It was brought to our attention that the last version of OmniGrowl was improperly signed for Gatekeeper. This resulted in OS X throwing up a "damaged" error when trying to open it on some systems. It has now been properly signed, we very much believe. We're calling this version 4.5.5y3.
In other news, the royal we will be traveling from December 5 through January 7, so please forgive any delays in support responses during this time.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Re-signed, not resigned, and more
At today's Apple event, we expect OS X Yosemite to be released to the public.
Last August, Apple made it clear that all applications would need to be re-signed for GateKeeper compatibility under Mavericks and Yosemite. While it turns out these new requirements may not be enforced as strictly as originally warned, we have complied by re-signing the last versions of the following apps. CaliBrate, Cast Away, iDupe, MoveTunes, OmniGrowl, Osiris, and ThinkArch.
Each of these apps has been tested to open and function as designed with the last developer preview of Yosemite. Several of these apps will require some further changes to "fit" with Yosemite, but these are mostly cosmetic. We anticipate completing those updates in short order.
For now, if the last version of an app you use (and hopefully bought, thank you very much) is working normally under Yosemite, there's really no need to update to this re-signed version.
In other news, we are disappointed that 4info has shuttered its service last May. Therefore the stock quotes, sports scores, and horoscopes previously supported by OmniGrowl using data from their service will no longer function. We have been searching for alternatives (ideas welcome). In the meantime, you can save some CPU cycles by simply setting the cycle slider to 2 hours and/or removing your search terms.
Also, if there is anyone out there who used ThinkArch with MS Entourage and wished for a version compatible with MS Outlook, please drop us a line. Producing that update has continually fallen to the end of the priority list, but if there is any interest at all there may finally be some time to do it.
Last August, Apple made it clear that all applications would need to be re-signed for GateKeeper compatibility under Mavericks and Yosemite. While it turns out these new requirements may not be enforced as strictly as originally warned, we have complied by re-signing the last versions of the following apps. CaliBrate, Cast Away, iDupe, MoveTunes, OmniGrowl, Osiris, and ThinkArch.
Each of these apps has been tested to open and function as designed with the last developer preview of Yosemite. Several of these apps will require some further changes to "fit" with Yosemite, but these are mostly cosmetic. We anticipate completing those updates in short order.
For now, if the last version of an app you use (and hopefully bought, thank you very much) is working normally under Yosemite, there's really no need to update to this re-signed version.
In other news, we are disappointed that 4info has shuttered its service last May. Therefore the stock quotes, sports scores, and horoscopes previously supported by OmniGrowl using data from their service will no longer function. We have been searching for alternatives (ideas welcome). In the meantime, you can save some CPU cycles by simply setting the cycle slider to 2 hours and/or removing your search terms.
Also, if there is anyone out there who used ThinkArch with MS Entourage and wished for a version compatible with MS Outlook, please drop us a line. Producing that update has continually fallen to the end of the priority list, but if there is any interest at all there may finally be some time to do it.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Cast Away Update Works Around iTunes 11 Bugs
Wooden Brain Concepts today released an update to Cast Away, a podcast manager for iTunes.
Cast Away allows you to remove podcasts according to criteria that are much more fine-grained than possible in iTunes. Cast Away can prevent podcasts from expiring in iTunes, update smart playlists, and archive selected podcasts. It also includes an auto-player that can play selected podcasts as they arrive and then return to the previously playing music, if any.
The update fixes more issues related to iTunes 11.x. iTunes 11.1 introduced bugs that have been partially fixed by Apple with iTunes 11.1.4.
For those curious, we're actually dealing with a rather odd situation. Cast Away uses Apple Events to ask iTunes for a list of podcast episodes for each subscribed podcast. Before iTunes 11, we could tell which episodes had been downloaded and which have not by whether they were "file tracks" or "URL tracks". With ITunes 11, the list of URL tracks grew very large. It turns out that iTunes was including "cloud" URL tracks that had already been deleted by the user. This has been partially fixed by Apple but not completely. As a result, Cast Away was trying to process a lot of "phantom" tracks, which was causing errors and significant delays.
With this version, Cast Away still has to handle lists of tracks that include these phantoms. The difference now is Cast Away recognizes them and ignores them right away without excessive processing, thus eliminating the errors seen by the user and speeding up the checking.
Unfortunately, due to that and related bugs, the feature to remove undownloaded ("cloud") podcasts remains disabled in this version.
Please see the version history for details.
Cast Away allows you to remove podcasts according to criteria that are much more fine-grained than possible in iTunes. Cast Away can prevent podcasts from expiring in iTunes, update smart playlists, and archive selected podcasts. It also includes an auto-player that can play selected podcasts as they arrive and then return to the previously playing music, if any.
The update fixes more issues related to iTunes 11.x. iTunes 11.1 introduced bugs that have been partially fixed by Apple with iTunes 11.1.4.
For those curious, we're actually dealing with a rather odd situation. Cast Away uses Apple Events to ask iTunes for a list of podcast episodes for each subscribed podcast. Before iTunes 11, we could tell which episodes had been downloaded and which have not by whether they were "file tracks" or "URL tracks". With ITunes 11, the list of URL tracks grew very large. It turns out that iTunes was including "cloud" URL tracks that had already been deleted by the user. This has been partially fixed by Apple but not completely. As a result, Cast Away was trying to process a lot of "phantom" tracks, which was causing errors and significant delays.
With this version, Cast Away still has to handle lists of tracks that include these phantoms. The difference now is Cast Away recognizes them and ignores them right away without excessive processing, thus eliminating the errors seen by the user and speeding up the checking.
Unfortunately, due to that and related bugs, the feature to remove undownloaded ("cloud") podcasts remains disabled in this version.
Please see the version history for details.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
OmniGrowl Update: Weather, iTunes Radio
Wooden Brain Concepts today released an update to OmniGrowl which adds a requested feature related to Yahoo Weather notifications and tweaks support for iTunes Radio.
One of our loyal customers told us that he didn't need to see the extended weather forecast in weather notifications. So we added an option to include forecast on the Info tab (where the weather section is). By default OmniGrowl will show the forecast as before, but you can now turn it off if you wish, in which case only the current conditions and temperature will be shown.
This update also tweaks support for iTunes Radio notifications.
As usual, please refer to the version history for details.
One of our loyal customers told us that he didn't need to see the extended weather forecast in weather notifications. So we added an option to include forecast on the Info tab (where the weather section is). By default OmniGrowl will show the forecast as before, but you can now turn it off if you wish, in which case only the current conditions and temperature will be shown.
This update also tweaks support for iTunes Radio notifications.
As usual, please refer to the version history for details.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
iDupe & MoveTunes Updates Support Mavericks, Fix Bugs
WBC today released compatibility and bug fix updates for two more of our applications: iDupe and MoveTunes.
iDupe is an intelligent duplicates remover for iTunes. MoveTunes allows selective moving of iTunes music among volumes while retaining metadata such as ratings, artwork, and playlists.
The updates fix minor issues with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, thus certifying them for use on Apple's latest, and first non-cat, OS. Our Mavericks compatibility chart has been updated accordingly. All of our major products are now fully compatible.
In addition, these updates fix a few known bugs introduced with iTunes 11. The most significant of these involves preserving artwork when removing duplicates in iTunes (using iDupe) or adding moved tracks back to iTunes (using MoveTunes). For details on the bug fixes and other changes, please see the iDupe version history and the MoveTunes version history.
Finally, please note that we will be on holiday from November 24 through December 4, 2013. Please understand if any support inquiries are delayed during this period.
iDupe is an intelligent duplicates remover for iTunes. MoveTunes allows selective moving of iTunes music among volumes while retaining metadata such as ratings, artwork, and playlists.
The updates fix minor issues with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, thus certifying them for use on Apple's latest, and first non-cat, OS. Our Mavericks compatibility chart has been updated accordingly. All of our major products are now fully compatible.
In addition, these updates fix a few known bugs introduced with iTunes 11. The most significant of these involves preserving artwork when removing duplicates in iTunes (using iDupe) or adding moved tracks back to iTunes (using MoveTunes). For details on the bug fixes and other changes, please see the iDupe version history and the MoveTunes version history.
Finally, please note that we will be on holiday from November 24 through December 4, 2013. Please understand if any support inquiries are delayed during this period.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
CaliBrate Supports Mavericks
Wooden Brain Concepts today released an update to CaliBrate which makes it compatible with OS X Mavericks.
CaliBrate allows you to search for and batch process multiple events in Calendar or iCal. With it, you can remove duplicate events, shift them in time, change titles or notes all at once, move them between calendars, and much more.
Mavericks introduced one major known problem that caused Calendar to hang when CaliBrate attempted to copy or move events between calendars.
The problem is caused by a new bug in Mavericks, which makes it impossible to set exceptions to a recurrence rule on a new event without causing Calendar to hang. Unfortunately at this time there is no known work around for this bug, which we have reported to Apple.
Consequently, until Apple fixes this bug, CaliBrate (when used on OS X 10.9+) will make no attempt to set exceptions to recurrence rules when creating new events. This means, for example, that if you have an event that repeats every Monday except certain, specific dates, when CaliBrate copies that event to another calendar, the copy will repeat every Monday without exceptions.
CaliBrate now also explains this situation in the info box before performing a copy or move action.
Please see the version history for details. Please also see the limitations section under CaliBrate's about tab.
CaliBrate allows you to search for and batch process multiple events in Calendar or iCal. With it, you can remove duplicate events, shift them in time, change titles or notes all at once, move them between calendars, and much more.
Mavericks introduced one major known problem that caused Calendar to hang when CaliBrate attempted to copy or move events between calendars.
The problem is caused by a new bug in Mavericks, which makes it impossible to set exceptions to a recurrence rule on a new event without causing Calendar to hang. Unfortunately at this time there is no known work around for this bug, which we have reported to Apple.
Consequently, until Apple fixes this bug, CaliBrate (when used on OS X 10.9+) will make no attempt to set exceptions to recurrence rules when creating new events. This means, for example, that if you have an event that repeats every Monday except certain, specific dates, when CaliBrate copies that event to another calendar, the copy will repeat every Monday without exceptions.
CaliBrate now also explains this situation in the info box before performing a copy or move action.
Please see the version history for details. Please also see the limitations section under CaliBrate's about tab.
Friday, November 1, 2013
OmniGrowl Update Actually Fixes Trial Limitation
Wooden Brain Concepts today released an update to OmniGrowl which really, truly, fixes the trial expiry at launch bug.
Unregistered users were seeing a trial expired message immediately after launching OmniGrowl. The intent is for OmniGrowl to be fully functional for 6 hours of use per launch, regardless of whether it is registered or not.
Last week we released a Mavericks compatibility update that we thought had also fixed that bug. It turns out that OmniGrowl was still evaluating trial expiration relative to the application build time, not the launch time. It was a silly error on our part. This should now truly be fixed and we apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact us if this still occurs on your system.
As usual, please refer to the version history for details.
Unregistered users were seeing a trial expired message immediately after launching OmniGrowl. The intent is for OmniGrowl to be fully functional for 6 hours of use per launch, regardless of whether it is registered or not.
Last week we released a Mavericks compatibility update that we thought had also fixed that bug. It turns out that OmniGrowl was still evaluating trial expiration relative to the application build time, not the launch time. It was a silly error on our part. This should now truly be fixed and we apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact us if this still occurs on your system.
As usual, please refer to the version history for details.
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