Simon version 4.2 is now in general release!

This update has lots of improvements, including:

Added an Exclude Block filter

• Added a new Exclude Block filter that outputs the text outside the block, instead of inside like the normal Block filter.
• Enhanced the Block filter feature to support specifying whether to output the text before the Start, the Start text itself, the text between the Start and End, the End text, and/or after the End text, or any combination of those, optionally joined by some separator.

Added difference analysis filters

• Added new Extract List, Extract Changes to List and Rich Text Representation of Changes filters, kindly contributed by Max Cardale. Read the comments for those filters for detailed descriptions of each.

New filter variables

• Added support for {FilterIndex}, {FilterPreviousText} and {FilterInputVariable} filter variables to support referring to prior filters, e.g. the second filter can see the previous text of the first filter via {Filter1PreviousText}.
• Added support for reverse-numbered filter variables of the form {FilterPrior1InputText}, where the number counts from the filter before the current one. All of the Filternumber variables are available as FilterPriornumber ones. These are "smart" variables that are not available to notifiers, since they just duplicate values already available. (In case you weren't already aware, you can add a number after Filter for any filter variable, to access variables of prior filters; the numbers count from 1 for the first filter.)
• Added a description of the numbers in filter variables to the help book.

Email improvements

• The Preview now supports the Email notifier; it will display the message that is sent, with placeholder values for any variables. (Tip: you can check that an email notifier is configured correctly by showing the Preview or just clicking the Reload toolbar button, or File > Notify Now.)
• Added support for STARTTLS connection security and Password (PLAIN) authentication in the Email Transport panel.
• If the Port field is clear, or contains a standard port number for a connection security, it is changed to the typical port number when the connection security is changed.

Preview improvements

• When the Preview page is displayed for a service, filter or notifier that supports previews (i.e. email and scripts), it displays a message "Reload to Preview", rather than automatically sending an email or running the script (resulting in unexpected placeholder emails or script actions). Click the Reload toolbar button, or the File > Notify Now menu command, to actually preview the item.
• Added special case support for Web content encodings specified in the source instead of the header (e.g. or for Chinese).

Several fixes of the reports feature

• Fixed an issue with uploading reports to remote FTP servers.
• Fixed a crasher when adding a new report with the Preview pane selected.
• Fixed a logic error that prevented recent checks, changes, etc from being listed on the detail pages.
• Fixed incorrect last report date display when the report hasn't been generated yet.

More convenient upgrade licensing

• When adding an upgrade license, now automatically looks up the original license, instead of just telling you it's needed (which can cause confusion, since it's an unusual situation).

Lots more security and stability improvements

• Updated the Sparkle updater framework to the latest version.
• Added a Via SSL option to the Updates preferences, to use a secure connection to check for and download app updates. This is on by default, but can be turned off if it doesn't work for some reason.
• Also updated license refresh etc URLs to use TLS/SSL.
• Scripts are now saved as Base64-encoded text, to preserve formatting.
• Fixed a common crasher when editing at the Auto Pause pages.
• Fixed another crasher when changing pages at the bottom of the window.
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where the editor info background could show garbage in some situations.
• Fixed a couple of rare crashes with deleting items.
• Fixed a crash with using the Convert Domain/IP command with a large text field.
• Fixed a rare crash with reports.
• Fixed a rare crasher with the Find filter.

If you are using version 4, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Otherwise, download Simon 4.2 now!