated approach. Now you can configure many different blog servers of all different kinds and associate them with journals (or even entries) to which to send entries automatically. There is now support for the MetaWeblog and Atom protocols. MetaWeblog is great for talking to WordPress and Movable Type, and Atom is great for talking to Blogger. LiveJournal support has been rewritten as well. The configuration process should be fairly easy: all you need is the URL to your blog, not the URL to some obscure XML-RPC endpoint. MacJournal will do all it can to figure out the details for you based on the front page URL. Please let me know of any failures in this area and be sure to include the URL that you tried. In addition, the entries will remember details about how it was sent to the server and will only update the entry the next time you send it there, instead of creating a new post. There is now support for sending images to an FTP server and including those images in the blog entry. There is also limited support for downloading entries from the server. Some of the protocols do this better than others though. It turns out Atom- and LiveJournal-based servers handle the best. The Blogger and MetaWeblog API don’t really have facilities for this (MetaWeblog descends from Blogger). Keep in mind though that Blogger.com blogs are now handled by the Atom protocol, so this isn’t a problem there. Also, there is also support for creating entries based on an Atom feed found at the site (regular RSS might be added in the future).
Note: This blogging stuff is still very new and can change a lot as I improve it. For this reason you not should expect that blog configurations will carry through to the final release, or even to the next developmental release.
Other changes in this release:
- Performance improvements for the Individual Files backup
- Cleanup option for e-mail quotes
- Appearance tweaks to Full Screen mode: the cursor is larger to make it easier to see and selected text will look better.
- Added a new Full Screen preference to disable editing if you just want to read it.
- Full Screen mode also now has a Find panel. Use Command-F to get at it.
- The Full Screen prefs now have controls for the margins.
- You can now auto-complete keywords in the Inspector as you type them
- Ordered and unordered lists in HTML form in imported text files are now converted (along with bolds and italics as before).
- You can now import text clippings.
- The list in the drawer will now have a soft background color if a search is in progress (this is a little experimental).
- Click and hold the Browse toolbar item to show a history of entries that you've been to.
- A few crash fixes and a few other behavioral fixes.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- All-new blogging architecture
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
- Improved Full Screen mode
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther that will be weeded out later.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some new icons are temporary and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the release though.
Note: This blogging stuff is still very new and can change a lot as I improve it. For this reason you not should expect that blog configurations will carry through to the final release, or even to the next developmental release.
Other changes in this release:
- Performance improvements for the Individual Files backup
- Cleanup option for e-mail quotes
- Appearance tweaks to Full Screen mode: the cursor is larger to make it easier to see and selected text will look better.
- Added a new Full Screen preference to disable editing if you just want to read it.
- Full Screen mode also now has a Find panel. Use Command-F to get at it.
- The Full Screen prefs now have controls for the margins.
- You can now auto-complete keywords in the Inspector as you type them
- Ordered and unordered lists in HTML form in imported text files are now converted (along with bolds and italics as before).
- You can now import text clippings.
- The list in the drawer will now have a soft background color if a search is in progress (this is a little experimental).
- Click and hold the Browse toolbar item to show a history of entries that you've been to.
- A few crash fixes and a few other behavioral fixes.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- All-new blogging architecture
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
- Improved Full Screen mode
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther that will be weeded out later.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some new icons are temporary and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the release though.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
3.2.2b1 now, 4.0b4 soon
I put out a small beta for 3.2.2 just now; it's at http://danschimpf.com/dev.html. If you're not on Jaguar and/or a non-English localization, it may not do much for you right now. I will add a few other small bug fixes for everyone if I can pin them down.
4.0d4 should be out this month with all new blogging support. I'm getting the final pieces in now, although a lot of things might change after this release depending on how everything looks. I'm pleased with the way it's going though; it's a lot more powerful than it used to be.
4.0d4 should be out this month with all new blogging support. I'm getting the final pieces in now, although a lot of things might change after this release depending on how everything looks. I'm pleased with the way it's going though; it's a lot more powerful than it used to be.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Avoiding work with more work that I was avoiding so I can avoid yet more work
I had originally intended to tackle audio recording for 4.0d4. I decided on that because I was avoiding the new blogging architecture, like I had been doing fairly successfully for much of 4.0 so far. I just hadn’t wrapped my head around it yet. But then I looked at audio recording and CoreAudio. CoreAudio is a deceivingly small API but there are loads upon loads of things that you have to do that aren’t readily apparent, which is annoying on several levels. In a happy world, the CoreAudio folks would provide a nice wrapper to do simple operations (like what I want to do) as sample code that I could compile right into MacJournal and we’d all be shiny. I guess this sort of exists, but it’s written in C++, which I dislike more than nonintuitive C APIs. So that’s out the window. I will probably end up using this third-party wrapper framework that I found on the interweb instead. So I’m avoiding that for now.
Instead, I went back to blogging (because I’m really avoiding .Mac syncing) and actually got quite a lot done. The groundwork is all there and rough UI is in place now. This will allow for one-click upload of an entry to a blog (properly configured). This also brings MetaWeblog and Atom support. The latter makes WordPress and TypePad a lot happier, while the former works well with Blogger right now (better than the antiquated API that bears their name could do, paradoxically enough). However, I’d like to minimize the importance of the protocols as much as possible though, if only for the reason that the Blogger API will no longer be the best one to use with Blogger. Over the weekend I put in some automatic configuration so you can just put the URL of your weblog and MacJournal will figure out all the surrounding details to best of its ability. There are loads of different blogging software packages out there, but I’m focusing on six for this release: Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, and Blojsom. Blojsom makes it on the list just because Tiger Server installs it as the weblog software, so it makes sense to try and make that work as best as possible. Others will work just as well once you have them set up, but it will all depend on how nice the software is. The nice blogging sites have little tags that help offline clients like MacJournal to figure out what to do. In fact, of the six, WordPress is the only one that includes no such information. Boo for that. However, there are other ways I can figure out it is WordPress so it’s not such a big deal. It was a little disappointing though, given the fact that WordPress is the most popular right now.
If you’re in for a laugh, check out Xanga. That is some of the worst HTML I have ever seen. There are two body tags! Can someone explain this to me? Yowzers.
The problem is going to be testing all of these sites. I only have capabilities to test uploading to a few different kinds of blogs right now (Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress), so I will need to work out some way to test the others before I can really feel comfortable that the auto-configuration is making the right decisions.
In terms of the next pre-release, I’m still deciding how much of this I want to be done before the next release. I will probably fall on the side of having a more complete implementation that’s closer to the final product rather than putting something out now. Depending on how things go the next release will probably be mid- to late-November.
Maybe then I’ll get back to audio recording. ☺
Friday, October 14, 2005
MacJournal 4.0d3
Go here to download.
This is the third developmental release. This release provides a mix of new features and bug fixes from d2. An error dialog that some people were seeing while editing text should be fixed. In the realm of new features, new UI has been added for when you click on a journal, locked or otherwise. It should be a lot faster to come up for large journals and provides some new functionality (and looks pretty nifty in my opinion). You can now control encryption on the journal level: each journal can be told to encrypt its data when locked or not at all independent of the app-wide pref. You can also manually encrypt a locked journal independent of any persistent setting.
Changes in this release:
- Fixed some problems dragging around entries.
- Added toolbar item for viewing the current entry in a new window
- Added fancy new appearance for what you see when you click a locked journal, or when a journal is empty due to a search, or when you click an expanded journal.
- Added a per-journal setting for encryption and a way to manually encrypt any locked journal apart from persistent settings.
- Worked around a possible exception in AppKit (a.k.a. the OS) when editing text.
- Creating a new tab will create a new entry to put in that tab.
- Fixed the day names in the calendar for date formats like Hebrew.
- Added hidden pref StripFileExtensionWhenImportingFiles.
- Importing pictures will now respect the "Store attachments externally" preference.
- The calendar will no longer change selection when you activate the app by clicking on it. This matches table behavior and used to work but at some point it broke.
- When selecting a journal in the table, more of the inappropriate controls in the Inspector will be disabled (like annotation). More menu items will be disabled as well.
- Dragging an entry or journal onto a range of selected text will add a link to that item for that range.
- Added in-app viewing of the PDF help file thanks to PDFKit on TIger. Panther users will have to use Preview as before.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
This is the third developmental release. This release provides a mix of new features and bug fixes from d2. An error dialog that some people were seeing while editing text should be fixed. In the realm of new features, new UI has been added for when you click on a journal, locked or otherwise. It should be a lot faster to come up for large journals and provides some new functionality (and looks pretty nifty in my opinion). You can now control encryption on the journal level: each journal can be told to encrypt its data when locked or not at all independent of the app-wide pref. You can also manually encrypt a locked journal independent of any persistent setting.
Changes in this release:
- Fixed some problems dragging around entries.
- Added toolbar item for viewing the current entry in a new window
- Added fancy new appearance for what you see when you click a locked journal, or when a journal is empty due to a search, or when you click an expanded journal.
- Added a per-journal setting for encryption and a way to manually encrypt any locked journal apart from persistent settings.
- Worked around a possible exception in AppKit (a.k.a. the OS) when editing text.
- Creating a new tab will create a new entry to put in that tab.
- Fixed the day names in the calendar for date formats like Hebrew.
- Added hidden pref StripFileExtensionWhenImportingFiles.
- Importing pictures will now respect the "Store attachments externally" preference.
- The calendar will no longer change selection when you activate the app by clicking on it. This matches table behavior and used to work but at some point it broke.
- When selecting a journal in the table, more of the inappropriate controls in the Inspector will be disabled (like annotation). More menu items will be disabled as well.
- Dragging an entry or journal onto a range of selected text will add a link to that item for that range.
- Added in-app viewing of the PDF help file thanks to PDFKit on TIger. Panther users will have to use Preview as before.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Time for MacJournal 4.0d2
Head here to download.
This is the second developmental release. I fixed up a lot of bugs from the first developmental release and added a few new features. The goal here is to provide a little more stability before ripping a bunch of other stuff up. I started a bit on the new blogging features but I'm still working that out mentally so there isn't anything different on the surface right now. A new window has been added for "Advanced Search." This is all done via Spotlight so the window will not be available on Panther. Right now there is only one field that searches everything (like the other search field) but I hope to add more fields for more of the data types (one for the topic, one for text, etc.) to make it truly more "advanced." However, it's pretty nifty already if you always wanted a separate, flat search listing.
Changes in this release:
- Added the aforementioned Advanced Search window
- Fixed up tabs a bit to hopefully resolve some of the problems people have been seeing
- Added new UUID links. There is a hidden preference to enable their creation. These links are both ugly and location-independent.
- Drag objects out of the drawers or search window into the entry text to add links to them.
- Select a bunch of items in the drawer and use Paste Ruler (along with previously available Paste Style)
- Added a disclosure triangle in the Stats window to hide the big Word Frequencies table.
- Added an Export button to the Welcome window if your trial period has expired so you can export any data out of the app.
- Added Bigger and Smaller menu items to the Text Zoom submenu.
- Lots of under the hood work, bug fixes, and appearance tweaks to things.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
This is the second developmental release. I fixed up a lot of bugs from the first developmental release and added a few new features. The goal here is to provide a little more stability before ripping a bunch of other stuff up. I started a bit on the new blogging features but I'm still working that out mentally so there isn't anything different on the surface right now. A new window has been added for "Advanced Search." This is all done via Spotlight so the window will not be available on Panther. Right now there is only one field that searches everything (like the other search field) but I hope to add more fields for more of the data types (one for the topic, one for text, etc.) to make it truly more "advanced." However, it's pretty nifty already if you always wanted a separate, flat search listing.
Changes in this release:
- Added the aforementioned Advanced Search window
- Fixed up tabs a bit to hopefully resolve some of the problems people have been seeing
- Added new UUID links. There is a hidden preference to enable their creation. These links are both ugly and location-independent.
- Drag objects out of the drawers or search window into the entry text to add links to them.
- Select a bunch of items in the drawer and use Paste Ruler (along with previously available Paste Style)
- Added a disclosure triangle in the Stats window to hide the big Word Frequencies table.
- Added an Export button to the Welcome window if your trial period has expired so you can export any data out of the app.
- Added Bigger and Smaller menu items to the Text Zoom submenu.
- Lots of under the hood work, bug fixes, and appearance tweaks to things.
Keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Blog spam is fun!
Yeah, I don’t know what is going with all the stupid comments in all of the posts. I imagine this one will collect a few spam comments as well. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it either. Stupid Blogger. ☺
On brighter news, 3.2.1 is almost out the door and I should be posting a new developmental build of 4.0 any day now. The focus of that is to fix a lot of the small bugs that blocked usability in d1. I can’t always promise that the 4.0 builds will be usable in an everyday situation until later in the process, but I’d like to get one out now before I tear things up again. Changes are in the normal spot.
On a completely developer-focused note, Objective-C is very fun to work with. That’s all; I just wanted to get that out there.
Back soon.
On brighter news, 3.2.1 is almost out the door and I should be posting a new developmental build of 4.0 any day now. The focus of that is to fix a lot of the small bugs that blocked usability in d1. I can’t always promise that the 4.0 builds will be usable in an everyday situation until later in the process, but I’d like to get one out now before I tear things up again. Changes are in the normal spot.
On a completely developer-focused note, Objective-C is very fun to work with. That’s all; I just wanted to get that out there.
Back soon.
Friday, September 23, 2005
MacJournal 4.0d1 is here (finally)
Download it from here.
Welcome to MacJournal 4! Or rather what of it there is right now. A lot of stuff works pretty well, some other stuff is missing, and some things are still a little weird. But keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Special Special Note (just for the weblog): I'm using the old icon so you can tell it apart from 3.x.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
Welcome to MacJournal 4! Or rather what of it there is right now. A lot of stuff works pretty well, some other stuff is missing, and some things are still a little weird. But keep in mind that this is developmental software: there are probably bugs lurking somewhere that could cause crashes and/or data loss. MacJournal 4 has a lot of new data being stored and I can't guarantee the future of that. I may need to change how it is stored and I can't guarantee that everything will work. That being said, it works pretty well for me in normal usage. You should definitely read the Version History to see what is new. Here are the top-tier things:
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- New per-object attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
- A real implementation of tabs
- Links, smileys, and words are recognized as you type now (not just when you save), including a live word count field.
- AppleScript support
But that's just the really top stuff; there is a lot of good stuff (not just bug fixes) in the Version History. It will do you well to read it. The Preferences as been reorganized and split up and will continue to change. I added a few new panes and I think there's one too many now. Expect to see lots of change there.
The good news with all the new data types (like labels and background colors) is that the recently released 3.2 supports them insofar as it won't discard them when saving the data. So you can add labels in 4.0, go back to 3.2 for a while, and when you come back to 4.0 the labels will still be there. The exception here is per-journal sorting: this was added after 3.2 was released and will be lost if you save your data with 3.2.
MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar. At this point, it might not support Panther either. Development is being done on Tiger and there might be some lurking bugs on Panther.
Special Note for Blogging: the blogging areas of the app are next on the list to be overhauled. Lots of functionality will be added, but for now they might work a little differently than in 3.2.
Special Special Note (just for the weblog): I'm using the old icon so you can tell it apart from 3.x.
Reporting Bugs
This is a developmental release so things are still very much in flux. For that reason, reporting bugs isn't as important as normal. There are a lot of areas that are still changing a lot and will continue to change for some time. Some icons are temporary (such as non-editable entries) and will be replaced later. I would appreciate comments about the general direction of the changes though.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Onward and Upward
Now that 3.2 is out, what is next? I will start releasing developmental builds of 4.0 very soon. I think everything is in a reasonably stable state right now that it could work. Keep in mind that 4.0 is still pre-alpha, so a lot of things are still in flux. A lot of features remain on the drawing board at this point and some of the existing ones act a little differently because of new stuff that has been added. But I think it's probably a good time to release it now before I rip something else apart to add functionality. I'll release something this week, we'll say. Probably Thursday night; I'll spend the next two nights tying some looses ends down. I'll also have the complete list of changes so far by then.
See you Thursday, space cowboy.
See you Thursday, space cowboy.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
MacJournal 3.2b4
Get it here
Welcome to MacJournal 3.2b4. This build will most likely be virtually identical to the final release. I expect to wrap that up tomorrow or Wednesday. This release is to make sure everything is okay. Please let me know immediately of any problems you experience.
This build adds a new field in the Entries drawer for annotating entries. This is a new data type in the data file. If you save your data on an older version of MacJournal this new information will be lost.
Fixes in this beta:
- Add annotations
- Added Brazilian Portuguese
- Expanded items in the Journals drawer should be remembered across launches
Other Fixes in 3.2:
- Fixed compatibility with Jaguar.
- Added accessibility fixes for VoiceOver.
- Smart quotes will be left intact when sent to Blogger.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
- Fixed conversions to and from centimeters in the Page Margin section of the print panel.
- Other assorted small fixes.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Welcome to MacJournal 3.2b4. This build will most likely be virtually identical to the final release. I expect to wrap that up tomorrow or Wednesday. This release is to make sure everything is okay. Please let me know immediately of any problems you experience.
This build adds a new field in the Entries drawer for annotating entries. This is a new data type in the data file. If you save your data on an older version of MacJournal this new information will be lost.
Fixes in this beta:
- Add annotations
- Added Brazilian Portuguese
- Expanded items in the Journals drawer should be remembered across launches
Other Fixes in 3.2:
- Fixed compatibility with Jaguar.
- Added accessibility fixes for VoiceOver.
- Smart quotes will be left intact when sent to Blogger.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
- Fixed conversions to and from centimeters in the Page Margin section of the print panel.
- Other assorted small fixes.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Monday, August 29, 2005
MacJournal 3.2b3
Download it from the main site.
Welcome to MacJournal 3.2b3. This version extends the expiration date by two months and has a few fixes. The next release will contains some additional features. Annotations (a.k.a. notes) is not yet in 3.2 but will be coming in the near future once I figure out a good place for it.
Fixes in this beta:
- If "Escape < and >" is disabled for Blogger, smart quotes will be simplified inside tags. Outside tags they will remain as escaped HTML entities like “.
- Changing entries in the Edit Link sheet multiple times without editing the link text will continue to automatically update the text.
- Right-clicking or control-clicking or click-and-holding on a date in the calendar will show a menu for all available entries on that day.
Other Fixes in 3.2:
- Fixed compatibility with Jaguar.
- Added accessibility fixes for VoiceOver.
- Smart quotes will be left intact when sent to Blogger.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
- Fixed conversions to and from centimeters in the Page Margin section of the print panel.
- Other assorted small fixes.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Welcome to MacJournal 3.2b3. This version extends the expiration date by two months and has a few fixes. The next release will contains some additional features. Annotations (a.k.a. notes) is not yet in 3.2 but will be coming in the near future once I figure out a good place for it.
Fixes in this beta:
- If "Escape < and >" is disabled for Blogger, smart quotes will be simplified inside tags. Outside tags they will remain as escaped HTML entities like “.
- Changing entries in the Edit Link sheet multiple times without editing the link text will continue to automatically update the text.
- Right-clicking or control-clicking or click-and-holding on a date in the calendar will show a menu for all available entries on that day.
Other Fixes in 3.2:
- Fixed compatibility with Jaguar.
- Added accessibility fixes for VoiceOver.
- Smart quotes will be left intact when sent to Blogger.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
- Fixed conversions to and from centimeters in the Page Margin section of the print panel.
- Other assorted small fixes.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Friday, August 26, 2005
Latest beta status
The latest beta of 3.1.3 is going to expire soon. There will be a new release this weekend. I decided to morph 3.1.3 into 3.2 with a few small features in addition to the bug fixes already present. I don’t know when 4.0 out so this gives a little something extra before then. 3.2 will be a free upgrade for 3.0 users just like 3.1.3 was going to be. There are a lot of accessibility fixes in it, which is a feature itself (if you need it). It’s looking like “notes” is a good thing to drop in this release as well: it’s fairly self-contained and often requested. If I can figure out a way to do it right without changing any localized resources it will be even better. The new beta this weekend might not have this yet but it will have a substantially longer expiration date then we were currently doing for a small release like 3.1.3. More details this weekend.
Friday, August 12, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.3b2
Get it from here
Welcome to second beta of MacJournal 3.1.3. This version has some accessibility features that prevented beta 1 from launching on Jaguar or Panther. Beta 2 should correct this. 3.1.3 should be out next week.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed compatibility with Panther and Jaguar.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Welcome to second beta of MacJournal 3.1.3. This version has some accessibility features that prevented beta 1 from launching on Jaguar or Panther. Beta 2 should correct this. 3.1.3 should be out next week.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed compatibility with Panther and Jaguar.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.3b1
Welcome to beta 1 of MacJournal 3.1.3! This release will restore compatibility with Jaguar and provide a few bug fixes. It also adds a lot of fixes for Accessibility features such as Voiceover. I also reset the 15-day demo counter. 3.1.3 should be out around the middle of this month.
Note: due to some accessibility testing, this release will only work on OS X 10.4. The next release will work on 10.2 and later.
Bug Fixes:
- Added accessibility to the calendar (for things like VoiceOver)
- Fixed a problem with oddly-formatted URLs that prevented them from being clicked or exported to HTML.
- Restored compatibility with Jaguar (for the final release).
- No longer simplifying quotes on their way to Blogger.
- Added hidden pref for always pasting text as plain text (and matching the current style): AlwaysPasteAsPlainText
- Show the main window if it wasn't on-screen when you use Spotlight to select an entry.
- Made some changes to the Service handling to prevent some problems when the "Loading..." window and the "Pick a Journal" window come up at the same time.
- Fixed unit conversions in the Page Margin controls in the print panel.
- Fixed a problem sending complex entries to LiveJournal.
- Reset the 15-demo.
- Fixed a bug with not showing the time in Japanese.
- Fixed a bug when launching MacJournal with Spotlight with large data sets that can cause confusion in the tables
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Note: due to some accessibility testing, this release will only work on OS X 10.4. The next release will work on 10.2 and later.
Bug Fixes:
- Added accessibility to the calendar (for things like VoiceOver)
- Fixed a problem with oddly-formatted URLs that prevented them from being clicked or exported to HTML.
- Restored compatibility with Jaguar (for the final release).
- No longer simplifying quotes on their way to Blogger.
- Added hidden pref for always pasting text as plain text (and matching the current style): AlwaysPasteAsPlainText
- Show the main window if it wasn't on-screen when you use Spotlight to select an entry.
- Made some changes to the Service handling to prevent some problems when the "Loading..." window and the "Pick a Journal" window come up at the same time.
- Fixed unit conversions in the Page Margin controls in the print panel.
- Fixed a problem sending complex entries to LiveJournal.
- Reset the 15-demo.
- Fixed a bug with not showing the time in Japanese.
- Fixed a bug when launching MacJournal with Spotlight with large data sets that can cause confusion in the tables
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Quick status update
It turns out 3.1.2 isn't compatible with Jaguar at all so I'm readying a new release in a week or two to correct that problem. It will also contains a number of small fixes to other problems. This, however, will probably be the last Jaguar-compatible release ever. To work on the Intel systems you have to compile with gcc 4.0. Programs compiled with this compiler cannot be run on Jaguar. So it's out of my hands at that point. 3.1.3 will hopefully fix all the remaining small issues so that our Jaguar users won't be left out of much more than Intel compatibility when the time comes.
Alongside that I will begin posting developmental builds of 4.0. It's looking pretty good so far. Some of the new UI is still shaky, but other refinements are quite polished. The new tabs look great. Expect to see that sometime this month as well.
Alongside that I will begin posting developmental builds of 4.0. It's looking pretty good so far. Some of the new UI is still shaky, but other refinements are quite polished. The new tabs look great. Expect to see that sometime this month as well.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.2
Download it from Mariner
Welcome to MacJournal 3.1.2! This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. There are also some additional preferences available. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above.
Bug Fixes:
- Implemented Spotlight support.
- Fixed a few crashes that could happen in different situations.
- Fixed a problem where journals could show up as locked when nested inside another journal.
- Improved HTML exporting.
- Fixed some problems with registration.
- Added a preference to disable automatic list discovery.
- Added a preference to change the first day of the week displayed in the calendar.
- Improved list support.
- Various other small fixes.
- Italian localization
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Welcome to MacJournal 3.1.2! This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. There are also some additional preferences available. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above.
Bug Fixes:
- Implemented Spotlight support.
- Fixed a few crashes that could happen in different situations.
- Fixed a problem where journals could show up as locked when nested inside another journal.
- Improved HTML exporting.
- Fixed some problems with registration.
- Added a preference to disable automatic list discovery.
- Added a preference to change the first day of the week displayed in the calendar.
- Improved list support.
- Various other small fixes.
- Italian localization
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Spotty
FYI: My e-mail response should be a little spotty this coming week due to various festivities. Apologies in advance if I don't respond to e-mail until the next week.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Whoops
I had previously talked about building MacJournal for Intel and the problems that popped up. I had to disable code for .Mac exporting to get it to build so I could test it at all. Well, wouldn't you know it but I forgot to re-enable it for 3.1.2b3. ☺ Worry not however: it will return for the next build. I'm expecting 3.1.2 to be released later this week, or early next at worst.
I'm putting together a larger post about the next version (tentatively labeled 4.0) which I will come back with after 3.1.2 is out. I have some things like labels already (sort of) working, but any larger changes are still in the design stage. I'm looking at ways to merge the journals drawer into the main window Mail-style. So feel free to comment one way or another on this as I'm sure some people won't like it. Drawers are kind of a heated topic nowadays; a lot of people don't like them. I don't mind them myself but I certainly respect the argument against them and general UI seems to be moving away from them lately so I don't want MacJournal to fall behind. More on this later though.
I'm putting together a larger post about the next version (tentatively labeled 4.0) which I will come back with after 3.1.2 is out. I have some things like labels already (sort of) working, but any larger changes are still in the design stage. I'm looking at ways to merge the journals drawer into the main window Mail-style. So feel free to comment one way or another on this as I'm sure some people won't like it. Drawers are kind of a heated topic nowadays; a lot of people don't like them. I don't mind them myself but I certainly respect the argument against them and general UI seems to be moving away from them lately so I don't want MacJournal to fall behind. More on this later though.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.2b3
Download it from here
This is the third beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes another problem with registration on Tiger (which are always fun). A few other smaller bugs are fixed 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out). Expect the final release of 3.1.2 later this week.
Bug Fixes:
- Titles sent to Blogger won't have their non-ASCII characters converted.
- Entries created from the calendar will adhere to the entry template.
- An open curly quote will be used instead of a closed quote in the case of a multi-paragraph quotation with quotes appearing at the start of the paragraph.
- Bolds and italics in exported HTML will now be handled by strong and em respectively.
- Fixed up permissions on the license file in case it was created by another user.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
This is the third beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes another problem with registration on Tiger (which are always fun). A few other smaller bugs are fixed 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out). Expect the final release of 3.1.2 later this week.
Bug Fixes:
- Titles sent to Blogger won't have their non-ASCII characters converted.
- Entries created from the calendar will adhere to the entry template.
- An open curly quote will be used instead of a closed quote in the case of a multi-paragraph quotation with quotes appearing at the start of the paragraph.
- Bolds and italics in exported HTML will now be handled by strong and em respectively.
- Fixed up permissions on the license file in case it was created by another user.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Thursday, June 09, 2005
MacJournal vs. Intel
Following Monday’s announcement, I downloaded Xcode 2.1 and recompiled MacJournal 3.1.2 for Intel. I had to tweak a few settings but I got everything to compile. However, it didn’t actually complete the build. For the .Mac functionality I am using an embedded framework that Apple provides however that framework is not yet available for Intel. Because this dependent code is not ready for Intel, MacJournal cannot be built for Intel just yet. If they release an update before 3.1.2 comes out I will probably release a Universal binary (just to get it out of the way). The only issue is that the .Mac framework generally only supports the current OS and the one before it so if they release an update it might not support Jaguar like the current one does. In that case there will be a subsequent update that will only support Panther, Tiger, and Tiger+Intel. Hopefully that won’t need to happen and we can just get this behind us soon.
Other than that I haven’t made much progress on the next version because of WWDC this week. I started on labels and an Inspector but both are very rough right now. If anyone will be at the beer bash tonight on Apple’s campus I’ll be around as well. I’ll be wearing a Michigan Band shirt so if you see me say hi. ☺
Other than that I haven’t made much progress on the next version because of WWDC this week. I started on labels and an Inspector but both are very rough right now. If anyone will be at the beer bash tonight on Apple’s campus I’ll be around as well. I’ll be wearing a Michigan Band shirt so if you see me say hi. ☺
Sunday, May 29, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.2b2
Download it now
This is the second beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes a potential crash when waking from sleep and fixes a problem that Tiger caused with registration. 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).
Bug Fixes:
- Adding a line in the midst of a numbered list will correct all following lines better than it used to.
- Fixed a potential crash after waking from sleep after opening and closing the Change Date sheet.
- Fixed a problem on Tiger where the registration information might not get saved under some circumstances.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Dan Schimpf
dschimpf@mac.com
http://danschimpf.com/
29 May 2005
This is the second beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes a potential crash when waking from sleep and fixes a problem that Tiger caused with registration. 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).
Bug Fixes:
- Adding a line in the midst of a numbered list will correct all following lines better than it used to.
- Fixed a potential crash after waking from sleep after opening and closing the Change Date sheet.
- Fixed a problem on Tiger where the registration information might not get saved under some circumstances.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Dan Schimpf
dschimpf@mac.com
http://danschimpf.com/
29 May 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
MacJournal 3.1.2b1
Download it here
This is the first (and probably only) beta release of 3.1.2. This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed bug that would show nested journals as locked if their parent journal was encrypted and unlocked.
- Fixed a crash when sending text with smart quotes to LiveJournal.
- Fixed a problem where changing the list mode to Numbers when it was already there would eat the first character after the list item.
New Preferences:
- Added option for Spotlight never to index journals that were decrypted.
- Added preference to change the first day of week in the calendar.
- Added option to disable auto-discovery of lists.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
This is the first (and probably only) beta release of 3.1.2. This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed bug that would show nested journals as locked if their parent journal was encrypted and unlocked.
- Fixed a crash when sending text with smart quotes to LiveJournal.
- Fixed a problem where changing the list mode to Numbers when it was already there would eat the first character after the list item.
New Preferences:
- Added option for Spotlight never to index journals that were decrypted.
- Added preference to change the first day of week in the calendar.
- Added option to disable auto-discovery of lists.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Monday, May 23, 2005
MacJournal vs. Spotlight: Round One
So I said 3.1.1 would have some limited Spotlight functionality but it would be disabled by default. This is true, but it has some flaws in it so I don't even really want to talk about it. The other problem is that the Spotlight importer itself (the piece that sits by itself and is loaded by Spotlight to read the files) wasn't included in the 3.1.1 due to an oversight. So let's just forget about 3.1.1. :-)
On the positive side, later tonight I will be releasing 3.1.2b1 with full Spotlight support, enabled by default, with the importer included. So if you want to try it out I invite you to check back here later tonight (or tomorrow for the more international users) and grab that. It will also fix the nested-journals-appear-as-locked bug that sprouted up in 3.1.1 and add a few preferences.
On the positive side, later tonight I will be releasing 3.1.2b1 with full Spotlight support, enabled by default, with the importer included. So if you want to try it out I invite you to check back here later tonight (or tomorrow for the more international users) and grab that. It will also fix the nested-journals-appear-as-locked bug that sprouted up in 3.1.1 and add a few preferences.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
3.1.1 is out
Download it from Mariner
The list of bug fixes:
- Fixed a problem where changing multiple lines to checkboxes would add the same checkbox on each line (instead of different checkboxes for each line).
- Fixed a problem preventing the splitter position in the journals drawer from getting saved in between launches.
- Fixed a problem with smart quotes and Entourage
- Improved the numeric list recognition logic to exclude things like "8.00 PM"
- Fixed the "None" item in the Highlight toolbar item
- Fixed the "Backdate" button in the LiveJournal panel
- Fixed a problem in the calendar with months beginning on Sunday (i.e. May 2005).
- Links are now terminated when you end a line
- Fixed a crash when using a custom background color in Full Screen mode on Tiger.
- Fixed a crash that can happen when the calendar tries to automatically change days at Midnight.
- Fixed a problem when switching list modes in an empty entry.
There are one or two more that involve hidden preferences that are noted in the included Version History. I'll come back later with more information about Spotlight.
The list of bug fixes:
- Fixed a problem where changing multiple lines to checkboxes would add the same checkbox on each line (instead of different checkboxes for each line).
- Fixed a problem preventing the splitter position in the journals drawer from getting saved in between launches.
- Fixed a problem with smart quotes and Entourage
- Improved the numeric list recognition logic to exclude things like "8.00 PM"
- Fixed the "None" item in the Highlight toolbar item
- Fixed the "Backdate" button in the LiveJournal panel
- Fixed a problem in the calendar with months beginning on Sunday (i.e. May 2005).
- Links are now terminated when you end a line
- Fixed a crash when using a custom background color in Full Screen mode on Tiger.
- Fixed a crash that can happen when the calendar tries to automatically change days at Midnight.
- Fixed a problem when switching list modes in an empty entry.
There are one or two more that involve hidden preferences that are noted in the included Version History. I'll come back later with more information about Spotlight.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
3.1.1 Status
My part of the 3.1.1 has been finished and is out the door. The Mariner folk are making some needed additions to the manual to cover the new things added in 3.1 and we hope to get everything posted on Wednesday. Check back tomorrow for the download and all the news. After that I will speak more about the next version and might even start posting builds, even though only a few small features have been added so far. I'm considering providing public access to my nightly builds that I make for myself if there is interest. Keep in mind though that these nightly builds would be even further from safety than the pre-release builds are, but it would allow stuff to get out faster.
Catch you tomorrow.
Catch you tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Spotlight Update
Work continues with the Spotlight implementation. I have MacJournal writing out the "special" files to disk and I have the importer written, but they aren't hooked up to each other right yet. Spotlight and LaunchServices work well when things don't change that much, but in a development environment it is easy to confuse both of them when you're changing things every few minutes. I don't have anything hooked up for encrypted journals yet, but I imagine there will be an option similar to Mail's "Index decrypted messages for searching." Any locked journal will be removed from the metadata cache, but there will be an option to never include encrypted journals even if they are unlocked (which will probably be the default behavior). I don't know if all of this will get rolled into 3.1.1 or a later update mostly because I want to get 3.1.1 out by next week and this stuff needs to bake more before it gets released.
I also have some preliminary work done on the syncing support, but the Spotlight action is much farther ahead. All I have there is the description of the data to be stored on the server; none of the client-side work is done. It turns out a large portion of developing software on Mac OS X is editing property lists to a specific format, so there's a lot of that ahead of me before the syncing will work. More on that as it evolves.
I also have some preliminary work done on the syncing support, but the Spotlight action is much farther ahead. All I have there is the description of the data to be stored on the server; none of the client-side work is done. It turns out a large portion of developing software on Mac OS X is editing property lists to a specific format, so there's a lot of that ahead of me before the syncing will work. More on that as it evolves.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Tiger and MacJournal 3.1
Now that Tiger has been released, a few more details about Tiger support in MacJournal 3.1 can be revealed. In addition to the 200 "big" features advertised for Tiger, there are a plethora of smaller features in the OS that apps can take advantage of quickly. One of the first things MacJournal supported was multiple selections ranges. If you hold the Command key you can select multiple discontinuous ranges of text in MacJournal (and any other Cocoa text program). Some changes had to be made to support this any time that I got that selected range of text. Instead of just one range I had to consider many ranges. In the case of most of the text cleanup commands the length of one range was changed as well. But I'm happy to say that everything should just work as expected with multiple selection ranges: text cleanup, strikethrough, and everything else should work. While 3.1 was billed as the "Tiger-compatible" release, most of these things will work all the way back to MacJournal 2.6 (which shows you how long Tiger has been in development). For some extra fun hold the Option key while you drag for some square selection!
One fix that 3.1 brings is a few tweaks for Resolution Independent UI. This is a feature in Tiger that is not exposed in any user UI. It's there for developers to update their applications for the future. With this you can scale any application that you launch on your system to an arbitrary amount. For example you can make any application run 2 times larger than normal, which might be handy on that 30-inch display that we all have. MacJournal 3.1 should operate just as well under these conditions.
A suggestion that I get a lot regards what happens when you drag an entry or a journal onto your Desktop (or any other folder in the Finder). In Panther and before it would create this lame text clipping of the text in whatever you dragged. This was, well, enormously lame. Thankfully, the support exists in Tiger to create a real Rich Text file at the destination that you can actually use.
Another popular suggestion is page numbering while printing. Once again Apple has helped out here and there is now an option in the MacJournal pane in the print window for enabling page numbering.
Tiger also supports Tables and similar things in text views. TextEdit can to Tables and Lists all by itself. MacJournal can access these features as well, but the menu items weren't put in until after localization had finished. I will add them for 3.1.1 but you can add them right now in English using a Hidden Preference.
What is not there is syncing or Spotlight. Spotlight is nasty because it needs a distinct file for each searchable datum. Since MacJournal stores all of its data in one file, there's no way to separate each entry for Spotlight. How, you may ask, do Safari and Address Book handle this, since they put all of their data in a single file as well? Safari and Address Book also maintain a separate listing of small files for each datum. Check out your Caches folder if you want to see them. This is essentially what MacJournal will have to do. While not trivial, it might be easier than syncing at this point so I might work on that now and release a small update containing that functionality.
One fix that 3.1 brings is a few tweaks for Resolution Independent UI. This is a feature in Tiger that is not exposed in any user UI. It's there for developers to update their applications for the future. With this you can scale any application that you launch on your system to an arbitrary amount. For example you can make any application run 2 times larger than normal, which might be handy on that 30-inch display that we all have. MacJournal 3.1 should operate just as well under these conditions.
A suggestion that I get a lot regards what happens when you drag an entry or a journal onto your Desktop (or any other folder in the Finder). In Panther and before it would create this lame text clipping of the text in whatever you dragged. This was, well, enormously lame. Thankfully, the support exists in Tiger to create a real Rich Text file at the destination that you can actually use.
Another popular suggestion is page numbering while printing. Once again Apple has helped out here and there is now an option in the MacJournal pane in the print window for enabling page numbering.
Tiger also supports Tables and similar things in text views. TextEdit can to Tables and Lists all by itself. MacJournal can access these features as well, but the menu items weren't put in until after localization had finished. I will add them for 3.1.1 but you can add them right now in English using a Hidden Preference.
What is not there is syncing or Spotlight. Spotlight is nasty because it needs a distinct file for each searchable datum. Since MacJournal stores all of its data in one file, there's no way to separate each entry for Spotlight. How, you may ask, do Safari and Address Book handle this, since they put all of their data in a single file as well? Safari and Address Book also maintain a separate listing of small files for each datum. Check out your Caches folder if you want to see them. This is essentially what MacJournal will have to do. While not trivial, it might be easier than syncing at this point so I might work on that now and release a small update containing that functionality.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
MacJournal 3.1
Download it here
Welcome to MacJournal 3.1! This release provides a few new features, some bug fixes, and full Tiger compatibility.
New Features:
1. Highlight toolbar button
2. Automatic discovery of lists
3. Option to automatically back up your data
4. New Calendar view in the Journals drawer and Change Date sheet
5. Encrypted journals are indicated with a gold lock
6. Export journals directly to a .Mac account
7. Added button in Full Screen mode to automatically scroll the text
Bug Fixes:
1. Improved performance after exiting Full Screen mode
2. Fixed problem when using more than one "Discover" preference and saving
3. Blogger performance and reliability should be greatly improved
4. Fixed loss styling when clicking next to a checkbox and typing
5. Improved searching performance and behavior
6. Fixed various problems associated with switching list styles
In addition, MacJournal 3.1 has been fully tested on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Several Tiger-only features have been added; check the MacJournal Development Blog for more details after Tiger has shipped.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don't have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release. There is a 3.1.1 release planned to pick up a new Italian localization and any bug fixes that pop up.
s
Welcome to MacJournal 3.1! This release provides a few new features, some bug fixes, and full Tiger compatibility.
New Features:
1. Highlight toolbar button
2. Automatic discovery of lists
3. Option to automatically back up your data
4. New Calendar view in the Journals drawer and Change Date sheet
5. Encrypted journals are indicated with a gold lock
6. Export journals directly to a .Mac account
7. Added button in Full Screen mode to automatically scroll the text
Bug Fixes:
1. Improved performance after exiting Full Screen mode
2. Fixed problem when using more than one "Discover" preference and saving
3. Blogger performance and reliability should be greatly improved
4. Fixed loss styling when clicking next to a checkbox and typing
5. Improved searching performance and behavior
6. Fixed various problems associated with switching list styles
In addition, MacJournal 3.1 has been fully tested on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Several Tiger-only features have been added; check the MacJournal Development Blog for more details after Tiger has shipped.
Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don't have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.
Please let me know of any problems you have with this release. There is a 3.1.1 release planned to pick up a new Italian localization and any bug fixes that pop up.
s
Friday, April 15, 2005
MacJournal 3.1b2
Go here to download now
This is the second beta of MacJournal 3.1. There are more code changes than localizations in this release, but there is now an updated Korean localization to be had. All that are missing are the Japanese and Italian localizations. If anyone can help out with the former please let me know; it should be a very short and simple update for this release.
On the code improvement side, here are the highlights:
1. Added hidden pref for controlling what the first day of the week is in the calendar for localizations that use Monday as the start of the week (which actually makes more sense than Sunday if you think about it.)
2. Fixed a problem that could prevent a new entry from being selected in the journals drawer after you created it inside a nested journal.
3. Nested journals will now lock If you have a preference set to automatically lock journals and the parent journal cannot lock itself.
4. Added a calendar to the Change Date sheet, which I should have done a while ago but I forgot.
5. Improved some areas of performance, including launch time.
6. Added a checkbox and typing some text, then putting the insertion point next to the checkbox and typing again used to destroy all styling due to a quirk in the OS. No more!
7. Another fun quirk in the OS caused the Blogger panel to lock the app up from time to time (more in some situations). That area of code has been rewritten to avoid these areas. As a side effect I think it’s a lot faster too.
There are a few more changes so check out the Version History when you get a chance. This should be the last beta: as soon as we get the Italian and Japanese localizations in 3.1 will be finalized and released. Please let me know of any bugs that you find.
This is the second beta of MacJournal 3.1. There are more code changes than localizations in this release, but there is now an updated Korean localization to be had. All that are missing are the Japanese and Italian localizations. If anyone can help out with the former please let me know; it should be a very short and simple update for this release.
On the code improvement side, here are the highlights:
1. Added hidden pref for controlling what the first day of the week is in the calendar for localizations that use Monday as the start of the week (which actually makes more sense than Sunday if you think about it.)
2. Fixed a problem that could prevent a new entry from being selected in the journals drawer after you created it inside a nested journal.
3. Nested journals will now lock If you have a preference set to automatically lock journals and the parent journal cannot lock itself.
4. Added a calendar to the Change Date sheet, which I should have done a while ago but I forgot.
5. Improved some areas of performance, including launch time.
6. Added a checkbox and typing some text, then putting the insertion point next to the checkbox and typing again used to destroy all styling due to a quirk in the OS. No more!
7. Another fun quirk in the OS caused the Blogger panel to lock the app up from time to time (more in some situations). That area of code has been rewritten to avoid these areas. As a side effect I think it’s a lot faster too.
There are a few more changes so check out the Version History when you get a chance. This should be the last beta: as soon as we get the Italian and Japanese localizations in 3.1 will be finalized and released. Please let me know of any bugs that you find.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
3.1b2 soon; Tiger
Expect a new beta of MacJournal 3.1 in the next day or two. I rewrote a lot of the Blogger networking to avoid an issue that I see in the OS and hopefully it should never lock up the app ever again. There's also some other good stuff in there that I'd like to get out while waiting for the last two localizations to come back.
Tiger was announced yesterday over on Apple's site, and while I obviously can't talk about it a whole lot until it is released (those pesky developer NDAs) but rest assured that MacJournal works just fine on Tiger, both 3.x and 2.6.x. I'm not sure about 2.5.x, but you should be using 2.6 anyway. ☺ More details on this when Tiger ships on the 29th.
Tiger was announced yesterday over on Apple's site, and while I obviously can't talk about it a whole lot until it is released (those pesky developer NDAs) but rest assured that MacJournal works just fine on Tiger, both 3.x and 2.6.x. I'm not sure about 2.5.x, but you should be using 2.6 anyway. ☺ More details on this when Tiger ships on the 29th.
Monday, April 04, 2005
More 3.1 updates
MacJournal 3.1 is pretty much done. We're waiting for localizations at this point: Japanese and a new Italian localization. I hope to get those in soon (at least the Japanese one since it's a small update) and get 3.1 out the door by the end of the month. This will be the last release to support 10.2 and I'm anxious to leave that chunk of code behind. ☺ There are a lot of things on the plate for the next update and I've started tinkering around with some of the larger ones but shipping 3.1 will make life easier. I'm happy with how 3.1 turned out though and I look forward to getting it out the door.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
MacJournal 3.1b1
Go Here to Download 3.1b1
This is the first beta of MacJournal 3.1. There are only a few code changes but a lot of localizations are updated. The following localizations should be ready for 3.1:
- Serbian
- Spanish
- Danish
- Taiwanese
- French
- Norwegian
- German
In addition, a problem with printing was fixed and a hidden preference for Wiki links was introduced. Read the Version History for the details. The code is largely finished at this point. We're waiting on one or two more localizations, so I'm shooting for sometime in April for the final release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
This is the first beta of MacJournal 3.1. There are only a few code changes but a lot of localizations are updated. The following localizations should be ready for 3.1:
- Serbian
- Spanish
- Danish
- Taiwanese
- French
- Norwegian
- German
In addition, a problem with printing was fixed and a hidden preference for Wiki links was introduced. Read the Version History for the details. The code is largely finished at this point. We're waiting on one or two more localizations, so I'm shooting for sometime in April for the final release.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Sunday, March 20, 2005
MacJournal 3.1a4
Get It Now.
This is the fourth alpha of MacJournal 3.1. The big change in this release is with networking. All of the networking code was rewritten to use WebKit APIs, which should provide for more reliable connections and in more network setups. The areas affected are LiveJournal, the Update window and the Known Issues window. The Blogger window uses a different set of APIs that can't be migrated. Please test these areas out and let me know if they still work for you and if they actually work better. A side effect of this is MacJournal now requires Safari to be installed. You can either have 10.2.7 or higher installed, or 10.2 with Safari. You don't have to actually use Safari at all, just have it installed.
Some other changes:
- Daily backups can now be manipulated in the Advanced prefs, as well as the period of days in between between backups.
- Decoupled the Full Screen Text Zoom pref from the other appearance prefs.
- The Stats window is now accessible from the View menu and will take into account what is selected in the drawers. It will also count words in nested journals.
- Encrypted journals will show up with a gold lock to indicate their encrypted nature.
- Added a new HTML template that is similar but written in HTML 4.01.
This will be the last alpha. In fact, the interface will be frozen very shortly to be localized. I'm hoping to get 3.1 out in April so I can get to work on the next big release with support for multiple documents, multiple blogging servers, tabs, labels, and loads more.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
This is the fourth alpha of MacJournal 3.1. The big change in this release is with networking. All of the networking code was rewritten to use WebKit APIs, which should provide for more reliable connections and in more network setups. The areas affected are LiveJournal, the Update window and the Known Issues window. The Blogger window uses a different set of APIs that can't be migrated. Please test these areas out and let me know if they still work for you and if they actually work better. A side effect of this is MacJournal now requires Safari to be installed. You can either have 10.2.7 or higher installed, or 10.2 with Safari. You don't have to actually use Safari at all, just have it installed.
Some other changes:
- Daily backups can now be manipulated in the Advanced prefs, as well as the period of days in between between backups.
- Decoupled the Full Screen Text Zoom pref from the other appearance prefs.
- The Stats window is now accessible from the View menu and will take into account what is selected in the drawers. It will also count words in nested journals.
- Encrypted journals will show up with a gold lock to indicate their encrypted nature.
- Added a new HTML template that is similar but written in HTML 4.01.
This will be the last alpha. In fact, the interface will be frozen very shortly to be localized. I'm hoping to get 3.1 out in April so I can get to work on the next big release with support for multiple documents, multiple blogging servers, tabs, labels, and loads more.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Friday, March 11, 2005
3.1 coming along
3.1 is coming along well so far. I put some more work into tabs last night and got a lot of improvements in; it's shaping up quite nicely. I don't know if they will ship with 3.1 by default, but it will be available via the hidden preference if not. I got some performance improvements out of the calendar as well. I don't think any more large features will be in 3.1 (due to time constraints), however I would like to do some more under-the-hood work. To that end I am strongly considering raising the minimum OS to 10.2.7 to allow for use of WebKit (Safari's underlying engine). This would improve some of the networking functionality, especially for LiveJournal. It could also open up some interesting possibilities for HTML exporting. I don't think it will be a problem for most users, but let me know of any strong objections. I will be dropping 10.2.x entirely eventually, but I don't know how and when yet.
There have been new alphas the past few weekends but I think I might skip this weekend to do the WebKit changes. So far all the changes I have are to the tabs so I want to get something else in there in case you don't like tabs. ☺ Maybe sometime next week, although I do have jury duty....
There have been new alphas the past few weekends but I think I might skip this weekend to do the WebKit changes. So far all the changes I have are to the tabs so I want to get something else in there in case you don't like tabs. ☺ Maybe sometime next week, although I do have jury duty....
MacJournal 3.0.2
MacJournal 3.0.2 has been released! Download it from Mariner's download page. It's a very small update that just fixes the undo problem and adds a Norwegian localization. There was a problem in 3.0.1 that caused all undo operations to get combined together after you created a journal. This is fixed now, along with a handful of very small fixes. Let me know if there are any problems with it as I'm not planning any more 3.0.x releases; everything is focused on 3.1 right now.
Monday, March 07, 2005
MacJournal 3.1a3
Get It Here
This is the third alpha of MacJournal 3.1. Before I get into the big topics that need discussing, here are some bugs that were fixed:
- Fixed a crash while switching list styles
- Fixed a problem with exporting non-ASCII characters to one file per entry
- Fixed some problems with auto-expansion in the journals drawer
- Journals should now re-sort automatically if you change the name of a nested journal
- Fixed Undo in Full Screen mode
Some new things were also added:
- A hidden preference to search entry text as well as the dates when searching from the calendar. The preference specifies the format of the date in the text that you want to search.
- A hidden preference to prevent the "Loading Data" window from appearing at app launch. The application will just show the spinning cursor until the data are ready. This will primarily help people who set MacJournal as a login item with the "Hide" checkbox.
- Added tabs in a prototype state. It's actually a hidden preference, but it is enabled by default for this pre-release (although it won't be for the final release of 3.1). There is an menu item in the Entry menu and a menu item in the contextual menu for entries to open an entry in a new tab. Please note that this is very rough implementation and not yet complete. Please do not report a lot of bugs on this. For example, unsaved changes are saved back to the entry when you switch tabs (which may not be that great). The appearance is not final either. Give it a little slack and let me know if you like it from a broad perspective.
In addition, some things will be enabled by default now: Hidden Prefs, Tabs, and Daily Backup. This is just for the pre-releases, these will be disabled by default for the real releases. I want to get Tabs and Daily Backup exercised before the final release.
This is the third alpha of MacJournal 3.1. Before I get into the big topics that need discussing, here are some bugs that were fixed:
- Fixed a crash while switching list styles
- Fixed a problem with exporting non-ASCII characters to one file per entry
- Fixed some problems with auto-expansion in the journals drawer
- Journals should now re-sort automatically if you change the name of a nested journal
- Fixed Undo in Full Screen mode
Some new things were also added:
- A hidden preference to search entry text as well as the dates when searching from the calendar. The preference specifies the format of the date in the text that you want to search.
- A hidden preference to prevent the "Loading Data" window from appearing at app launch. The application will just show the spinning cursor until the data are ready. This will primarily help people who set MacJournal as a login item with the "Hide" checkbox.
- Added tabs in a prototype state. It's actually a hidden preference, but it is enabled by default for this pre-release (although it won't be for the final release of 3.1). There is an menu item in the Entry menu and a menu item in the contextual menu for entries to open an entry in a new tab. Please note that this is very rough implementation and not yet complete. Please do not report a lot of bugs on this. For example, unsaved changes are saved back to the entry when you switch tabs (which may not be that great). The appearance is not final either. Give it a little slack and let me know if you like it from a broad perspective.
In addition, some things will be enabled by default now: Hidden Prefs, Tabs, and Daily Backup. This is just for the pre-releases, these will be disabled by default for the real releases. I want to get Tabs and Daily Backup exercised before the final release.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Blogger Testing and UI Ruminations
The Blogger thing is elusive and hard to reproduce when I need it to. I might release 3.0.2 regardless tomorrow or Wednesday just so it's not delayed any more. I'll try more tonight. After a lot of testing, I may be prepared to blame the OS on this one. It seems to happen a lot more often if you have an ampersand in your text, which is supposedly an illegal character for the protocol that it uses to transmit (XML-RPC). I think I might have a fix though: the ampersands were getting encoded twice, leading to badness. In fact, if you see this message then it means that things are working better because there are a bunch of ampersands near the end. ☺
On the UI front, I spent some time Sunday working on some prototype UI for a future version. The interface of the main part of the window has not really changed in a long time. I'm referring to the area excluding any drawers and toolbars. Just the text view, topic field, and elements around there. Someone a while ago suggested integrating the topic field into the text view as that's more like how it is in a real journal. So I was able accomplish a prototype of that during the Oscars. I was considering posting a test application with it, but you can get a good idea of what it's like by just looking at a Mail message window. I don't know if I like it though for a few reasons:
1. Mail only uses that kind of view when the data it is representing is not editable; when you can edit those fields (sender, subject, etc.) they are shown in real text fields, like MacJournal does. So the user might not know that these fields are editable.
2. In the prototyped appearance it is a decent amount smaller, which is both good and bad.
3. What is good for Mail isn't necessary good for the rest of the world; this is probably not the appropriate design for this kind of data (see #1).
What I'd really like to do in the future is provide a more realistic journal view. So the topic and date might be integrated into the text view, but not in the way Mail does it. In addition to the current appearance settings you could also set a "Journal" view that would look like a hard-bound journal with the topic and date at the top of the "page." I had also prototyped a "lined paper" view that looked pretty good at the time. I don't know what I'll do about this yet but it looks like something will happen like this. The Mail-like view wasn't all for naught; I can easily rearrange things to look like the "Journal" I was talking about and will probably do that. I might revisit the lined paper view, but that's a little farther out for various technical reasons. In addition, the whole lined paper thing doesn't really add anything to the UI; it's just eye candy. And while eye candy is not inherently evil (if you can turn it off somehow), it does get a much lower priority when compared to "real" features. But the "Journal" view might be useful because it would be a lot simpler visually and might end up more usable because it is laid out in a more logical fashion for the app. What is there now would continue to be available of course.
Just thoughts for the future.
Epilogue
Just because Blogger loves them, here are a bunch of ampersands: &&&&&&.
Sweet.
On the UI front, I spent some time Sunday working on some prototype UI for a future version. The interface of the main part of the window has not really changed in a long time. I'm referring to the area excluding any drawers and toolbars. Just the text view, topic field, and elements around there. Someone a while ago suggested integrating the topic field into the text view as that's more like how it is in a real journal. So I was able accomplish a prototype of that during the Oscars. I was considering posting a test application with it, but you can get a good idea of what it's like by just looking at a Mail message window. I don't know if I like it though for a few reasons:
1. Mail only uses that kind of view when the data it is representing is not editable; when you can edit those fields (sender, subject, etc.) they are shown in real text fields, like MacJournal does. So the user might not know that these fields are editable.
2. In the prototyped appearance it is a decent amount smaller, which is both good and bad.
3. What is good for Mail isn't necessary good for the rest of the world; this is probably not the appropriate design for this kind of data (see #1).
What I'd really like to do in the future is provide a more realistic journal view. So the topic and date might be integrated into the text view, but not in the way Mail does it. In addition to the current appearance settings you could also set a "Journal" view that would look like a hard-bound journal with the topic and date at the top of the "page." I had also prototyped a "lined paper" view that looked pretty good at the time. I don't know what I'll do about this yet but it looks like something will happen like this. The Mail-like view wasn't all for naught; I can easily rearrange things to look like the "Journal" I was talking about and will probably do that. I might revisit the lined paper view, but that's a little farther out for various technical reasons. In addition, the whole lined paper thing doesn't really add anything to the UI; it's just eye candy. And while eye candy is not inherently evil (if you can turn it off somehow), it does get a much lower priority when compared to "real" features. But the "Journal" view might be useful because it would be a lot simpler visually and might end up more usable because it is laid out in a more logical fashion for the app. What is there now would continue to be available of course.
Just thoughts for the future.
Epilogue
Just because Blogger loves them, here are a bunch of ampersands: &&&&&&.
Sweet.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
MacJournal 2.6.1
As promised, MacJournal 2.6.1 is out today. It has a few small fixes for the known issues in 2.6.1. Chief among them is a fix for "Multiple Spaces to Space" and row selection issues in the drawers. There are also a few small fixes here and there from "top of tree" (MacJournal 3.0.1). Download it from here and let me know of any problems.
Look for 3.0.2 early next week. I want to try and debug some issues the Blogger panel locking up under certain network situations when I can get under those situations so I can try and squeeze that fix in there (if any comes about). That's the reason for any delay; the rest of it is all done and waiting.
Look for 3.0.2 early next week. I want to try and debug some issues the Blogger panel locking up under certain network situations when I can get under those situations so I can try and squeeze that fix in there (if any comes about). That's the reason for any delay; the rest of it is all done and waiting.
MacJournal 3.1a2
Download it here
This is the second alpha of MacJournal 3.1. This is an alpha release, which means that most if not all the planned features are present, but there is more work to be done before beta. The user interface is not final and will definitely change before the final release.
Here is what has been changed since the last alpha release:
- Some improvements to the Stats sheet include type-selection, stats exporting, and performance boosts
- Improved appearance of auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode under "normal" appearance
- Fixed crash associated with combining search terms with quotes
- Fixed sizing of the calendar view in the journals drawer
- The .Mac sheet will now send over included attachments as well (such as pictures) unless you tell it not to.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
This is the second alpha of MacJournal 3.1. This is an alpha release, which means that most if not all the planned features are present, but there is more work to be done before beta. The user interface is not final and will definitely change before the final release.
Here is what has been changed since the last alpha release:
- Some improvements to the Stats sheet include type-selection, stats exporting, and performance boosts
- Improved appearance of auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode under "normal" appearance
- Fixed crash associated with combining search terms with quotes
- Fixed sizing of the calendar view in the journals drawer
- The .Mac sheet will now send over included attachments as well (such as pictures) unless you tell it not to.
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Releases for everyone!
Just a quick post to announce some upcoming releases. MacJournal 3.1a2 will be out tomorrow with some improvements over alpha 1. 3.0.2 will be out Monday or Tuesday with a fix for the undo problem and a few other very small fixes. MacJournal 2.6.1 should also be out tomorrow with some small fixes over 2.6. As always, software release schedules are subject to change so check back tomorrow for more information.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Whither Highlight?
The Highlight toolbar item was actually the first thing I worked on for 3.1. I had actually tinkered with it during the 3.0.1 development stage but had disabled it for the 3.0.1 release build. Before the 3.1 alpha release I added the code back in but forgot to put it in the big list of toolbar items. So it's there, but you just can't pick it. So that's useful. :-) I'll fix it for the next alpha but you can make it work right now if you want.
1. Open your preferences file in a text editor (like TextEdit or BBEdit) or even better a dedicated property list editor (like Property List Editor, including with Xcode).
2. Find the line that says "NSToolbar Configuration." If you've never customized your toolbar, this won't be there so you should make some change first, however insignificant.
3. Under the Configuration key is another key called "TB Item Identifiers." There is a list of strings under that.
4. Make a new line in between one of the strings and add this line: "<string>HighlightIdentifier</string>" and save the file.
5. Launch MacJournal and you should have the Highlight toolbar item.
You can Command-Drag it around wherever you want, but if you drag it out you'll have to edit the property list to get it back again.
1. Open your preferences file in a text editor (like TextEdit or BBEdit) or even better a dedicated property list editor (like Property List Editor, including with Xcode).
2. Find the line that says "NSToolbar Configuration." If you've never customized your toolbar, this won't be there so you should make some change first, however insignificant.
3. Under the Configuration key is another key called "TB Item Identifiers." There is a list of strings under that.
4. Make a new line in between one of the strings and add this line: "<string>HighlightIdentifier</string>" and save the file.
5. Launch MacJournal and you should have the Highlight toolbar item.
You can Command-Drag it around wherever you want, but if you drag it out you'll have to edit the property list to get it back again.
MacJournal 3.1a1
Get it here
Welcome to the first alpha of MacJournal 3.1! This is an alpha release, which means that most if not all the planned features are present, but there is more work to be done before beta. The user interface is not final and will definitely change before the final release. Some of the planned changes will be mentioned later in these release notes.
Here are the larger features in MacJournal 3.1:
- New Calendar view in the Journals Drawer. Dates with entries in the current journal will be highlighted. Clicking on those days will bring you to the first entry from that day. Select multiple dates to only show entries from those days (a new kind of search).
- Better automatic lists: the list style will automatically changed based on what line you are on.
- .Mac export: a new sheet to export entries and journals to a .Mac account.
- Auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode: previously available via a hidden key combination, auto-scrolling in Full Screen mode can not be activated via a new button.
- New toolbar item for highlighting text a certain color.
On the next tier down from those are these fixes:
- The Stats window has some additional capabilities: double-click a work to go to the first instance of that word. Hit the delete key to remove that word from the frequency analysis.
- A new message in the Blogger window will tell you if there is no response from the server.
- Added a new option to back up your data daily (which doesn't have any UI yet; look in the Hidden Preferences)
Some fixed bugs:
- Fixed the undo state after creating a journal (every action after that would get lumped in with the journal creation)
- Fixed some appearance problems with fonts in HTML
- Fixed a problem where the selection in an entry wouldn't get restored if the insertion point was left at the very end of the entry
This being an alpha release, some things are not done. Here are some things that will be changed (please do not report any bugs about them):
- The appearance of the Auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode when "Use Custom Appearance" is disabled is less than perfect and will be improved.
- The statistics window will get type-selection support soon
- The .Mac panel will get added to the Share menus in the menu bar and the contextual menus
- Preferences might get added for customizing the Highlight toolbar item
- Some other prefs will get added, such as the new nightly backups
- The height of the calendar (and whether it is shown or not at all) may not get saved and restored correctly right now
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Welcome to the first alpha of MacJournal 3.1! This is an alpha release, which means that most if not all the planned features are present, but there is more work to be done before beta. The user interface is not final and will definitely change before the final release. Some of the planned changes will be mentioned later in these release notes.
Here are the larger features in MacJournal 3.1:
- New Calendar view in the Journals Drawer. Dates with entries in the current journal will be highlighted. Clicking on those days will bring you to the first entry from that day. Select multiple dates to only show entries from those days (a new kind of search).
- Better automatic lists: the list style will automatically changed based on what line you are on.
- .Mac export: a new sheet to export entries and journals to a .Mac account.
- Auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode: previously available via a hidden key combination, auto-scrolling in Full Screen mode can not be activated via a new button.
- New toolbar item for highlighting text a certain color.
On the next tier down from those are these fixes:
- The Stats window has some additional capabilities: double-click a work to go to the first instance of that word. Hit the delete key to remove that word from the frequency analysis.
- A new message in the Blogger window will tell you if there is no response from the server.
- Added a new option to back up your data daily (which doesn't have any UI yet; look in the Hidden Preferences)
Some fixed bugs:
- Fixed the undo state after creating a journal (every action after that would get lumped in with the journal creation)
- Fixed some appearance problems with fonts in HTML
- Fixed a problem where the selection in an entry wouldn't get restored if the insertion point was left at the very end of the entry
This being an alpha release, some things are not done. Here are some things that will be changed (please do not report any bugs about them):
- The appearance of the Auto-scroll button in Full Screen mode when "Use Custom Appearance" is disabled is less than perfect and will be improved.
- The statistics window will get type-selection support soon
- The .Mac panel will get added to the Share menus in the menu bar and the contextual menus
- Preferences might get added for customizing the Highlight toolbar item
- Some other prefs will get added, such as the new nightly backups
- The height of the calendar (and whether it is shown or not at all) may not get saved and restored correctly right now
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 in your e-mail what release of MacJournal you are using. I appreciate your feedback!
Thursday, February 17, 2005
3.1 Alphas start very soon
The first alpha of 3.1 will be released this week when I get around to tying up the loose ends for it. Breaking with some tradition I think I'm going to include all the previous localizations in this alpha. The nature of the changes so far don't really invalidate them yet, just add some things which will be in English only for now. Everything is coming along well and I hope to get it out tonight or Friday. After that look for the first beta in March or very early April with final release in late April or May sometime. Keep in mind though that this is just a projection at this point. It could very well be June for the final release. We will have to see. ☺ I'll post more about what is included in the alpha when I post the notes for the alpha release.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
3.1 Alphas start very soon
The first alpha of 3.1 will be released this week when I get around to tying up the loose ends for it. Breaking with some tradition I think I'm going to include all the localizations in this alpha. The nature of the changes so far don't really invalidate them yet, just add some things which will be in English only for now. Everything is coming along well and I hope to get it out tomorrow or Friday. After that look for the first beta in March or very early April with final release in late April or May sometime. Keep in mind though that this is just a projection at this point. It could very well be June for the final release. We will have to see. ☺ I'll post more about what is included in the alpha when I post the notes for the alpha release.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Released Versions Do Not Expire
Just to be clear: pre-release versions have an expiration date to ensure people upgrade to a newer beta build or final build. Final releases like 2.6, 3.0, or now 3.0.1 will never expire. Sometimes in the battle between planning and reality reality wins out and a release comes later than was expected a month ago when the expiration date was set and that is certainly regrettable. But there is always a release version you can use that will never expire. I will try to make sure that the expiration date doesn't run out too soon again.
MacJournal 3.0.1
Just slightly after the expiration of 3.0.1b2 comes the final release of 3.0.1, available from Mariner's site. Many localizations are included in this release:
- Danish
- French
- German
- Japanese
- Korean
- Serbian
- Spanish
- Taiwanese
There are also some bug fixes included. Problems with Services should be resolved, as well as problems switching List Styles. There are also a few more bugs fixed in this release. Check out the included Version History for the full report.
- Danish
- French
- German
- Japanese
- Korean
- Serbian
- Spanish
- Taiwanese
There are also some bug fixes included. Problems with Services should be resolved, as well as problems switching List Styles. There are also a few more bugs fixed in this release. Check out the included Version History for the full report.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Our wacky calendaring system
Just a word of warning: this is not going to be a useful entry so if you're in a rush please feel free to skip it. ☺
I've been working on the calendar view in MacJournal off and on the past few days and the view itself matured very quickly. Then I put that done to work on some stuff for the new searching architecture. Now that that's looking better, I went back to the calendar view to get multiple selection working (so you select multiple dates to only show entries from those days). All I can say is that whomever designed our calendar obviously hated humanity. I mostly blame Julius Caesar: he had the chance to make it a lot more sane than the previous Roman calendar and accomplished some of it but he didn't go far enough. Obviously Julius Caesar when he designed the calendar in 45 BC had never written any code before and never had to describe a calendar and multiple discontinuous ranges of date selections in C.
I'm not really saying Pope Gregory hated humanity. But a zero-based array of days with a upper-limit that is easily expressed as a power of two would have made my life a lot easier right now. ☺
I don't yet know if the new searching will have any special UI in 3.1. It might not be prudent for this release. The search field and calendar view might be only ways to control the search for now. A special search window like Mail's Rules configuration is planned but will take a little while to implement so it's up in the air for now. There are other things I want to accomplish for 3.1 as well, such as a real way to start auto-scrolling in Full Screen mode (shift-command-2 was never meant to be a permanent solution) and a way to publish a journal to .Mac. We will see in time. 3.0.1 will be out very soon (the code is all finished) and I might start with 3.1 alphas sooner rather than later to just get the new features out there and in use.
I guess this did turn into a more useful entry than I had planned, but that's what happens when I get off topic and on to something actually informative.
I've been working on the calendar view in MacJournal off and on the past few days and the view itself matured very quickly. Then I put that done to work on some stuff for the new searching architecture. Now that that's looking better, I went back to the calendar view to get multiple selection working (so you select multiple dates to only show entries from those days). All I can say is that whomever designed our calendar obviously hated humanity. I mostly blame Julius Caesar: he had the chance to make it a lot more sane than the previous Roman calendar and accomplished some of it but he didn't go far enough. Obviously Julius Caesar when he designed the calendar in 45 BC had never written any code before and never had to describe a calendar and multiple discontinuous ranges of date selections in C.
I'm not really saying Pope Gregory hated humanity. But a zero-based array of days with a upper-limit that is easily expressed as a power of two would have made my life a lot easier right now. ☺
I don't yet know if the new searching will have any special UI in 3.1. It might not be prudent for this release. The search field and calendar view might be only ways to control the search for now. A special search window like Mail's Rules configuration is planned but will take a little while to implement so it's up in the air for now. There are other things I want to accomplish for 3.1 as well, such as a real way to start auto-scrolling in Full Screen mode (shift-command-2 was never meant to be a permanent solution) and a way to publish a journal to .Mac. We will see in time. 3.0.1 will be out very soon (the code is all finished) and I might start with 3.1 alphas sooner rather than later to just get the new features out there and in use.
I guess this did turn into a more useful entry than I had planned, but that's what happens when I get off topic and on to something actually informative.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
MacJournal 3.0.1 tonight or tomorrow
Since I'm already knee deep in 3.1 stuff, I should probably release 3.0.1 before the water gets any closer to my waist. I will finish up 3.0.1 and make it available before the end of the month since the betas expire on Tuesday (although you can always use 3.0 after they expire). It should be a really good release.
I will also release 2.6.1 separately using the appropriate fixes from 3.0.1 as promised within the next few days.
I will also release 2.6.1 separately using the appropriate fixes from 3.0.1 as promised within the next few days.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Back to WordPress
Thanks to the suggestions I got I was able to do some testing with publishing to WordPress from MacJournal. From just the test text that I had everything seemed to work okay, titles included. Now, I know some people have had problems so I just don't have the right tests here. Can some that has had problems publishing before (specifically with the title) please send me some text that exhibits this problem? An RTF file would be super. At this point any changes are probably too late for 3.0.1 as that will most likely come out by the end of this week but a 3.0.2 release is a possibility and there's always 3.1.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Calendars and WordPress
Two topics to mention today:
Calendar view
I worked on a calendar view for 3.1 last night and it came out pretty well. It's not too attractive yet but it's functional. I just have to integrate it into the MacJournal UI in a meaningful manner. I've got a few thoughts on the best way to do that:
1. Clicking on a day will bring you to the first entry in the current journal from that day
2. Optionally, clicking on a day which does not have an entry will create an entry for that day (and maybe the current time)
3. Shift- and Command-Clicking on different days will start a search and only show entries from the selected days.
#3 is the most ambitious because this is something MacJournal's search engine can not yet do. However I was also ruminating over some enhanced search features (such as having an Advanced Search window with a bunch of options and such), so this might be the first usage of that.
WordPress
Does anyone know of a WordPress blog somewhere that has development accounts? I have accounts at Blogger and LiveJournal for testing protocol compliance and I'd like to test WordPress as well as it seems to be gaining in popularity. But the WordPress site itself just lets you download the server software; they don't have any servers up and running themselves. So I'm a little bit of a bind there and if anyone has any tips I'd be much obliged.
Calendar view
I worked on a calendar view for 3.1 last night and it came out pretty well. It's not too attractive yet but it's functional. I just have to integrate it into the MacJournal UI in a meaningful manner. I've got a few thoughts on the best way to do that:
1. Clicking on a day will bring you to the first entry in the current journal from that day
2. Optionally, clicking on a day which does not have an entry will create an entry for that day (and maybe the current time)
3. Shift- and Command-Clicking on different days will start a search and only show entries from the selected days.
#3 is the most ambitious because this is something MacJournal's search engine can not yet do. However I was also ruminating over some enhanced search features (such as having an Advanced Search window with a bunch of options and such), so this might be the first usage of that.
WordPress
Does anyone know of a WordPress blog somewhere that has development accounts? I have accounts at Blogger and LiveJournal for testing protocol compliance and I'd like to test WordPress as well as it seems to be gaining in popularity. But the WordPress site itself just lets you download the server software; they don't have any servers up and running themselves. So I'm a little bit of a bind there and if anyone has any tips I'd be much obliged.
Monday, January 17, 2005
MacJournal 3.0.1b2
http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/dev.html
- Fixed Stats panel on Jaguar
- Contractions are no longer considered seperate words in the frequency analysis in the Stats panel
- Print margin settings are saved in between launches
- Fixed some rare erratic behavior (caused by exceptions)
- Fixed some more List Style behavior
Plus the following new localizations:
- French
- Danish
- Spanish
- Japanese
- German
The final release is close at hand.
- Fixed Stats panel on Jaguar
- Contractions are no longer considered seperate words in the frequency analysis in the Stats panel
- Print margin settings are saved in between launches
- Fixed some rare erratic behavior (caused by exceptions)
- Fixed some more List Style behavior
Plus the following new localizations:
- French
- Danish
- Spanish
- Japanese
- German
The final release is close at hand.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
MacJournal 3.0.1b1
MacJournal 3.0.1b1 has been released. It contains a few bug fixes and some localizations. More localizations will be coming soon. Read the release notes and version history for details about 3.0.1; it should fix up some issues that some people are seeing, i.e. Services.
http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/dev.html
http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/dev.html
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
MacJournal 3.0
MacJournal 3.0 has come out over at <http://marinersoftware.com/>! Sorry about the lack of announcement here; the past week has been very very hectic for me. I'm way behind on my e-mail too, so apologies to anyone that has e-mailed me in the past few weeks. I will get back to everyone eventually, I promise!
I'm going to post a beta of 3.0.1 tonight as localizations are updated. We've already got one back and I'm expecting a few more very soon. In the meantime there are a few bug fixes in the beta.
I'm going to post a beta of 3.0.1 tonight as localizations are updated. We've already got one back and I'm expecting a few more very soon. In the meantime there are a few bug fixes in the beta.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Localization
Localization information will be sent out very soon for 3.0.1. I’ve made a few small changes to the menus since 3.0b2 and I’ve updated the strings files to the current state. I have one more minor change to make (an invisible change) and then I will package them all up.
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