Time Out recently went to beta 4, and Simon was feeling left out. So here's a beta 4 of Simon too!
Just a couple of changes:
If you already have Simon 4, update in the app. Otherwise download Simon 4.2b4 now!
Here's a third beta release of Simon 4.2.
Changes in the update include:
{FilterPrior1InputText}
, where the number counts from the filter before the current one. All of the Filter<b>number</b>
variables are available as FilterPrior<b>number</b>
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.)If you already have Simon 4, update in the app. Otherwise, download Simon 4.2b3 now!
A quick update to fix an issue in the previous beta release of Time Out version 2:
If you are using the third or second beta, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.
If you are still using the first beta, you can use the link in your beta invite email to download the new version, or use the Check for Updates feature in the app, and manually update.
If you aren't on the beta yet and want to join, visit the What's New page to sign up for an invite to download the beta.
Here's the third beta release of Time Out version 2!
This beta has more refinements, including:
If you are using the second beta, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.
If you are still using the first beta, you can use the link in your beta invite email to download the new version, or use the Check for Updates feature in the app, and manually update.
If you aren't on the beta yet and want to join, visit the What's New page to sign up for an invite to download the beta.
I hope you like these improvements! Please let me know of any issues you notice, or ideas for improvements. Thank you for helping make this update great!
It's been a while (due to work on Time Out 2), but here's a second beta release of Simon 4.2.
Changes include:
{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}
.<meta charset="gb2312">
or <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=gb2312">
for Chinese).(By the way, if you prefer to access websites via TLS/SSL, you can do so for the Dejal site via https://dejal.net/. I'll move the main dejal.com site over later.)
Here's the second beta release of Time Out version 2!
This beta has several significant changes, including:
New and updated break themes
Other theme improvements
WKWebView
instead of a legacy WebView
) for themes. Themes use this new one via a "type" : "html5"
property in their Info.json file. As this property implies, the html5
web view works best with modern HTML5 pages; HTML4 pages generally work better in the old one.Smarter scheduler
Help improvements
Supporter improvements
Updater and crash reporter changes
If you are already using the first beta, you can use the link in your beta invite email to download the new version, or use the Check for Updates feature in the app. Note that a manual update is required, due to an issue with the updater; that should be the last time that is needed, though.
If you aren't on the beta yet and want to join, visit the What's New page to sign up for an invite to download the beta.
I hope you like these improvements! Please let me know of any issues you notice, or ideas for improvements. Thank you for helping make this update great!
So, Time Out version 2.0b1 was released last week. Maybe you noticed?
That was quite epic, with release notes so long I had to break it up with headings and bookmark links.
Thank you very much to everyone who has downloaded the beta and tried the new version. And especially thank you to the many people who have become Time Out supporters. Haven't tried it yet? Check out the What's New page.
Today I thought I'd write a bit about what I envision happening during the beta cycle.
Of course, one of the most important things is for a wider range of people to try the app, and provide feedback on what they like and don't like, anything that could be better, or any bugs that they encounter. I'd really appreciate your help with this, to make the general release great.
The features for 2.0 are complete; I don't plan to make any significant changes to the way the app works before general release. But if there are any things that can be improved, I'm certainly open to doing so. Let me know!
There are some aspects that aren't complete, though.
One is the included themes. 2.0b1 includes a bunch of break themes, that can appear during the breaks, but I want to add a few more. Time Out uses a web view for the themes, and supports both displaying remote websites and local HTML content, much like the old Dashboard widgets.
I have a list of ideas, but three that I particularly want to include are:
I have some code that will help with these, and will work on them sometime before the general release. But if you are a web developer and want to help out with any of these or other themes, please get in touch.
Another thing I need to do before the general release is update the help book / documentation for the new version. Time Out is very intuitive, so most people won't need a manual to use it, but it's still a useful thing to have for people who prefer to learn by reading rather than experimenting.
The Time Out website also needs some updates. At minimum, it needs to be changed to describe the new features, and ideally I'd like to use this excuse to give it a new coat of paint; although the Dejal site does have a special iPhone support mode, it doesn't use the modern responsive design. We'll see how far I go on this.
Sometime during the beta cycle I want to get in touch with reviewers and influencers, to try to get some of them to try the app for a while and hopefully write about it for the general release. Marketing stuff is hard, but important. (If you're a reviewer and want to try it, please contact me).
Finally, Time Out will be available both directly and via the Mac App Store, with the same features in both editions, so people can get it either via the Dejal site or MAS; whichever is more convenient.
So I also need to make a number of changes to build an edition of the app for the Mac App Store. This shouldn't be too much work, since the direct edition is already sandboxed, and designed with the MAS edition in mind. I'll just need to disable the auto-updater in that edition, and swap out the FastSpring-based in-app purchase popover for Apple's StoreKit, and some minor other changes.
As I mentioned before, Time Out 2 has been in the works for years, and is a huge improvement over version 1. I don't want to rush out the general release, and have a lot to do, but I'm excited to make progress towards this goal.
Again, thank you for trying version 2, for supporting development, and for sharing it with your family, friends and colleagues.
It's been a long time coming, but the day has finally arrived: Time Out version 2 is at last in beta release!
I've actually been designing and prototyping Time Out 2 since 2007, off and on, if you can believe that. Work started in earnest a bit over two years ago, and while it kept being delayed by contract work (I like to eat and pay bills), I've persevered.
Over the course of development, there were 33 alpha releases, tested by a small faithful group of alpha testers.
Now, the app is complete, and I'm ready to expand the testing pool. This first beta release is available to anyone who wants to try it; just visit the What's New page to sign up for an invite to download the beta.
I've written many blog posts providing descriptions and screenshots of version 2, and will post more about various aspects during the beta cycle.
This is a massive upgrade. Here is a summary of the major enhancements. Click to jump down, or simply scroll, to read more about each.
Redesigned app icon
Get started quickly with the Setup Assistant
Redesigned Preferences window
No longer needs to be in the Dock
New menubar status item
Assign global keyboard shortcuts to start, defer, pause, etc
Add any number of breaks
Rename, label and comment on breaks
Scheduling improvements
Limit breaks to a time range
Support for natural breaks
Better appearance
Customizable HTML-based break themes
Redesigned & movable control panel during breaks
Add actions to notify of due, starting or finishing breaks
Enhanced app exclusions
Faster app updates
Several advanced options
New supporter options
Optimized for Yosemite and El Capitan
Phew!
Sound good? Visit the What's New page to sign up for an invite to download the beta.
It's been a little while since the last sneak peek of Time Out 2, so let's do another one. What shall we look at this time? How about the Shortcuts page.
This is one of the many popular requests from customers of version 1: the ability to have global keyboard shortcuts to postpone or skip breaks when they are starting at an inopportune time.
I went a bit further in version 2, though: not only are there global shortcuts available, but you can also assign them to whatever you want, and can set ones to start each kind of break, postpone, skip, pause, resume, reset, and stop any playing sound.
(The assignments in this screenshot are ones I've set; you can use whatever makes sense to you, and don't have to assign any you don't want.)
If you look closely, you may also notice a few other changes in this screenshot, including a new Help (?) menu button at the top, and a Support Time Out item in the sidebar. More about that another time.
In related news, I've just added a new What's New page to the Time Out site. Check it out for a partial list of features and more information, including a form where you can sign up to be amongst the first to hear of a beta release.
And as mentioned before, if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information.
Happy New Year!
As we start a new year, let's review what happened with the Dejal apps in 2015:
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After the massive version 4.0 upgrade in late 2014, Simon, my flagship product to monitor websites and servers for changes and failures, saw another fairly big update in 2015 to version 4.1.1, plus a beta of 4.2, which will be in general release in a month or so. |
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My handy break reminder tool, Time Out, had significant work on version 2, with several alpha builds in 2015. It went from alpha 8 at the beginning of the year all the way up to alpha 29 at the end of the year, each with many improvements. It is now basically feature-complete; I'm just working on the final touches at present. Time Out 2 has been in the works for years, in between contract work and other projects, but it's tantalizingly close now, and I expect to have a beta release available within the next few months. As previously mentioned, everyone who makes a donation for Time Out now will be automatically eligible for the paid features at no additional cost — so you can set your own price for it now! This offer expires when version 2 is released. This also makes you eligible for the alpha; after donating, tell me if you'd like to try it. Thank you to everyone who has already donated; the volume of donations is really encouraging. |
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Caboodle, my lean clean snippet machine, didn't see any updates in 2015. I do have a new version in the works, which I'll finish off and release once I get Time Out 2 out. |
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BlogAssist, my tool to help with HTML markup, had a small update to version 2.4.1 in 2015. It's a minor product, but one I still use regularly. |
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Pack, a simple iPhone app to make it easy to pack for trips, had a number of updates in 2015, up to version 1.2. The major enhancement in 2015 was the addition of a handy Apple Watch app. Try it for your next trip! |
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Tweeps, an app for iOS to easily manage Twitter accounts, didn't get any updates in 2015. It doesn't sell very well, so I can't really justify spending time on it, but it does what it needs to. |
On the consulting side, I've worked on a number of projects in the last year, including zCloud, a handy Mac menu bar utility to quickly and easily upload screenshots and other files to Dropbox; MBTableGrid and private components for Tap Forms for Mac; and the iOS NewsBlur app, a popular RSS news reader.
I'm fully booked for the next couple of months, and hoping for more from existing clients, but if you have a Mac or iOS project you'd like help with (or a custom Simon enhancement), check out my consulting page for more information.
So what's coming up in 2016? My top priority is finishing off Time Out 2. As mentioned, it is very close to completion, so I should be able to get a beta out soon... though no promises, since it depends on how long it takes to finish off, and time spent on contract work. I will also continue contract work, of course, since I enjoy eating and paying bills.
I will also do the general release of Simon 4.2, probably before Time Out 2 is out. And later in the year I hope to get back to a Caboodle update that's been pushed back for a while. I'd like to add a new app, too, but we'll see.
Thank you and welcome to my new customers, and many thanks to my long-term customers who are still enjoying my apps. I really appreciate your support. I'm very excited about the much-anticipated Time Out 2 release in the coming year, and other projects in the pipeline.
My blog posts often just cover new releases, but sometimes I post general-interest or developer-interest topics. Some highlights from 2015 included:
Phew! It seems I've been writing quite a bit more than usual in the last year. I hope you enjoyed these posts.
Simon version 4.2b1 is now available.
This first beta includes the following changes:
If you're using a recent version of Simon already, you can update to this beta by checking for updates in the app. If you haven't used a beta previously, you may need to change your Updates preferences within Simon to include Beta & General Releases. Otherwise, you can download Simon 4.2b1.
I've been doing a bit of contract work to refill the coffers, so work has slowed on Time Out 2, but it has continued, as has testing. Let's take another sneak peek!
Last time we took a look at the General options, and I talked about configuring the status menu. Well, this time I thought I'd finally show it.
As mentioned, the status menu is a much-requested optional feature in version 2, which shows a countdown to the next break, among other options. When you click it, if the Dock icon is shown, it simply switches to Time Out and shows the preferences window. But if the app doesn't appear in the Dock, a status menu popover is shown instead, like this:
This may look familiar: the status popover looks pretty much the same as the preferences window sidebar. There's a good reason for that: if you click on an item in the popover, it transforms into the full window, enabling editing the break or options.
But you don't need to show the full window for many operations; you can see when the next breaks will occur, when they were last completed, pause, postpone, skip, reset or manually start breaks, and more all from the status popover. As you hover over the break items, a manual Start button and a menu of options appears:
I think you'll find this a very useful addition.
Time is running out, but if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information. Or as always, stay tuned for more screenshots and details in the coming weeks!
Work on Time Out 2 is going really well: all of the planned functionality has been implemented. Now I'm adding the licensing stuff; more on that another time. For now, it's time for another sneak peek of Time Out 2.
This time, let's revisit the General Options. I briefly showed that back in August, but it's changed significantly since then. As I said before, this is all subject to change, but this might be the final design for 2.0:
As before, the top option on the right-hand-side of the window is a checkbox to automatically start Time Out when logging into the Mac. Pretty self-explanatory; a standard option for apps that you want to keep running; important to not miss breaks.
Next are a pair of radio buttons that you may have previously seen in the Setup Assistant, to control whether or not the app appears in the Dock. That page of the Setup Assistant no longer exists; it isn't needed, as it contained the same controls as here, and the General Options are the first thing you'll see after completing the Setup Assistant.
Not needing to be in the Dock is the #1 request for Time Out 1, so I'm happy to be able to provide it as an option in version 2. As explained in the screenshot (click it to see full-sized), when the app appears in the Dock, it also appears in the Cmd-Tab app switcher, and has a menu bar. Clicking the status item will just show the Preferences window. But when not in the Dock, it is truly a background app: not in the app switcher and doesn't have menus — which is fine, as all essential functionality is available in the window itself. Also, clicking the status item shows a popover from it, that looks much like the sidebar of this window. Selecting a break or option will expand to the full window.
An option that wasn't in the Setup Assistant, though, is the ability to show the aforementioned status item in the menu bar. This is the #2 request, after the above Dock one, so another great addition to this version. The last time you may have seen these options, the configuration of the status item was a long list of radio buttons, but I've changed that to two pop-up menus; much more compact and tidy.
The options control what style of icon to include (if any), and what value to include (if any):
This appears in my menu bar thusly, using a green dot for the label color of the next break (Micro) and the number of minutes until it is due (5):
This is the brief countdown; the full countdown shows two units, e.g. "05:02" for 5 minutes and 2 seconds. The other options are pretty self-explanatory.
Finally, we have a pair of radio buttons to control how dates and times appear in the sidebar. Currently (and by default) it is set to show them as relative times, e.g. "due in 5 min, 2 sec". If you prefer to know the time of the next break, instead of how long until it is due, you can change it to show absolute dates, and it'll show something like "due Today, 15:45:20" instead (using your preferred time format), like the status item option to show the due time instead of a countdown.
Just a few of the many options in Time Out 2! Time is running out, but if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information. Or as always, stay tuned for more screenshots and details in the coming weeks!
I've given you several hints about Time Out 2 features. Now it's the turn of the Break Appearance page, which includes some of the most exciting enhancements in version 2.
The Appearance page includes controls for how the break looks: a theme, background colors, buttons to include, and more.
Here's a screenshot (but remember that since this is from an alpha build, everything is subject to change before public release... and astute readers may notice several changes to the sidebar from the last time you saw it; can you spot them all?).
One of the major improvements in version 2 is the concept of "themes." In version 1, all that appears during a break is a large app icon and the break progress bar and postpone/skip buttons. Version 2 kicks that up a notch: it supports multiple customizable themes, so breaks can display all sorts of content, along with the progress and buttons. It comes with several themes, including of course just the app icon (both the new icon and the old one for those who prefer that), plus several more.
It can even display websites, e.g. the theme selected in the screenshot is "Explore Flickr", which simply shows the Explore page at Flickr, as a nice collection of photos, which you can scroll through during your break. (You can click the Info button next to the theme to learn more about it.)
There are many other handy controls on this page. The "Reveal Themes" button shows the folder that houses them, so you can add your own or modify the provided ones. If you have multiple screens, you can indicate on which screen to display the theme. You can set colors and opacity for each screen, with a quick palette of colors in addition to the full color picker. As in version 1, breaks fade in and out; you can control how long that takes with simple fields. And the optional buttons to postpone and/or skip breaks can be configured here.
I hope you're as excited about these enhancements as I and the alpha testers are. Remember, if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information. Or stay tuned for more screenshots and details in the coming weeks! The functionality is nearly complete, so we're very close to the first beta release, at last. I hope you'll agree that it's worth the wait.
When you first launch Time Out 2, I want to help you get started.
So the first thing you'll see is a setup assistant, that will explain the two suggested kinds of breaks, with controls to include and configure their two most important options, how long the breaks last (duration), and how often they occur (frequency).
Here's a screenshot (but remember that since this is from an alpha build, everything is subject to change before public release):
You can uncheck either or both of these if you don't want that kind of break, or you want to start with none and add them manually. These breaks are just suggestions; you can later delete, rename or reconfigure them however you like. The breaks have many more options to customize them, including how to handle time away from the computer; customizable themes, colors and buttons to display during the break; actions to inform you of upcoming, started or completed breaks; and much more.
If you prefer, you can click Skip to immediately close the assistant, without adding any breaks or configuring other options, and set everything up manually in the preferences.
Otherwise, when you click Continue, you're taken to another setup page that mentions these additional break options, and includes a button to open the Privacy System Preferences (alpha testers: this page will be in the next build). That is required if you want Time Out to detect the end of a natural break (idle) when you type something; otherwise it can only detect that when you move the pointer via a mouse or trackpad.
After that, one last page with a couple of options. Firstly, a checkbox to start Time Out automatically on login, so you don't miss any breaks. Secondly, something that has been much requested for years: an option to show or hide the app icon in the Dock.
In version 1, the app is always visible in the Dock, which makes it easy to get to, but many people would prefer to have it more hidden, not appearing in the Dock or Cmd-Tab app switcher. With version 2, this is now an option, at last:
Another much-requested feature is also mentioned here: the status item in the right of the menu bar. By default this displays a label color representing the next due break, and a countdown to the start of that break. This can be disabled in the preferences, or reconfigured to display a different icon and/or other information.
As explained under each radio button, when Time Out is included in the Dock, it is also in the Cmd-Tab app switcher, and has a menu bar. Clicking on the status item will simply bring the app and its preferences window to the front, making it easy to configure the breaks.
When the app isn't shown in the Dock or Cmd-Tab switcher, it also doesn't have menus, so you access commands via the buttons at the top of the window. The status item also behaves differently: instead of just showing the preferences window, it displays a popover view directly off the status item, that shows the list of breaks and options. You can use that to quickly see when the breaks are due or last done, and manually start or pause them, among other options.
I expect that most people will want to use Time Out with the Dock icon hidden, but the default is to leave it visible, to assist with new users, to avoid confusion.
I hope you're as excited about these enhancements as I and the alpha testers are. Remember, if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information. Or stay tuned for more screenshots and details in the coming weeks!
Last week I saw a video on the evolution of the desk, or more specifically how many physical desk objects have migrated into apps on the computer (and one could argue that they're continuing to move into an iPad).
Then Serenity Caldwell (@settern) tweeted a picture of her desk 10 years ago:
Fully set up is so much worse, guys. Printer! CD-Rs! Music CDs! External iSight! DV tapes! A CORDLESS PHONE. What. pic.twitter.com/nwBIHHGFNb
— Serenity Caldwell (@settern) September 16, 2015
Which got me thinking about how my desk contents has evolved over time. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81, but my first Mac was a Mac Plus, which I bought around 1988. Here it is on my desk at the time (click to see larger):
To the left of the Mac is my previous computer, a Spectravideo MSX SVI-728. The Mac Plus (platinum color) had an internal 3.5-inch floppy drive, plus an external one, and 4 MB of RAM. I later added a hard drive, and still later a magneto-optical drive:
Other interesting bits in this photo are my Inside Macintosh reference manuals, early Dejal floppy disks (I used to publish my Classic apps on floppy), my modem, and other antiques like cassette tapes and LP records. You may be able to make out a circuit board on the wall above my Mac; that isn't a picture, but the motherboard of my ZX81.
I don't have most of that stuff anymore... but I do still have the ZX81 circuitboard, and that solar-powered calculator... still going strong.
My current desk is a lot tidier than that one, too.
Simon version 4.1.1 is now available for download.
Please update to this release for El Capitan compatibility, including:
It continues to work on Yosemite (10.10 and later) too.
Dejal is participating in the DevAssist: Syria Relief collective effort.
All sales today (September 16) will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.
So if you've been thinking about buying a Dejal app, now is a great day to do so, to help support a worthwhile cause. And with Time Out 2 getting ever closer to release, now is a great time to donate for that, and thus get a Time Out license and support this cause at the same time.
Learn more about other developers participating at the DevAssist site.
Okay, enough blurred teasing. Time to show a full screenshot!
Time Out 2 is coming along nicely; I've made lots of progress in finishing off and polishing the app in recent weeks, thanks in large part to the feedback of the elite alpha testing group. There's still much to do, but it's getting ever closer to being done, so I want to share a bit more about it now.
Without further ado, here is a screenshot from the latest alpha build of Time Out version 2 (click to see full-sized):
As you can see (and could no doubt tell from the previous teases), the preferences window now has a sidebar that lists the breaks, and other options. What's this... three breaks? Yes indeed... in fact you can unlock an unlimited number of breaks in version 2!
If you look closely at the sidebar, you can see a colored label (which can be shown in the menubar), the break name, when the break is next due, and the last time it was completed.
On the right-hand-side, you can see the Schedule page for the Normal break. It has much improved controls compared to version 1, making it easy to set the duration and frequency of the break, plus the ability to set a time range for the break (useful for a daily lunch break, for example), tweak when the next break will occur, automatically count backwards to get credit for natural breaks (when the computer is idle), and automatically skip a break if too close to a more important one (e.g. to avoid having a Micro break a few minutes before or after a Normal one).
Of course, this is all subject to change; some aspects of this view changed recently, and I know of at least one more change that'll affect it. But the final product will look very close to this.
I hope you're as excited about this sneak peek of version 2 as I am. I can't wait to make it available to everyone. In the meantime, if you've made a donation, and are using Yosemite or later, you can contact me to request to join the alpha team, or to get more information. Or stay tuned for more screenshots and details in the coming weeks!