Month: April 2023

DejalNews #83: Time Out 2.9.2 and Simon 5.1.1 released

DejalNews header

Welcome

This is DejalNews, an occasional newsletter from Dejal.

Has it been that long?!

Apparently the previous DejalNews newsletter was sent way back in June 2021! It doesn’t seem that long ago.

Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up on the Dejal site.

Time Out 2.9.2

Time Out version 2.9.2 was recently released, with several fixes and improvements.

Since it’s been so long, I should also mention version 2.9, which includes several great enhancements, including a status message in the sidebar to indicate why a break was skipped etc, the ability to schedule and exclude breaks using calendar events, support for Monterey focus, an option to hide the Pause function, new break options to pause or reset an individual break, and much more.

Read the blog post for more information on Time Out 2.9.2, and if you missed it, the details of version 2.9.

Simon 5.1.1

My pro site monitoring app also had a recent update, to version 5.1.1. It includes some important fixes.

And again, if you missed reading about version 5.1, it included the ability to disable rendering a Web Page test, the addition of an automatic data backup, support for macOS Ventura, updated example tests, and several other improvements and fixes.

Read the Simon 5.1.1 blog post for the latest update, or the version 5.1 post if you missed that.

New Dejal blog

Late last year I created a new blog for Dejal, powered by WordPress. Unfortunately that meant that the older posts are no longer on the site, but they are all available in the Internet Archive, and I have been working on updating and re-publishing the most interesting posts with tips for Time Out and Simon, on a weekly basis. So check back regularly. Or if you use an RSS reader or Apple News, you can subscribe to the blog to never miss a post.

Sinclair Trails

Back in June 2021 when the previous newsletter was published, my wife and I were living on a 5-acre homestead with ducks, chickens, feral cats, bees, etc. But just a few months later we decided to sell the homestead and most of our possessions, buy a 40-foot luxury Tiffin motorhome, and start traveling the country full-time.

If that sounds interesting, you can follow our adventures on my other blog, Sinclair Trails, where I post every weekday about a related topic, including additions and modifications to our coach, photos of our travels, timelapse videos of driving between locations on YouTube, reviews of RV parks, and photos of National Parks and other interesting places we visit.

(And if you’re only interested in the apps, that’s fine too.)

Reddit

If you use Reddit, you may like to join the r/Dejal subreddit, as a community for Dejal customers, and another support channel.

I hope you found this newsletter interesting. Let me know in the Dejal subreddit. I will try to publish another one sooner than a year or so from now!

– David

Time Out 2.9.2 released

I’m pleased to announce an update of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool.

This update includes some nice fixes and tweaks:

  • Now uses more modern ways to start the break helper, the automatically start on login option, and access the System Settings.
  • Fixed app icons not appearing in the Activity log for apps with display names that don’t match their filename.
  • Fixed a break sometimes stopping too early when using the Ask When to Start option.
  • Fixed a break not being rescheduled past midnight when a natural break occurs.
  • Added themes for the Sinclair Trails blog and YouTube channel, and updated the Tropical Rain theme.
  • Fixed the Speak Time break action script.
  • Can now use a URL of timeout://settings to open the Time Out settings window, in addition to the existing timeout://preferences (useful for scripting and shortcuts).

Want to try it?

If you are using the Mac App Store edition, you can update via the App Store app.

Similarly, if you are using the Setapp edition, it will handle that update for you.

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

Otherwise, download Time Out 2.9.2 now!

Simon 5.1.1 released

I’m pleased to announce the general release of an update of my website and server monitoring app for macOS: Simon version 5.1.1.

This update includes just a few — but important — fixes:

  • If not signed in to iCloud, Simon now doesn’t offer syncing, with a message explaining that, instead of assuming it’s available and sometimes crashing.
  • Fixed a crash when dragging to reorder filters, notifiers, and reports in the test editor.
  • When loading the default data when first using the app, the services, filters, and notifiers are now organized into groups (this was previously only done when updating the data).

 

Want to try it?

If you are using the Setapp edition, it will handle that update for you.

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

Otherwise, download Simon 5.1.1 now!

 

Simon tip: check notifiers

I’ve had a couple of queries about checking if a notifier is working, so that seemed like a good blog topic.

Simon is a powerful app. One of its many features is the ability to create custom notifiers, the mechanism for informing you of changes or failures on the tests. Naturally, when you configure a new notifier, or edit an existing one, you want to make sure that it is set up correctly.

This can be done very easily. When showing the Notifiers list, you can simply select the notifier you want to check (as you probably already have if you’re editing one), and click the Reload button in the toolbar, or choose the File ▸ Notify Now menu command.

The selected notifier will then be used, just like when used with a test, except that placeholder values will be used for any variables (since there isn’t a test in this case).

For example, here’s a Notification Center notification, showing placeholder values:

Notification