Many Tricks Blog

Leech 1.1.4

2008-07-04T10:43:00+02:00

Leech 1.1.4 fixes two bugs — one related to download queue management and one related to the "Sleep when done" feature.

But this is not just a bugfix release — there's also a new feature, which we call the "rubber window" internally. This means that you can have Leech resize the main window to fit all downloads automatically, so it never takes up more screen space than necessary. Go to the "Feedback" preferences to turn this on.

Update: Speaking of Leech, check out the latest ScreenCastsOnline show, which gives you a detailed look at how Leech works.

The Future of the Butler (Butler 4.1.6)

2008-06-30T18:17:00+02:00

Roughly half a year ago, we started distributing Butler as what we called a transient version, which basically meant it would stop working at some point in time, namely tomorrow. We did this because back then, we weren't sure where we would be going with Butler. Similar to Witch, Butler had been distributed as donationware for years, and we knew we couldn't really afford keeping that up, as detailed for Witch in this blog entry.

So when we converted Witch into shareware, we also did that to test the waters for Butler 5. We wondered: How are the users going to react to this transition? Will they be willing to update, or will they just continue using the old version?

I can honestly say that I was blown away by the response to Witch 2.0 — going shareware solicited nothing but positive feedback, and I think it's safe to say it was an economic success as well. Given that experience, we knew: Butler 5 will be shareware. As always, past donators will get free licenses once we start distributing Butler 5 licenses; but still, this decision meant we had to raise the bar some more. If we're going to make people pay a shareware fee, the product should be worth it.

That's why we can't give you a Butler 5 beta today. We're aiming high, and we're determined to shoot high, so there's still a lot to do in terms of user interface and underlying technology improvements. Some tasks are easy yet time-consuming (e.g., commissioning new, larger icons to replace all those old 16x16 pixels icons), and others are just hard to get right (e.g., redesigning Butler's configuration window to make current Quicksilver users feel more at home). In fact, we even decided to stop working on Butler 5 for a while in order to complete and release another application named Leech first, just to make sure we wouldn't run into funding problems while working on Butler 5 as long as necessary. And that worked out really well.

There's another thing we learned from the abovementioned Witch transition, though, and that's trusting our loyal users. Witch's transition was a great success even though we didn't force anyone to update by means of a transient version or anything like that.

So let's ditch the whole "transient" concept. Today, we're releasing Butler 4.1.6, which features two noteworthy improvements:

The status window (the one that's shown in response to your entering hot keys or requesting iTunes information, for instance) no longer captures mouse clicks. In other words, you can click right through it. If you want to move the status window via click & drag, do so while holding the command key.
Typinator no longer confuses Butler's pasteboard history.

But the most important change, as alluded to above, is that this version is no longer transient or deliberately limited in any other way. And it's still donationware. Once Butler 5 is ready, we're quite confident you'll want to upgrade.

Service Scrubber 1.1.5

2008-06-27T11:12:00+02:00

No, we still can't edit signed applications on Mac OS X 10.5 without causing keychain problems (explanation), but Service Scrubber 1.1.5 features an improvement that I, personally, have been looking forward to pretty much ever since Service Scrubber was released — a serious icon.

Granted, this may seem like a nonrelevant problem to some of you, but the old preliminary icon was never meant to stay; and it has bugged me for years. So I'm deeply grateful to Lars Herrmann for creating the icon I had always envisioned.

The other improvement in this version is a French localization overhaul by Ronald Leroux. And speaking of Ronald — being donationware, this doesn't really apply to Service Scrubber; but if French is your primary language, and if you're about to buy one of our shareware applications (i.e., Leech, Witch, or yFlicks), you should definitely check out Lingua Franca for localization news. And once you're there, consider using their "Buy Now" buttons, where available. That way, Ronald will get his share of the sale, compensating for his hard work on all those French localizations.

Witch 2.0.1

2008-06-24T12:42:00+02:00

This time, it's Witch's turn to get a French localization. Moreover, version 2.0.1 sports a shiny new icon by Lars Herrmann and makes sure KeyCue no longer interferes with Witch's windows selector.

yFlicks 3.3.2

2008-06-20T14:50:00+02:00

As promised, here's yFlicks 3.3.2, which fixes a bug that resulted in a hanging yflickscrawler process and, consequently, non-working preview image creation with QuickTime 7.5 installed. This version also works around a bug in Apple's URL loading frameworks that resulted in long download connection delays under certain circumstances (background info for fellow developers: NSURLConnections based on NSMutableURLRequests don't obey their timeout setting, so we had to emulate that time-out).

And last but not least, yFlicks now speaks French. Merci beaucoup, Ronald!

---

Update: Just in case some of you French users are wondering why the sidebar categories ("Library", "Smart Groups", etc.) aren't renamed to French automatically in this version — that's because they are entirely under your thumb once you've created a library. Just rename those categories to whatever you prefer.

Leech 1.1.3

2008-06-19T10:50:00+02:00

Leech 1.1.3 is a mere bugfix release: Firstly, it fixes a Firefox integration bug that kept temporary download files from getting moved to their final location under certain conditions. And secondly, it removes stray temporary download files that remained visible after handing Camino downloads off to Leech.

On a side note, we have several other smallish updates coming up in the next few days, including one that solves a yFlicks/QuickTime 7.5 issue a lot of users have run into during the past few days. Thanks for your patience.

The archetypical download icon

2008-05-27T08:10:00+02:00

Yesterday, we were alerted to a web site that made us feel flattered: See, we have been using a black-and-white version of Leech's icon as a generic icon for all downloads on our site for a while. In fact, we started doing that even before Leech was released.

It turns out there are other developers who want to help establish Leech as a synonym for downloading: GafMedia, developers of LinkLite, didn't really ask us for permission before using our icon for their download link and copying our general download box layout, but nevertheless, we do like it.

So if you're a Mac developer looking for a download icon, feel free to use ours. For additional bonus points, tell your users they should use Leech for downloading. And we'd prefer it if you could keep the green highlight color, instead of changing it to a graphite-y one like GafMedia did.

Here's a screenshot — just in case GafMedia goes offline some day. Now if only we knew why that LinkLite page's HTML source includes Coda's download dialog.

---

Update: GafMedia has since replaced the download icon on LinkLite's product page and — most importantly — apologized for using Leech's icon without asking for permission first. We appreciate that. Regardless, we're still willing to let others use that icon. We'd just like to be notified first.

Leech 1.1.2

2008-05-26T11:29:00+02:00

Fulfilling two more major user requests, Leech 1.1.2 adds Firefox integration and Growl support.

Firefox integration is based on Giorgio Maone's excellent FlashGot Firefox/download manager hub. FlashGot is a free Mozilla/Firefox/Flock/Thunderbird extension (compatible with Netscape too), meant to handle single and massive ("all" and "selection") downloads with several external download managers. A version that supports Leech will be released as early as today. And once you have installed both Leech 1.1.2 and that new FlashGot version, you'll be able to choose Leech as your Firefox download manager from FlashGot's preferences.

As far as Growl support ist concerned, Growl will notice Leech when you launch Leech 1.1.2 for the first time. And once Leech has appeared in Growl's preferences pane, you can configure it just like any other Growl-enabled application.

And by the way: Both FlashGot and Growl are donationware projects. If you use them regularly, please consider supporting ongoing development with your donation.

Leech 1.1.1, also available on macZOT

2008-05-19T10:35:00+02:00

Here's another minor Leech update, which fulfills three more user requests — namely host-specific limiting of concurrent downloads; automatic clearing of the history when Leech quits; and private downloading, which means anonymized download names in Leech's main window and omitting downloads from the history.

And today is the perfect day to give Leech a try, by the way, because it's macZOT's promo of the day. So get Leech now and save 48% — this offer is only valid today.

Leech 1.1

2008-05-15T17:43:00+02:00

After a week of gathering feedback for the initial release, here's Leech 1.1. We're pretty sure you'll like this update.

The most important improvement, in our opinion, is browser integration. Before releasing Leech 1.0, we weren't sure if doing this was actually a good idea, because Safari doesn't have any official plug-in interface, which makes each and every Safari enhancment a more or less dangerous hack. But your feedback was quite clear, so we changed our collective mind and implemented seamless integration for Safari, Camino, and OmniWeb by means of a SIMBL plug-in. If you're using things like PithHelmet or 1password, SIMBL is already installed on your Mac. And we certainly made an effort to make this as failure-safe as possible. So go ahead, enable browser integration from within Leech, and all your browser downloads will be handed off to Leech automatically.

Further improvements are a rule system to define individual download folders as well as applications to open complete downloads based on a given download's file type and host; a searchable downloads history I'm particularly proud of; various minor improvements and bugfixes; and a French localization.

Oh, and if you have been using another download manager up to now, check out our "Switch!" offer on Leech's product page.

Safari Size Guardian 1.0; Mother's Day

2008-05-10T10:40:00+02:00

While working on browser integration for Leech (the update will be available as early as next week), I came across a solution for another issue that's been bugging me for years: unsolicited JavaScript window resizing in Safari. So if you — like me — despise web sites that think they know your browser window partialities better than you do, have a look at this little hack named Safari Size Guardian.

In other news, tomorrow is Mother's Day in quite a lot of countries all over the planet. If you're still looking for a gift, have a look at macZOT's Mother's Day Sixpack, which includes TubiTunes. (You can also buy that SixPack for yourself. We won't tell.)

Leech 1.0

2008-05-07T13:52:00+02:00

We've hinted at this before, and now it's here: Check out Leech, our new download manager.

Leech gives you complete control over your downloads. You can queue, pause and resume downloads, download from password-protected servers and store your passwords in your system-wide, secure keychain. And you won't have to worry about downloads that were disrupted by a crashing browser ever again.

Have a look at Leech's shiny new product page for more info.

Making Room (Open-With Manager 0.9.2)

2008-04-30T07:50:00+02:00

While preparing for the release of an entirely new application next week, we realized that this site's current homepage layout had reached its limits. So we're changing it, and in doing so, we're taking the opportunity to give easier access to some minor projects, which we call baubleries.

What are these baubleries? Key Codes has always been accessible from our homepage, and we've blogged about Displaperture and the more or less obsolete Menu Bar Tint a few times.

But you may have never heard about Open-With Manager before — despite the fact that this little critter is roughly three years old. So if you're interested in a utility that lets you edit the list of file types a given application thinks it can open (which, in turn, influences the Finder's "Open with" context menu and the application's drag & drop behavior in the Dock), check it out. Just make sure you've read the warning at the bottom of the product page before using it.

Status Report: Witch Shareware Transition

2008-04-24T20:12:00+02:00

We have sent out Witch licenses to all donators we found in our database. So if you have donated for Witch but haven't received your license yet, let us know. We know that some of you are still missing out, because some of those license e-mails bounced back.

Fun fact: Witch made more money on its first shareware day than it did during all those donationware years. I guess it's safe to say that — while being a beautiful concept in theory — donationware isn't exactly the best way to get rich.

yFlicks: 50% Off, Instant Replay

2008-04-23T10:00:00+02:00

A funny thing happened yesterday, when yFlicks was promoted on macZOT: yFlicks drew so much attention, it killed macZOT's bandwidth. In fact, they are still struggling to stay online. And as a result, some of you couldn't get the rebate.

What do we do about this? We do an instant replay. Get yFlicks now — the 50% rebate is available for another day. And don't forget that buying yFlicks means getting TubiTunes for free.

Witch 2.0

2008-04-22T12:25:00+02:00

There's a problem with Witch: In terms of usage, it's a simple utility; and there's not a lot of spiffy new features we would want to add to its straightforward functionality. But under the hood, things change. There's a lot of things you can or even have to do to make sure Witch remains reliable when faced with future versions of Mac OS X. That's why Witch 2.0 may seem like a small step to you, but judging from the developer's point of view, it's not.

Now, you know how these things go: Whenever someone tells you how he is working really hard for something, there's a certain chance he'll end up asking you for money. And that's exactly what I'm going to do today — after having thought about it four months.

Witch has been distributed as donationware for years, and it was a great time. I loved how users who just couldn't afford paying more than $2 were able to donate those $2 and feel good about it. I know I always did. But in the long run, it doesn't really work. If I'm supposed to keep Witch up to date, it will have to be worthwhile; and donationware doesn't cut it.

Too many users misunderstand my idea of donationware as freeware, and this problem is aggravated by the fact that most Mac news sites and software update providers aren't willing to make a difference between donationware and freeware. I've argued with some of them for years, to no avail. And I understand their point of view. Donationware is hardly an unequivocal term; and if I were to sell a magazine or make a news site successful, I'd probably prefer to allure customers with huge freeware collections, too.

So let's get rid of the uncertainty that always surrounds donationware. Witch 2.0 is shareware, and you're expected to pay €9.95 if you plan on using it regularly — unless you've already donated for Witch, that is. For us, appreciating past donations from our most loyal supporters is a question of honor.

We'll start sending out Witch licenses to those who have supported Witch in the past during the next few days. But if you can't wait, or if you get the feeling we might have forgotten to add you to our list, feel free to drop us a message. For example, I remember receiving some donations via snail mail years ago, and I'm not sure if I can still attribute those to e-mail addresses.

---

Whew. Now, what are the actual changes in Witch 2.0 — apart from that fancy new license field in Witch's preference pane? As I've said, you won't even notice most of the changes right now, and in addition to those under-the-hood things, there's one feature we really wanted to add, but couldn't: full spaces support. Witch appears in all of your spaces now, but it remains agnostic of which space a given window is in. We just haven't found a reliable way to gain that piece of information yet — it's as if the mighty Apple doesn't want applications to know which space they live in.

But there's also good news: We've added shortcuts for jumping to windows directly (see "Behavior" > "Windows List" > "Show shortcut badges"). So if you want to activate the 7th window in Witch's list, type "6", and you're there. (We're starting with "0" for the current window.)

And we're very happy to report that we've fixed one of the meanest bugs ever — namely the one that sometimes garbled the windows list's sorting order when sorting by window activity, a.k.a. "the iTerm bug".

yFlicks 3.3.1; TubiTunes 1.0.1; Desktop Curtain 1.1

2008-04-22T11:05:00+02:00

We have four updates for you today, and we'll divide these into two blog entries, because the fourth one needs more detailed explaining.

Let's start with these two: Just in time to meet today's 50%-off macZOT promo, both yFlicks and TubiTunes are now capable of downloading the higher-quality MPEG-4 file for a given movie from YouTube, if available. Other than that, we've just squashed some bugs — including a particularly embarrassing one: TubiTunes's automatic update checker didn't actually check for updates automatically.

What are the other two updates? Desktop Curtain is now ready to deal with multiple screens and spaces. And Witch 2.0 is detailed here.

yFlicks 3.3; TubiTunes 1.0

2008-03-20T09:00:00+02:00

There are quite a number of improvements in yFlicks 3.3: First of all, our eye candy department wants you to know that you can now browse your movies in coverflow mode (Mac OS X 10.5 only, sorry). And if you're using yFlicks's Usher mode to have Front Row display your movies in a hierarchical fashion, you will be pleased to hear that yFlicks can now include your iTunes movies in its library. Apple doesn't want us to play back movies you've bought from the iTunes store, but you will be able to organize those movies in your smart groups nevertheless.

In other news, we've added something we had been promising since yFlicks 1.0: more conversion/export options. You're no longer restricted to exporting to MPEG-4, and converting a movie no longer blocks yFlicks. We've also improved the web video downloading mechanism quite significantly. Downloading those movies is now much less likely to fail, as we've added something we like to call the generic web media detector. Said detector not only makes yFlicks work with a lot more video sites than before, it also supports things like downloading MP3 files from MySpace, for instance. And once you've downloaded a web video, you can now have yFlicks convert that video to something your iPhone/iPod can work with automatically.

In fact, we've come to the conclusion that yFlicks's downloading and conversion functionality might also appeal to users who don't want to organize those web videos in yFlicks — e.g., because they're doing it in iTunes. So we created a spin-off, which focuses on just that: downloading and converting movies. Say hello to TubiTunes, the easiest-to-use web video downloader and movie converter ever.

And if you think that TubiTunes is close to being a light-weight download manager, you're perfectly right. It would be ridiculously easy to develop TubiTunes into a download manager, and if we ever did this, even the application icon would be quite similar to TubiTunes's icon. We'll see.

---

Background info for fellow developers: When implementing coverflow in yFlicks, I was faced with a challenge that made my head ache for a while. I wanted this to be based on CoreAnimation, and I wanted yFlicks to still run on Mac OS X 10.4. What I've eventually come up with is a plug-in bundle named PMFlowView, which is only loaded and used when yFlicks runs on Mac OS X 10.5. It communicates with the actual application by means of a protocol that will sound very familiar to anyone who's ever used a NSTableView, and since it's a stand-alone component, it can be used with virtually any application. If this sounds appealing to you, have a look at PMFlowView's essential header file; and if you're interested in using PMFlowView in one of your own projects, feel free to contact us.

Key Codes 1.0.2

2008-02-18T16:05:00+02:00

We know most users weren't exactly dying to get this update, but we've been asked for it, so here you go: Key Codes 1.0.2 is still a very, very basic key code explorer application that comes in handy when developing Mac OS X applications. The news is: It's a universal binary now.

Name Mangler 2.0

2008-02-14T15:45:00+02:00

Why is there a version 2.0 of an application you've never even heard of before? Here's why: This is the successor of the batch rename utility with the lamest name ever — File List. And File List didn't just have a name that wasn't much help in figuring out what the application actually did. It also had an outdated user interface, it didn't run natively on Intel processors, and it had an icon that was actually a scaled screenshot.

So we fixed all these issues, and now that we're done, we think we just created the best file renamer ever. Meet Name Mangler.