I've just done bug-fix updates to a couple of my Mac apps. Caboodle, my lean clean snippet machine, was updated (actually late last week) to version 1.3.5. And BlogAssist, my handy HTML markup tool, was updated to version 2.2.4.

Both of them included a fix for an issue with looking up licenses in certain situations. BlogAssist also enhanced the application icon to 512x512 size, for ideal viewing on Snow Leopard. (Caboodle's icon was updated to 512x512 in the previous update.)

• Download Caboodle 1.3.5 now
• Download BlogAssist 2.2.4 now

I'm pleased to announce that Dejal Simon, my flagship server monitoring app, is featured in the fifth TheMacBundles collection. Plus, for a limited time, Dejal BlogAssist, my handy HTML markup tool, is also included as a bonus app.

Dejal Simon is the essential site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks servers for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, Twitter, or other means. You can use it to track updated sites, and to alert you when an important server goes down or recovers.

The bundle includes the full Simon Standard license — normally $59.95!

BlogAssist is a handy tool to help weblog and website editing by making HTML markup easier. comes with several useful operations, including web and e-mail links, bold/italics/strikethrough/etc, LiveJournal tags, and more. But you aren't limited to those — you can add, change, or remove them via the Operations Preferences.

You can see more of them on the Simon and BlogAssist pages.

This bundle also includes 10 other fine apps, for only $49.95. A bargain! Especially since you're getting a Standard license for Simon — for less than it normally costs by itself.

The included apps are:

• iPhoto Library Manager
• MYStuff
• MyTunesRSS
• PDFClerk Pro
• Simon
• Spyder
• WebPrint Plus
• Yum
• Yummy FTP

Plus bonuses:

• A-Dock X
• BlogAssist
• FolderGlance

12 apps for just $49.95 — a saving of over 85%!

Visit TheMacBundles.com to learn more, or to take advantage of this great deal.

Announcing maintenance updates for Dejal Simon, my essential server monitoring tool, Time Out, my break reminder tool, Caboodle, my lean clean snippet machine, and BlogAssist, my handy HTML markup assistant.

Each update includes improvements for Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) compatibility. I'm not aware of any remaining compatibility issues with these products — please let me know ASAP if you do find anything.

Note: Narrator is still partially incompatible with Snow Leopard. It all works, except it can't open documents saved in its native format (but can still open other kinds of documents). I have a Developer Technical Support incident request in with Apple's engineers to help me solve this, but I'm sure they're swamped with queries at present, so who knows how long they'll take to come up with a solution. The last word I have is that it seems to be a bug in Snow Leopard... so we might have to wait for 10.6.2 or later, but I'm hoping that a workaround can be found. [Edit: 10.6.1 doesn't fix it, either.] I'll do a free update as soon as a fix is available. Sorry for any inconvenience in the meantime!

In addition to Snow Leopard compatibility, Simon also includes some other changes:

• Updated the iPhone Report Template to improve the behavior of the back button and other aspects.
• Added a hidden preference to output debug information from the E-mail plug-in. It can be activated by entering "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 EmailDebugMode YES" in Terminal.
• Also added a hidden E-mail plug-in preference to use the recipient's SMTP server instead of the sender's, via "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 EmailUseRecipientServer YES".
• Added Japanese localization, thanks to Koichi Matsumoto.

Download now:

• Download Simon
• Download Time Out
• Download Caboodle
• Download BlogAssist

Good news: most Dejal apps work fine on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).

One issue that you may find with Caboodle and BlogAssist is that the Services menu has been enhanced, and the items for those apps might be disabled by default. You can re-enable them via the Keyboard Shortcuts page of the Keyboard system preferences.

However, it's not all good news. Narrator seems to be broken on Snowy. Opening a document fails, whether it was saved on Leopard or Snow Leopard. The document opens, but no content is loaded. It still opens version 1 documents fine, but not version 2's, which is rather a problem.

I've spent several hours last night and this morning trying to figure out what the problem is, without any luck so far. I'll keep on it, but just wanted to warn anyone using Narrator.

Once again, Seth Dillingham is offering bundles as a fund-raiser for the Pan-Mass Challenge, which supports cancer research and treatment. A very worthy cause.

Unlike typical software bundles, where hundreds or thousands of people might get a fixed collection of apps at a discount, this one is a bit different: you can use his Bundle Builder site to make your personal ideal bundle of iPhone and/or Mac apps, and offer your own price for it.

I am happy to participate in this effort again this year. A Standard license is available for Dejal Simon, my essential server monitoring tool, along with licenses for Dejal Caboodle, my lean clean snippet machine, Dejal Narrator, my fun app to speak stories in multiple voices, and Dejal BlogAssist, my handy HTML markup tool. Plus hundreds of other great products from other developers.

Go ahead, take a look, and put together your ideal bundle of apps, and help fight cancer!

As you may have read from the recent version 2.2.2 release of BlogAssist, I increased the price by $5 to $14.95 for an Individual license, to better reflect its value. As discussed, it really should be higher, but I felt a small increment was better at this stage. I will likely bump up the price a bit more with the next major upgrade (no date announced for that yet).

I also indicated that you can still get it at the old price for a limited time, only via the Dejal Store.

Today, I'd like to announce that the price of Caboodle, my handy snippet organizer, is also going up by $5 to $19.95 for an Individual license. At $14.95, it is significantly under-priced, when competing apps are often around $50.

You can also get Caboodle at the old price via the Dejal Store for now. This offer is only available for a short time, though, so if you're interested in Caboodle, I recommend buying soon.

I have big plans for both of these apps: both will see significant enhancements within the next year. For Caboodle, I'd like to add a companion iPhone app to view and (hopefully) edit entries remotely — with full syncing between iPhone and Mac apps, and between multiple Macs. Along with a refactoring of the UI and data models, and more.

I don't plan on adjusting the prices of other apps at this stage; Simon and Narrator both seem priced about right.

As always, I welcome feedback about these changes, either via comments here or private feedback.

Announcing an update to my handy HTML markup tool, BlogAssist.

This is technically a bug-fix release, but has some changes that have been much requested, and takes the unusual step of increasing the price slightly — but you can still buy it at the old price for a limited time via the Dejal Store. It also increased the minimum system requirements to Tiger, as per my standard policy for updates now: all apps will drop Panther support as they are updated. The previous version, that supports 10.3.9, is still available for those who have old machines, though.

I decided to bump up the price slightly mainly because it is way too cheap for what it does. Even at the new prices, it is really too cheap — it should be more like $25. But increasing prices too much in this economy doesn't seem like a sensible idea. :) Even at the new price, it's still a bargain, and I hope it won't cause any hesitation. I have lots of ideas for future enhancements, so a more sustainable price helps support future work.

Here are the changes in version 2.2.2:

• Pressing Enter in the Services window will now always work as an equivalent for the OK button, instead of inserting a new line in the active field (pressing Return will still do so, though).
• No longer always adds itself to the Login Items on launch. Still does so on the first launch (when running from the Applications folder), as a convenience, but not after that. You can toggle the preference off or on as desired.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent finding licenses in very rare circumstances.
• Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
• Prices increased slightly (get at the old price via the Dejal Store for a short time!).
• Now requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

Download BlogAssist now!

The Mac Bundle Box promotion ends soon. Get in quickly to avoid disappointment!

The bundle includes several great applications for just $49.00! An amazing deal. Plus 5% of each sale will be donated to Charity: Water.

My own BlogAssist is also included as a free bonus. BlogAssist is a very handy app that I use daily when writing blog posts and forum replies. It very easily adds HTML markup around text on the clipboard, or highlighted text in an app.

Visit the Mac Bundle Box site today to take advantage of this great deal, while it lasts!

The fourth Mac Bundle Box, a collection of 13 great applications, is now available!

$333.82 worth of software for the low price of just $49.00! An amazing deal. Plus 5% of each sale will be donated to Charity: Water.

The bundle includes my own BlogAssist as a free bonus. BlogAssist is a very handy app that I use daily when writing blog posts and forum replies. It very easily adds HTML markup around text on the clipboard, or highlighted text in an app.

Visit the Mac Bundle Box site to take advantage of this great deal, while it lasts!

BlogAssist, my handy tool to add HTML tags to text via the clipboard, dragging to a floating window, or inline via the Services menu, has been updated to version 2.2.1:

• Removed commas as a separator for repeating lists, to avoid problems with commas in paragraphs, and added bullet and vertical bar as alternatives (in addition to return, linefeed, and tab).
• Fixed a bug that required a click before the output of the Services window would appear in the destination document.
• Fixed an issue with the Preferences window, where edits might not be saved when quitting with the window still open (specifically when an edit is still active).
• Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.

This is a recommended update for everyone.

Download now!

BlogAssist version 2.2 is now in general release. It adds some much-requested features and fixes:

• Added a much-requested feature: the ability to have repeating formatting. For example, you can now create an ordered or unordered list simply by using a list of items as your source value, and similarly with multiple HTML paragraphs via multiple paragraphs of text. The list items can be delimited by Return or LF characters, tabs, or commas. It automatically strips off any existing list markers: it recognizes a dash, asterisk or bullet, or any short first word ending in a punctuation character. What's more, you can have lists in either the Value1 or Value2 fields (in the floating and Services windows); it will repeat the block for the number of items in the longer list, using the last (or only) item in the other field for any shortfall. So text like "1. This is an item, 2. Another item, (3) A third item" becomes properly formatted HTML.
• The Paragraph, Unordered List, and Ordered List operations are automatically upgraded to use the new repeating block mechanism. You can easily add it to any other operations where it seems useful.
• Added a new List of Links operation, that outputs an unordered list containing web links, using the new repeating feature. Use a list of labels in Value1 (e.g. "Simon, Time Out, Caboodle"), and a list of corresponding URLs in Value2 (e.g. "http://www.dejal.com/simon/, http://www.dejal.com/timeout/, http://www.dejal.com/caboodle/").
• Added an Insert Variable drop-down menu to the Operations Preferences. This allows easily inserting variables and begin/end repeating block markers in the selected operation text.
• The Operations Preferences table now used dynamic row heights, so multi-line operations are fully visible.
• Improved the floating BlogAssist window to avoid using unnecessary processor time when drawing the web preview.
• Fixed a cosmetic bug with the Check for Updates feature when using a general release and wanting only general releases, and a beta release is available.
• Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
• Updated the French and German localizations.

Download BlogAssist 2.2 now!

BlogAssist, my always-present HTML markup assistant, now has a new beta release.

Version 2.2 adds a much-requested feature: the ability to repeat part of a markup operation, e.g. for ordered or unordered lists of items.

It's even intelligent enough to strip off any existing list prefix like a dash, bullet, number, etc, and supports lists from both value fields.

This version also adds an Insert Variable drop-down menu to the Operations preferences, to make inserting variables easier (plus it shows many variables you probably didn't know existed).

Read the release notes for details.

Download version 2.2b1 now!

BlogAssist version 2.1.2 is now available.

BlogAssist is a helpful tool; it adds a system menu (on the right-hand-side of the menubar) with a list of operations that can be performed on text. You can copy some text, choose an operation, and paste -- the text will be marked up based on the chosen operation. The operations include HTML and forum markup. If you prefer, a floating palette is also available (to drag the text), or you can mark up inline by selecting text in your web browser or editor application, hitting Cmd->, and choosing the operation in a small window that appears, then click OK to substitute it right in the app.

Very handy... I use BlogAssist daily. For example, the product icon, release notes link, and download link in this blog post were generated very simply by BlogAssist.

Anyway, this update adds German localization, improves the French localization, plus a few other changes.

Download now!

All the cool kids are doing it, so it must be my turn....

Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" is available tomorrow. It's a great update, that I've mostly enjoyed using for the past few months, so I highly recommend it to everyone. But an important consideration is always: will my existing software run on the new OS version? So here's a summary of the Leopard compatibility status of Dejal products, as far as I'm aware.

I should point out that this is based on a recent seed (pre-release version): Mac developers don't get the final version of Leopard any sooner than you do... and in fact get it later if they wait for the copy Apple sends as part of the Apple Developer Connection membership. There's been a bit of an uproar about that, but it was the same with Tiger, and will probably be the same again with the next big cat. Such is life.

Simon: My website and server monitoring tool runs fine under Leopard. It has been updated to use Leopard's window style for the Monitor window when running under 10.5, or the custom window style under 10.4 or 10.3.9. I plan on making several more Leopard improvements in a future version.

Time Out: Version 1.5 of this break reminder app was released not long ago, which added Leopard compatibility. It has no known issues with 10.5. Work on version 2 is underway (though currently paused); you can expect that in Q1 2008. It will require a minimum of 10.5, as it leverages several Leopard technologies.

Caboodle: This handy snippet-keeper app is also Leopard-ready as of the current release, version 1.1.2. I have big plans for Caboodle over the coming year, once I've done the other updates.

Narrator: My fun speech synthesis app hasn't been updated for a number of years, but appears to run okay under Leopard. I am currently working on a long-overdue new version of it -- actually a complete rewrite. The new version requires a minimum of Leopard. Watch the Dejal blog for more information about that as it progresses.

BlogAssist: This useful HTML markup tool is Leopard-ready as of the current release, version 2.1.1. It will also see some improvements in 2008, using technology being developed for Time Out.

Macfilink: My affiliate link cloaking app hasn't had an update for Leopard yet, but it seems to work okay. I haven't decided what to do for its next update, but it's possible I'll replace the data storage with Core Data for the Leopard update. It's the lowest priority, as this app does one job and does it very well as-is, so it doesn't need much tinkering.

So there you go. I hope you enjoy Leopard as much as I do. Please let me know if you discover any compatibility issues, but as far as Dejal products are concerned, you should be good to go!

Macfilink has now been updated to version 1.4.1, and BlogAssist has been updated to version 2.1.1.

These updates just include some minor changes and fixes that other apps have already received, plus some minor tweaks to ensure compatibility with Leopard, aka Mac OS X 10.5, for those running the developer beta (as I am) or to make the transition smoother when you eventually upgrade.

They are recommended updates for all Macfilink and BlogAssist users... and of course recommended apps for everyone else, too. :)

Just a quick note to say that the general releases of Macfilink version 2.4 and BlogAssist version 2.1 are now available. Click the links to read the release notes to see what has changed.

BlogAssist version 2.1b2 has now been released.

As discussed in my previous blog entry, this version adds a handy new Services menu option, allowing pressing < to quickly access BlogAssist, using the selected text, and have the marked-up text drop back into your document (or web form field).

For example, to add those links above, I went to the BlogAssist release notes page to find the URL, copied it, typed "released" back here in my blog entry page (which I create in a form like for forum posts) and selected that word, then hit < to display the BlogAssist Services panel. The Web Link operation was already selected, with the selected text and URL already in place, so I just clicked OK and the selected text was replaced with the marked-up HTML, and I'm done. Took about two seconds.

This is a great usability improvement, often easier to use than the other available options, of copying, selecting from the BlogAssist system menu, and pasting... or dragging to the floating BlogAssist window and back. Those other methods are still available, since they are also useful depending on the situation and personal preferences.

If you're still typing HTML (or forum codes) manually, you owe it to yourself to give BlogAssist a try!

I want to include the occasional programming topic in the Dejal blog, when I encounter something that may be of interest to other Mac developers. Here's my first one.

A while back, I added a Check for Updates... window that displays a WebView of release notes, much like on my site. It works rather well. However, if a beta release has expired, I wanted it to display it modally. But for some strange reason the WebView didn't load when the window was run modally. I couldn't find a solution at the time, so I just had it redirect to the website.

I came across this issue again tonight, while adding Services support to BlogAssist. I'm introducing a handy new feature where you can just hit < in any app to display a modal panel like the existing floating window. It includes a WebView to preview how the marked-up HTML will appear. I really didn't want to have to sacrifice that.

So I found a solution: tickle the runloop! It turns out that the WebView will only work on the main loop. So rather than just call -runModalForWindow:, I use the more verbose -beginModalSessionForWindow: / -runModalSession: / -endModalSession: loop. And the key to keeping the WebView happy: call -limitDateForMode: each time around the loop, so the main loop keeps on truckin'.

Here's the code:

I hope this helps others with this dilemma.

I've just released beta updates of Caboodle, BlogAssist and Macfilink. These releases are mainly part of rolling out the new Dejal logo, though they include some other tweaks too. See the release notes for details.

I've just released Simon version 2.2c7, which hopefully will be the last general candidate release, and the last release of 2006.

I currently plan to do the general release next week, after finishing migrating my custom PHP-driven web pages to the new host, launching my new logo, and releasing beta versions of Caboodle 1.1, BlogAssist 2.1, and Macfilink 1.4. I'll also continue work on Time Out 2. It'll be a busy week.