MacJournal 5.1.4

Snow Leopard is on the Prowl! The Cat is out of the bag! More tortured cat metaphors!

Yes, Snow Leopard is out and so is MacJournal 5.1.4. If you use the former, you'll want the latter as well. There was only one cosmetic issue that I found in 5.1.3 (as well as a rare crash), but that is fixed in 5.1.4, along with some other things. It's a benefit to all three OSes on which it is supported. Download it at Mariner now or get it from the Check For Updates in a previous version of 5.x.

MacJournal 5.1.4b4

You can get it here, however please try to update MacJournal from within the application by using the MacJournal or Help menu to Check for Updates.

This beta is pretty small. I decided to do it to test a new version of Sparkle in the last update and some build environment changes in this release. There is also a long-in-the-making data loss fix that is also in this release. I expect the final release to have no additional changes and be out some time next week.

MacJournal 5.1.4b3

Get it here.

This beta has a few fixes here and there as well as some updates to third-party components that MacJournal uses, like Sparkle. Some rare crashes are fixed, such as one opening the Inspector and editing links on Snow Leopard. A bug where the crash reporter would show up each launch is fixed as well. Tiger users will note that searches from the toolbar will no longer highlight text within the PDF as that was causing a reproducible crash. The issue is not present in Leopard and is still available there.

Call for Beta Testers

Interested folks will want to check out the Mariner MacJournal support forum where there is a post asking for beta testers for a mobile version of MacJournal. Find it here. If you haven't been there before, you can use this forum to discuss other MacJournal issues/suggestions as well (or search past discussions).

MacJournal 5.1.4b2

Get it here.

This beta fixes a few rare crashers and some weird window resizing behavior, among other things. It is hopefully the last beta and the final will be out sometime in the next few weeks. Let me know of any problems with it.

MacJournal 5.1.4b1

Get it here.

This release fixes a few bugs in 5.1.3. There are fixes for Blogger, AppleScript, and MobileMe settings. There are also a fix for a display issue in Snow Leopard. Tags will be searched case-insensitively. This release also fixes a bug with the Backup progress sheet.

MacJournal 5.1.3

Get the final release at Mariner or from the Check for Updates item in the Help menu. It's pretty similar to the final beta with a few minor changes. Stay tuned for future plans.

MacJournal 5.1.3b7

Get it here.

This is the release candidate; there will be little to no changes for the release. This beta fixes a bug in backups and updates the Google framework.

MacJournal 5.1.3b6

Get it here.

This beta adds some fixes for some rare crashes. There are several improvements in searching: the selections will be easier to see during a search, multiple search terms show up in PDF documents, and fixed behavior when searching only for text. Some new AppleScript commands were added to deal with plain versus rich text. There's also a fix for the live word count accuracy.

MacJournal 5.1.3b5

Get it here.

This beta adds three localizations: Norwegian, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese (the latter two are still incomplete). Please let me know of any problems with these new localizations besides some missing strings in the Chinese ones. Backup behavior and resiliency has been improved. If you were seeing backup errors before, they should go away and backups should be happening (they were likely not happening at all on your machine, even on 5.1.2). The style of journals in the sidebar has changed a bit. There are also new versions of the Media Browser and the Google code, and some fixes for interacting with iWeb.

MacJournal 5.1.3b4

Get it now.

It's a modest list of improvements, but then again, it is a modest release overall. A few minor UI fixes, some new hidden prefs, and a fix for Japanese blogging servers round up the list of changes. This release has been a bit slow because I've been working on future releases at the same time, but expect the final release soon.

MacJournal 5.1.3b3

Get it here.

I intended for this to be the final release, but it's going to have to be a beta for now. I don't expect anything to change between now and then, and "then" is hopefully next week. There's not much in this build either: an AppleScript fix, and import fix for RTFDs with attachments stored externally, a entry deletion fix for WordPress, a fix for Full Screen key equivalents in the F1-4 range, and better error reporting for backup issues. That's about it. Let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.3b2

Get it here.

This release should fix LiveJournal interactions with a few other tweaks. This should hopefully be the last beta, but let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.3b1

Get it here.

This is the first beta of 5.1.3. This is intended to be a very small and quick release, hopefully out this month while I work on some other things in tandem. This release contains all the fixes that I want to do already, so I suspect there will only be a handful of changes between now and the final releases.

There are fixes for some bugs in the UI, blogging, and searching.

MacJournal 5.1.2

MacJournal 5.1.2 is out now! Get it here now, or from the Help menu's Update item. There are a lot of improvements over 5.1.1 in the areas of text editing, blogging, syncing and more. Over the last beta, there are fixes relating to blogging, some improvements in UI layout, and improvements to the Dutch localization.

MacJournal 5.1.2b6

Get it here.

This release fixes a pasting bug introduced in the last beta and improves the reliability of "Send to iWeb". It also improves the layout of the Info bar and adds a "Save a Copy As" menu item (for English users right now, everyone else when they get updated again).

There is also a new logging facility to collect information about file operations that take place, e.g. importing and exporting entries, saving entries, etc. You can turn this on in the Hidden Preferences in the last tab as "Log document file actions". If you are seeing a problem where your data file gets inordinately large (several GB), please let me know as this will be useful.

MacJournal 5.1.2b5

Get it here.

This beta fixes a crash or two, improves creating an entry in iCal, improves entry templates, and improves printing. My hope is to get the final release out next week, if all goes well.

MacJournal 5.1.2b4

Get it here.

Another round of syncing changes accompanies a few changes for smart journals, discovering links, and recovering entries.

If you are having trouble syncing and a normal reset from the System Preferences does not work, use these steps to perform a complete reset of syncing on your machine:

1. Close all applications.


2. Trash the Library/Application Support/SyncServices folder.


3. Restart your machine.


4. Open MobileMe system preference pane.


5. Re-enable syncing. You will have to pull everything down from the server again.

Please let me know if those that were having trouble have any more success with this release.

MacJournal 5.1.2b3

Get it here.

This beta has a few fixes for editing, importing, and syncing. It also adds back the floating calendar window. Let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.2b2

Get it here.

This beta has some syncing changes and a crash fix or two. Check it out and let me know if you have any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.2b1

Get it here.

5.1.2 is expected to have a fairly short release cycle (I hope). It's got a few bug fixes for blog posting, data syncing, text editing, and a few other things. Try it out and let me know if you have any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.1

The final version is out. Download it from Mariner. The in-application updates will be updated tomorrow to start offering it there as well if you want to wait for that. There aren't many differences versus the last beta, but there are a few bug fixes, a new Danish localization, and no expiration date.

I'll post more on future plans in the coming days.

MacJournal 5.1.1b5

Get it here.

Beta 4 contained some good bug fixes but it also contained some regressions that caused problems. So, enter beta 5 to fix the regressions. If this works out, this will be the last beta and we will release 5.1.1 to the general public. Let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.1b4

Get it here.

Here comes beta four of 5.1.1. It has a fix for a bug that I've been chasing for a while, so I hope to get the final 5.1.1 out soon to get the collected bug fixes available to everyone as soon as possible. Let me know of any problems.

MacJournal 5.1.1b3

Get it here.

This is the third beta release of 5.1.1. It's got several fixes in different places, including blogging, syncing, and general app usage. Let me know if you have any issues with it.

MacJournal 5.1.1b2

Download it here.

This release has a few fixes for blogging, Tiger issues, and other assorted problems. There is also some syncing experimentation for Leopard users. If you are on Leopard and use MobileMe syncing, please let me know how it works for you. As this is intended to be a fairly short beta cycle, I hope to get the final release out soon.

MacJournal 5.1.1b1

Download it here.

This release is to fix a few problems that popped up after the release of 5.1. It has a crash fix, a few localization tweaks, and Blogger download improvements. The goal is a fairly short release cycle for this one. If you have any problems with this release, please let me know.

MacJournal 5.1 is here

Download it here.

This is the final release of MacJournal 5.1. If you've been following the betas all along, not much will be new. But if you're coming from 5.0.4, there are some nice new things. I think the three biggest things are the "three-pane view", editable entry windows, and Karelia's Media Browser window. Let me know of any problems you find. I will update the in-application update mechanism soon as well if you just want to wait for that.

Note: If you saw it posted yesterday and downloaded it then, it may have been the incorrect build. A bad disk image was posted yesterday but has been corrected now. It was just beta 9, expiration date and all. Re-download using the link above to get the real 5.1.

MacJournal 5.1b9

Get it now.

While we prepare the final release of 5.1, here is a new beta to extend the expiration date. There are a few bug fixes in this release over beta 8 and it should be very similar to the final release soon.

MacJournal 5.1b8

Get it here.

This is the eighth beta. This contains various bug fixes, localization tweaks (including a new Italian localization), and one UI change in particular: .Mac is now MobileMe. Search is fixed, as are some issues with MetaWeblog servers. There is a fix for a crash when synchronizing Palm devices. There are some various other fixes as well that are detailed in the Version History. There aren't any new features as 5.1 is feature complete already. Providing more localizations is also a goal for this release. Please let me know if you have any problems with this beta.

MacJournal 5.1b7

Get it here.

Here comes the seventh beta, now with French and Spanish localizations. Not all the localizations are complete, but we hope to get things wrapped up soon. There are also more syncing fixes, and a few other fixes in various places.

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but here is the page that lists the current and recent releases, in case you should need them: http://danschimpf.com/dev.html.

MacJournal 5.1b6

Download it here.

Watch out: here comes beta six. This beta has two new localizations: Japanese and Dutch. It also adds some AppleScript properties and a Services menu in the contextual menu. It also fixes a long-standing bug in .Mac syncing regarding resetting data, so that should work better. We're getting late in the process here, but remember: this is still a beta, so remember to back up your data and let me know of any bugs you find.

MacJournal 5.1b5

Download it now.

It's mostly bug fixes, but fixes that will be helpful to most people. There's also a new German localization (more to follow). Let me know how it works out for you.

MacJournal 5.1b4

Get it now.

This is the fourth beta. There are various fixes in a lot of areas. There are some text editing fixes and some fixes for smart journals. There is now native support for importing OPML (outline) files. There are some various other fixes as well that are detailed in the Version History. There aren't any new features as 5.1 is feature complete already. Providing localizations is also a goal for this release, although none are included yet. Please let me know if you have any problems with this beta.

MacJournal 5.1b3

Download it now.

More bug fixes! This fixes some incompatibilities with Tiger, so issues editing text in the separate windows and with new entries, and a few small issues with the sidebar. Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

MacJournal 5.1b2

Download it here.

This fixes a few problems with editing entries in other windows, as well as a few other problems here and there. Please try it out and let me know how it works.

MacJournal 5.1b1 is here

This is the first beta of 5.1. The goal of this release is to provide a few larger features, a few smaller features, and provide localizations. We are currently working on the localizations so there are none in this release, but we will use this as a reference point and update what we have. This release is feature complete, which means I don't plan on adding any new features, largely because of the localization issue.

The big new features in this release is an option to have the entries list display vertically on either side of the entry text, enhancements to the calendar to support non-Gregorian calendars and display more than one month at a time, and editable entry windows. I also added Karelia's Media browser to see pictures and so forth from iLife applications and drag them in easily. There are a few other improvements and bug fixes, so I encourage you to read the Release Notes and the Version History for this release. You can go back and forth between this release and the last public release, 5.0.4, without any trouble. As with anything, it's a good idea to make backups before changing just about anything on your computer though.

Get MacJournal 5.1b1.

MacJournal 5.0.3 and 5.0.4

As most of you already know, MacJournal 5.0.3 is now out. However, due to a silly mistake at the last minute, there was a problem preventing it from launching on Tiger. So, enter 5.0.4 with the fix to that problem. Early reports are good, so it's on to a small feature release with localizations (finally) included. It will have one or two small new features and will be a free update. More on that as it comes. I'll probably wait until it is feature complete to post a beta to avoid the endless stream of betas that 5.0.3 had.

MacJournal 5.0.3b8

Get it here.

This is the eighth, and hopefully final beta of MacJournal 5.0.3. It is intended to fix a long-standing crash on Tiger with the sidebar. There is also a syncing fix, and new check at launch for the minimum required version of QuickTime (7.3.1), a fix f or entry tabs, and a Batch Change fix.

Check out the included Version History for the full details.

MacJournal 5.0.3b7

Get it here.

This is the seventh beta of MacJournal 5.0.3. It should fix a crash on Tiger with expanding journals, as well as improve Picasa support, fix importing podcasts, fix saving Word files, fix the Batch Change sheet, improve support for other calendar types in the Change Date sheet, fix auto backups in some circumstances, and add badges to the entries list.

MacJournal 5.0.3b6

Download it here.

This is the sixth, and likely final beta for 5.0.3. There are fixes in a lot of areas of the application: services, document saving, calendar, blogging, printing on Tiger, custom-sized images, and the separate entry window.

MacJournal 5.0.3b5

Download it here.

This is the fifth beta of MacJournal 5.0.3. There are more fixes to be had, as expected. There are fixes for the smart journal configuration, LiveJournal blogging, SFTP uploading, image uploading in general, and image resizing. Documents open at quit will now be restored when you launch again. And there's some more, smaller things as well. Happy March.

Check out the included Version History for the full details.

MacJournal 5.0.3b4

Get it here.

This is the fourth beta of MacJournal 5.0.3. There are fixes in lots of places, including a few crashers. Printing information should be saved better, downloading entries from blogs should work in more circumstances, image resizing should work better, and the Change Tags sheet should behave more logically when dealing with multiple entries. The entries list should go away after a search more reliably. Fixed some display issues with the sidebar as well.

Check out the included Version History for the full details.

MacJournal 5.0.3b3

Click here to download.

Here comes the third beta of 5.0.3. This includes changes for the backup dilemma that I posed earlier. Daily backups will now wait until the application has been idle for a minute before starting the backup. It also won't cause any disturbances should that happen in the background. This should improve that situation. There are a few other fixes, including a workaround for a crash on Tiger. Let me know of any problems that you have.

On automatic backup vs. annoyances

In MacJournal 5.0.2, I turned on automatic daily backups by default. New in version 5 is the ability to cull the automatic backups older than a certain date so it wouldn't consume unlimited disk space, so I felt it was useful at that point to make it the default. While I don't think anyone would argue that backups are generally good things, the way MacJournal currently handles it could be improved. If you have auto-saving turned on, this will trip the backup mechanism if you haven't saved yet that day, which could force you to pause mid-sentence for a minute while it backs up. That's annoying. Also, if you have MacJournal in the background and it decides to back up then, it will bounce in the dock and jump onscreen to show the sheet. That's annoying. The second item is the default behavior for showing a sheet on a non-visible window, but I'm working to get around that for 5.0.3. I'm also thinking about ways to tackle the first point.

Waiting until quit to do the backup is out because some people (such as myself) never quit MacJournal, instead just closing the window and leaving it open in the background. Disabling the automatic backup and having a "Backup" option in the UI somewhere is also not favorable because remembering to back up is not always successful. This could still be added, but it is outside of the automatic backup issue.

Viable option #1 for me is to wait until the system is sufficiently idle to start the backup. Perhaps after 5 minutes of no activity in the application, it would do the backup. The same mechanism is already used to determine when to lock journals automatically after an idle period. Option #2 is to wait until you switch entries before starting the backup since that could represent a mental break anyway. I'm currently wrestling between these two options for 5.0.3. The hybrid option #3 is to just do both option #1 and option #2 and do the backup for whichever event comes first.

Leave a comment if you have any strong feelings one way or the other. It should also be noted that this progress sheet only comes up when the backup takes more than a trivial amount of time, so some users won't see it at all.

MacJournal 5.0.3b2

It's the second beta of 5.0.3 and you can download it here. It's got some more various fixes over beta one in blogging, printing, and a few other areas. Let me know of any problems.

I'm getting down to the end of my email backlog. I will try to get the rest out by the end of the weekend.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!

MacJournal 5.0.3b1

The first beta of 5.0.3 is out now. You can download it here. It's got fixes for syncing, sending to blogs, adding tags, automatic lists, and a few UI-related areas. There are plenty of small fixes across the app. Let me know of any problems you have with this build.

Please note that this is a beta build, not a final release. Beta builds have an expiration date to make sure they aren't used forever, while final builds do not have such an expiration date.

MacJournal 5.0.2 is out!

Today brings the release of 5.0.2. This release contains several critical fixes for users of 5.0 and 5.0.1. You can get it at Mariner's site, from the Help menu's Update item inside MacJournal, or direct download here. There are several fixes over the last beta as well, so be sure to update.

This release is still English-only, but I'm going to start the localization process soon and hopefully get some more languages released soon.

This version has a tweaked application icon as well. It's a cross between the icon from 5.0 and the original blue MacJournal icon.

I'll be working on my other website, http://danschimpf.com/, over the next few days to update it for 5.0, in case you have been wondering what is the deal with that. I'm also going to really attack my backlogged email now that 5.0.2 is out. I suspect that will be the answer for most of the questions I have received.

MacJournal 5.0.2b5

Hot off the heels of beta 4 comes beta 5, available here for download. It has some fixes for recording and .mac syncing. It should hopefully unblock people that were having trouble in those areas. The final release should be out next week, so let me know of any problems as soon as possible.

MacJournal 5.0.2b4

Download it here or use the Help menu's Update item in 5.0.2b2 or later to get it automatically.

Here comes the fourth beta to 5.0.2. This will probably be the last beta for this release as I want to get fixes for some of the problems of 5.0.1 out there with as little delay as possible. The two problems areas are still .mac syncing and recording. If you're having trouble with the audio recording, please try trashing your preferences and then make sure the audio devices are set up in the System Preferences' Sound pane (not the one in MacJournal). I've had success doing that when it was giving me trouble. I'm going to work on the MJ prefs a bit in that area to work more like QuickTime Player's (when you have the Pro mode enabled) to make this easier.

Here's the full list of changes:

• Fixed a case where the font color would be used as the background color when formatting HTML.
  


• Fixed a problem where a bad blog from MJ4 could cause the MJ5 data not to load.
  


• When creating a journal with a journal selected, the new journal will be placed inside that journal.
  


• Opening a separate viewer window for non-text entries will no longer show jibberish.
  


• Add UUID properties to entries and journals in AppleScript.
  


• When sending an image that has been resized to a blog, the custom size will be honored.
  


• Fixed a problem exporting a journal to PDF with one file per entry.
  


• Fixed the Status searching from smart journals.
  


• Fixed a problem with launching could show an entry from a locked journal.
  


• Fixed individual files backup.
  


• Fixed a crash right-clicking at the end of the text.
  


• Fixed an error when editing lists on Leopard.
  


• Added the "add tag" AppleScript command.
  


• Now correctly encrypting the entry template along with the journal.
  

MacJournal 5.0.2b3

Here comes the third beta of 5.0.2. It's got some crash fixes, .mac uploading fixes, a few behavioral fixes, and a new addition to the Info bar. Download it here:

MacJournal 5.0.2b3

Let me know of any problems that you have.

MacJournal 5.0.2b2

Here's the second beta of 5.0.2. It's got a number of fixes in a lot of different areas. There are exporting fixes, Full Screen changes, .mac syncing fixes, crash fixes, and more. Download it here:

MacJournal 5.0.2b2.

Unfortunately, you won't see an in-app update this time. I'm still getting a handle on the new system (the third-party open source Sparkle system) so the first beta or any 5.0.1 release won't get notified automatically. This shouldn't be a problem in the future.

Please download it and let me know how it works for you. I'm still very behind on all the email that has come in since the release, so apologies in advance if I don't get back to you in a timely manner. But I have read your mail and hopefully this build helps.

MacJournal 5.0.2b1

Well, Macworld is over, 5.0.1 is out, and now the first beta of 5.0.2 is out. 5.0.2 will fix a lot of problems here in there in the 5.0 release and should hopefully get those that were having trouble up and running with MacJournal 5. Here is the download:

MacJournal 5.0.2b1

This should fix issues with migrating locked journals from MacJournal 4, exporting entire journals to one file, scrolling problems, editing in Full Screen, and several crashes. Check out the included version history to see the full list of changes. The goal is to get this release out by the end of the month. If you've emailed me in the past few days and haven't received a response yet, I'm working through a lot of email right now and will try to get a lot out today. Please let me know if 5.0.2b1 solves your problem.

The cat is out of the bag

Earlier today, we posted a public beta of MacJournal 5. This is the biggest update since probably ever for MacJournal and I'm really excited about it. I'll have more about it later, but if you want to check it out, you can get it here:

http://www.marinersoftware.com/MacJournal.dmg

I expect to have a new beta out tonight to fix a crash some people have been seeing. If you install the linked build, you should see the update automatically.

Here are some of the high-level new features:

• All new interface, built for Mac OS X Leopard.


• Add any kind of content, not just text. Drag PDFs, QuickTime movies, images, and more into the Sidebar to create an entry with anything on your computer.


• Open more than one MacJournal document at a time and save them wherever you want, or just use the default document and never worry about saving.


• Create Smart Journals from searches you perform.


• Create aliases to entries that you can store in other journals.


• Assign each entry a rating, status, and priority, and sort any journal by those values.


• Record video from your iSight and attach it to any entry.


• Performance enhancements for working with large amounts of entries.

MacJournal 4.1.3b9

Download it.

The aforementioned crash is fixed! Beta 9 is here and should resolve all known issues. Please give it a try and let me know if you find any problems as soon as possible. Thanks everyone!

(MacJournal vs. Tiger) vs. Leopard

I reverted some launch behavior in beta 8 of 4.1.3 that I had introduced around beta 5 to try to combat a crash on launch. This new behavior made launch go a lot slower in all cases and I was hoping to avoid using it. But, as things go, now some people are seeing the crash again. However, I have narrowed the circumstances of the crash down some more, so hopefully we can avoid making launch slow in all cases. It seems to happen when you have a table in an entry that was saved on Tiger. This is because Tiger had a bug in its table-saving code that MacJournal was trying to work around, which in turn is now crashing on Leopard due to something else that Apple changed in that release. OS compatibility issues are fun! So the goal is now to have our cake and eat it too: correct table saving and loading on both Tiger and Leopard, as well as not crashing, as well as not slowing down launch unless it absolutely has to for a certain case. If you're seeing the crash, I'd recommend using b7 for now. You can get it back at . I'll work on this now and hope to have something to try after the Thanksgiving holiday here in the States.

MacJournal 4.1.3b8

Get it here.

This is meant to be the last beta for 4.1.3. Ideally, 4.1.3 will be virtually unchanged from this release, but please send me any problems you have with this build and we can get the final release out as soon as possible. This release fixes a few various issues, but nothing too notable. Thanks for trying it out!

Leopard Update: 4.1.3b7

Another update for 4.1.3 is available. I made my own word counting scheme to replace the one provided by Apple that is seemingly non-functional in Leopard. Tiger users will continue to use the system counter. The plan is to release 4.1.3 in a week or so, so please try this out and send me any problems you have as quickly as possible.

MacJournal vs. Leopard

Another new beta is out to address Leopard issues. The word count issue is one that still mystifies me. I've reduced it down to a very simple application that launches and tries to count words in a very large text file and it fails every time. I've submitted that in a bug report to Apple and we will see what they say. I may have to fall back to a homespun word-counting scheme for now, which would be unfortunate. But in 4.1.3b6 there are some other Leopard fixes that should get a few people that were experiencing crashing up and running and hopefully restore Panther compatibility.

MacJournal 4.1.3b5

Get it here.

This beta has a few fixes over b4, but it's primary goal is Leopard fixes. I'm still investigating a problem with word counts on Leopard. I've had a few reports of incorrect word counts, but I haven't been able to reproduce it myself. It's mystifying so far but I hope to get a fix in time for 4.1.3 if it is a problem with MacJournal and not just system configuration. Leopard users, please let me know of any problems with this build.

MacJournal 4.1.3b4

Get it here.

This release is intended to improve support for Blogger.com and fix a few bugs. This fourth beta has assorted small bug fixes.

⁃ Fixed the "Other" menu item in the Labels toolbar item.
⁃ Added Dutch localization
⁃ Downloads from LiveJournal will retain the security information.
⁃ mailto: links encoded by SpamSieve should pass through to the blog unmolested by MacJournal.

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.

Compatibility Note: Some system enhancements that use Application Enhancer have been known to conflict with MacJournal. If you experience crashing or unexpected behavior, try disabling Application Enhancer before doing anything else.

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 4.1.3b3

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.