Many Tricks enters the Mac App Store

January 6th, 2011 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

Unless you’ve been vacationing in Bora Bora for the last three months, you were probably aware that Apple’s new Mac App Store launched today. We were thrilled to have three of our products front and center on launch day: Name Mangler, Time Sink, and Usher were all available when the store opened this morning. (We actually have one more in process right now; a special non-preference-pane version of Witch has been sitting in the review queue for two weeks now.)

So far, it’s been an interesting day, just watching the sales charts trying to figure out what they mean (we don’t get real-time data, so we don’t really know what’s happening with total sales). We did a fair bit of of work to get our apps ready for the store, though, so it’s very gratifying to finally see them there on launch day.

For those who prefer “traditional” software distribution, don’t worry—we’re not going away from that, just taking advantage of a new sales channel. We have apps (Butler and Leech, at least) that can’t be sold on the app store, and we have others (Witch) that have slightly different functionality. So our direct sales model isn’t going away because of the Mac App Store.

Also, we’ll always keep our apps “in sync” to the extent that the App Store rules allow us to do so. That is, if we update Time Sink on our web site, the App Store version will get that same update, and vice-versa1. Due to Apple’s review process, it may occasionally take a bit more time for the changes to reach the App Store, but rest assured, they’ll get there (assuming Apple’s approval, of course).

Our objective with both our App Store apps and our “traditional” apps is simple: to deliver compelling Mac programs that are a delight to use, and to do what it takes to keep our customers satisfied. So whether you want to purchase through the Mac App Store, or via the web, or via our in-app purchasing module, we’ll be there for you.

(1) The two sales channels are distinct, and require different builds of our software. So you can’t update your Mac App Store version of Name Mangler with a download from our site, and vice-versa. If you purchase from our web site, your app has a built-in updater that reminds you when it needs an update. If you purchase from the Mac App Store, the Mac App Store itself will tell you when there are updates to install, and you’ll do the updating via the Mac App Store app.

Posted in Company News, Name Mangler, Products, Time Sink, Usher | 12 Comments »

Usher in the new year with Usher 1.1

December 30th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

Today we released a new version of Usher, with a number of bug fixes, performance improvements, and one very nice new feature.

The big news in Usher 1.1 is the new Notes field. Many users had been creating a Notes Property, but there were problems with this: it was only one line, and you couldn’t use a comma, as Usher would then split your text into separate values. In Usher 1.1, Notes is now our third information type, to go with Tags and Properties. To better reflect all three of these information types, we’ve changed Tags and Properties to Metadata throughout the program.

Notes are written in an auto-expanding free-form text field on the Metadata panel. (If you had previously created a Notes property, its text will show in the new Notes field.) As you enter text, the field will resize as necessary, and eventually, scroll bars will appear. So for all of you who felt trapped by the limitations of your one-line Notes Property, free your fingers to go crazy with the Note field’s new capabilities.

What’s really nice is that Notes is still technically a Property field, which means that text is searchable, and the expanded Notes field is usable in Smart Playlists—we’re not sure why you might want to do this (as opposed to putting such values in Tags or Properties), but you can if you want to.

The other changes in Usher 1.1 (including reduced memory usage during movie ‘crawling’) can be read about on the Usher release notes page. As always, you can download the full version from Usher’s product page, or (much easier) use the in-app update, which you can enable in Usher’s preferences.

Posted in Products, Usher | 2 Comments »

Name Mangler video overview posted

December 17th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

I just finished the second video overview of one of our products (Usher was first). This time out, it’s Name Mangler.

This 15-minute video walks through the Name Mangler interface, demonstrates each of the renaming functions, shows you how to create and use droplets, and explains the program’s preferences. See the ‘Video Introduction’ section of the Name Mangler web page for viewing options—you can choose between a smaller-but-usable 512×384 version, or the supersized 1024×768 original, which is over 80MB in size.

On to the next one now…

Posted in Name Mangler, Products, Usher | Comments Off on Name Mangler video overview posted

New support option: discussion groups

December 16th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths

In the interest of expanding the available support options for our users, we’ve created discussion groups (which can be read online, or subscribed to via email or RSS) for all of our products. The main advantage of the discussion groups is that users can speak with other users, which isn’t possible via our existing email or trouble ticket support systems.

We’ve set the groups up via Google Groups, mainly because they’ve got a really good group management system. If you have a Google account, you can sign up for each group via the web, and set your preferences (email delivery, etc.) as you wish. If you don’t have a Google account, you can only sign up via email, and you can’t set any preferences. (This page explains what you can and can’t do in Google Groups if you don’t have a Google account.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Name Mangler 2.3.1 and Witch 3.5.6

December 8th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

While we’ve had Minor update Mondays and Touch-up Tuesdays in the past, it turns out that Wednesday isn’t very amenable to cute blog title naming schemes (“Wicked Wednesday” just didn’t seem right). So I’ve forgone the fanciful title this time out, which was possible mainly because we have just two minor updates today.

Witch 3.5.6 includes a few bug fixes and a couple new hidden prefs (to disable the fade-out effect for the panel, and to disable the overlay icon for minimized windows). Full details on the release notes page, as usual.

Name Mangler 2.3.1 will be of interest to those who rename lots—as in thousands and tens of thousands—of files at a time. Previous versions of Name Mangler would crash if you had selected thousands of files in Finder or Path Finder, and then clicked Name Mangler’s “Populate with…” icons. Even if you got your long list into Name Mangler, it would then crash during the renaming process. Both of these issues are fixed in this release; you can read the release notes if you want, but really, those are the only two changes.

As always, updates are available via in-app updating (enable this via the Updates tab in each program’s Preferences), or by downloading the programs from their respective web pages.

Posted in Name Mangler, Products, Witch | Comments Off on Name Mangler 2.3.1 and Witch 3.5.6

Time Sink 1.1.1

December 1st, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

Sorry for the emergency one-day minor update, but we broke a bit of code in yesterday’s Time Sink 1.1 release. Unfortunately, that bit of code controlled auto-export, which is something of a key feature. So we’ve pushed 1.1.1 live via in-app updating (and on the site, of course).

If you’re using Time Sink, please update to 1.1.1 to avoid the auto-export issue in Time Sink 1.1. (There are no other changes in this version.)

Posted in Products, Time Sink | Comments Off on Time Sink 1.1.1

Time Sink updated with many new features

November 30th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

Today we released Time Sink 1.1, adding a bunch of useful little features to our activity tracking application. You can get the new version via in-app updates (Time Sink > Check for Updates, or enable automatic checking in the Updates section of Time Sink’s Preferences), or by downloading the full version from the Time Sink web page.

So what’s new in Time Sink 1.1? Quite a few little usability enhancements:

  • Floating time boxOn the Report tab in Preferences, you can enable a floating text box that shows the date/time at the current mouse position when viewing the Activity Report in Time Lapse mode. Check the box labeled ‘Show time at mouse location in Time Lapse mode’ to see this floating box.
  • The brand-new Export tab in Preferences contains the export settings that were previously on the Reports tab. In addition, for those who use auto-export, you can now specify what time of day to run the auto-export. Even better, though, is that you can tell Time Sink to only export data that’s been gathered since the last export—enable this mode, and you’ll have a series of day-by-day reports, each covering just one day.

  • The time barWhen working with the Activity Report window, selecting any subset of your total history will display a new ‘time bar’ at the bottom of the window—it’s the blue bar in the image at right.

    You can drag that bar around to easily see the same time interval for any portion of Time Sink’s history, or drag either end of the bar to to change the displayed time interval. The bar will vanish when you remove the time limits in the Activity Report window.

  • Entries in the Activity Report window now have contextual menus. Control-click (or right-click or two-finger tap etc.) to see the menus; you’ll find options to expand or collapse the view (as you can do in the Time Sink Organizer window using the triangles), along with the same options you get in the Time Sink Organizer’s contextual menus.
  • Two new contextual menu entries allow you to either quit a program or bring it to the foreground—very handy for those times when you realize you left an app running, or decide you want to do something in an app.

The response to Time Sink thus far has been very positive, and we think these new features make it all that much better. Time Sink is $19, and has a fully-functional two week demo period.

Posted in Products, Time Sink | Comments Off on Time Sink updated with many new features

Name Mangler and Time Sink do the bundle thing

November 29th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths

If you’re hunting for a Cyber Monday deal, here are two that involve our products…one of which is good just for today, the other of which starts today:

  • Time Sink is one of the five apps you can get for $20 in the MacUpdate CyberMonday mini bundle. Act fast, though, as this deal expires at midnight (Eastern time) tonight.
  • Name Mangler is one of the 10 apps in the $50 MacPromo bundle. You don’t have to run to the checkout lane quite as quickly for this deal, as it runs through December 31st.

We think both Time Sink and Name Mangler make excellent stocking stuffers for friends and family, so buy early and buy often!

Posted in Name Mangler, Products, Time Sink | Comments Off on Name Mangler and Time Sink do the bundle thing

Subscribe to category-specific news feeds

November 28th, 2010 by Rob Griffiths

For those relaxing by kicking back and reading our blog on a Sunday morning, here’s a little bit of blog-related news…

If you’d like to keep up with all the news on your favorite Many Tricks’ programs—but don’t necessarily want to read all the posts in the blog (via our full news feed, for instance)—here’s some good news: you can now subscribe to a specific category’s news feed.

Say you only want to read about posts concerning Witch. First use the Categories pop-up in the sidebar to select Witch, which will display all posts in that category. To subscribe to the Witch category, just click the Subscribe to the RSS feed for the ‘Witch’ category link that appears immediately below the “All posts in the ‘Witch’ category” header.

Your default newsreader (Safari, Mail, NetNewsWire, etc.) should then open with a new subscription to all our posts about Witch. Repeat this process for each category you’re interested in following.

Posted in Site News | 1 Comment »

Another set of Tuesday Touch-ups

November 2nd, 2010 by Rob Griffiths and Peter Maurer

While many companies may save fixes and new functionality in their apps for weeks or months at a time, that’s not how we roll here at Many Tricks. Instead, we’d rather get new and/or improved stuff out to you as quickly as possible, but still on a regularly-scheduled basis. It used to be Minor Update Mondays, but because Mondays are seemingly always awful, we’ve lately migrated to Touch-up Tuesdays (subject to change, of course!). This being a Tuesday, we have a few such updates for all of you today…

  • Name Mangler 2.3: We’ve added support for user input in Advanced mode; this allows some user interaction with droplets, for example. To accept user input, use the new [prompt "Text user will see"] action. You can read more about this in Name Mangler’s in-app help. [Release notes]
  • Time Sink 1.0.1: Fixed a problem where certain dialogs would appear behind other windows when Time Sink was used in menu bar mode, thereby blocking Time Sink from capturing data. [Release notes]
  • Usher 1.0.4: A few bug fixes, including one that would cause Usher’s movie processor to stop while the Info window was onscreen. [Release notes]

As usual, you can download the full apps from each program’s page, or just check for updates using the built-in updaters within each program.

Posted in Name Mangler, Products, Time Sink, Usher | Comments Off on Another set of Tuesday Touch-ups

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