Friday, January 19, 2007
4.1 aftermath and .Mac syncing
4.1 came out this week and things are largely okay, save for one major issue for those of you trying to use the .Mac data syncing. Some old measures put in place in order to not break the 4.0.x releases (during which the syncing effort was already underway) kicked in when 4.1 was built as a "final" release and disabled the registration as a syncing-enabled application. So all the tools are there, but MacJournal just isn't asking to be a part of the syncing party. Unfortunately, this requires a new release to fix the problem. I've fixed the oversight and rolled in a few other bug fixes and released 4.1.1b1 at http://danschimpf.com/. That release should allow normal usage of the syncing. Please let me know of any problems with this release.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
MacJournal 4.1
Download it from Mariner.
Welcome to MacJournal 4.1! This release adds some new features onto 4.0 and fixes some bugs that were identified.
New Features in 4.1
⁃ Improved Recording:
• Record more audio to append onto existing recordings.
• Panther compatibility.
• New Preferences panel for configuration of recording devices and levels.
• Record audio from an iSight
⁃ Improved Blogging:
• New Blogger+Google support
• Transactions with blogs can be cancelled in the Activity window.
• Improved compatibility with other blog types.
⁃ .Mac Data Syncing (see special note below)
⁃ Growl support
⁃ Improved Services functionality
There are a lot more changes since 4.0.5. You can check out the included Version History for the full details.
Special note about .Mac Syncing: While MacJournal 4.1 provides data syncing over .Mac, the current implementation in OS X for syncing seems more optimized for small data sets, like bookmarks or contacts. Trying to push tens or even hundreds of megabytes of data through syncing may not work as well as you might want due to limitations in Mac OS X at this time.
Features from 4.0
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- All-new blogging architecture
- New per-item attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
• blog server
- Browser-like tabs for quickly switching between entries
- Audio recording
- 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
- Improved searching
- Improved keywords configuration
This is just the list of big features. If you want to see the full list of all the changes in the included Version History.
MacJournal requires Mac OS X 10.3.5 (Panther).
Reporting Bugs
If you see any problems in this release please let me know about it by using the "Report a Bug" menu item in the "Help" menu to send me an email.
Welcome to MacJournal 4.1! This release adds some new features onto 4.0 and fixes some bugs that were identified.
New Features in 4.1
⁃ Improved Recording:
• Record more audio to append onto existing recordings.
• Panther compatibility.
• New Preferences panel for configuration of recording devices and levels.
• Record audio from an iSight
⁃ Improved Blogging:
• New Blogger+Google support
• Transactions with blogs can be cancelled in the Activity window.
• Improved compatibility with other blog types.
⁃ .Mac Data Syncing (see special note below)
⁃ Growl support
⁃ Improved Services functionality
There are a lot more changes since 4.0.5. You can check out the included Version History for the full details.
Special note about .Mac Syncing: While MacJournal 4.1 provides data syncing over .Mac, the current implementation in OS X for syncing seems more optimized for small data sets, like bookmarks or contacts. Trying to push tens or even hundreds of megabytes of data through syncing may not work as well as you might want due to limitations in Mac OS X at this time.
Features from 4.0
- New Inspector for manipulating attributes of entries and journals
- All-new blogging architecture
- New per-item attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
• blog server
- Browser-like tabs for quickly switching between entries
- Audio recording
- 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
- Improved searching
- Improved keywords configuration
This is just the list of big features. If you want to see the full list of all the changes in the included Version History.
MacJournal requires Mac OS X 10.3.5 (Panther).
Reporting Bugs
If you see any problems in this release please let me know about it by using the "Report a Bug" menu item in the "Help" menu to send me an email.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Cusping
I wanted to update everyone on the status of things here at MacJournal HQ (which, at this exact moment, is a coffee shop). 4.1 virtually done and will be released to coincide with MacWorld. It won't be terribly different than 4.1d6 (plus the changes mentioned in the Version History page) if you've already been using that.
On a separate track from the application release, I've also got some other releases planned in the short term. I worked on a Quicksilver plug-in over my Christmas vacation. If you're not familiar with it, Quicksilver is an application launcher like LaunchBar or even Spotlight. The plug-in lets you get at your MacJournal entries from within Quicksilver. It works, but there are a few procedural issues to work out. They have their own plug-in delivery system, so I need to talk with them to make it available and make sure I have the correct information set up to allow for future updates.
The other big release is Palm syncing. I've started working on a plug-in for Markspace's MissingSync application to allow you to sync your entries with your Palm notes. It's a battle because it's a whole new system I have to learn, and it's an old one at that, so there are always difficulties with the really old APIs. But I hope to get that done and in people's hands by the end of the month. It operates outside of the MacJournal application, so it will probably just be out when it's out and not really tied to an app release.
The other thing I want to mention is forums. There is a MacJournal 4 discussion forum set up by Mariner that you can use to ask questions and discuss things in addition to the comments here. There is a MacJournal 3 forum as well there.
If you're going to be at MacWorld next week, you can stop by and say hi if you want. I will be at the Mariner booth on Friday, so please stop by and yell at me if there's something you don't like in the app. :-)
On a separate track from the application release, I've also got some other releases planned in the short term. I worked on a Quicksilver plug-in over my Christmas vacation. If you're not familiar with it, Quicksilver is an application launcher like LaunchBar or even Spotlight. The plug-in lets you get at your MacJournal entries from within Quicksilver. It works, but there are a few procedural issues to work out. They have their own plug-in delivery system, so I need to talk with them to make it available and make sure I have the correct information set up to allow for future updates.
The other big release is Palm syncing. I've started working on a plug-in for Markspace's MissingSync application to allow you to sync your entries with your Palm notes. It's a battle because it's a whole new system I have to learn, and it's an old one at that, so there are always difficulties with the really old APIs. But I hope to get that done and in people's hands by the end of the month. It operates outside of the MacJournal application, so it will probably just be out when it's out and not really tied to an app release.
The other thing I want to mention is forums. There is a MacJournal 4 discussion forum set up by Mariner that you can use to ask questions and discuss things in addition to the comments here. There is a MacJournal 3 forum as well there.
If you're going to be at MacWorld next week, you can stop by and say hi if you want. I will be at the Mariner booth on Friday, so please stop by and yell at me if there's something you don't like in the app. :-)
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