Time Sink 2.2.3 is out, and it will mainly be of interest to those of you still using macOS 10.9 through 10.11: We fixed an issue that was causing a crash if Time Sink was used in menu bar mode.
Direct customers can update via in-app updates, or by downloading a fresh copy of the app from our site (you won’t lose your data). App Store users should see the update in the App Store app, if not now then shortly.
Two very minor updates today; Desktop Curtain 3.1.3 fixes some issues for those running macOS 10.9 (Mavericks), and Butler 4.4.4 fixes an issue related to non-functional keyboard navigation of pop-up menus after using the clipboard window a couple of times.
I’d include links to the release notes, but really, the above is all you’ll find there.
Direct customers can update in-app, or by downloading a fresh copy of the app from our web site (you won’t lose your settings). App Store customers of Desktop Curtain should see the update available in the Mac App Store app—if not now, then shortly.
Witch 4.4.3 is out with one fix: It no longer ignores tabs in Safari that have never been active.
We weren’t ignoring them on purpose, and in the past, we didn’t ignore them. However, a recent change in Safari’s Accessibility information for those tabs rendered them invisible to Witch. We’ve now forced those invisible tabs back to the visible realm.
Thanks to a couple of different users for reporting the issue.
Update via Witch’s in-app updater, or download a fresh copy from the Witch web page (you won’t lose your settings).
Witch 4.4.2 is out, with only one change: Those of you using a version of Safari from the future will find that Witch now has much better support for Safari’s new tabs. You can check for updates on the About tab of the Witch System Preferences panel, or just download a fresh copy from the web site.
Those of you scoring at home may realize that we skipped version 4.4.1. It actually did exist, for a few brief hours, but we pulled the self-destruct trigger on that update when we found a small issue affecting some users.
We had not one but two regressions1An issue found in an update that was not in the prior release in Name Mangler 3.7.2, one of which broke the licenses for anyone who had upgraded to Name Mangler 3 from Name Mangler 2. As a result, these users thought this was a paid update, which it clearly was not. You can read more about this in the release notes.
The other issue was that the Clear List menu item would become disabled after a renaming operation.
The good news is that Name Mangler 3.7.3 fixes both issues, and is available now for direct users, and should be available shortly, if not already, for App Store users. (The license issue didn’t affect the App Store version, given Apple controls the licensing for apps in the store.)
Three minor (but important) updates today. Butler 4.4.3 now works better with Monterey betas, Name Mangler 3.7.2 fixes a rare crash when dragging files out of the file list, and Resolutionator 2.1 adds support for the 24″ iMac, and improves the display name for some displays.
You could go read the release notes for all three apps, but really, that’s everything that’s in today’s updates. If you bought these apps from us, you can update within each app, or by downloading a fresh copy of the app from our server (you won’t lose your settings).
App Store users of Name Mangler can find the update in the App Store app.
Butler 4.4.2 and Moom 3.2.23 have been released. Both are maintenance updates with no new features (Release notes: Butler, Moom).
Direct customers (Butler and Moom) can update from within the app, or by downloading a fresh copy of the app from the apps’ web pages. App Store users of Moom should see the update in the App Store app.
Not by plan, but today’s updates affect only the end of the alphabet:
Time Sink, Usher, and Witch have all been updated. These are primarily bug fix and behind-the-scenes updates—check the release notes (Time Sink • Usher • Witch) for each for all the details, but there are two new features that may be of interest to users of Usher or Witch:
The updates are available now, and can be found by checking for updates within each app. (The update for the App Store version of Time Sink can be found in the App Store app, and it’s also available now.)
Usher 2.0 is out, and available now for both new customers and those upgrading from previous versions. The normal price is $20 for a new user and $10 for an update, but for the next two weeks, new users pay just $14, and updates are only $6.
Either type of purchase includes at least a year of updates; after that, it will cost $10 to update to the most-current version at any point in the future—and that purchase will also include another year of updates. More details on our evolutionary update model are provided in this blog post.
What’s new in Usher 2? Way too much to even try to list here; a read-through of its release notes shows just how much we’ve added, improved, and fixed in this release. We spent a lot of time and effort improving scrolling speed when browsing large collections, and have added many new view modes to help you browse your collection. But really, those are the tip of a very large iceberg of new features and improvements.
If you’ve never used Usher, download the trial version today and test it out for a full month to see everything that it can do.
Many Tricks has been in business a long time—Peter’s first shareware Mac app was released in 2003 (I joined Many Tricks in 2010). Over those nearly 20 years, the software business has changed dramatically—programs are now apps, Apple decided that “free with ads” is a good business model for developers to pursue, and the Mac’s operating system is now free.
While we’ve adapted our business a bit over that time (we do call them apps now, usually), there’s one thing that feels very out of date: How we keep our business in business. Up until today, that was done through an “old school” software business model that relied on new customers and occasional paid upgrades.
First things first: We are not moving to a subscription model, which seems to be all the rage these days, as neither Peter nor I are fans of software subscriptions. So what is the new model? Here’s the tl;dr version:
In our old model, features were held back to create major updates worth purchasing. In our new model, features are released when they’re ready, and you decide if and when to pay for an update.
As for why we’re making the switch and how it’ll work, read on.
Many Tricks