Latest beta status

The latest beta of 3.1.3 is going to expire soon. There will be a new release this weekend. I decided to morph 3.1.3 into 3.2 with a few small features in addition to the bug fixes already present. I don’t know when 4.0 out so this gives a little something extra before then. 3.2 will be a free upgrade for 3.0 users just like 3.1.3 was going to be. There are a lot of accessibility fixes in it, which is a feature itself (if you need it). It’s looking like “notes” is a good thing to drop in this release as well: it’s fairly self-contained and often requested. If I can figure out a way to do it right without changing any localized resources it will be even better. The new beta this weekend might not have this yet but it will have a substantially longer expiration date then we were currently doing for a small release like 3.1.3. More details this weekend.

MacJournal 3.1.3b2

Get it from here

Welcome to second beta of MacJournal 3.1.3. This version has some accessibility features that prevented beta 1 from launching on Jaguar or Panther. Beta 2 should correct this. 3.1.3 should be out next week.

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed compatibility with Panther and Jaguar.
- Canceling the Rename sheet after creating a new journal will also remove the new journal.


Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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

MacJournal 3.1.3b1

Welcome to beta 1 of MacJournal 3.1.3! This release will restore compatibility with Jaguar and provide a few bug fixes. It also adds a lot of fixes for Accessibility features such as Voiceover. I also reset the 15-day demo counter. 3.1.3 should be out around the middle of this month.

Note: due to some accessibility testing, this release will only work on OS X 10.4. The next release will work on 10.2 and later.

Bug Fixes:

- Added accessibility to the calendar (for things like VoiceOver)
- Fixed a problem with oddly-formatted URLs that prevented them from being clicked or exported to HTML.
- Restored compatibility with Jaguar (for the final release).
- No longer simplifying quotes on their way to Blogger.
- Added hidden pref for always pasting text as plain text (and matching the current style): AlwaysPasteAsPlainText
- Show the main window if it wasn't on-screen when you use Spotlight to select an entry.
- Made some changes to the Service handling to prevent some problems when the "Loading..." window and the "Pick a Journal" window come up at the same time.
- Fixed unit conversions in the Page Margin controls in the print panel.
- Fixed a problem sending complex entries to LiveJournal.
- Reset the 15-demo.
- Fixed a bug with not showing the time in Japanese.
- Fixed a bug when launching MacJournal with Spotlight with large data sets that can cause confusion in the tables


Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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

Quick status update

It turns out 3.1.2 isn't compatible with Jaguar at all so I'm readying a new release in a week or two to correct that problem. It will also contains a number of small fixes to other problems. This, however, will probably be the last Jaguar-compatible release ever. To work on the Intel systems you have to compile with gcc 4.0. Programs compiled with this compiler cannot be run on Jaguar. So it's out of my hands at that point. 3.1.3 will hopefully fix all the remaining small issues so that our Jaguar users won't be left out of much more than Intel compatibility when the time comes.

Alongside that I will begin posting developmental builds of 4.0. It's looking pretty good so far. Some of the new UI is still shaky, but other refinements are quite polished. The new tabs look great. Expect to see that sometime this month as well.

MacJournal 3.1.2

Download it from Mariner

Welcome to MacJournal 3.1.2! This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. There are also some additional preferences available. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above.

Bug Fixes:

- Implemented Spotlight support.
- Fixed a few crashes that could happen in different situations.
- Fixed a problem where journals could show up as locked when nested inside another journal.
- Improved HTML exporting.
- Fixed some problems with registration.
- Added a preference to disable automatic list discovery.
- Added a preference to change the first day of the week displayed in the calendar.
- Improved list support.
- Various other small fixes.
- Italian localization


Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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

Spotty

FYI: My e-mail response should be a little spotty this coming week due to various festivities. Apologies in advance if I don't respond to e-mail until the next week.

Whoops

I had previously talked about building MacJournal for Intel and the problems that popped up. I had to disable code for .Mac exporting to get it to build so I could test it at all. Well, wouldn't you know it but I forgot to re-enable it for 3.1.2b3. ☺ Worry not however: it will return for the next build. I'm expecting 3.1.2 to be released later this week, or early next at worst.

I'm putting together a larger post about the next version (tentatively labeled 4.0) which I will come back with after 3.1.2 is out. I have some things like labels already (sort of) working, but any larger changes are still in the design stage. I'm looking at ways to merge the journals drawer into the main window Mail-style. So feel free to comment one way or another on this as I'm sure some people won't like it. Drawers are kind of a heated topic nowadays; a lot of people don't like them. I don't mind them myself but I certainly respect the argument against them and general UI seems to be moving away from them lately so I don't want MacJournal to fall behind. More on this later though.

MacJournal 3.1.2b3

Download it from here

This is the third beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes another problem with registration on Tiger (which are always fun). A few other smaller bugs are fixed 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out). Expect the final release of 3.1.2 later this week.

Bug Fixes:

- Titles sent to Blogger won't have their non-ASCII characters converted.
- Entries created from the calendar will adhere to the entry template.
- An open curly quote will be used instead of a closed quote in the case of a multi-paragraph quotation with quotes appearing at the start of the paragraph.
- Bolds and italics in exported HTML will now be handled by strong and em respectively.
- Fixed up permissions on the license file in case it was created by another user.


Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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

MacJournal vs. Intel

Following Monday’s announcement, I downloaded Xcode 2.1 and recompiled MacJournal 3.1.2 for Intel. I had to tweak a few settings but I got everything to compile. However, it didn’t actually complete the build. For the .Mac functionality I am using an embedded framework that Apple provides however that framework is not yet available for Intel. Because this dependent code is not ready for Intel, MacJournal cannot be built for Intel just yet. If they release an update before 3.1.2 comes out I will probably release a Universal binary (just to get it out of the way). The only issue is that the .Mac framework generally only supports the current OS and the one before it so if they release an update it might not support Jaguar like the current one does. In that case there will be a subsequent update that will only support Panther, Tiger, and Tiger+Intel. Hopefully that won’t need to happen and we can just get this behind us soon.

Other than that I haven’t made much progress on the next version because of WWDC this week. I started on labels and an Inspector but both are very rough right now. If anyone will be at the beer bash tonight on Apple’s campus I’ll be around as well. I’ll be wearing a Michigan Band shirt so if you see me say hi. ☺

MacJournal 3.1.2b2

Download it now

This is the second beta release of 3.1.2. This beta fixes a potential crash when waking from sleep and fixes a problem that Tiger caused with registration. 3.1.2 provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).

Bug Fixes:

- Adding a line in the midst of a numbered list will correct all following lines better than it used to.
- Fixed a potential crash after waking from sleep after opening and closing the Change Date sheet.
- Fixed a problem on Tiger where the registration information might not get saved under some circumstances.

Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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


Dan Schimpf
dschimpf@mac.com
http://danschimpf.com/
29 May 2005

MacJournal 3.1.2b1

Download it here

This is the first (and probably only) beta release of 3.1.2. This release provides a few bug fixes over MacJournal 3.1.1 and adds Spotlight support for Tiger users. It is recommended for all users of MacJournal 3.0 and above (when it comes out).

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed bug that would show nested journals as locked if their parent journal was encrypted and unlocked.
- Fixed a crash when sending text with smart quotes to LiveJournal.
- Fixed a problem where changing the list mode to Numbers when it was already there would eat the first character after the list item.

New Preferences:

- Added option for Spotlight never to index journals that were decrypted.
- Added preference to change the first day of week in the calendar.
- Added option to disable auto-discovery of lists.

Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don’t have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release.


Reporting Bugs

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

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

MacJournal vs. Spotlight: Round One

So I said 3.1.1 would have some limited Spotlight functionality but it would be disabled by default. This is true, but it has some flaws in it so I don't even really want to talk about it. The other problem is that the Spotlight importer itself (the piece that sits by itself and is loaded by Spotlight to read the files) wasn't included in the 3.1.1 due to an oversight. So let's just forget about 3.1.1. :-)

On the positive side, later tonight I will be releasing 3.1.2b1 with full Spotlight support, enabled by default, with the importer included. So if you want to try it out I invite you to check back here later tonight (or tomorrow for the more international users) and grab that. It will also fix the nested-journals-appear-as-locked bug that sprouted up in 3.1.1 and add a few preferences.

3.1.1 is out

Download it from Mariner

The list of bug fixes:

- Fixed a problem where changing multiple lines to checkboxes would add the same checkbox on each line (instead of different checkboxes for each line).
- Fixed a problem preventing the splitter position in the journals drawer from getting saved in between launches.
- Fixed a problem with smart quotes and Entourage
- Improved the numeric list recognition logic to exclude things like "8.00 PM"
- Fixed the "None" item in the Highlight toolbar item
- Fixed the "Backdate" button in the LiveJournal panel
- Fixed a problem in the calendar with months beginning on Sunday (i.e. May 2005).
- Links are now terminated when you end a line
- Fixed a crash when using a custom background color in Full Screen mode on Tiger.
- Fixed a crash that can happen when the calendar tries to automatically change days at Midnight.
- Fixed a problem when switching list modes in an empty entry.

There are one or two more that involve hidden preferences that are noted in the included Version History. I'll come back later with more information about Spotlight.

3.1.1 Status

My part of the 3.1.1 has been finished and is out the door. The Mariner folk are making some needed additions to the manual to cover the new things added in 3.1 and we hope to get everything posted on Wednesday. Check back tomorrow for the download and all the news. After that I will speak more about the next version and might even start posting builds, even though only a few small features have been added so far. I'm considering providing public access to my nightly builds that I make for myself if there is interest. Keep in mind though that these nightly builds would be even further from safety than the pre-release builds are, but it would allow stuff to get out faster.

Catch you tomorrow.

Spotlight Update

Work continues with the Spotlight implementation. I have MacJournal writing out the "special" files to disk and I have the importer written, but they aren't hooked up to each other right yet. Spotlight and LaunchServices work well when things don't change that much, but in a development environment it is easy to confuse both of them when you're changing things every few minutes. I don't have anything hooked up for encrypted journals yet, but I imagine there will be an option similar to Mail's "Index decrypted messages for searching." Any locked journal will be removed from the metadata cache, but there will be an option to never include encrypted journals even if they are unlocked (which will probably be the default behavior). I don't know if all of this will get rolled into 3.1.1 or a later update mostly because I want to get 3.1.1 out by next week and this stuff needs to bake more before it gets released.

I also have some preliminary work done on the syncing support, but the Spotlight action is much farther ahead. All I have there is the description of the data to be stored on the server; none of the client-side work is done. It turns out a large portion of developing software on Mac OS X is editing property lists to a specific format, so there's a lot of that ahead of me before the syncing will work. More on that as it evolves.

Tiger and MacJournal 3.1

Now that Tiger has been released, a few more details about Tiger support in MacJournal 3.1 can be revealed. In addition to the 200 "big" features advertised for Tiger, there are a plethora of smaller features in the OS that apps can take advantage of quickly. One of the first things MacJournal supported was multiple selections ranges. If you hold the Command key you can select multiple discontinuous ranges of text in MacJournal (and any other Cocoa text program). Some changes had to be made to support this any time that I got that selected range of text. Instead of just one range I had to consider many ranges. In the case of most of the text cleanup commands the length of one range was changed as well. But I'm happy to say that everything should just work as expected with multiple selection ranges: text cleanup, strikethrough, and everything else should work. While 3.1 was billed as the "Tiger-compatible" release, most of these things will work all the way back to MacJournal 2.6 (which shows you how long Tiger has been in development). For some extra fun hold the Option key while you drag for some square selection!

One fix that 3.1 brings is a few tweaks for Resolution Independent UI. This is a feature in Tiger that is not exposed in any user UI. It's there for developers to update their applications for the future. With this you can scale any application that you launch on your system to an arbitrary amount. For example you can make any application run 2 times larger than normal, which might be handy on that 30-inch display that we all have. MacJournal 3.1 should operate just as well under these conditions.

A suggestion that I get a lot regards what happens when you drag an entry or a journal onto your Desktop (or any other folder in the Finder). In Panther and before it would create this lame text clipping of the text in whatever you dragged. This was, well, enormously lame. Thankfully, the support exists in Tiger to create a real Rich Text file at the destination that you can actually use.

Another popular suggestion is page numbering while printing. Once again Apple has helped out here and there is now an option in the MacJournal pane in the print window for enabling page numbering.

Tiger also supports Tables and similar things in text views. TextEdit can to Tables and Lists all by itself. MacJournal can access these features as well, but the menu items weren't put in until after localization had finished. I will add them for 3.1.1 but you can add them right now in English using a Hidden Preference.

What is not there is syncing or Spotlight. Spotlight is nasty because it needs a distinct file for each searchable datum. Since MacJournal stores all of its data in one file, there's no way to separate each entry for Spotlight. How, you may ask, do Safari and Address Book handle this, since they put all of their data in a single file as well? Safari and Address Book also maintain a separate listing of small files for each datum. Check out your Caches folder if you want to see them. This is essentially what MacJournal will have to do. While not trivial, it might be easier than syncing at this point so I might work on that now and release a small update containing that functionality.

MacJournal 3.1

Download it here

Welcome to MacJournal 3.1! This release provides a few new features, some bug fixes, and full Tiger compatibility.

New Features:

1. Highlight toolbar button
2. Automatic discovery of lists
3. Option to automatically back up your data
4. New Calendar view in the Journals drawer and Change Date sheet
5. Encrypted journals are indicated with a gold lock
6. Export journals directly to a .Mac account
7. Added button in Full Screen mode to automatically scroll the text

Bug Fixes:

1. Improved performance after exiting Full Screen mode
2. Fixed problem when using more than one "Discover" preference and saving
3. Blogger performance and reliability should be greatly improved
4. Fixed loss styling when clicking next to a checkbox and typing
5. Improved searching performance and behavior
6. Fixed various problems associated with switching list styles

In addition, MacJournal 3.1 has been fully tested on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Several Tiger-only features have been added; check the MacJournal Development Blog for more details after Tiger has shipped.

Also, please note that the minimum OS requirement is either 10.2.7 or 10.2 with Safari installed. You don't have to use Safari, you just have to have it installed on your system.

Please let me know of any problems you have with this release. There is a 3.1.1 release planned to pick up a new Italian localization and any bug fixes that pop up.
s

MacJournal 3.1b2

Go here to download now

This is the second beta of MacJournal 3.1. There are more code changes than localizations in this release, but there is now an updated Korean localization to be had. All that are missing are the Japanese and Italian localizations. If anyone can help out with the former please let me know; it should be a very short and simple update for this release.

On the code improvement side, here are the highlights:

1. Added hidden pref for controlling what the first day of the week is in the calendar for localizations that use Monday as the start of the week (which actually makes more sense than Sunday if you think about it.)
2. Fixed a problem that could prevent a new entry from being selected in the journals drawer after you created it inside a nested journal.
3. Nested journals will now lock If you have a preference set to automatically lock journals and the parent journal cannot lock itself.
4. Added a calendar to the Change Date sheet, which I should have done a while ago but I forgot.
5. Improved some areas of performance, including launch time.
6. Added a checkbox and typing some text, then putting the insertion point next to the checkbox and typing again used to destroy all styling due to a quirk in the OS. No more!
7. Another fun quirk in the OS caused the Blogger panel to lock the app up from time to time (more in some situations). That area of code has been rewritten to avoid these areas. As a side effect I think it’s a lot faster too.

There are a few more changes so check out the Version History when you get a chance. This should be the last beta: as soon as we get the Italian and Japanese localizations in 3.1 will be finalized and released. Please let me know of any bugs that you find.

3.1b2 soon; Tiger

Expect a new beta of MacJournal 3.1 in the next day or two. I rewrote a lot of the Blogger networking to avoid an issue that I see in the OS and hopefully it should never lock up the app ever again. There's also some other good stuff in there that I'd like to get out while waiting for the last two localizations to come back.

Tiger was announced yesterday over on Apple's site, and while I obviously can't talk about it a whole lot until it is released (those pesky developer NDAs) but rest assured that MacJournal works just fine on Tiger, both 3.x and 2.6.x. I'm not sure about 2.5.x, but you should be using 2.6 anyway. ☺ More details on this when Tiger ships on the 29th.

More 3.1 updates

MacJournal 3.1 is pretty much done. We're waiting for localizations at this point: Japanese and a new Italian localization. I hope to get those in soon (at least the Japanese one since it's a small update) and get 3.1 out the door by the end of the month. This will be the last release to support 10.2 and I'm anxious to leave that chunk of code behind. ☺ There are a lot of things on the plate for the next update and I've started tinkering around with some of the larger ones but shipping 3.1 will make life easier. I'm happy with how 3.1 turned out though and I look forward to getting it out the door.