Today we had two small releases:

Cashculator 1.2.4 release notes:

• NEW: Added a “Cancel” button to password enable/disable dialog.
• UPDATE:Add more information for a common support case to help resolve the issue
• UPDATE:Updated Japanese translation

Download Cashculator from http://www.apparentsoft.com/cashculator/download or auto-update.

Blast 1.6.3 release notes:

• NEW: Hide applications’ .app extension unless overridden in Finder preferences.
• CHANGED: Trial notice dialog now has a button to enter licensing dialog to enter license information.
• Some more changes to help with common support issues.

Download Blast from http://www.apparentsoft.com/blast/download or auto-update.

Everyone is encouraged to update, although not all will see the immediate benefits.

After we update Blast’s menu icon in version 1.6 many people wrote back and asked to return the old one. Yet, we replaced the old one since it was also consistently criticized as being too different. So, we’ve taken a 2-part solution to this:

1. We made the new detonator icon, introduced in 1.6, less ugly. I added some rounded corners and made letter B a bit wider and softer. The whole icon looks much softer now.
2. I brought the old icon back as well, as an option. You can now select which icon you want to see on your menu bar in the preferences:

Blast 1.6.2 also fixes the following issues:

• Don’t hide main window when resizing it.
• Hide main window when selecting “Show in Finder” in context menu.
• Changed sidebar font to system font which makes the text more readable.

Blast 1.6 answers many of the requests brought forward by our users. Your suggestions make Blast better each time. Blast now has a new menu icon:

Here are the release notes for Blast 1.6:

• NEW: Blast window can now be resized vertically. A menu item can also reset window height to default.
• NEW: Added titles for sidebar items. Also increased its width.
• NEW: Made files inside packages not visible.
• NEW: Split show Folders and show Applications options.
• NEW: Can now rename files (from right-click menu)
• NEW: Modified menu icon to be more in line with the theme and highlighted correctly.
• NEW: Added “Return to top” option. If you prefer, you can ask Blast to always go to the most recent file when the window opens, instead of keeping last position.
• NEW: Made highlighting of selected item lighter.
• NEW: Hide folder and application kinds buttons if user selected not to track them
• NEW: Show about window attached to the icon, on first launch, to help new users find Blast’s menu bar icon.
• NEW: Added help image to default sidebar. This is only available for new users. Help image can always be accessible from the menu.
• FIX: Handle close to screen edge situation, which made Blast’s window go off screen.

Just three days after the release of Blast 1.4 we bring you Blast 1.5. It brings some of the most requested features and fixes an important bug (Sidebar items were not remembered between launches). Here are the full release notes:

We don’t know how it happened but our application Blast is now the featured download on Apple’s download page. It’s great news for us and we hope it will make Blast known to a wider audience. Here’s the historic screenshot:

We’re also preparing Blast 1.4.1 release with a few new features very soon.

If you haven’t check Blast, simply download it now.

New version of Blast and of ImageFramer were released today.
The Blast release is especially large and sports a major new feature – filtering recent files by kind. Now, the top of the Blast window sports a selection control where you can select which files you want to see:

The number of recent files remembered was increased tenfold from 25 to 250. Together with the filtering, it won’t overwhelm you.

The performance was also improved. Blast’s window now opens instantly even if the previews will take some time. File preview generation was moved into background and they now appear as they are generated, making Blast much more snappier in use.

There were some UI changes, such as the Blast menu button move to the top and its icon replaced. The scroll bar on the right of recents file list was made larger for easier handling. The window size was changed a little as well.

Among other new features, the context menu now has an option to move the file to Trash and an option to clear the list. If your list becomes irrelevant to the task at hand, you can clear it to remove clutter.

Also, Blast no longer displays splash screen on launch, which irritated some of you and it is now also 64-bit universal.

ImageFramer

ImageFramer 2.4.8 adds 7 new frames into the “Wooden frames” set in “Real” collection.

We’re glad to release Blast 1.3. This version adds many features that you, our users, have asked for and some more that we thought ourselves .

Here’s the change list:

• NEW: Global hotkey (default Control+B) to open and close Blast window
• NEW: Keyboard actions to open/reveal items in recent files list or in sidebar (Enter to open, Space to reveal)
• NEW: Easily add excludes right from recent files list: right-click on a file to get context menu.
• NEW: Option to not track folders. Unselect “Show Folder” in Preferences
• NEW: Preferences button was replaced by a menu button. Quit button removed, it’s in the menu now.
• NEW: Visual help accessible from the new menu. See how to best use Blast.
• Various UI and bug fixes.

Here’s the new help window graphics (reduced):