Quick Tag, a tagging utility for iTunes, has been updated to version .6. While still beta, this update adds Leopard compatibility, a new icon, improved tagging speed and performance, a new tag cloud window, advanced control over tag delimiters, and a number of bug fixes.
For details about the .6 release, visit the blog announcement. To download, visit the Quick Tag page. For help with using Quick Tag, see the Quick Tag quick help.
As if you didn’t have enough to do this holiday season, the alpha version of iGTD 2 is slated to be released sometime near the end of December. As of this writing, the alpha is about 95% done and presumably ready for public consumption.
I’m honestly a little perplexed by the number of independent Mac developers releasing alpha software these days, complete with bugs and lacking promised features. I’m sure that the pending release of OmniFocus is the reason GTD developers are pushing their software out the door as soon as possible, but it still seems like a fairly dangerous move. Even software that is publicly released in beta form often gets seriously delayed as the developer becomes swamped by feature requests and duplicate bug reports, and I imagine the problem is far worse for hotly anticipated applications like Things and iGTD 2. I’m sure releasing alpha software results in an initial burst of interest, but I wonder about the long-term benefits.
As a telecommuter I don’t have a lot of interaction with real people over the course of a standard day, and I’ve gradually been trying to find new ways to get a bit more human interaction through that wonderful impersonal medium, the internet. A college friend invited me to Twitter, so I’m giving it a shot to see if it can help connect me to the broader world a bit more.
Only problem is that I don’t really know anyone who uses Twitter. I’ve started the account following some people I find interesting out in Mac Software/Design Land, but I’d love to find some like-minded web designers or folks involved in the Mac software scene (any taggers out there?). You can find me at twitter.com/onecrayon/; help me find some web developers and just generally cool people before I start twitching and talking to myself! (Well, okay, I’ve been talking to myself for years; but the twitching is a definite danger.)
Pukka, a Mac del.icio.us client, has been updated to version 1.6.6. This minor update finally quashes the last of the Leopard stability bugs that have plagued Pukka, so it’s a must-have if you’ve been experiencing crashes under Leopard. Tiger users may as well just grab it when the auto-update notices it.
For more information, see the 1.6.6 announcement, or the more informative 1.6.6 beta announcement.
Public preview invitations for the alpha version of Things, the tag-based GTD app from Cultured Code, have begun to be distributed. If you’re already on the preview list you should already have received your invite or be receiving it soon-ish (I’m not sure whether invitations are being sent out in bulk or in waves).
Things is still not feature-complete, but particularly since the last alpha version (which you can see in my Things screencast) making Things my primary task manager has been a no-brainer thanks to the inclusion of a bug-free Quick Entry window and the ability to link to just about anything in the file system in the notes area of a task. Synching is still MIA and the team features aren’t fully implemented, but if you’re on the preview list, you’re in for a treat (although for many people, it will probably need to mature before you can use it full time).
This has nothing to do with tagging. However, for anyone out there who does web design and needs a text editor, skEdit version 4 has finally been released. skEdit is one of the best text editors available for Mac (along with TextMate), particularly for internet text editing. Its inline code completion and project-based editing (of local and remote files simultaneously, keeping them in sync) make it a very compelling text editor, particularly given its lower price point.
Although TextMate is a more powerful editor in some ways, skEdit’s learning curve is far shallower, and if you are editing HTML, PHP, CSS, and so forth then skEdit is an excellent choice. Definitely worth taking a look now that version 4 has finally gone live.
St. Clair Software released Default Folder X 4 today, the next incarnation of the venerable Mac utility. Default Folder X has enhanced the default Mac open and save windows for years, and version 4 is another solid step forward, poviding a new HUD-style interface, support for Quicklook in Open dialogs, Leopard improvements, support for TagBot, improvements to Spotlight comment auto-completion, and much more. Default Folder X is a great utility for anyone who wants a better workflow when saving and opening files, and is an indispensable tool for people rolling their own tagging solution because it allows you to edit a file’s Spotlight comments while you are saving it.
Given the number of excellent enhancements in version 4, Default Folder X is definitely worth checking out. For those who purchased Default Folder X after June 1, 2007, version 4 is a free upgrade. For everyone else it costs $34.95 new or $14.95 upgrade (and for those true old-skoolers who used the Classic version of Default Folder, you can snag it for $19.95). If you’d like to see the full list of changes and improvements, see the Default Folder X Change History.
Together has been updated to version 2.0.3. This minor update includes improved performance when using tags, importing, or searching; Finder-style sequential number sorting (so that you don’t need leading zeroes to sort sequentially numbered files by name); and many more bug fixes and minor improvements. Definitely worth a download, and if you’re looking to buy it (and a bunch of other apps) at a discount, Give Good Food to Your Mac has been extended until Saturday Dec. 15, 2007.
For the numerous other details about the update, head over to the official release notes.
MacWorld’s Dan Frakes has posted an excellent screencast previewing the upcoming Default Folder X 4.0. Version 4′s main changes are a new HUD-style look to the interface, and QuickLook attached to Open dialogs (a feature that, interestingly enough, will have limited support for OS 10.4, as well). Tag-happy individuals, however, will likely be most interested in Default Folder X’s ability to apply Spotlight comments to files when you save them. If you’re rolling your own tagging solution, Default Folder X can be an indispensable tool.
But don’t wait until version 4! If you want access to some of Default Folder X’s sweet capabilities now, you’re in luck. St. Clair Software has an upgrade policy that will allow you a free upgrade to version 4 if you buy version 3.0.6 now. Version 3 is fully Leopard compatible (as long as you aren’t running any 64-bit apps); it just lacks the translucency. For more information, and to download Default Folder X 3.0.6, see the Default Folder X website.
Scrivener, the poster child of Mac writing apps, has been updated to version 1.11. This maintenance update includes a large number of bug fixes, including numerous Leopard fixes, word count oddities, issues with upgrading pre-1.1 documents to 1.1, problems with tables, and many, many more. Widow/orphan control has also been completely removed from the program because it was causing too many difficult to quash bugs (and is fairly silly in a program that doesn’t offer page layout).
For the full story, check out the Scrivener release notes.