Witch 3.9.8 released

July 27th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Witch 3.9.8 is now out, with some bug fixes and behind-the-scenes updates for macOS Sierra. You can read up on all the changes in the official Witch release notes. Direct users can update via in-app updates, or by downloading a fresh copy from our site.

App Store users should see the update shortly in the App Store application. However, for App Store users of Witch, there’s more that we need to discuss: We had to remove Spaces support from the App Store version of Witch.

If you don’t use Spaces, this change won’t affect you at all. If you don’t use the App Store version of Witch, this change won’t affect you at all. But if you do use Spaces and the App Store version of Witch, you’re probably pretty angry with us right now. Thankfully, we have a free and easy solution for those of you in this bucket: Migrate to the direct version with a full in-your-own-name license file.

Read on for the details on why we had to remove Spaces support, and for how to migrate to the direct version of Witch.

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Name Mangler 3.3.7 released

July 25th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Name Mangler 3.3.7 is out, and it’s got some bug fixes and one nice neat new feature: Right-click on any entry in the file list area, and you can use a contextual menu to reveal the selected file in Finder. You can read about all the other exciting bug fixes on the official Name Mangler release notes page.

This release also fixes an issue that prevented the App Store version of Name Mangler from working on the Sierra Public Beta (the direct version always worked).

App Store users should be seeing the update shortly, and direct users can update either via the in-app updater, or by downloading a fresh copy from the Name Mangler web page.

Posted in Name Mangler, Products | 1 Comment »

Leech 3.1 released

June 15th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

We’ve just released Leech 3.1, which includes a few nice new features:

  • Specify a custom user agent (in Advanced prefs)
  • Set Leech to run at login (also in Advanced prefs)
  • Extract URLs from a text file and add to queue

The change log details a few other fixes and improvements, too.

As usual, direct customers can get the update via in-app updating, or by downloading a fresh copy of the app. App Store buyers should see the update in the App Store app—if not now, then very shortly.

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Usher 1.1.14 released

May 4th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Usher has reached version 1.1.14. The biggest news in this version is that the App Store and indie versions are back in sync.

Beyond that, the Help files have much more content, and Usher is now using our improved help system with much better navigation and search—plus all screenshots have (finally) been retinaized. You can read the release notes for the nitty-gritty on 1.1.14, if you prefer the trees to the forest.

Direct users can update via the in-app updater, or by downloading a full version from our web site. App Store users should see the update now (or shortly, if not now) in the App Store app.

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The new Many Tricks’ end user license agreement

April 28th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Ever since Peter and I relaunched Many Tricks in 2010, we’ve never had an official software license agreement. The closest thing we’ve had is this blog post, which explains limits on the use of our apps across multiple Macs (tl;dr: Use them on as many Macs as you personally use). However, we’ve never had an actual end user license agreement (EULA) that spells out the legal license you agree to when you purchase one of our apps.

Well, we have one now—it’s also permanently linked in the sidebar here, and will be accessible from within our apps. And a really big thanks to Rich Siegel at Bare Bones Software, who generously agreed to let us use his document as a starting point. I found the Bare Bones EULA to be well written, brief, and easily understood; hopefully our version, which has only minor changes, is still all of those things.

After six years, why did we suddenly need an EULA? The truth is we probably should have had one from day one, but never really felt the need. Recently, however, we’ve received inquiries from government agencies and larger companies interested in buying our apps … and many of these customers aren’t allowed to purchase our apps unless we have an actual legal license agreement. So now we do.

Note that this doesn’t change anything relative to the usage of our apps; we still allow you to use one license to install our apps on as many Macs as you personally use. We just needed to have a formal legal software license for larger customers and government agencies.

Posted in Butler, Company News, Desktop Curtain, General, Key Codes, Keymo, Leech, Moom, Name Mangler, Products, Resolutionator, Time Sink, Usher, Witch | Comments Off on The new Many Tricks’ end user license agreement

Leech turns three…version three, that is

April 13th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Say hello to Leech 3, a major update to our easy-to-use download manager. You can download a free trial to take it for a test drive right now.

We took what was good in Leech—simple UI, powerful rules, long-term history, etc.—and added lots of good stuff that our users have requested:

  • Accelerate downloads: Open simultaneous connections—to servers that support this feature—to speed up downloads.
  • Limit bandwidth: If you don’t want Leech to use all your bandwidth, don’t worry; you can tell it how much bandwidth to use.
  • Schedule downloads: Set a schedule for Leech to start and stop its operations, so you can download overnight, for instance.
  • Multiple run modes: Leech can run in your Dock, in your menu bar, or in a new hybrid mode where it’s in both spots at once.

Head on over to the Leech product page to read all about this goodness, and more (like auto-sorting downloads into dated folders, for example).

Purchasing Leech 3

Leech 3 is available now for $6 … oh, right, nearly forgot this tidbit: it’s available directly from us, of course, or for the first time ever, in the Mac App Store. The two versions are functionally identical, though the App Store version is (as required) sandboxed.

Note that anyone who purchased Leech 2 after November 1st, 2015 already has a Leech 3 license; check for upgrades within the app, and you’ll be up and running with a fully licensed copy of Leech 3.

Leech 2 owners: Typically, you’d expect to be eligible for upgrade pricing as an existing owner. In this case, given the app’s very low price, we decided against offering Leech 3 upgrade pricing. This is not a general change in our business practices, just the realities of offering a fully-featured app at a low price point.

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Moom and Name Mangler updated

April 7th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Final update: Moom 3.2.5 has been released on the App Store; this fixes the drag-to-display bug and all App Store users should now update.

Update: If you have the App Store version of Moom, and if you use multiple displays, then please don’t update to Moom 3.2.4—we just found and fixed an issue with moving windows to other displays. The Moom version on our site has been updated to 3.2.5, and we’re in the middle of submitting an App Store update.

As mentioned in the release notes, I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience. This was entirely my fault. —Peter

Hot on the heels of our recent Time Sink and Keymo updates come two larger updates: Moom 3.2.4 and Name Mangler 3.3.6.

These releases re-sync the versions numbers between the App Store and direct versions, and both feature some bug fixes and general improvements. You can read the details in the release notes for Moom and Name Mangler, respectively.

The big news in both versions (and coming soon to all our other apps) is our totally rewritten help system. You can read all about the new help system in the linked blog post, but the key bits are that search and navigation are now much nicer, and the window is a real (non-floating!) OS X window that’s visible to apps like Witch.

Direct customers can get the Moom and Name Mangler updates via the in-app updater, or by downloading the full versions from our site. App Store customers should see the updates in their App Store app—if not now, then shortly.

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Announcing our new in-app help system

April 7th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Starting with our recent update to Keymo, we rolled out a new help system. We developed this new system to solve some aggravations we were having with Apple’s built-in help system, and to provide our users with a better help experience. This new help system will be rolling out to all our apps in the very near future.

Here’s a quick peek at the first screen of Moom’s new help:

Moom's new help

There are many aspects to our new help system that should make in-app help work much better for our users—some new features, some existing features working better, and a revamped look and feel.

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Posted in Butler, Desktop Curtain, Keymo, Leech, Moom, Name Mangler, Products, Resolutionator, Time Sink, Usher, Witch | Comments Off on Announcing our new in-app help system

Time Sink and Keymo updated

April 5th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Today we released updates to Keymo (1.2.4, both direct and App Store) and Time Sink (1.2.5, for the App Store only).

The Keymo update features our brand-new help system with greatly improved navigation and a much more functional search. (This help system will be rolling out to all our apps in the near future.) With this update, both the App Store and direct versions of Keymo are in sync at 1.2.4.

The Time Sink update brings the App Store version into sync with the direct version at 1.2.5; there are no substantive changes in the Time Sink update.

As always, direct customers can use the in-app updater or download the full version from our site, and App Store customers should see the updates in the App Store app—if not now, then in the very near future.

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Do not sync our apps’ prefs file across Macs

April 5th, 2016 by Rob Griffiths

Many users, myself included, own more than one Mac. For people like us, the concept of syncing an apps’ settings across those Macs, so they’re always the same and always up to date, is enticing. But unless the app has been specifically written to support such syncing (i.e. TextExpander, or the snippets/presets portion of our own Name Mangler), this is generally a Very Bad Idea.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve received emails from a few users, complaining of lost settings in a couple of our apps. After some back-and-forth, the common thread among these users was the use of an open source tool called Mackup.

Mackup claims that it will:

  • Back up your application settings in a safe directory (e.g. Dropbox)
  • Sync your application settings among all your workstations
  • Restore your configuration on any fresh install in one command line

If you browse the Mackup page, you’ll find a number of our apps—Moom, Name Mangler, and Witch—listed in the Supported section. This may make you think that we’ve been consulted, and that those apps have our blessing to be used with Mackup. This is not the case at all.

Supported apps are just apps that Mackup itself supports in its configuration; there’s not necessarily any involvement with—or approval from—the app’s original developer. That’s certainly the case with us, as we were never contacted about including our apps on Mackup’s supported list. At present, we do not support preference files synced across multiple Macs for our apps. (We have asked to have our apps removed from Mackup, but so far, there’s been no response from the Mackup developer.)

We do not recommend the use of Mackup, or any other such tool that syncs our apps’ prefs files across multiple Macs. You may lose all your settings, or introduce some sort of command conflict that could cause problems using our apps. Please revert to locally-stored non-synced prefs.

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