About the Release Notes
Want to know what has changed since a previous version? This page lists those changes. You can alter the range of release notes to display if you wish.
The latest release of Simon is version 2.5.6.
Simon 2.5.6
(Release 2052): released 2010-03-08; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Snow Leopard-ready
- Changed the reports to trim off the filename for the OutputLocation report variable when using the file:// protocol, to avoid breaking reports like the iPhone template.
- The License window is now brought to the front when the application is activated, if it is open, to avoid it being mistakenly hidden behind the Montor window (e.g. if it is automatically hidden).
- Fixed an issue with counting the number of active tests, where it was mistakenly counting "waiting" tests as active, even if they're normally paused.
- Added a hidden preference to output debug information about the internet connection (for use with the automatic offline mode). It can be activated by entering "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 InternetConnectionDebugMode YES" in Terminal.
Simon 2.5.5
(Release 2051): released 2009-11-25; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Snow Leopard-ready
- Fixed a bug introduced in version 2.5.4 with the license regeneration feature, that affected a small number of customers. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Simon 2.5.4
(Release 2050): released 2009-11-23; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Snow Leopard-ready
- Fixed an issue with the Calendar plug-in that caused a conflict with the SMS plug-in on Snow Leopard.
- Fixed a bug in the license regeneration feature that could cause minor back-end issues when diacritical characters are used.
Simon 2.5.3
(Release 2049): released 2009-09-10; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Snow Leopard-ready
- 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.
- Enhanced Snow Leopard compatibility.
Simon 2.5.2
(Release 2048): released 2009-06-16; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Leopard-ready
- Added exception handling to the Web plug-in, to catch any low-level errors that occur there. Mac OS X 10.5.7 seemed to introduce a bug with URL connections that could sometimes get stuck when reading cookies.
- Added a hidden preference to output debug information from the Web plug-in. It can be activated by entering "defaults write com.dejal.simon2 WebDebugMode YES" in Terminal.
- Updated the Twitter plug-in to use the latest version of the MGTwitterEngine, which fixes issues related to the Twitpocalypse. Simon wasn't affected, as it always fetches the latest tweets, but good to be up-to-date anyway.
- Changed the Report output to avoid making URLs lowercased when outputting the Location variable.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent finding licenses in very rare circumstances.
Simon 2.5.1
(Release 2047): released 2009-02-20; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Leopard-ready
- Fixed a bug that could sometimes prevent the new SMS notifier plug-in from loading.
- Minor tweak to the SMS plug-in UI layout.
- Removed the Spanish localization, since it hasn't been updated (if anyone wants to take over maintaining it, let us know).
Simon 2.5
(Release 2046): released 2009-02-15; requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Universal Binary; Leopard-ready
Services and Notifiers:
- Added a SMS notifier plug-in to send Simon notifications as text messages to your phone. It has two modes of operation: via the Clickatell SMS gateway service, or via email to your phone provider. For both methods, this plug-in enables you to easily add multiple phone numbers to send messages to, and you can pick them from your Address Book if desired. Clickatell is a paid service; you need to sign up for an account with them, and they charge for each message. The email mode is free, other than any charges you may incur for receiving text messages. This plug-in was kindly written by Daniel Ellis.
- Renamed the Basic plug-in as Web, and extended it to also act as a notifier. So you can now use it to get or post to a web page when a change, failure or recovery occurs, e.g. to run a PHP script to log a failure or perform some other action.
- Added a S.M.A.R.T. Status service. This script checks the S.M.A.R.T. status of all mounted disk volumes, ignoring volumes that don't support reporting S.M.A.R.T. status. Results in a failure if a problem is detected.
- Added a Drive Status service. A script service to check drive capacity threshold, S.M.A.R.T. status, and RAID health. A more comprehensive check than the S.M.A.R.T. Status service. Results in a failure if a problem is detected. Kindly written by Scott Haneda.
- Added a Pulse service. This script simply causes every check to result in a change. This can be useful, for example, to have Simon email you (via a change notifier) at a desired frequency, to reassure you that Simon is on the job.
- Added a Post to Simon Wall notifier. This is a demo of the Web plug-in operating as a notifier. It does a Post to the Dejal website, adding a line to the Simon Wall page. You are welcome to use this notifier if you wish, or can duplicate and modify it to post elsewhere.
- The E-mail notifier now alerts you if the To or From fields aren't filled in, since that is a common cause of issues.
- Changed the E-mail notifier plug-in when using the Automatic method to connect to the sender's SMTP server instead of the recipient's, since that is more correct.
- Added Automatically add www. and .com if omitted checkbox to the Web plug-in's Service options. It is on by default, but you can turn it off to disable this automatic formatting if you need to enter a URL without a top-level domain, e.g. for WebDav.
- Fixed a bug in the Web plug-in's handling of the parameters and cookies tables, where an exception could prevent adding new ones when editing existing tests.
- Fixed a bug with loading new default services and notifiers, where they could vanish after relaunching if no changes were made manually after updating. If you deleted any of these, they may re-appear with this update; just delete them again, and they won't re-appear.
Reports:
- Changed the URL display in the Save Locally report plug-in to be an editable URL, like in the Upload to Remote Server one. This enables you to edit the URL if you have a domain name for your local machine, or want to use a different variation of a file:// URL, perhaps to use localhost instead of the machine name. Clear the field to go back to an automatically determined URL.
- Changed the Save Locally report plug-in to replace any periods in the machine name with a dash, to avoid an invalid URL.
- Added LastChangeTextWithHTML and LastChangeTextWithoutHTML report variables for the Test block, so you can display the full text of the test output (between the Start and End Smart Change Detection blocks, if any).
- When a report is deleted, it now immediately stops outputting and removes its timer to avoid reporting again, as you'd expect.
Other:
- Added a Convert Domain/IP command to the Edit menu. If a field with a domain name or IP address is active, this command will change the domain name into the corresponding IP address, or vice versa. If there are multiple possible matches, a menu is displayed to enable you to choose the best one. Note that converting a domain to an IP then back to a domain may result in a different domain, if it is on a shared hosting server.
- Changed the Add/Remove buttons below tables in the Preferences, Web (HTTP) and Script plug-ins to use small square buttons instead of round ones, to fit with the modern convention.
- Fixed a rare issue where some plug-in settings could be unexpectedly modified when canceling an editor.
- 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).
- Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
- Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
- Updated the French and German localizations.