MacJournal 4.1.3b3

Get it here now.

This release is intended to improve support for Blogger.com and fix a few bugs. This third beta has more Panther fixes for Blogger posting and improves Palm syncing. This is intended to be the last beta.

⁃ Restored ability to post to Blogger on Panther.
⁃ Undoing something in an entry that is not current will make that entry current when it undos.
⁃ New entries on the Palm will get the default styling applied to them in the journal on Synchronize.

There are a few other fixes, so check out the Version History. As with any beta release, please let me know if it works for you if you had problems in these areas.

MacJournal requires Mac OS X 10.3.5 (Panther).

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.


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.

MacJournal 4.1.3b2

Get it over at danschimpf.com.

It's a new beta! This one should work with Panther and fixes a few crashes that have been around for a while. It also improves behavior with the Palm conduit. There's a few more fixes, so check out the Version History and the release notes that come with it for the full scoop.

MacJournal 4.1.3b1

Head here for the download.

This is the first beta of 4.1.3 and it's fairly complete for the release. The major new item is improved Blogger/Google support via some new facilities they just released. The situation there should be much improved. There are also a few other bugs fixed and minor changes, such as keywords being sent to LiveJournal. This will be a fairly small release, with probably not much more than you see here. Please check it out and let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 4.1.2

It's finally here! Head over to Mariner's site for the final release download.

This release adds updated localizations for all 4.1 features and a few small new features and bug fixes.

Summary of Changes in 4.1
⁃ Updated localizations
⁃ Fixed posting to Typepad
⁃ .Mac syncing bug fixes
⁃ Added support for a Palm conduit
⁃ Added support for sending an entry to iWeb
⁃ Added support for importing your Stickies database
⁃ Improved behavior of Zoom button in the window
⁃ Worked around an OS bug in handling of multi-page PDFs
⁃ Added limited support for the <blockquote> tag when exporting HTML
⁃ Added support for NetNewsWire external editor protocol.

There are a lot more changes since 4.1.1. 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.

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.

4.1.2 will be finalized within a day or two

4.1.2, the release that just will not die, is a hair's breadth from being finalized. Tonight or maybe tomorrow are the targets, so please send me any issues that you are having with the latest beta. The only things that have changed since then are support for NetNewsWire's external editor protocol, another workaround for multipage PDFs (which is the single most annoying issue with the OS that MacJournal currently exposes), and a fix to remove some temporary files created when you open an attachment in another application. They're pretty isolated cases, so I don't think it will impact anything for the final. I'm looking forward to getting this one in the books. I've already started working on the next big version and it can be rough to do concurrent development like this. That doesn't preclude another bug fix release for 4.1, but it will be nice to get this release out the door.

MacJournal 4.1.2b6

Download here.

This beta adds a real French localization, fixes the "Zoom" button in the main window so it's actually helpful, and extends the expiration date of the past few betas. I got sidetracked from 4.1.2 with work for a future release (for various reasons), so I want to get this release out the door as soon as possible.

Palm Conduit

This release includes the MacJournal Palm Conduit for the Missing Sync application. To use this you need Missing Sync For Palm installed. To install the Conduit, you should be able to double-click on the "MacJournal Palm Conduit.plugin" file included with MacJournal 4.1.2. If this does not work, you can drag this file into "/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits". When you open the MissincSync application, double-click on the MacJournal conduit and select a journal to sync. You will probably want to do a "Replace" sync on either the computer or handheld to start with before switching to "Synchronize."

Changes in 4.1.2b6
⁃ French localization
⁃ Improved handling of the "Zoom" button in the main window.
⁃ Fixed some table handling bugs.
⁃ Fixed a situation where the current data were not written out to disk before starting a .Mac sync.

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.

New beta soon

There will be a new beta out soon to add the French localization and extend the expiration date. The final will be out soon as well. I've been traveling around some lately and that means I've only had my laptop with me, where I've been working on the Next Big Version of MacJournal. However, I will try to resolve the last few nagging issues in 4.1.2 (mostly issues with blogging) and get 4.1.2 final out as quickly as possible.

MacJournal 4.1.2b5

Downloadz it now.

I know I said b4 was the last beta, but this one really is. Moments after this release goes out the door, I will build a Release-style build for 4.1.2 and only big fixes will go into that from this point on. I really need to get started on the next release and having this one hang around isn't helping matters.

Palm Conduit

This release includes the MacJournal Palm Conduit for the Missing Sync application. To use this you need Missing Sync For Palm installed. To install the Conduit, you should be able to double-click on the "MacJournal Palm Conduit.plugin" file included with MacJournal 4.1.2. If this does not work, you can drag this file into "/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits". When you open the MissincSync application, double-click on the MacJournal conduit and select a journal to sync. You will probably want to do a "Replace" sync on either the computer or handheld to start with before switching to "Synchronize."

Changes in 4.1.2b5
⁃ Added hidden toolbar item for accessing entry history directly.
⁃ Fixed crash with blockquoting and changing list modes.
⁃ Panther users should get HTML interpretation when downloading from Blogger again.
⁃ Fixed date formatting for Panther users with other date styles than US American.
⁃ Fixed a syncing bug in Palms.

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.

MacJournal 4.1.2b4

Go here to get 4.1.2b4.

This is probably the final beta release for 4.1.2; the public release is directly around the corner (only minimal changes will occur between now and then). This release adds two localizations that are only mostly updated. They are updates from the 4.0.x versions with only pieces of the new functionality in 4.1 (like the Recording preferences) updated. This is necessitated by the schedule; if and when completed localizations are available, 4.1.2 will be reposted and an announcement will be made.

Palm Conduit

This release includes the MacJournal Palm Conduit for the Missing Sync application. To use this you need Missing Sync For Palm installed. To install the Conduit, you should be able to double-click on the "MacJournal Palm Conduit.plugin" file included with MacJournal 4.1.2. If this does not work, you can drag this file into "/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits". When you open the MissincSync application, double-click on the MacJournal conduit and select a journal to sync. You will probably want to do a "Replace" sync on either the computer or handheld to start with before switching to "Synchronize."

Changes in 4.1.2b4
⁃ Improved blockquoting to be toggle-able.
⁃ Added another pane to the hidden prefs.
⁃ Fixed exporting multiple entries/journals to PDF again.
⁃ Added a hidden pref to automatically delete backups older than a specified period. Set it to 30 to delete backups older than a month, for example.
⁃ Added a workaround for a frequent crash caused by OS X having to do with multi-page PDFs. It's not pretty, but it'll hold us for now.
⁃ Added importing of Stickies information. Drag your ~/Library/StickiesDatabase into MacJournal to import all of the Sticky information.
⁃ Palm entries will now have the topic added in as the first line. Conversely, the first line will be used as the topic coming back to the computer.

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.

MacJournal 4.1.2b3

Head over to the other site to get it.

Welcome to MacJournal 4.1.2b3! This release adds yet another new localization, in addition to some fixes for blogging and Panther users.

Palm Conduit

This release includes the MacJournal Palm Conduit for the Missing Sync application. To use this you need Missing Sync For Palm installed. To install the Conduit, you should be able to double-click on the "MacJournal Palm Conduit.plugin" file included with MacJournal 4.1.2. If this does not work, you can drag this file into "/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits". When you open the MissingSync application, double-click on the MacJournal conduit and select a journal to sync. You will probably want to do a "Replace" sync on either the computer or handheld to start with before switching to "Synchronize."

Changes in 4.1.2b3
⁃ Added updated Japanese and Taiwanese localizations.
⁃ Added automatic <blockquote> recognition for text with both left and right margins set.
⁃ Fixed a crash changing the data location on Panther.
⁃ Fixed a few small problems sending multiple entries to a blog server at the same time.
⁃ Fixed a problem exporting a journal to PDF.

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.

MacJournal 4.1.2b2

Get it here.

This release adds some new localizations and fixes some problems with syncing. There is also new toolbar and menu items for sharing an entry with iWeb.

Palm Conduit

This release includes the MacJournal Palm Conduit for the Missing Sync application. To use this you need Missing Sync For Palm installed. To install the Conduit, you should be able to double-click on the "MacJournal Palm Conduit.plugin" file included with MacJournal 4.1.2. If this does not work, you can drag this file into "/Library/Application Support/Palm HotSync/Conduits". When you open the MissincSync application, double-click on the MacJournal conduit and select a journal to sync. You will probably want to do a "Replace" sync on either the computer or handheld to start with before switching to "Synchronize."

Changes in 4.1.2b2
        ⁃        Added updated Italian and German localizations.
        ⁃        Fixed problems recognizing new entries created on Palms.
        ⁃        Added an iWeb toolbar item.
        ⁃        Fixed a problem with .Mac data syncing that would prevent new entries in locked journals.
        ⁃        Some other fixes.

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.

4.1.2b2 almost ready

The build is (probably) done, but I want to get a night's sleep and do a little more testing in the morning just to make sure. Check back here tomorrow for the release.

Palm Conduit 1.0b2

If you download MacJournal 4.1.2b1 again you will get 1.0b2 of the Palm Conduit. This build should fix the configuration problems people were seeing with b1. Let me know of any troubles though.

Problem with the Palm Conduit

I inadvertently left some debug code in the Palm conduit included with 4.1.2b1, which is causing a crash. I will post a new beta of the conduit here tonight or tomorrow.

Some Status Updates

There are a lot of things in the works right now; how are all of them going?

4.1.2 is the localization release and I have two localizations back so far. I'm going to release a beta of it this weekend that contains those localizations and several bug fixes, including better Typepad support.

Palm Syncing is just about done. I'm putting the final touches on it and will release a beta of that along with 4.1.2. The final version will requirer 4.1.2.

The Quicksilver plug-in got a bit of a back seat to the Palm conduit, but is essentially done. It just needs to find its way into the Quicksilver plug-in system, about which I know nothing.

I'm also planning and prototyping things for the future, so let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in the next big version!

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.

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.

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. :-)

MacJournal 4.1d6

Get it from here.

Welcome to the sixth test release of MacJournal 4.1. This release fixes several bugs from the past few releases in preparation for an ever-approaching final release. While not exactly feature complete yet, this release should be very solid. The final release of 4.1 will regrettably not have any localizations other than English as the release date crept up on me fast, but updated localizations will be included in 4.1.1.

Fixes and Enhancements
⁃ Fixes for downloading entries from Blogger, for the text from the old Blogger and the dates from the new one.
⁃ Fixed a problem printing the first time after you launch.
⁃ Fixed "Check for Updates" on all Intel machines.
⁃ Non-image attachments are written out to disk for an HTML export and a link to that file is included in the HTML.
⁃ Fixed some areas of Panther support, including the Edit Link sheet, exporting, and the window title of the main window.
⁃ Fixed a problem updating entries on MetaWeblog/Movable Type servers.

There are some more changes included in this release. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

About the last public release:

MacJournal 4.0 brings major new features and large improvements to existing features. Every single part of MacJournal has been improved in some way. For bloggers, the blogging support in MacJournal is all-new. MacJournal now supports more kinds of blogs and it is easier than ever to use them. Each journal can have a different blog and the entries will remember their settings so they can be updated on the server later.

MacJournal 4.0 also has a lot of other new features:

- 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.

MacSanta and 4.1d6

MacJournal is currently featured on http://MacSanta.com/ at 20% off until the 25th!

4.1d6 is almost ready and should hopefully be out later this evening. It’s mostly all bug fixes to improve over the already pretty solid 4.1d5 release heading into the New Year.

MacJournal 4.1d5

Get it from here (look in the Dev page).

This release adds compatibility for the new Blogger Beta section. To use it, auto-configure your blog server based on the front page of your blog's web page and then use your GMail address as the username.

Enhancements
⁃ All blog operations are now cancelable in the Activity panel.
⁃ Removed the Blogger protocol from the Blog Configuration panel.
⁃ Added an "Open in Tab" menu item to the contextual menu when right-clicking on a link to an entry.
⁃ Appending text through Services will add the same header as it does when creating a new entry.
⁃ Added support for authenticating into a web page when automatically configuring it.
⁃ Command-Return will "OK" the Quick Note window.

Other Fixes
⁃ Fixed a crash creating a journal with the "+" button in the drawers.
⁃ Fixed sizing problems with images in entries (most easily visible with multiple images next to each other).
⁃ Fixed titling of some pages when exporting multiple pages to HTML.

There are some more changes included in this release. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

4.1 Status

After fighting with it off and on for several weeks, MacJournal 4.1 can now post to the new Blogger Beta using your Google login. With that in hand, expect a new release soon, probably sometime this weekend. With Blogger moving further and further away from the ancient protocol that bears its own name, I’ve decided to remove it from the protocol list in the blog configuration window. It was rarely the correct choice (if ever) and only server to confuse people trying to post to Blogger. Existing blogs configured with the Blogger protocol will continue to work though.

MacJournal 4.1d4

Check it out here.

This release should fix the crash present in 4.1d2 and d3 once and for all, and add a bunch of new enhancements.

Enhancements
⁃ Appending to existing audio recordings works now
⁃ Added time display to the Recording bar.
⁃ Added new Text Cleanup commands for controlling attachments: "Relocate" to move attachments to a folder on disk, "Consolidate" to move everything into the data file itself. I don't know if I like these names; they may change.
⁃ Switch Atom posting to use the new Atom 1.0 protocol. This should fix posting to Blogger. Unfortunately, Blogger changed the URL for posting entries. For the beta, existing blog servers will be transiently upgraded to the new URL scheme, but the change won't be saved in the database for now. New blogs you configure in the beta will use the new scheme and will therefore not work on 4.0 unless you reconfigure it.
⁃ You can access the menu bar during Full Screen by hitting the top of the screen with the mouse (on the screen, not in real life).

Other Fixes
⁃ Fixed another cause of the crash creating new journals or clicking on existing journals in the drawer.
⁃ Fixed sizing problems with images in entries (most easily visible with multiple images next to each other).

There are some more changes included in this release. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

About the last public release:

MacJournal 4.0 brings major new features and large improvements to existing features. Every single part of MacJournal has been improved in some way. For bloggers, the blogging support in MacJournal is all-new. MacJournal now supports more kinds of blogs and it is easier than ever to use them. Each journal can have a different blog and the entries will remember their settings so they can be updated on the server later.

MacJournal 4.0 also has a lot of other new features:

- 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.

Happy Halloween

If you are running a 4.1 pre-release and generally keep it open for days at a time, it might be worth it to quit and relaunch today. For ... reasons.

MacJournal 4.1d3

This release is meant to clean up the issues in 4.1d2 and flesh out some of the existing features. The biggest addition is an addition to the Recording preference pane to let you specify the format of the recorded audio.

Other Fixes
- Fixed a crash creating new journals.
- Fixed some different crashes associated with .Mac syncing.

There are some more changes included in this release. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

MacJournal 4.1d2

Get it here.

It's been a long time coming, but welcome to the second test release of MacJournal 4.1! This is another large release with more new features and even more enhanced functionality. It is still labeled "developmental" though, because there is still one or two things that I have in mind.

This version includes support for syncing data over .mac. However, if you chose to turn this on, please back up your data before syncing!

Big Items
- The aforementioned .mac syncing. Make sure you read the note about it above.
- MacJournal now uses Growl to notify you of uploads, downloads, and data saves if you have it installed.
- Preference pane for configuring recording
- Labels toolbar item
- MacJournal launches in Panther again (hopefully).

Little Enhancements
- Tab behavior has been tweaked a little bit to be a bit more consistent with other tabbed apps (mainly web browsers). Attempting to open a second tab for an entry already in the tab bar will always select the previous tab now.
- Keyword searching is now case insensitive like the other text searches.
- Downloading entries will always ask for how many entries you want to download.
- Improved HTML export to include text justification.
- Added submenu to "Send entry to other blog" that shows all the configured blog servers.
- Change the journal summary that shows in the middle of the window to include entries in sub-journals.

There are loads more changes that are too numerous to mention, including some bug fixes from the last release. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

Not Included
- Yet more features!

About the last public release:

MacJournal 4.0 brings major new features and large improvements to existing features. Every single part of MacJournal has been improved in some way. For bloggers, the blogging support in MacJournal is all-new. MacJournal now supports more kinds of blogs and it is easier than ever to use them. Each journal can have a different blog and the entries will remember their settings so they can be updated on the server later.

MacJournal 4.0 also has a lot of other new features:

- 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.

Moved Permanently

Running in parallel to the syncing efforts are Blogger/Google’s ongoing problems with third-party applications like MacJournal. There were a lot of problems when the new Google/Blogger (Glogger?) beta came out that extended beyond the beta area of the site and well into the “regular” portion that we all know and love. They fixed most of the problems within a week, but a lot of people are still having trouble posting to the Bloogle. It seems to happen all the time for some people, and not at all for others (like me, unfortunately). The error manifests itself as a cryptic message returned from the server: “Moved Permanently.” I don’t think there is nothing I can do on my end to avoid this as it seems it is entirely on the server side. Other third-party application developers are seeing this, according to their own developer mailing list. So I guess the best thing to do right now if you are seeing this problem is to email the folks at Bloogger and let them know your username and the problem you are seeing. Hopefully this will get resolved soon.

It works! Sort of.

This weekend saw the first successful test of MacJournal's .mac syncing support. I pushed the data up to .mac, blew away the local data, and reconstituted it from the server. There are a few issues left to be dealt with however: ordering of entries, and locking of unencrypted journals. The former can probably be solved with some extra knowledge of SyncServices, but the latter might be different. It's not good to just toss the password up to the server in cleartext, so the password itself can't be synchronized automatically. That means that the locked state cannot be synchronized either. This is different than encrypted journals, however. Since that is just a big blob of anonymous data, it's safe to push around. It's only the unencrypted locked journals that will get "out of sync."

Then there's the matter of Palms. There's always been the hope that pushing the data up to .mac would allow Palms to pull it down. However, the more I learn about SyncServices, the less I think that can happen. For Palms to make some sense of the data, it has to be in a format that it can understand. An existing format can be extended to provide new data types. Apple provides three such formats for developers to use and extend. These three formats are Bookmarks, Calendars, and Contacts. Therein lies the problem: there is no basic "Notes" data format for MacJournal to use and extend. Therefore I had to devise my own data format, which is all well and good for the uses of MacJournal, but it means that the data are fundamentally incomprehensible to anyone else by default. Of course, once I publish the data format, any other application can read and extend the data to its own desires, but nothing can happen by default. This is just my theory so far; I've got more questions to ask of SyncServices.

Syncing is coming along

Thankfully, it seems Blogger fixed the problem they introduced when they rolled out their new beta services recently and MacJournal can now safely post to Blogger via Atom again. That crisis averted, I spent most of the weekend working on .mac syncing. I don’t have any prior experience with SyncServices against which to judge this, but I think things are almost there. I have it doing a round trip with data on the same computer. The next step is actually syncing between two computers and working out whatever problems pop up there. After that, another beta can be released with this functionality turned on (finally). I’m looking forward to having it working soon!

Problems with Blogger

Blogger (aka Google) rolled out some new services a few days ago and it seems to have changed the way existing applications can send data, which is charming. I suspect it's the authentication, but I will look into it some more. I wasn't planning a 4.0.5 before 4.1, but this might require a change of plans. Of course, it could turn out to just be server problems on their end relating to the new functionality that will be worked out soon. We can hope, at least.

MacJournal 4.1d1

Get it here.

Welcome to the very first test release of MacJournal 4.1! This is quite a large release with some new features and a lot of enhanced functionality. Before we proceed with what is new, a quick word about version schemes. This release is labeled, 4.1d1, where the 'd' stands for "development" or "delta" (no one is really sure, but "diggity" is my favorite guess). That is a stage that comes before "alpha." Alpha is when all the features of a release are more or less included. After that comes "beta," where most of the bugs have been fixed and the user interface changes have all been made and locked down. After that comes the final release to the public. But 4.1d1 is before all that because it is still missing some key functionality that I want it to have. Keeping that in mind, let us continue on to what is actually in this release:

Big Items
- Recording has been completely rewritten to use QuickTime. This should provide a more stable platform going forward and allow for a lot more configurability. It also means iSights are usable.
- You can now send multiple entries to a blog at once. They must all go to the same place though.
- Exporting has been much improved. You can specify a text encoding for plain text files. More of your metadata is saved along with the file so if you export an entry and the re-import it, things like labels and edit-ability will be preserved. You can also specify what metadata you want included in the text of the file (instead of date+time or nothing).
- I gave up waiting for Apple to fix their bug in tables and worked around it. Tables should now be useful, even after you relaunch the app.

Little Enhancements
- Creating a new journal may insert the journal into another journal, depending on where you are in the app.
- New "Highlight" toolbar icon (it looks better)
- "Lock journals after idle" will now use the time that MacJournal itself has been idle, instead of the whole system.
- Attachments in the text will display their filename, Mail-style.
- You can now specify whether or not you want to enable comments on a Movable Type post.
- You can now specify the key equivalent for Full Screen mode right in the (real) prefs.

There are loads more changes that are too numerous to mention, including some bug fixes. You should check out the Version History for the full details.

Not Included
- .mac syncing. More work needs to go into this. Probably quite a bit. I wanted to get all the other changes into people's hands before I devoted my time to that though.


About the last public release:

MacJournal 4.0 brings major new features and large improvements to existing features. Every single part of MacJournal has been improved in some way. For bloggers, the blogging support in MacJournal is all-new. MacJournal now supports more kinds of blogs and it is easier than ever to use them. Each journal can have a different blog and the entries will remember their settings so they can be updated on the server later.

MacJournal 4.0 also has a lot of other new features:

- 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 email.

What's going on lately?

Here's what I'm working on nowadays:

1. First development release of 4.1 should happen next week sometime. I think I've got everything worked out for the things that are in there so far, and there will be more to come. No, .mac syncing does not make its debut in this release, but that is coming.
2. Universal build of TimeCard, which I forgot to do earlier this year. It should be out in the same timeframe as 4.1d1.

More about 4.1d1 when it comes out next week.

Status update

4.0.4 was posted a little while ago; everyone should see it in their Update panel. There were a few releases in a row to fix a few small problems and get everything squared away before 4.1. There will be a little while before 4.1 comes out, but I plan to start offering test releases in the middle or end of this month. I'll post more about the release and what is done already when we get there. .mac syncing is indeed back on the schedule for this release, although it may not make the first test release.

MacJournal 4.0.1

Download it from Mariner.

This is a small release to fix a few issues in 4.0. Blogging support has been enhanced and a few crashers have been fixed.

- Fixed sending line breaks and tabs to Atom blogs
- Fixed sending dates to MetaWeblog and Movable Type blogs.
- Fixed sending images to MetaWeblog servers.
- Improved downloading entries from MetaWeblog and Movable Type blogs.
- Fixed problem saving entered text in blog configuration window.
- Fixed a crash clicking "macjournal" links in other applications.
- Updated Danish, Japanese, and French localizations.
- Improved click accuracy of Full Screen cursor.
- Fixed rare crash when searching.

MacJournal 4.0 brings major new features and large improvements to existing features. Every single part of MacJournal has been improved in some way. For bloggers, the blogging support in MacJournal is all-new. MacJournal now supports more kinds of blogs and it is easier than ever to use them. Each journal can have a different blog and the entries will remember their settings so they can be updated on the server later.

MacJournal 4.0 also has a lot of other new features:

- 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 email.

MacJournal 4.0.1b1

4.0.1b1 is a beta release to fix a few bugs in 4.0 before the final release of 4.0.1 (which will be very soon). Please try it out if you are having trouble with the release and let me know if it fixes what you were seeing and if it causes any new problems. Here's what is going on:

- Fixed sending line breaks and tabs to Atom blogs
- Fixed sending dates to MetaWeblog and Movable Type blogs.
- Fixed problem saving entered text in blog configuration window.
- Fixed a crash clicking "macjournal" links in other applications.
- Updated Danish and Japanese localizations.
- Improved click accuracy of Full Screen cursor.
- Fixed rare crash when searching.
- Added some basic error reporting for FTP uploads.

Download it here.

MacJournal 4.0

Holy cow, MacJournal 4.0 is out! After development of just over a year, it is finally out and available for download. Go to Mariner to get the final release. The betas will continue to work until they expire in a few weeks. There are already plans to get back to .Mac syncing very soon and hopefully get that working for reals this time. I don’t have a real timeframe for that yet, but I expect there will be betas for that as well.

Pricing details are on Mariner's website, but for the curious there is a $15 upgrade option for 3.0 users.

In the meantime, there are a certain number of things that are best done after a project is over, like switching version control systems. I’m thinking of switching to Subversion, so now is an opportune time to do that. Not that it matters at all to the user, but I just thought I’d mention it. ☺

Onwards and upwards!

MacJournal 4.0b4

Get it here.

This is the fourth (and probably final) beta release. This release fixes a few small bugs here and there in the application. A few crashes were fixed and a few small behavioral and appearance bugs were squashed. The biggest area of change was in the blogging: FTP-ing images works again, and sending categories to Movable Type blogs should work now.

Remember, last release I enabled some new licensing code in this release. If you haven’t used 4.0b3, You will be prompted for your serial number but the 3.0 serials will still work. I want to shake out any bugs in this new code before the final release.

Changes in this release:
- Fixed categories with Movable Type blogs.
- Fixed an occasional range exception in the journals drawer (usually seen when searching).
- Downloaded entries will be checked more thoroughly for duplicates before adding them to the journal.
- Improved the custom I-Beam cursor during Full Screen mode.
- Improved auto-recognition of Movable Type blogs.
- Lots of other little improvements; check out the Version History for the full details.

Keep in mind that this is still 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
- 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

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.

MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar.


Reporting Bugs

This is a beta release so things are pretty much locked down. If you see any problems in this build please let me know about it so I can fix it before the final is released.

MacJournal 4.0b3

Get it here.

This release adds a few more localizations and fixes a few bugs from the previous betas. I’m also enabling some new licensing code in this release. You will be prompted for your serial number but the 3.0 serials will still work. I want to shake out any bugs in this new code before the final release.

Changes in this release:
- Added Italian and Korean localizations.
- Fixed a crash sending entries to Atom servers (like Blogger.com)
- Added new toolbar icons and recording bar appearance.
- Made it harder to accidentally type next to a link and extend the link.
- Hopefully made the Template window a little more accepting of font and color changes, even if the topic field is selected.
- A few other small bugs were fixed with an eye toward finally releasing the version.

Keep in mind that this is still 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
- 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

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.

MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar.


Reporting Bugs

This is a beta release so things are pretty much locked down. If you see any problems in this build please let me know about it so I can fix it before the final is released.

MacJournal 4.0b2

Get it here.

This is the second beta release. This release adds a few localizations and fixes a few bugs from the first beta.

Changes in this release:
- Added Danish, German, and Taiwanese localizations.
- Fixed a problem saving and restoring blog server information.
- Fixed a problem retrieving entry text in AppleScript.
- Added ability to edit and delete license information in the about box.
- Fixed a problem posting links with ampersands to Atom blogs
- Fixed crash reporting.
- Fixed a crash changing entries when an empty search is active.
- Fixed a problem in the Entry Template window that would not use the default text attributes of a journal if there was no text.
- Downloading entries from Atom blogs will use the default styling of that journal.
- The keywords field in the Inspector will now auto-complete as you type.

Keep in mind that this is still 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
- 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

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.

MacJournal no longer supports Jaguar.


Reporting Bugs

This is a beta release so things are pretty much locked down. If you see any problems in this build please let me know about it so I can fix it before the final is released. Some new icons are temporary and will be replaced later.

MacJournal 4.0b1

Here comes the first beta release. MacJournal 4 is feature complete for this release. .mac syncing is still being worked out and won't be ready for the final 4.0. Too much is at stake if something goes wrong and I want 4.0 to be as solid as possible. Syncing will hopefully follow 4.0 by not too long.

Changes in this release:
- You can remove keywords in the sheet again.
- Fixed the search type menu in the Search toolbar item.
- Fixed custom background colors around checkboxes.
- Command-W will now close the current tab if there is more than one tab open.
- Added the modification date above the topic field if you click on it.
- Fixed the "Escape Non-ASCII characters" setting for blog servers and applied it to the topics as well.
- Fixed printing of white text.
- Restored Panther compatibility

Keep in mind that this is still 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
- 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

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.

MacJournal 4.0a2

Welcome to MacJournal 4! This is the second alpha release. MacJournal 4 is for the most part feature complete. There is a chance that .mac syncing will make an appearance soon. I am working on it right now. Progress is being made, but there is a lot of danger inherent this sort of thing. There is still the possibility of only including it on a provisional standing in 4.0 and fully supporting it in 4.1. The goal is to get MacJournal 4 out in March and we need to get to localization soon. Between now and beta there will be a lot of small tweaks to get things ready to be locked down for the release.

Changes in this release:
- Added the ability to specify a journal in which to create a new entry and fixed a crash there.
- Added a warning when replacing the previous audio recording.
- Added toolbar items for Recording, Insert Table, and Text Color
- Text completion in the Font Name toolbar item is now case insensitive and added a hidden pref for only showing Roman fonts.
- Changed the default filename of the .Mac sheet to be based off the content.
- Upgraded date formatting to behave better with different locales.
- Reworked Drawer preferences.
- Added a PDF export option.
- Added a warning when using Text Cleanup menu items on multiple selections in the drawers.
- Fixed Typepad blogging support and fixed a crash with Friendster blogs.
- Added automatic crash log checking: if the crash log changes in between launches, MacJournal will offer to email the log to me.
- URL discovery is now a little more lenient about things like periods, commas, or a close parenthesis after a URL.
- Restore the pref for disabling automatic list discovery that accidentally got left out of a reorganization.
- Redid the Keywords sheet to show all keywords in the app with checkboxes next to the active ones.
- The Quick Note window should be movable and saved across launches.
- Added Insert->Safari Address menu item.
- Fixed a problem with Text Zoom not saving across launches.

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
- All-new blogging architecture
- New per-item attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
• blog server
- A real implementation of tabs
- 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

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.

MacJournal 4.0a1

Download here

Welcome to MacJournal 4! This is the first alpha release. MacJournal 4 is now feature complete. All the features that are planned for release are now included in some fashion (although they may be changed a bit before beta). The goal is to get MacJournal 4 out in March and we need to get to localization started in February. Between now and beta there will be a lot of small tweaks to get things ready to be locked down for the release. I doubt I'll be able to resist a few small additions but nothing is for sure.

This release brings a full implementation for audio recording. It seems to only work on Tiger right now but I'm hoping to get it working on Panther before the final release. There is also a new "Quick Note" feature: set a key equivalent in the preferences and then use it in any application to make a quick note in any existing entry or create a new one.

Changes in this release:
- Added Movable Type as a real protocol type. If you have a MT blog, you'll want to reconfigure your blog settings.
- Added a special appearance for checkboxes in Full Screen mode
- Fixed a problem copying an entry URL to someplace only plain text is accepted.
- Added new recording UI, including meters.
- Added exporting of recordings in a journal to a podcast.
- Added importing of existing podcasts into a journal.
- Hold the Option key when clicking a checkbox to entry a "mixed" state.
- Tabbing with the insertion point next to a list item will take that list item with the tab.
- Fixed a bug with time zones when sending an entry to an Atom blog.
- iPod Notes export (essentially just text exporting but with internal links handled in the iPod Notes format)

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
- All-new blogging architecture
- New per-item attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
• blog server
- A real implementation of tabs
- 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

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.



(By the way, the change-made-at-the-last-minute prize this time goes to "drag and drop in the recording bar." Congrats!)

MWSF

MacWorld San Francisco begins tomorrow. I'll be up in the exhibition hall in Mariner's booth on Friday if you'd like to stop by and say hi. We'll be demoing the latest builds of 4.0 and taking feedback. So come by if you can because I'd love to hear what you have to say and talk about it with you!

MacJournal 4.0d5

Welcome to the fifth developmental release of MacJournal 4! There are a few new features and a fair amount of cleanup in a lot of areas. The last release's new blogging architecture will probably trump anything new this time around, but it's a good release nonetheless. Probably the biggest addition is the support for audio recording. It's not pretty, it's not configurable, and it's not even entirely functional, but it works well enough to try for now. Just in case, audio recordings won't stick around between launches. This is to ensure the final solution won't conflict with the current one.

There is also a change to searching so the results are presented in a flat list instead of a hierarchical one in the Journals drawer. This one might be controversial, so please let me know what you think.

In the realm of smaller changes, there are more drag and drop improvements, tied in with Services improvements as well. This releases also marks the departure of the venerable Blogger and LiveJournal sheets. Farewell, old friends! We knew you well.

Changes in this release:
- Audio Recording is partially implemented. Get there from the View menu. Recordings will not be saved across launches until things mature a bit.
- Search for entries will now show a flat list of results in the Journals drawer instead of the normal hierarchical result.
- You can drag entries onto other entries to append the text.
- You can drag text/entries onto the dock icon to append it to an entry or create a new entry with it.
- You can now selectively strip styles out of incoming text from Services
- Exporting journals to HTML as one-file-per-entry will now convert the internal MacJournal links to relative links to the other entry's exported file (if that entry is being exported).
- In addition to FTP, an iDisk (yours or someone else's) is now a possible location for attachments when sending to a blog.
- The character count is shown alongside the word count now.
- Improved handling of slow data locations, like putting your data file on an iDisk. The app should not hang while it is saving to disk anymore.
- I also added a way to show the font previews in the font toolbar item (which is hidden and disabled by default).
- Added "Copy URL to Entry" to Edit menu
- Hitting return on an empty list line will end the list (like Word)
- Added a search category for Labels in the Search toolbar item.
- Fixed a variety of crashes, quirks, and behavioral oddities in a number of places.

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
- All-new blogging architecture
- New per-item attributes
• background color
• label
• sorting
• entry template
• editable
• blog server
- A real implementation of tabs
- 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

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.

Whither dee-five?

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!

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.

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.

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. ☺

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.

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.

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.