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 5.1.1.

• Added a Help ▸ Simon Extras command to allow quickly getting to the new Simon Extras page.
• Reimplemented the Upload to Remote Server plug-in to use a helper app, to improve efficiency and avoid occasional instability.
• Fixed a cosmetic glitch that could occasionally occur with the Reports section of the New/Edit Test window.
• This is a general release candidate. Please let me know of any issues.

• Improved the Upload to Remote Server report plug-in to show its progress in the Reports window, to allow stopping it, to support creating parent directories if necessary, to significantly speed up the uploading on subsequent occasions, plus many other internal improvements.
• Improved the Stylish report template. Now centers the tables, and displays new changes in green and current failures in red on the summary page. If you've used Simon 2.1 before, see the new Simon Extras page to download the updated template. You can submit your own template designs via that page, too.
• Added a new RSS Feed report template. It outputs the summary as a standard RSS feed, with links to detail pages. Beta users can get it via the new Simon Extras page.
• Added a new Embedded report template. It outputs the summary as just a table, so it can be included in another web page via PHP or other server-side inclusion. An example file and instructions are included.
• Added report global variables for OutputLocation, that evaluates to the URL where the report is saved or uploaded, and OutputName, that results in the last path component of that location (i.e. the directory where the report is being output).
• Added report test variables for Changed, that outputs "Changed" for a new change, otherwise blank, and similarly Failed that outputs "Failed" for a current failure, otherwise blank. Used (as one example) to change CSS classes for such rows in the Stylish template.
• Added a report parameter for icons, links, etc to indicate what the path should be relative to, with values "self" (default) or "parent" (which inserts the OutputName in the path; useful for the new Embedded template).
• Added a File ▸ Reset Reports Cache... command that deletes the "Report Cache" folder from the data folder. Useful if you manually change the output report files, since Simon tracks which files need outputting based on the last output.
• Changed the underlying implementation of the Port plug-in to improve efficiency.
• Disabled the Show Source feature for the Port service, as it no longer works with the improved service plug-in handling.
• When checking all tests, or multiple at once, Simon now waits for one second between starting each, to spread out the load.
• Added a slider to the Advanced preferences page to control the new interval between starting checks; you can set to zero to restore the old behavior, or up to 10 seconds.
• Enhanced the E-mail notifier to support an Automatic transport option, which is now the default. If chosen, Simon will attempt to use the SMTP server specified in the computer's mail settings, which will usually be valid if you have used Apple Mail or a similar mailer. The custom SMTP and Sendmail options still remain in case you want to override this.
• Enhanced the Speech notifier to avoid multiple notifiers speaking over the top of each other. They will now wait their turn.
• Fixed an occasional crasher after closing the Preview window while a page is still loading.
• Integrated the French localization.
• This is a general release candidate. Please let me know of any issues with any of the above or other features.

• Improved the Upload to Remote Server report plug-in. It now supports uploading directories, so will work with the Stylish template. It still requires that the parent path exists on your server (by default "public_html/simon"). It takes a while to upload, as it always uploads all image files (if any); this will be further improved in a future beta.
• Improved the default name and path for the report plug-in settings.
• Fixed several places where an unexpected termination could occur if an error is encountered with the Upload to Remote Server report plug-in.
• Fixed a crasher while reporting due to multithreading issues.
• Fixed a crasher with the Port service in rare situations.
• Prepared for French localization.

• Created an Upload to Remote Server report plug-in. It will output the reports to a remote server via FTP, so you can view them in a web browser on a different computer — anywhere with web access. Note, at present the plug-in doesn't support creating remote directories, which means you need to create the directory to upload it to on your server before running the report for the first time, and you need to use a template that doesn't use sub-directories (e.g. the revised "Simple" one — delete your Report Templates folder to get it if you tried the first beta). This limitation will be removed in a future beta release.
• Added report templates that demonstrate a CSS-based report, a report for viewing on a PDA or phone, and a tab-delimited text report.
• Reports now support "images" and/or "resources" folders in the templates. If these folders are present, they and their contents are copied to the output location when the report is done (only for the Save Locally plug-in at present).
• Added report variables for Tab, LineFeed (and LF), Return (and CR), ReturnLineFeed (and CRLF) to allow inserting those characters into the output. They can of course also be just typed.
• Added a report variable parameter of Encode, which can be either "html" or "text". It is "text" by default for all variables except the Test block's LastDifference and the Change block's Difference. When it is "html", "<" and ">" characters are encoded to avoid treating as HTML tag delimiters. You should only need this parameter when creating non-HTML report templates with those two variables.
• Added support for using either "index" or "summary" as the filename (with any extension) for the Summary page. Normally you'd use "index", but "summary" could be tidier for a text-based report.
• Added support for using either files or sub-directories for the Detail pages. If there is folder called "detail" in the template folder, it uses directories with the names of each test, each with an "index" file (with any extension) within. If there is instead a file called "detail" (with any extension) in the template folder, it uses files with the names of each test and the same extension. See the provided templates for examples.
• Added report global variables for PageKind, that outputs "Summary" or "Detail", plus DetailsInDirectories and DetailsExtension to help with page generation (you shouldn't need to use them).
• Added report global variables LineNumber and LineOddEven. The former outputs the 1-based number of the current line for repeating blocks; the latter outputs "Odd" or "Even" based on the line number — useful for alternating row colors via CSS (see the new "Stylish" template for an example).
• Changed the way the reports are generated and cached prior to output, to be more efficient and flexible.
• Added a new General preference to allow disabling the unviewed indicator on the Dock icon and status menu.
• Renamed the View Options checkbox for the Unviewed column.
• The optional Last Difference column in the Tests table now remembers its value between quits.
• Fixed a bug from the initial beta, where a test couldn't be added if there were no reports available.
• Fixed the Delete function for the Reports window.
• Fixed some File menu item names when the Reports window is frontmost.
• Fixed an issue with the Save Locally report plug-in where it wasn't remembering sub-directories of the standard locations.

• Added a significant new feature: HTML reporting. Simon can now generate HTML pages at a specified frequency (e.g. every 5 minutes) to let you watch it remotely. By default, reports include a Summary page that is similar to the main Tests table in the Simon Monitor window, listing the included tests and the status and time since the last change, failure, etc. Each test name is a link, that when clicked takes you to a Detail page for that test, with more information, including tables of recent changes, failures, etc. The reports can use custom templates to match your website design. One template is provided with this release; others will be included in future betas. Reports can be saved locally (e.g. for use with Personal Web Sharing), and the next beta release will support automatically uploading to your remote web server.
• Added a section to the test editor window for Reports, allowing specifying whether the test is included or excluded on all reports, or on specific reports. The latter allows separate reports for just some tests, e.g. for each of your clients, or groups of sites.
• Added a View Options sheet to the Monitor window. It allows adding or removing columns in the Tests table of the Monitor window, and allows specifying whether to use relative times or absolute dates for each date column.
• Removed the Dates preference page, now that those options are in the View Options sheet.
• Added new columns for the Tests table, available via View Options: Last Downtime, Last Error, Last Event, Last Check, Last Recovery, Last Check Duration, and Last Change Difference. These new columns aren't included by default.
• The Tests table now automatically hides its vertical scrollbar if all of the tests fit, and has a horizontal scrollbar, if needed.
• Changed "--" to "n/a" and "disabled" to "--" in the Last Changed column, just for ACE. :)
• Removed the tooltip on the Tests table, as it isn't really useful and just gets in the way.
• Added Last Recovery to the tooltip information in the status menu.
• The File &blacktriangleright; Preview Page and Show Source menu items are now available in the test editor window, as alternatives to the in-window buttons.
• Renamed the File &blacktriangleright; Add and Alter commands (and their corresponding toolbar buttons) as New and Edit, respectively, for increased consistency.
• Updated the test, service and notifier editor windows to use the New / Edit terminology, and to use just OK for the buttons.
• Added a File &blacktriangleright; Duplicate command (and toolbar button) to make a copy of a selected test, service, or notifier.
• The Preview and Source windows now automatically show and hide their scrollbars as necessary.
• Sped up the splash dissolves; now twice as fast (half a second each).
• Fixed a bug with sorting the Time column of the Failures table.
• Fixed an issue with the French localization that prevented the Find License (Chercher la licence) feature from working.
• Drafted new pages for the User Guide to describe the report templates and other new features. See in particular the Report Templates page. Feedback welcome on the information and features.