Cashculator 1.3.3 with fixes for Mavericks

Today we’ve released Cashculator version 1.3.3 both on the Mac App Store and direct on our site.

This update fixes the scenario sidebar not showing for some users on Mavericks. In addition, it improves the look of the bottom bar on the Income and Expenses screen.

There are more fixes, which are mainly not seen by users. Cashculator should be faster. It also now requires Mac OS X 10.7 or higher. Mac OS X 10.6 is no longer supported in version 1.3.3. As Apple goes forward with their OS releases, so do we.

If you’re using the direct version of Cashculator, you can update from the Cashculator menu. You can also download the new version manually.

Announcing Socialite end of life

History

Ever since we acquired Socialite from Realmac Software in December 2010, we have been planning on releasing a faster, more stable version 2. Months of work had gone into making Socialite 1 better. Then we shifted our focus to the development of Socialite 2. Since then, including some unsuccessful attempts, we’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars into its development and months of our time.

In June 2012 Twitter announced API changes and made it clear that traditional Twitter clients, such as Socialite, should not be developed. Some of these new rules made developing Twitter support in Socialite 2 impossible, so after much deliberations, we had decided to stop the development of Socialite 2, but to continue the support of the current version of Socialite.

Since then, keeping Socialite users in mind, we have tried to find a buyer for Socialite. A buyer that could give it a new home, invigorate it and create a new roadmap. But our efforts have been in vain. No such buyer was found, and we decided to continue supporting Socialite in its current form, mainly for its users’ sake.

Recent end-of-life of Google Reader was the last nail in the coffin of Socialite, as without it Socialite loses much of its appeal.

The announcement

The increasing amount of work that updating Socialite required, prevented us from giving proper attention to the development of our other applications and stopped us from creating new exciting applications. At the same time, declining sales and lack of a feasible roadmap made little sense to invest even more resources into Socialite.

Following these developments, we regretfully have to announce the end-of-life of Socialite application starting today. We are deeply sorry that Socialite came to this bitter end, and we understand the frustration of loyal Socialite users. We did our best to make it work, but to all things there is a beginning and an end, and this is the end of Socialite. Hopefully, it will also be a beginning of something else.

Logistics

What will change:

  • We will stop selling Socialite both on our website and on the Mac App Store
  • We will not release new versions of Socialite
  • We will not keep Socialite up-to-date with API changes of supported services, so going forward some services may stop working
  • We will not provide technical support to Socialite starting November 2013
  • Users who have purchased Socialite from our website starting June 1st 2013 are entitled to a refund. Contact us at http://support.apparentsoft.com/ and we will process your refund immediately. Unfortunately, Apple does not let us provide refunds to customers who purchased Socialite from Mac App Store.

What will stay the same:

  • The latest version will continue to be available for download from our website
  • We will continue to provide limited licensing support for existing users
  • We will provide limited technical support for existing users until the end of October 2013, to give them time to migrate to alternative solutions, like:
  • Hootsuite for power users of Facebook and Twitter
  • Tweetbot for Twitter
  • Feedly or ReadKit for RSS
  • Facebook website for Facebook
  • Flickery for Flickr

It’s been a long ride, and it has been a pleasure to have such enthusiastic users.

Jacob and Kosta Apparent Software

Trickster 2.1.1 fixes bugs and changes the flag

Version 2.1.1 of Trickster a number of important bug fixes. It also makes the flags more visible on the dark background by changing their color from crimson to golden yellow.

  • Fix Trickster reaching 100% CPU usage for users during trial period
  • Fix number of days for 2 weeks of expiration setting to behave correctly
  • Don’t show Trickster’s window on launch, if Hide is set in Login Items.
  • Replaced flag with a yellow one instead of the older crimson-colored one for better contrast.

Update Trickster through its auto-update feature or download Trickster from our site.

Trickster 2.1 release notes

Version 2.1 focuses on extending Trickster’s usefulness through interoperability with OS X and other applications on your Mac to make it better fit your workflow. It also brings voice-over support. Some bug were fixed as well.

Update Trickster through its auto-update feature or download Trickster from our site.

New features

  • Add Share submenu to the context menu (uses Mountain Lion built-in sharing capabilities, so only works on 10.8 or higher).
  • Add copy (Cmd-C) support. Selected files will be copied to the clipboard, like from Finder.
  • Adding files to Evernote from the context menu. You can add files either to the default notebook or to a specific one. Requires Evernote for Mac application to be installed on the machine.
  • Voice-over accessibility support.
  • Preference to only track opened files. In this case, modified and created files won’t appear in Trickster.
  • Support Control-P and Control-N for table navigation.
  • Automation support
    • AppleScript commands to get recent entries, selected entries, add files to Trickster and refresh the sort.
    • Added system-wide Service that allows adding selected files from Finder to Trickster as most recent ones. Even allows adding files by invoking the service on text that includes file paths.
    • Added a URL scheme (trickster-add-recent://) to add files to Trickster

To learn how to use the automation features and see some examples, read this article on our blog.

Minor changes and fixes:

  • Don’t remove flagged files when cleaning items, just as favorite items are not removed.
  • Fixed: flagging a file would add it to any filter with flag set, regardless of other filter settings.
  • Activate the previous app when Trickster hides main window.
  • In Filter manager, when a file is dropped, display if the file won’t pass global tracking settings, even if it passes the filter.
  • Adjust window height to fit the screen, if resolution or display changes.

Trickster automation in version 2.1

Trickster, in version 2.1, adds extensive support for AppleScript and other ways to interact with the application. This way you can make it more useful and adapt it to your workflow. Read below if you’re interested to learn how you can benefit from this, including sample scripts.

Adding files to Trickster’s list

With a System Service “Add to Trickster”.

Either select files in Finder or similar apps or select text that contain paths to files and use “Add to Trickster” service.

With custom URL scheme:

Use trickster-add-recent://fullPath to add the file at fullPath to Trickster.

For example, use in the Terminal as:

open trickster-add-recent:///Users/jacob/Dropbox/Public

For another example, click here to add Preview application to Trickster on your Mac.

With AppleScript

Like this:

tell application "Trickster" to add recent "/Users/jacob/Documents/Sample of Xcode.txt"

or even with multiple files, like this:

set fs to {"/Users/jacob/Documents/File 1.txt", "/Users/jacob/Pictures/Picture 1.jpg"}
tell application "Trickster" to add recent fs

The items can also be file objects and not only string paths.

Getting recent items from Trickster using AppleScript

It’s possible to get either the recent items as they’re shown in Trickster or the selected items. It’s possible to get individual items or the whole list (which might be slow).

There’s a command refresh entries that forces Trickster to sort its recent entries without opening Trickster’s window. You’ll probably want to use it before getting recent entries.

The list of all recent files (no filters applied) is available in entries elements of application object. A specific item (in this example, the first one) can be retrieved directly with the following AppleScript command: get path of entry 1

The selected items are available as selected entries property of the application object. The path to the first selected file can be retrieved with the following script:

tell application "Trickster"
  set se to selected entries
  set t to item 1 of se
  set p to path of t
end tell

The entry object contains the following properties of the file:

  • url (file, r/o) : The file object itself. Use it with Finder or in other ways
  • file name (text, r/o) : File name (without the folder)
  • flagged (boolean, r/o) : Is the item flagged
  • path (text, r/o) : Full path to the file as text
  • folder (text, r/o) : Folder of the file as text
  • favorite (boolean, r/o) : Is the item marked as favorite? If yes, it appears in the Favorites sidebar
  • modification date (date, r/o) : Modification date of the entry. Actually, it’s most usually the time that Trickster detected this change.
  • uti (text, r/o) : UTI of the entry

All of this information is available in the AppleScript dictionary which can be opened with AppleScript Editor.

As a user of LaunchBar I wanted to create a way to send files quickly from Trickster to LaunchBar. I also use the fabulous Keyboard Maestro, which lets me assign hot keys to call these scripts. As an alternative to Keyboard Maestro, you could use FastScripts from Red Sweater, if all you need is call AppleScripts.

The scripts were written with the help of Brett Terpstra and Eugene Gordin.

Script to select the most recent file in LaunchBar:

tell application "Trickster"
    refresh entries
    set f to get path of entry 1
    tell application "Launchbar" to open f
end tell

Script to get selected items in Trickster and put into LauchBar for further processing there:

set sel to selected entries
set paths to {}

repeat with i in sel
    set p to path of i
    set p to POSIX path of p
    copy p to end of paths
end repeat

tell application "LaunchBar"
    remain active
    open paths
end tell

I assigned both scripts to ⌃⌥Z in Keyboard Maestro. You’re welcome to download them.

I also created a custom search in LaunchBar that uses the special URL scheme to add a file from LaunchBar to Trickster. I called it “Add to Trickster”, and can invoke with at. I suppose similar actions can be performed with Alfred or other launchers.

Another usage pattern that Brett suggested is saving these scripts as files in scripts folder for LaunchBar, thus making them available right from within LaunchBar.

You can also create scripts to copy most recent files to the clipboard, for example.

I hope you find it useful in your workflow.

Maybe you can think of new ways to use Trickster’s automation. If you think something is missing and you want more automation functionality, let us know.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale

For this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’re offering all our products at 50% discount.

From now until end of Monday, Nov 26, you can get all our products at a 50% discount.

The prices appearing on the site are regular prices but the whole store and Mac App Store prices are discounted. No coupon code is needed.

Here are the updated prices:

Don’t miss this rare opportunity!

Socialite 1.5

We’re glad to announce Socialite 1.5 with some important changes. It’s available immediately to direct customers. It was also submitted to the Mac App Store yet the reviews there take about a month now. Use the auto-update mechanism or download directly.

Read the release notes below carefully. There are some important changes in there. There are also some under-the-hood improvements that are not visible in the notes which will help future development.

Note, the version submitted to the Mac App Store will be sandboxed, to adhere to Apple’s requirements. The direct version is not sandboxed.

  • Socialite is now a 64-bit application. Previous versions were only 32-bit. This means it’s more adapted for the future and also that it won’t run on the 32-bit Macs (first generation Intel machines).
  • Text is now sharp on the Retina display. Also updated the application icon for the larger size required for Retina display.
  • Flickr authentication update. Flickr is deprecating its old application authentication mechanism in favor of the more standard OAuth authentication. For you it means future support for Flickr. It also means that Socialite will ask you to authenticate your account again. Only once per a Flickr account.
  • Removed Digg service. The old Digg service was sold and discontinued. The new site is a completely different service. Most of you probably did’t care about Digg by now anyway.
  • Allow increasing and decreasing font size in web view (RSS articles). This is available with Ctrl–+, Ctrl–- and Ctrl–0. The commands are also available in the right-click menu or in the View menu. The zoom setting is remembered between relaunches of Socialite.
  • Updated Growl SDK to version 2.0. If you’re using Growl 2.0, you’ll now be able to forward Socialite’s notifications to Mountain Lion’s Notification Center. Hopefully there also should be less crashes related to the buggy Growl SDK in the previous version.
  • Add menu item “Reveal Database File” in the Help menu.
  • Security enhancements and minor bug fixes

Trickster 2.0.2 brings Retina support and more features

A direct release of Trickster version 2.0.2 is available now. A Mac App Store version is not yet released.

The new version brings full support for the Retina displays on the new MacBook Pros. It also adds a number of new usability features and lots of bug fixes.

Not many people have the Retina Macs yet, but we wanted to delight those who have them and also be ready for future updates to the Mac lineup. Trickster looks gorgeous on the Retina. Sorry, only a portion of the screen can fit the space on the blog.

Full release notes are below the screenshot.

Trickster Window in Retina

  • It’s now possible to drop files from Finder or other apps onto the Recent files list to add them to the list.
  • It’s also possible to drop dragged files on the menu bar icon to add them to the list. From there you can add to Favorites or use Trickster as a temporary “holding area” before dragging them to other applications.
  • Full support for Retina displays
  • Return to items list from search with up/down arrows.
  • Type to search from every part of the window.
  • Remove items from list with Delete/Backspace
  • Added Remove commands to the pop-up menu.
  • Trash files with Command-delete.
  • Add Trash to pop-up menu.
  • Accept “.” in manual extensions in filters and index.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed various crashes
  • Fixed watching the root path.
  • Fixed drag and drop support with some apps, such as Skype and Illustrator.
  • Fixed the creation of excluded files from context menu.
  • Fixed different window resizing problems and Favorites bar drawing.
  • Fixed support for Bartender app

You can download Trickster from our site or use the built-in update mechanism to update your copy.

Socialite 1.4.2 with Mountain Lion support and fixes

We’ve released Socialite 1.4.2 today, to direct customers only. It was also submitted to the Mac App Store but we didn’t want our direct customers to wait since the fixes are important and Apple unfortunately takes quite a lot of time to review submissions recently.

The changes in 1.4.2 are:

  • Fixed constantly spinning Facebook account when sessions expire. Facebook has changed its policy and now applications get only 60 days of access to Facebook before their access tokens expire and the user has to authenticate the application again.
  • Fixed displaying of RSS and Google Reader articles on Mountain Lion
  • Embedded content (such as YouTube videos) now shows in RSS/Google Reader articles. This was a long-standing bug.
  • Socialite is now signed with Developer ID signature for being compatible with Mountain Lion. This is only important to direct customers. This also means that on the first launch of the new version the system will ask you to grant Socialite access to keychain entries. It may ask once for each separate account you have in Socialite.
  • Fixed the incorrect drawing of rows in the sidebar when rows are expanded. Previously the unread badges could be drawn too far to the right.

Direct customers, check using the built-in update option. Or download new version directly.

Trickster — your productivity secret on the Mac

We are glad to announce that we have released a major upgrade to our productivity application Blast. As part of the upgrade we’ve decided to change its name. So please welcome Trickster.

Trickster takes the best ideas of Blast, wraps them in a new shiny package, adds the most requested features from our customers and add some tricks of its own.

Specifically, Trickster improves over Blast with more control over the files and folders that you track, greatly improves performance, adds the much requested ability to quickly find the files by typing their name, all this in an improved, slicker UI. You can get more details about how Trickster improves over Blast here.

You can take a look at the video below to see some of the changes.

Trickster is available both on the Mac App Store and directly from us. Until June 18 it is also available as part of the Productive Macs bundle, which should also check out.

You can also download a 14 day trial from our website. We’re sure you’re going to love it.

Also, don’t forget to follow @tricksterapp on Twitter where we will publish tips about how to get the most out of Trickster.

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