OmniGrowl 3.7.2 released

OmniGrowl 3.7.2 has been released. It fixes a bug that caused birthdays around or just after New Year's to notify on the wrong days.

WBC iTunes Scripts Collection 1.8.4 released, adds Snow Leopard Services

The WBC iTunes Scripts Collection has been updated to version 1.8.4.

Although it's been hard to keep every script in the collection 100% up-to-date, one thing that's been missing since Snow Leopard has been the functionality of the old Big Cat scripts. Big Cat doesn't really work with the Finder anymore, because of the new way Services are handled. So all of the old Big Cat scripts have been reworked as Snow Leopard Services. A few other minor updates (AMG Info, iPod Playlist Catalog) have also been made.

Full release notes in the distribution read me.

If you have ever used or had an interest in the Geek Tool script, I strongly recommend using OmniGrowl with GeekTool 3 instead.

Attach a contact to the selected event in iCal (new script)

Ever want to attach a contact to an event, but not set that contact as an attendee? Here's a new script that will put a selected or chosen Address Book contact into the URL field of the selected event in iCal. This will create a link in the event which will display as "Show in Address Book..."

Cast Away 2.9.4 released

Cast Away 2.9.4 may fix a rare issue where the removal script fails to read settings from the main application. Update is only necessary from 2.9.3 if you are experiencing this issue. Please see version history.

iDupe 2.8 released, fixes issues with tracks lacking tags

iDupe 2.8 focuses on fixing a number of issues related to tracks missing ID3 tags. With some good reports and sleuthing from users, we were able to nail down and fix some specific problems. Please see the version history for details.

Cast Away 2.9.3 released

Cast Away 2.9.3 has been released. It fixes a rare undefined variable "naerr" bug. Feature requests to come in next release.

Cast Away 2.9.2 released

Cast Away 2.9.2 has been released. It fixes a rare issue which caused Cast Away to always abort a removal when it starts. Please see the version history for details.

CaliBrate 1.7.3 released

CaliBrate 1.7.3 fixes a single bug that would cause searching for annual all-day duplicates to fail with an unknown error. Please see the version history.

OmniGrowl 3.7 and GeekTool 3: A clarification

One reader posted a negative comment on OmniGrowl's page on versiontracker, the gist of which was that he was upset that OmniGrowl seemed (in the release notes) to be making an "ill-advised jab at GeekTool" and was claiming to replace it.

Since we agree that the release notes could have been more clear, here is our reply to that comment:

We love GeekTool and have been using it for years. We love GeekTool 3 even more. The "better solution" we're talking about is specifically how to display iTunes track info and artwork on the desktop using GeekTool. We wrote one of those ourselves a long time ago and published it in WBC iTunes Scripts Collection. Similar solutions have been posted on several blogs, MacOSXHints, etc. The existing solutions have 3 limitations:

1. They all involve running 2 separate scripts (one for artwork and one for track info), and polling iTunes on a regular basis (several times a minute). This puts a huge tax on iTunes and eventually, in our opinion, makes iTunes unusable and therefore makes this kind of solution not really work.
2. The track info and the artwork is usually out-of-sync.
3. You have to have embedded artwork.

So, what we mean by OmniGrowl being a "much better solution for GeekTool users than anything currently available" is that it handles things differently:

1. OmniGrowl uses the distributed notifications system to be alerted of iTunes track changes, and doesn't need to constantly poll iTunes.
2. one plugin updates GeekTool at the same time, and uses the new AppleScript support in GeekTool to tell it when to refresh.
3. if you have the option to download artwork from the internet on (or even if you don't and OmniGrowl is getting the artwork from iTunes), then OmniGrowl is already caching an image file, so there is no duplication of this task on iTunes or the system.*

Beyond that it is really easy to set up. Just rename a provided template and then create two new geeklets in GeekTool with specific names. So as a GeekTool user too, please just try it and then comment back what you think! Thanks. (Viva GeekTool)

* For the even more technically inclined, I would add to the comment as posted on VersionTracker by saying that also, OmniGrowl will only cache artwork once per album rather than constantly copying a cache file over another cache file. Also OmniGrowl has an embedded transparent png file in the application bundle, so there's no need to copy that around the system either.

OmniGrowl 3.7 released

OmniGrowl 3.7 has been released. This is a big update focused on iTunes artwork support. OmniGrowl now downloads album artwork from the internet, so even if the show full iTunes notification is not selected (which is less burdensome on iTunes), you can still see artwork in the notification. Related plugins & additions have been included. Most notably is a script to add the downloaded artwork to the album in iTunes, and a plugin template for GeekTool 3 which allows you to show the artwork and track info on your desktop with some minimal configuration of GeekTool. Please see the version history for details.

CaliBrate 1.7.2 released

CaliBrate 1.7.2 has been released. It addresses a specific need: to deal with a certain type of event corruption on Snow Leopard. Please see version history for details.

Issues with Tiger Intel

As I blogged yesterday, the Apple developer tools on Snow Leopard have some major bugs which make compiling for backwards compatibility very difficult or impossible. We knew that there were issues with iDupe 2.6 on intel macs running Leopard specifically. We managed to work around these bugs to create iDupe 2.7 which does work on intel macs on Leopard (as well as tested successfully on 10.6.1, 10.5.8 PPC & Intel, and 10.4.11 PPC). However, we now have one report that iDupe 2.7 won't launch on 10.4.11 intel. Unfortunately, as we don't have this configuration to test, there's not much we can do to work around the problem without Apple addressing it. So, if you find any of the WBC don't work on your platform, we urge you to report it. In the meantime, it is very likely that an older build will work just fine. Although we continue to add features to our products, the last round of updates did focus on compatibility upgrades for Snow Leopard, so if you're not on Snow Leopard yet, the older versions should still suit your needs. Thanks.

iDupe 2.7 released

iDupe 2.7 has been released. It focuses on supporting iTunes 9, and fixing some major compiler bugs that affected particular systems, mainly intel Macs running Leopard (OS X 10.5). If your system was affected, you would have seen -3 code errors after scanning. iDupe 2.7 is a major under-the-hood update to support as many systems as possible. There are two positive side-effects of the changes: 1) Since use of the Finder is greatly reduced, iDupe will likely perform faster, and 2) iDupe may now work on FileVault systems and certain network-based volumes where it did not before, but this is yet untested. Your feedback will be helpful as it is not possible for WBC to test these configurations. Please see version history for details.

Cast Away 2.9 released

Cast Away 2.9 has been released. It's a major under-the-hood Snow Leopard update, and also adds support for iTunes 9. iTunes U media can be treated like Podcasts. It's now quite a bit faster as it has dropped the old methods to get the release date needed before iTunes 8.1 (and now requires at least iTunes 8.1). There is a new feature to add comments to the playing track. Please see the version history for details. The price has shot up from $7 to $8. Your support is appreciated.

OmniGrowl 3.6.3 released

OmniGrowl 3.6.3 has been released. It focuses on some of the advanced features such as plugins and logs. Please see the version history for details.

CaliBrate 1.7 released

CaliBrate 1.7 has been released. It's another big update that fixes bugs and adds several user feature requests. Please see the version history for details.

MoveTunes 1.6 released

MoveTunes 1.6 has been released. It adds support for Snow Leopard and iTunes 9, the interface has been reworked, and now remembers recent target folders. Please see version history for details.

Bitten by Snow Leopard

After a merciless 2 weeks of being bit by Snow Leopard, big updates to 5 WBC products (iDupe, Cast Away, MoveTunes, CaliBrate, and OmniGrowl) will be out within an hour. Thanks for your patience!

The compatibility status of all other products are still unknown, but unfortunately those will have to wait while we turn to other obligations for a while. Apologies to users of DevonSync and ThinkArch for the delay, and Snow Leopard bug reports with logs will be very helpful.

Since this is our blog, let me take the opportunity to rant just a little. While Snow Leopard is fantastic in many respects, despite the fact that it has been advertised as fixing long-standing bugs, the number of bugs it introduced for developers is actually quite massive. Most of the past two weeks have been nearly sleepless and I have tried to work around these bugs. Complicating matters is that what works on one system may fail badly on another. For instance, many bugs in the Snow Leopard developer tools are revealed on intel Macs running Leopard, while not affecting PowerPC macs running Leopard. Supporting all the possible combinations of OS versions, chipsets, and iApps versions is a nearly insurmountable challenge for small developers with limited test environments. I have 5 computers in my household and its still not enough to test all combinations! For users then, it is very important to be specific about your system when reporting bugs, and to understand that the product may work on one platform but not on your system because there was no or limited opportunity to test. To conclude this rant, let me say that my feelings about Apple have plummeted in the past two weeks. While they advertise how everything "just works" they do not appeciate that it takes developers like us to make sure that is true, and we are treated badly when we are made to work so hard to work around the bugs they introduce. End rant.

Problem with iDupe 2.6 on Intel Macs running Leopard

There is a problem due to a bug in XCode with intel Macs running Leopard (not Snow Leopard) and iDupe 2.6. The problem would cause scanning to fail with -3 errors on all tracks. A work-around will be posted very shortly today. Thanks for your understanding.

Snow Leopard updates for iDupe, CaliBrate, and OmniGrowl

iDupe 2.6 addresses minor compatibility issues with Snow Leopard and adds the ability to designate five star rated tracks as keepers. iDupe now requires OS X 10.4. CaliBrate 1.6 is a major compatibility upgrade for Snow Leopard and adds a couple of popular feature requests. CaliBrate now requires OS X 10.5. OmniGrowl has been updated to fix an issue with Woot and updates the Growl framework. Please see the version history pages for iDupe, CaliBrate, and OmniGrowl.

OmniGrowl 3.6 released

OmniGrowl now supports Snow Leopard, as well as Tiger & Leopard! Known issues have been fixed, but during this transition period please don't be shy to report any continuing issues. A few feature requests have also been added. Please see version history for details.

More on Snow Leopard

Unfortunately it seems that Snow Leopard has caused more problems than anticipated for WBC products. We're working on updates but it may take a couple of weeks. Unfortunately we had no early access to Snow Leopard. Thank you for your patience.

On Snow Leopard and WBC products

To our knowledge, most WBC products don't rely on any APIs that are be unique previous OS X versions, so most products are believed to work. However, testing is still underway, and definitive reports will be posted on this Snow Leopard compatibility chart.

WBC iTunes Scripts Collection 1.8.3 released

Updated the grab-bag playlist scripts to deal with a bug introduced by Apple in iTunes 8.2.
AMG Info script was updated long ago but not repackaged. Forgot what changes were made.

iTunes 8.2 work arounds

In coping with the bug introduced by Apple with iTunes 8.2, WBC has come up with a viable work around that should allow these products to work with both iTunes 8.2+ and previous versions of iTunes. Since we cannot test with all possible configurations, please report any problems to WBC through the support contact form.

iDupe 2.5.3 released

iDupe 2.5.3 has been released. It works around an Apple iTunes 8.2 bug that made it impossible to scan user playlists and fixes other minor bugs. Please see the version history for details. Please note the iTunes 8.2 bugs still exist, but iDupe is no longer affected with this version.

Cast Away 2.8.2 released

Cast Away 2.8.2 has been released. It works around the same issues with iTunes 8.2 involving user playlists that affected several other WBC products. (See most recent blog entries and the version history.)

MoveTunes 1.5.3 released

MoveTunes 1.5.3 fixes the same iTunes 8.2 incompatibilities that iDupe 2.5.3 also fixes. (See most recent blog entries.) It also resolves some issues with audio books and protected audio files. Please see the version history for details.

iTunes 8.2 breaks iDupe and possibilty others

Apple's release of iTunes 8.2 broke some core scripting elements, and this affects iDupe and possibly other WBC products. It might also affect any script that interacts with iTunes. Work-arounds are possible, but these would break compatibility with previous versions of iTunes. Therefore, for the time being, WBC has opted to wait for a fix from Apple rather than trying to work-around Apple bugs. This is not quite as bad as all this -- some scripts and products can be used with caution. For example, iDupe will no longer scan user playlists, but it should scan the Music library playlist. More will be posted here as it is known. If you have not upgraded to iTunes 8.2, don't do it for now; unless you need iPhone OS 3.0 support or want to use Genius with videos, nothing has changed since 8.1.1 other than breaking the scripting.

OmniGrowl 3.5.4 released

OmniGrowl 3.5.4 has been released. It eliminates a repeated undefined variable error message if connection to CityTools Ambient news times out. (Appears to be down 4/9/09, which trigged this message.)

OmniGrowl 3.5.3 released

4Info keeps changing their URLS. So fixed 4Info URL (again!), hopefully for good this time (added redirect also). Adjusted Flight Status parsing to work with iCal feeds from TripIt. TripIt is a web site which will automatically process trip itineraries from airlines, and you can subscribe to them in iCal.

Cast Away 2.8 released

Cast Away 2.8 has been released. iTunes finally allows 3rd party applications to get the release date of podcast episodes directly. This means that Cast Away no longer has to read the podcast file metadata directly (or need to attempt other funny tricks), which means it can now work much faster and more accurately. Although it was a minor under-the-hood change, the major performance boost warrants a new point release. You must upgrade to iTunes 8.1 or higher to take advantage of this feature.

OmniGrowl 3.5.2 released

OmniGrowl 3.5.2 has been released. Fixed a problem with the 4Info URLs. Please see the version history for details.

CaliBrate 1.5 released

This release adds two new actions, one new search possibility, and fixes several bugs. Please see the version history for details.

Cast Away 2.7 released

This updated fixes the problem that Cast Away would forget the archive folder location if it could not be found. Now it remembers it but skips podcasts that should be archived. Cast Away now also logs (optionally) all archived podcasts in a tab-separated values (TSV) file that can be imported into iTunes as a playlist or into a database like WBC's iGotta MP3 Collection. Please see version history for further details.

ThinkArch 1.2 released and DEVONThink scripts updated

ThinkArch 1.2 has been released. It adds compatibility with DEVONThink Pro version 2.x and includes a number of other bug fixes and updates. Please see the version history for details. The DEVONThink Pro scripts have also been updated. They also add compatibility with DEVONThink Pro 2.x (and some require that upgrade). The Add web page to DEVONThink Plus script for Safari also has been fixed for the New York Times and includes other improvements.

DevonSync 1.3 released

DevonSync adds compatibility with, and requires, DEVONThink Pro 2.x, including recent public betas. It now requires OS X Leopard also. The last version compatible with Tiger (1.2.4) is also available for separate download. (However that version is only compatible with DEVONThink Pro 1.x).

OmniGrowl 3.5 released

This version works around a major drive noise problem related to S.M.A.R.T. status checking on some systems. It also fixes broken parsing for Woot, MacZot, and Pollstar. It includes some other bug fixes. Please see the version history for details.

Returned from Travels: Patience Requested

I have now returned from traveling abroad. It was a great trip, thanks for asking. As you might expect, I have over a month's work of work to catch up with in addition to new responsibilities, so it is still going to take a while to get back to everyone who has contacted WBC within the past month. Your patience is appreciated. Thanks.