Well, here it's September 1 already, which means kids in Russia go to school; this also means WindowShade X 3.0 Public Preview has expired.

While the rest of the people with the expired version download the all-new v3.0, we are hard at work on v3.0.1 already. I've spent the day yesterday fixing bugs, and plan to continue doing so today and tomorrow.

So far:

• Window titles for Minimized-In-Place windows are now displayed below the MIP window if they would obscure the menu bar or go off the top screen edge.
  
• Minimize-In-Place auto-alignment function now respects the Dock position and bounds.
  
• Minimize-In-Place windows are being auto re-arranged when you expand one of the minimized windows.
  
• Fixed an issue causing Classic Window Management by Robb Timlin not work in the Carbon applications.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Help button not working in the Preference Pane.
  
• Fixed a bug causing some Java applications to crash when expanding a minimized window (IntelliJ IDEA).
  
• Fixed an issue with QuarkXPress 6 disabling its menus if you Minimize-In-Place one of its document windows.
  

This is by far not everything that we plan to roll into the minor 3.0.1 update, so, as I said, the work continues.

Now, thank you very much for the suggestions and criticism in the previous post. Many of that sounds very reasonable, and I am going to queue some of the suggestions to our task tracker system that holds bugs and suggestions.

Version 3.0.1 will be mostly a bugfix release, with one new feature implemented - an additional minimize behavior "Command Key Pressed Twice", so you can utilize your keyboards (should be handy for the PowerBook users). You can assign any minimize action to that one, as usual.

Meanwhile, Xounds 2.0 update descends to the release stage fast and will be unleashed this week. Then I'll be full at work on the Panzer compatibility for the Application Enhancer. Some work has been done in that direction already in the past few days, and I've isolated the problem preventing APE to be loaded in the new system, so it's a matter of time to fix. I'll keep you posted.

I'm not ready to give up bashing Apple. Okay, I agree with Slava on Mac OS X. It rocks. I was converted and loving it before Slava saw the light even. I'm convinced that OS X is headed in the right direction.

But until I get my 2 button scroll wheel mouse shipped with my new mac, I'll not give up my Apple bashing! You listening Head of the Mouse Department??!!

That's all. Have a nice day.

I'll be short. WindowShade X 3.0 is finally out, so feel free to grab it. Thank you for the feedback, ideas and criticism!

I have been well known in certain circles (pretty tight circles, though) as somebody who just loves to bash Mac OS X and its underlying technologies. I have been ranting about Cocoa and Carbon, Mach-O ABI, not to mention numerous stances towards other things that irritated me in OSX in other blog posts.

But I think this is a good ocassion to say to myself and others "on the scene": Enough Bitching. Mac OS X is not perfect. Far from it. But I guess we can see that it is evolving, progressing and many things that irritated us are getting worked out (and some don't ;). For myself, I will from now on remember that there are more positive aspects in Mac OS X than negative ones, mostly because of the users' efforts and feedback both to Apple and to the smaller companies who plumb the holes with little utilities (we are one of these).

I think I know where we are going, and I like the path. There will be some bumps along the way, but there is a sunshine in the end (then again, this all sounds much like religious mumbo-jumbo about the ethernal life -- and there's nobody who can confirm or deny whether it's true or not). As a user, I can say I will continue supporting my favorite fruit company; as a developer, I can say we will continue doing what we do, as this is to everybody's benefit.

Mac OS X is great. Almost. Enough bitching. Relax yourself and enjoy the ride. Bugs are there to fix, incomplete functionality there is to get rid of or polish it, and plain crashing is there just for fun. Yeah.

No, this is not a spam in a blog, yet something close -- yet another report on the progress of WindowShade X 3.0. In the past couple of days we've implemented moving the MIPped windows to their parent monitor alignment group (if that preference is on), and fixed a few bugs, big and small (one of the nastiest is probably the one that was introduced in the Pubic Preview - when you minimize-in-place more than a few windows per application, that application might crash).

We will enter the beta tonight and things are looking good for an on-time release. Note that this version is not yet approved for Panther - we will release a separate Panther beta update sometime later here on the dot org. Last time I checked on Panther, everything was working decently well, aside from side quirks with Expose; however, sadly, due to a lack of time, we didn't invest a significant time into Panther compatibility yet, but a large timeframe is allocated just for that right after WindowShade X 3 and Xounds 2 hit the ground.

Thanks for sticking with us, and for reading my boring progress reports. ;)

As you may know, WindowShade X 3.0 Public Preview expires on September 1. For this reason, we'll have a final release for you before that date.

Currently we are working on the most requested feature for Minimize-in-Place: automatic alignment of windows along some screen edge. So far so good, and first prototype builds are working pretty nicely.

I've run into a small dilemma, though. As many of you are, I use multiple monitors with my Mac, and the question is where to put the MIPped windows if they are auto-aligned -- on a monitor of your choice or form two (or more) alignment groups for each monitor and then collapse the window to the appropriate one depending on which screen it was. Which is the better approach?

As a side note, as you may have noticed, we have added AdWords to our sites. We'll see how well this performs -- it may help us pay the bills on the hosting (pair Networks are freakin' great, but a little bit expensive - but it's all worth it). Hope you don't mind - and feel free to click on stuff that interests you - you are giving us a penny or two every time you do so. ;)

Either way, I'll keep you posted on WSX development process, as usual.

FontCard 1.0 (and then 1.0.1) were released yesterday to much fanfare or something. A 1.0.2 update is forthcoming to fix some bugs like incorrect identification of German font menus (Schrift instead of Schriftart), some font variations not being selectable, duplicate fonts appearing when they shouldn't and whatever else might come up.

Work on FontCard 1.1 starts after work on an update to Menu Master is complete. FontCard 1.1 will also need a GUI redesign because not all the new options will fit on the Applications tab. I would like to hear any suggestions for the redesign with a few requirements: the intro tab must exist as it does, the table that exists now with the applications/regex entries must exist, and the user must be able to see/choose which application/regex the current visible options apply to.

People can still email me to be on the beta list (even if they won't do anything or provide any feedback) if they wish. 1.0.2 may or may not even have a beta cycle. And finally, if anyone sees anything mentioning FontCard anywhere please either email me, or preferably, post a comment to this entry via the comment system or a trackback.

Update:Kunio Mitsuma has made a really good webpage about FontCard.

Alrighty, hopefully I am not boring you too much with the screenshots for the upcoming Xounds 2. ;)

Again, based on lots of internal meetings and your feedback here on .org, the GUI is slightly reworked as compared to yesterday's state, and I think it became much more functional now:

First of all, the bubbles are back. They are of different color now, and only present on the draggable objects; therefore, groups and Xoundsets that couldn't be dragged do not have a bubble (and all the assigned sounds on the top table, for that matter).

Aside from some cosmetic improvements like double-click in the table row playing the represented sound, another major new thing is 'Smart Picks' table which can be found in the bottom right corner. The idea is very simple. You click on anything in the top table (Disk Eject in this case), and Smart Picks shows you all the sounds in all soundsets that match the selection. Quite handy if you want to compare sounds from different Xoundsets, and do other mix-and-match stuff.

All in all, this is a nice collaboration on the GUI design -- you and us together make a good team. ;) Now give us all your money and we'll give you all ours. Nevermind.

Oh well, since today seems to be a screenshots day, here is a recent screenshot of what Xounds preference pane looks:

As you can see, based on your feedback, I've killed the bubbles and attempted to make it more functional. While the top table looks pretty nice now, the bottom one contents look lonely. I am not sure if I should get back to the bubble metaphor for the bottom table to indicate the draggableness (what a word!) of each sound 'object'. Ideas?

All in all, we are moving very fast to the release, and I do beleive Xounds is going to be much improved in this update. First of all, as we stated before, you can mix-and-match any Xoundsets (or any AIFF files, for that matter) and arbitrary assign them to soundable actions. Second, we've added a bunch of new actions such as key press (typewriter key sound haxie requestors, this is for you!), mouse press, and a variety of drag-related sounds. Plus you'll be able to save it all to a new Xoundset, which is always a convenience.

if you'd like to beta test the remaining builds, drop me an email to slava@.com. Thank you!

Well, thanks to eff, I spent a few minutes today playing with the Rolodex idea for FontCard. This is by no means a finished product, but I am not sure if I like how it turns or not. Probably more not than yes - the whole thing is a bit too round and does not gives me that scary techno-ish look as that big a** dark cabinet on the previous try does.

Ah, who knows... ;)

Rosyna asked for a FontCard icon, and since I felt guilty for typing out that pointless monkeys post, I figured I might do something more productive, so here it is:

I've been asked to make a 'dark looking' icon, so don't blame me for it being, um, dark. After I've made it, though, I've been told that the dark was meant as in techno-future-cyberpank style. Ah well. Anyway, here we go (and now I can earn a place other than 'Did Not Disturb' in the FontCard's about box). ;)

(One-word title style credit goes to ~stevenf and his early blog posts).

I was thinking the other day about our obsession with monkeys. Maybe it isn't 'ours' as a company, but rather 'ours' as in the 'royal we' sense of a view, but still, there's damn lot of monkey references in everything we do.

The first obvious thing is the APE system. Of course, we always been high on acronyms - back in my days in @soft I picked the name 'MacAmp Lite' not because it sounded particularry well, but because it made a good acronym - MALT. MACAST, btw, is an acronym too, and I can take the credit for such a horrible one ("macassed", some people shouted). It actually means 'Macintosh Advanced Sound Technology'. ;) But who cares now. Either way, when we were picking up a name for Application Enhancer, we did picked that particular one because it made a nice acronym - APE. I think this is when the Monkey Era in this company has begun.

To make things worse, first APE modules (and the APE itself) had all kinds of weird icons featuring monkeys, and even the current one has a monkey on it (it's a cyber-monkey, perhaps, but yet it is still a monkey).

But the monkey saga does not stops here. Now we happen to refer to all the company employees as 'monkeys'. We got Support Monkeys (hi Gregg and Alex!), Coder Monkeys (hi Rosyna and me!) and even a Biz Monkey (hi Brian). Of course it's nowhere official, but I happen to find the term 'let our monkies handle that' more and more often in my conversations with my partners.

Some other people get infected by this Monkey Syndrome I've got and create software that is primate-induced as well. Take Zaius, for example, which is a reference to the Planet of Apes, or Primate, a pre-APE Manager utility to manage your installed APE modules.

All in all, as you have figured out, this is just strange. I am afraid to think where else monkies will pop up over the coming years of Unsanity (no, we're not planning to stop anytime soon. we have fun here!). Scary.

So thank you for spending your precious time reading this pointless rant about monkeys. Then again, this is half of what blogging is about, right?

And just so you can see how much monkeys are into my life: I have used the word 'monkeys' 17 times in this post.

This post is about FontCard. FontCard is a new haxie. If you would like to beta test it. Please email me. rosyna at this company dot com.

FontCard is a haxie that modifies the Font menu in Carbon (and soon Cocoa) applications. It can add an icon that displays the format of a font next to the font menu item, display the font name in the font face, group fonts into submenus, and and add font collections to the font menu.

FontCard in Word

I am not adding any new features for the final 1.0 release but I am accepting feature requests for the 1.1 release which will be free to those that register 1.0. I am trying to get this out by August 14th.

FontCard also has a higher cost ($17) than the other Unsanity products released over the years. This is due to the market it is aimed for mostly. Also, when comparing it to previous font menu modification thingies on Mac OS 9, FontCard is much, much less costly. (Over twice as less costly in most cases).

There is no icon yet for FontCard and I need suggestions for what to put for text on the first tab on the preference pane. (Look at silk for examples) It does currently have issues with BBEdit and Corel Draw 11. Not sure if those can be addressed by 1.0.

Only tested to work with QuarkXPress 6.0, InDesign 2.0.2, Microsoft Word 10.1.x, Snak 4.9.x, BBEdit 7.0.x, ATSUICurveAccess Demo, and AppleWorks 6.2.7.

Our old friend Xounds was getting well, old. :)

So after a complete rewrite we are now in early beta with Xounds 2.

Lots of good silence killing goodness. Take a peek:

Mmm, nice bit via Jeff Thompson of CodeTek fame:

In Panther, launch Calculator, and do this calculation:

1503.93 - 863

(Sorry folks without Panther access). Nice, isn't it? Cats are not supposed to know math, yet hopefully Panther will learn to count before getting out of the door -- cause it's going to be even more excellent than before!

For the ones without Panfur, the result Calculator shows is 640.9300000000001 ;)

I cleaned my place up today. Finally. I've also posted pictures to my .Mac homepage. You can also see my current collection of anime.

Speaking of anime, FLCL (Fooly Cooly, Furi Kuri) premiered on Adult Swim last night. I was reading the Adult Swim forums and have to say frankly those people are mostly idiots. I say that in the nicest way possible. They keep asking for a subbed version of FLCL or some other show. Not understanding how lame that is. You would lose most of the key audience (the ones that buy stuff instead of downloading fansubs off the internet) if something was shown subbed. However, it would be nice if Cartoon Network showed FLCL or some other anime with the Japanese audio track encoded as SAP and the two subtitle streams (Dialog and Titles/Songs only) as Closed Captioning encodings (CC1/CC2). That'd be a good compromise. Or the people that complain about not having a subbed version could just go out and purchase the DVDs which also include textual (translated) copies of the Magna scenes, Direct Commentary and a music video (right side, DivX 3.11) of the ending theme song Ride on Shooting Star by The Pillows. Quite awesome. Back to the point. I wonder how many people that love their precious subtitled versions of anime notice that the japanese audio isn't lip-synced to the video? I also wonder how many have no idea how many video jokes/sight gags they miss by reading the subtitles (stop, go, rewind is not a way to watch anime). I'm not sure why people are so against dubbed versions but readily accept fansubs by people that know little to know Japanese (or English) or do not know the "proper" way to translate Japanese idioms to English/American Pop-culture anime. Remember, it's the idea that counts, not the actual spoken dialog. As long as you can convey the idea then dubbing is more than acceptable.

Over the years, dubbing has gotten much, much better. The only company that repeatedly does a horrible job at dubbing (Read: writing the script when it's not needed) is FUNimation. They often rewrite entire passages, or worse, add dialog to make a cheap joke where none was before. It really saddens me that they got the Kiddy Grade license. I was really looking forward to the dub until I read this new.

On another completely different note, I have mentioned before I do not like the Apple Store Biltmore. Well, I've got even better reason now. I was in there on July 25th and purchased $161.01 of stuff (ADC to DVI adapter and UT 2k3). I checked on July 28th and it said the Apple Store Biltmore charged me for that amount, and then for $585 for stuff I did not purchase. I did not complain too much because it didn't cause insufficient funds or any other bank charge. I would have been livid if it had. I called them that monday and they told me they would call Apple Corporate and see what's up and then call me back. No call. I called on that Thursday and they told me they got an email that it would be taken care of. On Monday (yesterday) I called them back again and they told me that it should be refunded by today and if it isn't on the account by tomorrow I should contact them again. Well, it's 11:30pm and it still isn't there. And it looks like I'll have to buy yet another AC Adapter for my AlBook. It'd be the fourth one. The other ones all split apart at the place where the cord meets the part that connects the round thing inside the AlBook (for lack of a better description).

Wow-wee, our weblog is looking as slim and trim as ever today. Before it is emaciated beyond all recognition, I figured I had better post a quick note.

We're busy playing with Panther, getting our products ready for Panther, wondering why junk mail filtering isn't working worth crap in Panther Mail, drooling in our sleep imagining G5's running Panther, and generally having a jolly good time with life.

But enough about us - what about you? Particularly at this time, what about you graphical/creative types out there? We are feeling the need to give away some stuff. Show some love ya know? Maybe throw in some cash too. We think Mighty Mouse is one of the coolest little GUI enhancing goodies around. We also think it time to provide some incentive and reward for people who create cool cursor sets. So a contest we will have! We're not quite ready with an official announcement of the contest...this is more of a teaser trailer type thing. ;)

We're cooking up a nice system to figure out the winners and finalizing what sort of goodies to give away. So while we're figuring out those details, put your creative caps on and start thinking up some earth shattering cursor ideas. Okay, okay - maybe just really cool will do. (but mind-blowing would be nice too) :)

Expect details to come within a week.

No NDA's were harmed in the posting of this post...I don't think ;)