Another small update of Simon, to version 4.0.3.

This update is notable as the first to be delivered via the Sparkle update framework, for people on 4.0.2 (where that was introduced). Hopefully it'll work properly. :) (Yes, seems fine; I just tested it.)

Changes in this release include:

• When the Show the Simon icon in the Dock preference is turned on, its status is now immediately updated.
• If a password has been set to access Simon, the unlock panel is now shown without the Monitor window.
• Fixed a hang in the Twitter notifier when typing in the message text area.
• Fixed some cosmetic Console warnings with the notifier options editor.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the MySQL helper from starting.
• Fixed the helper to launch Simon on login.

If you have Simon installed already, you can get the update via the Simon ▶ Check for Updates... command in the app, which will install it for you; no more need to download manually. You can even check the box to have future updates installed automatically if you wish.

If you don't have Simon yet, you can download Simon 4.0.3 now!

One feature request that I received many times for Simon was the ability to organize tests into folders or groups — especially useful for people with lots of tests, or simply want to collect all tests relating to a particular server or client together.

Previously, the closest you could get to this was to use a common prefix on the name, and sort by name. But that is cumbersome, and loses the benefit of being able to sort by something more useful, like last event date — so recently changed or failed tests appear at the top.

Simon 4 solves this with the new groups feature.

Now, tests can be grouped together however you wish. It's easy to create a group: simply choose the New Group command in the File menu or the + pop-up menu, then drag the tests into the new group. Even easier, you can just select some tests and choose the New Group with Selection command to make a group and move those tests into it in one step.

Groups appear with disclosure triangles, enabling them to be collapsed. The group row shows a summary of the contents, with any common values displayed for easy reference. And similarly, the info pane shows a summary of the contained tests.

Groups can even be nested, if desired — you can have an unlimited number of groups within other groups, if that helps organize them.

But wait, there's more! While grouping tests is perhaps one of the most-requested features, I didn't stop there: you can also group services, filters, notifiers and reports in the same way!

When these items are grouped, they appear indented in the Kind pop-up menu in the test editor, so you can keep related items together:

I hope you enjoy this new feature.

Simon 4 added a surprise new feature that many people have asked for over the years: the ability to hide the app from the Dock.

In the past, Simon's app icon was always displayed in the Dock. Now, with version 4, there is a new General preference to control this. By default, it is on (so the icon is shown, as before).

Why might you want to hide it? Maybe you want to keep your Dock as sparse as possible. Simon's Dock icon can display the most interesting status, but maybe you don't need to see that all the time, or you're satisfied with seeing that only in the status menu. Since you'd probably want to keep Simon running all the time, treating it as a background-only app can make a lot of sense. Now you can!

If you turn off the Show the Simon icon in the Dock checkbox, the app icon vanishes from the Dock, and also from the Cmd-Tab app switcher. Note that if you have chosen the Keep in Dock option in the Dock menu, the icon will linger, in an inactive state; you can disable that or drag the icon out of the Dock to remove it.

When Simon is hidden from the Dock, you can still activate the app via the status menu, if you have that enabled — and the app will automatically turn it on when you turn off the Dock icon, as a convenience. If you don't want the status menu, you can turn it off again... in which case the only way to activate the app will be to click on one of its windows, if any are visible, or open it from the Finder.

One thing to note is that as a necessary side-effect of hiding the Dock icon, Simon will no longer have a menubar. It'll truly be a background-only app. When you display the Simon Monitor window, the menus won't change from whatever other app you were using. This isn't a problem for most functions, as the toolbar buttons and sort drop-down menu options cover most menu commands. But for app functions like checking for updates, accessing preferences, etc, when the Dock icon is disabled a special action menu is added to the toolbar. For power users, the keyboard equivalents still work, too — so you can press Ctrl-Cmd-1 to switch to Preview mode, for example.

I know that this is an exciting enhancement for many customers. For anyone who wants Simon to "disappear" into the background, try turning off the Dock icon. You can always turn it back on again. No restart required. What do you think? Do you prefer the Dock icon visible or hidden? Let me know in the comments below.

Here are a bunch of fixes for Simon 4, plus one exciting change: Simon now uses the Sparkle framework, like many other non-App Store apps do, to make updating the app easier. I've resisted using Sparkle for years, as it had various issues that made it incompatible with my apps, but those have been resolved in recent updates.

So it's time to sparkle, finally.

After this update, you should no longer need to download the app from here when there's a new version; Simon will be able to update itself in place, and even do so completely automatically if you wish.

Edit: Note that the update checkbox will be off initially, but the app will ask you if you want to automatically check for updates on the second launch.

Here are the changes in this version:

• Simon now uses the popular Sparkle framework for app updates, so it can finally download and install updates itself.
• Changed the Updates preferences for the Sparkle framework, and to add a handy button to show the release notes.
• Fixed the New pop-up menu being disabled when in full-screen mode.
• Fixed the app not resuming full-screen mode on launch if it was in full-screen when quit.
• Fixed a too small icon in the status menu and Dock when a Wi-Fi hotspot is detected.
• Fixed the auto-pause function, which sometimes wasn't engaging when it should.
• Fixed the Find filter with regular expressions when not finding a match should be a failure.

Download Simon 4.0.2 now!

When I added recognition of version 4 groups in version 3.6.2, I did so for tests, but services, filters, notifiers and reports can also have groups in version 4. So here's Simon 3.6.4 to fix an issue with editing those.

If you're using OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), I recommend that you upgrade to version 4, if you haven't already. It includes heaps of great improvements. But if you're on 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.9 (Mavericks), you can download Simon 3.6.4 now.

One of the many enhancements in Simon 4, which was actually also retrofitted to Simon 3.6.2 and later, was the introduction of an optional password feature. This was requested by a volume purchaser of Simon, who also paid for the unusual step of retrofitting it to Simon 3.

The password feature can be used to require a password when Simon is launched or activated. This provides some level of security to prevent unauthorized people from accessing Simon. It doesn't encrypt data or any other changes, it's just a simple access control.

By default, a password is not required. If you want to require one, open up the Preferences. Notice the new Choose Password... button and the text to the left indicating that a password hasn't been set:

Click the button to display the password sheet. If a password hasn't already been set, the first field will be disabled (and display "None"). If one has been set, enter the existing password there. The next two fields are for the new password; enter the same one in both, or leave them both blank to disable the password feature. If entering a password, you should also enter a hint that will remind you of the password (without being too obvious):

After setting a password, the text in the Preferences window will change to indicate so:

When a password has been set, whenever you activate Simon it will display an unlock sheet, asking for the password. It includes a Quit button to quickly stop Simon, and a Cancel to deactivate Simon. After two failed attempts, it will display the password hint (if any); after two more failed attempts, it'll disallow further attempts until after you quit or cancel:

I expect that most people won't need this feature, but for those who do, it should prove quite useful.

Stay tuned for more blog posts delving into Simon 4 enhancements.

When I released the major version 4 upgrade of Dejal Simon, I included a couple of new default tests as examples for new customers. One of them is named "Dejal posts", and actually includes a quite sophisticated set of filters.

The general idea of this test is to look at the Recent Posts page of the Dejal site, which lists all recent blog, forum, FAQ etc posts and their comments, and output some tidy text describing the most recent one, along with a changed state when a new post or comment is added.

I thought it'd be interesting to break down this test as an example and tutorial for new and existing customers — even long-term users might learn something!

Firstly, here's the Service page; nothing remarkable here (the cookies are automatically recorded, and unimportant for this test):

The most interesting page is the Filters one (click to see it full-size; you might want to use the appropriate modifier key for your browser to open in a new window):

When you check the test and look in the Activity log, you can see the output from each of those filters (from bottom to top) — click to see full-size:

Another way to view the output is via the Preview pane, which now includes not only the service response and headers, but also the full output of each filter, to help you diagnose each step.

Here's the output of the service; the full HTML of the web page:

Let's break down each of the filters, via the Preview filter output.

The first filter, a Block one, takes the service response as its Input, and has Start text of <tbody> and End text of <td class="replies">. This finds the first occurrence of each of those bits of HTML in the service response, which corresponds with the most recent post information:

This filter outputs that:

The second filter is another Block one. It takes the output of the first filter as its input, and narrows it down further to just the title of the post. Notice that it also uses options disclosed on the right-hand-side of the filter configuration: it looks for the second occurrence of the Start text, searching from the beginning of the input:

The output of this filter is the post title:

The third filter is yet another Block (it is one of the most useful filters), but the input is different: this time it uses the output of the first filter, instead of the previous one (as is the default). It also has an option to look for the third occurrence:

It extracts the author information:

Filter number four is different. It uses a Ignore Links filter to extract out just the author name from the previous filter output. The previous filter doesn't do this as when you're not logged in on the Dejal site, only the name is included (in which case this filter has no effect):

The output is just the non-HTML part of the input:

Next we're back to a Block filter again, but this time looking at the original service response text to extract the number of replies to the post:

This should always output a number:

We then use a new filter introduced in version 4, Singular or Plural, to take the number found in the previous filter and output "reply" if it is one, or "replies" for any other number:

As seen in the preview:

The last filter puts it all together: an Override Custom filter uses variables to combine the output of several filters in a nice readable way. In this case all the variables are variations of the filter output, but other variables are available too. Something that isn't immediately obvious is that you can insert numbers to reference specific filters (otherwise it refers to the previous one):

Which results in:

So now that we've got some nice output text, what do we do with it? Of course, you can just see it in the Tests list, if you have the last change and failure displayed:

But you'll probably want to get a notification. For myself, in addition to some generic speech notifiers, I have a notifier to post to the @SimonBot Twitter account; an account I added just for Simon to tweet about Dejal site changes:

The SimonBot notifier also uses variables to add more information about the test:

Which appears like this:

Simon says Dejal posts changed on 2015-01-08 at 22:58:32: "BlogAssist Express 2.4.1 released" by David Sinclair (0 replies)

— SimonBot (@simonbot) January 9, 2015

You're welcome to follow @SimonBot to learn about Dejal news and discussions.

I hope this case study is helpful. Most tests don't need a series of filters like this, and there are other ways to achieve similar effects (like writing all the logic in a script), but it can be very useful when you want it. You can use similar techniques in your own tests.

I plan to do more case studies or tips on Simon features in the future; please leave a comment if you like this or find it useful, or have suggestions for other things you'd like me to cover.

Simon 4 was a major release, and great to get it out. Fortunately, there weren't any major issues with it — I always dread having to do an urgent bug fix immediately after a major release.

But there were some minor issues that were important enough to get fixed fairly quickly, especially for non-English users. So here's version 4.0.1. It's a recommended update for everyone.

• Fixed an issue with duplicating a test where filter settings could become linked with the original until quit.
• Fixed a localization issue with the Method popup menu in the Web (HTTP) service.
• Fixed layout of the Twitter and SMS notifier editors.
• Fixed issues with selecting URLs to import in the Setup Assistant.
• Fixed the Dock icon static animation getting mixed with the normal status icon when checking or uploading reports while the Licenses or Setup Assistant windows are displayed.
• Changed the way relative dates are formatted, to make them more compatible with localizations.
• While uploading a report, a circular progress indicator is now displayed in the Reports list.
• Fixed the scheduler not starting until the Tests list is displayed.
• Tweaked the layout of the Context views, and made localizable.

Download Simon 4.0.1 now!

A quick fix to version 3:

• Fixed an issue that prevented the password preference from being used under OS versions before Yosemite.

As I said in my previous post, if you're using OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), I recommend that you upgrade to version 4, if you haven't already. It includes heaps of great improvements. But if you're on 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.9 (Mavericks), I recommend that you download Simon 3.6.3 now.

Strange as it may seem (to me, anyway) to do a version 3 release after version 4 (out of order releases hurt my brain!), here it is: Simon version 3.6.2.

This is a bug-fix update of version 3, to fix some compatibility issues with version 4. It also retrofits the password feature from version 4, at the request of a volume purchase customer who paid extra for that... yes, sometimes I can be bribed. ;)

And yes, this version still uses the old icon — that makes it easier to distinguish versions 3 & 4.

Here are the changes since 3.6.1 in 3.6.2:

• 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.
• Now recognizes version 4 groups, and doesn't allow editing, checking, previewing, etc them.
• Removed the Kagi in-app license options.
• Fixed handling of version 4 licenses.
• Fixed the license reminder overlapping the toolbar buttons.
• Fixed an error when doing an update check if version 4 has been used.
• Rebuilt for Yosemite using Xcode 6.

If you're using OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), I recommend that you upgrade to version 4, if you haven't already. It includes heaps of great improvements. But if you're on 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.9 (Mavericks), I recommend that you download Simon 3.6.2 now.

(A note for beta testers: you may need to log out and back in, or use the Terminal killall Dock command, to make the "beta" sash on the app icon disappear. And thanks again for your help in making this general release great!)

Dejal Simon 4: four years after version 3, four months in development, it's time to go forth. Simon 4 includes a fresh new design, unifying all of the lists, logs and editors into a single window, so everything is at your fingertips. It also uses a more attractive layout for the lists of tests, services, filters, notifiers and reports. A much requested enhancement is the introduction of groups, enabling you to organize your tests, services, etc into logical collections. Those with lots of tests will be pleased to learn that the limits on the number of tests have been removed — everyone can have as many tests as they wish. This also simplifies the pricing for new and existing customers. There are numerous other enhancements too, like email services, a context filter, filter output in the preview, password protection, the ability to hide from the Dock, and much more. Read on for details.

Licensed Simon 3 users need to be aware that Simon 4 is a paid upgrade from previous versions. You will need to purchase an upgrade license. If you purchased Simon since November 1, 2014, you are eligible for a free upgrade; contact Dejal to receive your free license.

A new option is the Simon Service Plan subscription. Learn more about this below or on the Simon Support page.

Also note that Simon Express and Simon Free have been removed from the Mac App Store. Simon is a powerful and flexible tool, so they couldn't comply with the sandboxing requirements that Apple introduced. If you used one of these, please switch to the full version of Simon, and enjoy all the extra features. Your data will be automatically imported to version 4. Simon Express is automatically recognized as a version 3 license, so you only need an upgrade license.

Please also note that Simon 4 requires Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or later, as it leverages the latest technologies. If you're still using an older OS version, you can remain on version 3 until you upgrade your OS version. You are welcome to purchase a version 4 license; it will work in version 3 as a Platinum (unlimited) license.

Read on for a summary of some of the many enhancements in Simon 4.

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 Cmd-clicking on the selected mode button.

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. It 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.

Version 4 introduces a major popularly requested feature: 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.

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.

Another nice subtle improvement is that the actions for the test Filters, Notifiers, Reports and Auto Pause can now be reordered, simply by dragging them.

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.

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.

There are several other changes, including finally renaming the E-mail notifier as Email, adding a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel, a new Email Account Options panel, and modernizing the framework used to send email. See the release notes for full details.

Added a new Context filter feature, which takes the previous filter's input and some new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text. It 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). See the release notes for information about the new variables.

Too many things to list here! (See the release notes for the full list.) A few other highlights that might interest existing users include:

• A great new app icon and window icons.
• The ability to hide Simon from the Dock.
• The ability to password protect access to the app.
• The Web (HTTP) feature will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://www.dejal.com/">).
• 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.
• The data is now saved in the background, for better performance.
• Many changes to improve Yosemite compatibility.

Need more detailed or technical assistance? Introducing the Simon Service Plan, an annual subscription for heavy users or large organizations, or anyone who wants to get the most out of Simon.

The Simon Service Plan includes all app updates, including paid major upgrades like version 4.0 and any future updates within the subscription period, at no additional cost.

The Service Plan also includes two technical support incidents each subscription year. These give you top-of-the-queue direct access to the developer via email, and can be used to answer general questions, help configure Simon, and more.

Read more about this on the Simon Support page.

Ready to upgrade? Great! Purchase an upgrade license on the Dejal Store. Or subscribe to the Simon Service Plan, which includes the upgrade.

Still not sure? Try it for free!

Download Simon 4.0 now!

If you want to keep the old version around, just in case, you can rename it (e.g. to add the version number) rather than replacing it with the new version. That way they can both occupy the same folder without a file name conflict.

Simon 4 has eliminated the license levels. Now everyone can have as many tests as they want for the same price. New customers can purchase Simon for $99.00, and existing customers can upgrade for half that, just $49.00.

I hope you enjoy the many improvements in Simon 4!

Simon 4.0b9 is now available.

This should be the last beta; I'm preparing the site for the general release now. Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback for helping make Simon 4 a great release.

New default tests, services & filters

• Fixed the new Dejal posts test so it doesn't have a failure if not logged in to the Dejal website.
• Updated the new Singular or Plural filter to avoid including a linefeed after the text.

Fixes & optimizations in this beta

• Fixed not respecting turning off the Show in Dock preference on launch (broken in the previous beta).
• Fixed the Look for changes... checkbox on the Filter > Options page.
• When changing the service type of a test and reloading the Preview, it now displays or hides the web view as appropriate.
• Fixed the test Preview web view sometimes not appearing at all for new users.
• Fixed some missing localization strings.
• Updated the help book for version 4.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b9 now!

Simon 4.0b8 is now available.

Added 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 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.
• 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.

Fixes & optimizations in this beta

• When using the new RSS service, or the existing FTP service, the Preview doesn't show the web view.
• Changed the color of the Checks Log mode icon, to be more visible.
• Fixed the History filter feature not being recognized.
• Improved the data upgrade to support multiple items of the same kind.
• Tweaked the trial expiry limits.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b8 now!

Simon should be ready for general release very soon. Please let me know of any issues as soon as possible! Thank you for helping make Simon 4 a great release.

Simon 4.0b7 is now available:

Shiny new mode & toolbar icons

• Replaced the somewhat crusty mode icons with nice elegant ones, and added separate selected edtions 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.
• The Activity Log type icons were also updated to match the mode icons.
• Also replaced the Visit Site and Help toolbar icons.

Fixes & optimizations in this beta

• 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.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b7 now!

Simon should be ready for general release very soon. Please let me know of any issues as soon as possible! Thank you for helping make Simon 4 a great release.

Simon 4.0b6 is now available.

It includes some exciting new features, and the usual batch of fixes:

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 Cmd-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.

Fixes & optimizations in this beta

• Fixed missing localization strings.
• Fixed the Pause sheet appearing twice sometimes.
• Removed the quit confirmation preference, since it isn't used anymore anyway.
• Improved the layout of the General Preferences pane.
• The preference for double-clicking the tests list to Show Info now shows it in edit mode.
• Re-enabled the license reminder button for unlicensed users.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b6 now!

Simon should be ready for general release very soon. Please let me know of any issues as soon as possible! Thank you for helping make Simon 4 a great release.

Simon 4.0b5 is now available.

It includes some important fixes and refinements:

• Fixed an issue with a missing default filter input value when checking a test.
• Improved the offline status indicator.
• Prevented checking a test when it is paused and the Preview is active when the test is selected.
• Tidied the Checks log.
• Hiding the lists or logs panes, and the full-screen state, are now preserved on next launch.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b5 now!

Simon should be ready for general release soon. Please let me know of any issues as soon as possible! Thank you for helping make Simon 4 a great release.

Simon 4.0b4 is now available.

It includes several fixes and refinements:

• Fixed an issue that prevented newly added filters from being used. Beta users who have added filters, you may need to re-select the use condition (the "when" popup menu) to make it take effect.
• Fixed the Preview saying Preview Not Available when selecting a different test without changing out of Preview mode first.
• Fixed the Preview source not completing loading if the Preview mode is selected on launch.
• Fixed the upgrade license not being recognized for people with only a version 2 license.
• Fixed a validation error sometimes when deleting a new test.
• The tests (etc) list now has the initial keyboard focus for the window, instead of its sort menu.
• Adding a new test now avoids checking right away, before it is configured.
• Adding a new item will now always display the Name page, since the first thing that should be done is to give it a name.
• Selecting an item in Edit mode on the Name page will now select the Name field.
• Editing the name of an item now updates the list one second after the last keypress.
• If one or more items are selected when adding a new one (or a group), the item is placed in the same group.
• Fixed the test Services Kind popup menu's support of services in groups.
• Now rebuilds the submenus of the status menu to avoid them being associated with the wrong item when the sort order changes.
• Fixed wacky behavior sometimes when editing Parameters and Cookies in the Web (HTTP) test editor, and Custom Variables in the Script feature.
• Fixed a crash when editing a Script-based service, filter or notifier.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b4 now!

Another day, another Simon 4 beta fix:

• Fixed default data not being found for new users, or those who haven't customized their services etc.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b3 now!

A quick update to the Simon 4 beta to fix some important issues:

• Fixed a crash on launch that some people experienced (sorry!).
• Fixed the update check saying that a new version was available when you're up-to-date.
• Reports now only include tests, not groups.

More in four: see the Simon What's New page for important information and details of the changes in version 4.

Download Simon 4.0b2 now!

Dejal Simon 4: four years after version 3, four months in development, it's time to go forth. Simon 4 includes a fresh new design, unifying all of the lists, logs and editors into a single window, so everything is at your fingertips. It also uses a more attractive layout for the lists of tests, services, filters, notifiers and reports. A much requested enhancement is the introduction of groups, enabling you to organize your tests, services, etc into logical collections. Those with lots of tests will be pleased to learn that the limits on the number of tests have been removed — everyone can have as many tests as they wish. This also simplifies the pricing for new and existing customers. There are numerous other enhancements too, like email services, a context filter, filter output in the preview, and much more. Read on for details.

Licensed Simon 3 users need to be aware that Simon 4 will be a paid upgrade from previous versions. You will need to purchase an upgrade license. If you purchased Simon since November 1, 2014, you are eligible for a free upgrade; contact Dejal to receive your free license.

Note: during the beta period, version 3 licenses will work in version 4.

A new option is the Simon Service Plan subscription. Learn more about this below or on the Simon Support page.

Also note that Simon Express and Simon Free have been removed from the Mac App Store. Simon is a powerful and flexible tool, so they couldn't comply with the sandboxing requirements that Apple introduced. If you used one of these, please switch to the full version of Simon, and enjoy all the extra features. Simon Express is automatically recognized as a version 3 license, so you only need an upgrade license.

Please also note that Simon 4 requires Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or later, as it leverages the latest technologies. If you're still using an older OS version, you can remain on version 3 until you upgrade your OS version. You are welcome to purchase a version 4 license; it will work in version 3 as a Platinum (unlimited) license.

Read on for a summary of some of the many enhancements in Simon 4.

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 Cmd-clicking on the selected mode button.

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. It 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.

Version 4 introduces a major popularly requested feature: 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.

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.

Another nice subtle improvement is that the actions for the test Filters, Notifiers, Reports and Auto Pause can now be reordered, simply by dragging them.

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.

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.

There are several other changes, including finally renaming the E-mail notifier as Email, adding a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel, a new Email Account Options panel, and modernizing the framework used to send email. See the release notes for full details.

Added a new Context filter feature, which takes the previous filter's input and some new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text. It 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). See the release notes for information about the new variables.

Too many things to list here! (See the release notes for the full list.) A few other highlights that might interest existing users include:

• A great new app icon.
• The Web (HTTP) feature will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://www.dejal.com/">).
• 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.
• The data is now saved in the background, for better performance.
• Many changes to improve Yosemite compatibility.

Need more detailed or technical assistance? Introducing the Simon Service Plan, an annual subscription for heavy users or large organizations, or anyone who wants to get the most out of Simon.

The Simon Service Plan includes all app updates, including paid major upgrades like version 4.0 and any future updates within the subscription period, at no additional cost.

The Service Plan also includes two technical support incidents each subscription year. These give you top-of-the-queue direct access to the developer via email, and can be used to answer general questions, help configure Simon, and more.

Read more about this on the Simon Support page.

Download Simon 4.0b1 now!

Ready to upgrade? Great! Purchase an upgrade license on the Dejal Store. Or subscribe to the Simon Service Plan, which includes the upgrade.

Still not sure? Try it for free! If you want to keep the old version around, just in case, you can rename it (e.g. to add the version number) rather than replacing it with the new version. That way they can both occupy the same folder without a file name conflict.

Simon 4 has eliminated the license levels. Now everyone can have as many tests as they want for the same price. New customers can purchase Simon for $99.00, and existing customers can upgrade for half that, just $49.00. Simon 4 licenses work as Platinum (unlimited) licenses in version 3, too.

I hope you enjoy the many improvements in Simon 4!