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.

Display from version 5.1.1 5.1 5.0.1 5.0 4.3.1 4.3 4.2.2 4.2.1 4.2 4.1.1 4.1 4.0.3 4.0.2 4.0.1 4.0 3.6.4 3.6.3 3.6.2 3.6.1 3.6 3.5.1 3.5 3.4 3.3.1 3.3 3.2.1 3.2 3.1.1 3.1 3.0.2 3.0.1 3.0 2.5.7 2.5.6 2.5.5 2.5.4 2.5.3 2.5.2 2.5.1 2.5 2.4.2 2.4.1 2.4 2.3.5 2.3.4 2.3.3 2.3.2 2.3.1 2.3 2.2.2 2.2.1 2.2 2.1.1 2.1 2.0 1.2.2 1.2.1 1.2 1.1.2 1.1.1 1.1 1.0 to version 5.1.1 5.1 5.0.1 5.0 4.3.1 4.3 4.2.2 4.2.1 4.2 4.1.1 4.1 4.0.3 4.0.2 4.0.1 4.0 3.6.4 3.6.3 3.6.2 3.6.1 3.6 3.5.1 3.5 3.4 3.3.1 3.3 3.2.1 3.2 3.1.1 3.1 3.0.2 3.0.1 3.0 2.5.7 2.5.6 2.5.5 2.5.4 2.5.3 2.5.2 2.5.1 2.5 2.4.2 2.4.1 2.4 2.3.5 2.3.4 2.3.3 2.3.2 2.3.1 2.3 2.2.2 2.2.1 2.2 2.1.1 2.1 2.0 1.2.2 1.2.1 1.2 1.1.2 1.1.1 1.1 1.0 as normal HTML text Including betas

Please Note:

• Simon 4 requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).
• Simon 4 is a paid upgrade from Simon 3.
• Purchasers since November 1, 2014 are eligible for a free upgrade; contact Dejal for details.
• Simon Express, formerly in the Mac App Store, is automatically recognized as a version 3 license.

Unlimited tests for everyone!

• Simon 4 has eliminated the license limits on the number of test configurations that can be added.
• Everyone can now add an unlimited number of tests.

Great new Simon Monitor window design

• Simon's main window, the Simon Monitor window, has been significantly redesigned. It now uses a single-window approach to display the Tests, Services, Filters, Notifiers and Reports lists in this window, switching between them via mode buttons along the left edge.
• Editing tests, services, etc is now done in this window as well, via an optional info pane to the right of the active list.
• As in earlier versions, the logs are displayed in a pane at the bottom of the window. This pane can now also display the Preview; see below for more on this.
• The lists or logs can be hidden by dragging the pane splitter, or ⌘clicking on the selected mode button.
• Replaced the somewhat crusty toolbar and mode icons with nice elegant ones, and added separate selected editions with a splash of color.
• For fun (and usefulness), the selected color of the Tests list mode icon matches the status menu / Dock icon color.

Attractive new list layouts

• The lists of Tests, Services, etc have been redesigned to use a custom layout inspired by Apple Mail and other modern apps.
• The lists can be sorted via a menu above the list, or via the View menu.
• The choice of displaying absolute dates and times (like "2014-12-25 12:34", using your local date & time format) or relative times (like "5 mins, 25 secs ago") is also available in these menus.
• The Tests list shows the unviewed flag, status icon, test name, next due date/time; the uptime, service, location, last check time, and last check duration.
• The Tests list can also optionally display information about the most recent change and failure: the last change and when it occurred; the last error, failure & recovery date/time. These can also be toggled via those menus.
• Removed the View Options sheet, since it is no longer needed.

Groups

• A major popularly requested feature: added support for groups in all lists.
• Groups can be added to help organize the tests, services, etc into logical collections, e.g. by server or kind; whatever makes sense.
• In the list, the group displays a summary of its members, e.g. the most significant status and combined uptime, with the info summary showing common values.
• The menubar status menu displays groups in sub-menus, with commands that can be applied to all group members.

Redesigned editors

• The editors have been completely redesigned to integrate them into the single-window approach.
• Selecting an item in the Tests, etc lists will now display a summary of the item in the handy new Info pane to the right of the list.
• An Edit button is included in the top-right of the Info pane. Click that to toggle into edit mode, where the item can be modified. The button changes to Done to switch out of editing mode.
• You can also click the headings on the summary to jump right to the related page in edit mode.
• You can leave it in editing mode and switch between tests to quickly edit them; it will remain on the same page.
• Speaking of which, the page selectors have been redesigned, and a new Name page was added to edit the name and comments.
• The test statistics have been moved to the test summary page for easy reference.
• When multiple tests or no tests are selected, the summary page shows the values in common, and a combined view of the statistics for those tests.
• When editing a test, on the Filters page, the pre-condition popup menu (the first one) now disables the Unchanged and Changed items for the first filter, since they are only appropriate for subsequent filters (the service output can only be a success or failure).
• The actions for the test Filters, Notifiers, Reports and Auto Pause can now be reordered, simply by dragging them.

Integrated preview, including filter output

• The Preview function has been completely redesigned to integrate it into the single-window approach, and provide the ability to see the filter output in addition to the service output.
• When a test is selected, the Preview feature can be displayed in place of the logs at the bottom of the window for a quick view of the test.
• The preview includes a web page on the left (for web-based tests), a selection list in the middle, and the service response, headers or filter output on the right.
• The selection list shows the status of the service or filter, and for filters, the sequence number and filter name, e.g. "#1: Block Output" for the output from a Block filter.
• The filter output is very useful, to see not only the result of the service, but also the result of each filter. This makes it easier than ever to build up multiple filters, taking the output from previous ones to hone in on the interesting values.
• The Preview function is also available when displaying a Script-based service, filter or notifier, to run the script and see what it outputs while writing it, and to preview a report within Simon.

Can now hide Simon in the Dock

• A surprise new feature: a General Preferences option to control whether or not Simon appears in the Dock (it's shown by default).
• Note that when it is not shown in the Dock, it also doesn't appear in the ⌘Tab app switcher, and it no longer has a menu bar.
• When turning off the option to show in the Dock, the option to show the status menu is automatically turned on, so you can access the app via that. (You can turn it off again if you wish, in which case you'll only be able to access Simon by opening the app from the Finder.)
• When it isn't in the Dock, a new action toolbar button is automatically added, to give access to the preferences and other functions.

Password protect access

• Added an option in General Preferences to specify a password to use to unlock Simon access.
• If set, the password is required when launching or switching to Simon.

Enhancements to the Email feature

• The Email feature now also works as a service. Three service modes are supported: Email Send, Email Receive, and Email Cycle.
• Email Send is basically the same as the Email notifier: sends a custom message via SMTP. Useful to "check in" or test that a mail server is working. It outputs the message, or an error if unsuccessful.
• Email Receive fetches a list of messages from an IMAP server. It outputs the list of messages, or an error.
• Email Cycle first sends a special message with a unique identifier to a SMTP server, then checks for that message arriving on an IMAP server. It cleans up after itself, and outputs the message and mailbox listing, or an error.
• Renamed the E-mail notifier as Email, finally.
• Added a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel. Defaults to the server name, and is displayed in the Transport pop-up menu.
• Added an Email Account Options panel, similar to the Email Transport Options one, to enable configuring IMAP account information for the Receive and Cycle services.
• Removed the Sendmail custom transport option, as it is no longer supported. If you used this and this makes you sad, please contact Dejal; it may be possible to support it via a script.
• Sending email via a custom transport now uses the modern MailCore framework, instead of the old Pantomime framework.
• If your email notifiers don't work after upgrading, please check their transport settings.

Added a Context filter

• Added a new Context filter feature, which takes the previous filter's input and the following new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text.
• Note that it actually uses the Input specified in the test to determine which filter's input and match variables to use: if you have two previous filters, you can make the Context filter look at the first one by choosing Filter1OutputText instead of the default FilterOutputText (from the proceeding filter).
• This includes controls to specify the number of characters before and/or after the match range, and/or a delimiter before and/or after the match range (e.g. you can show up to 50 characters, stopping at a line break).
• Added a filter variable for FilterMatchLocation, which is set by some filters (Block and Find currently) to the position of the match in the input text, e.g. the text between the Blocks, or the Find result. Note that the location is zero-based.
• Also added a filter variable for FilterMatchLength, which is the length of that match.
• And a filter variable for FilterMatchEnd, which is the location plus the length, for convenience.
• Finally, a new filter variable for FilterNInputText, where N is the filter index (1-based). This enables any filter (or notifier) to see what was passed to a previous filter.

Web feature enhancements

• The Web (HTTP) feature will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://www.dejal.com/">). Meta refreshes to reload the same page are ignored.
• If for some reason you don't want this behavior, it can be disabled via defaults write com.dejal.simon WebIgnoreMetaRefresh YES in Terminal.
• Fixed an incompatibility in the Web (HTTP) feature with a few servers that don't handle sending an empty cookies header when there aren't any to send. It now omits the header in this situation.

More new default tests, services & filters

• Added a new RSS service, which is basically just a Web (HTTP) service with a feed:// protocol, but also has different Preview behavior (see below).
• Added a new Singular or Plural filter, which has fields for a singular or plural word, and outputs the appropriate one based on the numeric input (use other filters to provide a number).
• Added a new Input filter, which just outputs its input, with change detection. Useful to output the the result of the service or an earlier filter after doing other filtering.
• Added a new Get Average Ping Response Time filter, which would typically be used with the Ping service, and outputs the average response time in the filter input text.
• Added a new Apple hot news default test (for new users), that uses the RSS service and a bunch of filters to output the latest news from Apple.
• Added a new Dejal posts default test as another demo of using filters to combine values. It's the one I use to watch for new forum posts on the Dejal site.

A great new app icon

• A fantastic modern update of the icon by Jordan Langille of OneToad.
• Still with the fun "static" on launch, licensing and quit, and blue "on" state behind the status icon.
• (If it doesn't show up in your Dock, restart your Mac or use the Terminal command killall Dock.)

Migration from Simon Express and Simon Free

• To assist people coming from Simon Express or Simon Free, Simon now automatically migrates data from those older apps, if any, if there isn't any standard edition data.
• Simon Express, formerly in the Mac App Store, is automatically recognized as a version 3 license.

Other changes

• Added a File ▸ Share menu and a share button in the window toolbar to share the selected item(s) with other apps.
• No longer truncates the difference text to 400 characters, if it's longer than that.
• Removed the Pause All Tests and Resume All Tests functions from the Dock and status menus, since they are dangerous functions if you have lots of manually paused tests. (If anyone is sad about this change, let me know; I could restore it via a preference, if necessary.)
• The date columns in the Logs now include the seconds. You may need to resize the columns to fit the entire time, depending on your local date format.
• The Calendar feature no longer supports Google Calendar. Again, let me know if you used this.
• Removed the Twitter service, since it isn't supported anymore. If you want to watch for Twitter updates, you could use a Web (HTTP) service instead.
• Updated the Find, Sound and Speech features to use modern APIs.
• The data is now saved in the background, for better performance.
• Removed the quit confirmation preference, since it isn't used anymore anyway.
• Improved the layout of the General Preferences pane.
• Improved the wording of several alerts and confirmation sheets.
• Added many exciting new bug opportunities.
• Updated the help book for version 4.
• Updated the German and French localizations. Japanese hasn't been updated yet, so is disabled in this release (it should be coming in a future update).
• Rebuilt for Yosemite using Xcode 6.
• Massive refactoring to drag the 12-year-old source code into the modern era.
• Simon is now 64-bit and uses modern memory management.
• Many changes to improve Yosemite compatibility.
• Now requires Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10).