Bookshelf Apps

Holiday

September 19th, 2008 1

I am away on holiday for the next week. This will mean it will take longer than normal to respond to support e-mails during this period but I will try and respond as quickly as I can.

A Fix for Sync Errors

September 18th, 2008 4

As some of you will know a certain group of users have been having problems with syncing. This has affected maybe 5% of users from what I can tell.

One of the biggest problems with this kind of thing is that I cannot ask you send me your password files, so finding the problem is quite difficult. The best I can do is add diagnostic code as I narrow down the problem and then rely on users reporting the error messages. That is what I have done in this case, plus I had one user send me an empty file that exhibited the problem. The downside of this process is that it takes time.

From what I can tell there are actually two problems. I have fixed one and have a workaround for the other.

If you are getting sync errors, initially this caused Mac SecretBook to crash, then in 4.0.1 and later there was no crash but an error was displayed and the sync failed, you can fix this error by downloading version 4.0.3 or later, I’ve just uploaded this as the current release.

This error will occur for all users that have upgrades from version 3 and who do not store attachments.

If you are syncing OK but the Mac changes are not coming through on the iPhone then you can now reset the ChangeIndex on the Mac. This will mean that the next sync will sync everything across to the iPhone, it’ll be a little slower but it should return things to normal. There is a button to do this in the Settings sheet under the Sync tab. You can access settings from the Toolbar.

Some users may be having problems due to a combination of these two issues, which tends to make things look a bit strange. It’s interesting to note that the difference between a stable system and something that looks really bad is normally only two or three bugs.

Thank you to everyone that has sent me bug reports and logs for this error.

SecretBook 4.0.2

September 16th, 2008 1

A very quick release to correct some more things. It seems I did not get all the field sorting right, so there is a fix for that. The edit command is now Command-\ (not Command-/ as I incorrectly said in the last post).

Lastly, there are a few users still having problems of a nature that I cannot reproduce on my own system. I’ve added extra debug in this release that will help narrow down these issues.

SecretBook 4.0.1

September 15th, 2008 0

The inevitable x.1 release is out, bringing you fixes to a number of issues that people have reported to me. A couple of these were really tricky to track down, so I’m not 100% certain that I have everything sorted out.

This is the list of changes:

You can download at the usual location.

Free Upgrade from SecretBook 3 to 4

September 14th, 2008 5

I didn’t intend to make the upgrade from SecretBook 3 to 4 a free upgrade, but in the end I made the decision that it was the best thing to do. The truth is that I am incredibly busy at the moment. SecretBook for the iPhone is out, SecretBook 4 is now out, and I am beta testing another iPhone and Mac application that will be out shortly. As many of you know I’ve also just had a baby daughter.

So I had to prioritise carefully. To charge for an upgrade I’d need to rewrite my licensing code. I’ve always tried to put a minimum of effort into the licensing code, given a choice between updating this code or adding a new feature I’ve always gone with the new feature. My logic behind this is adding a new feature will help me get new customers. Tightening up the licensing code may make it more difficult for the people that don’t pay for SecretBook, but they tend to find a way around most licensing schemes. Most likely they are not the kind of people that would purchase a license anyway. So I decided to do the best I could for the paying users and not worry about the ones that don’t. From time to time I get an email from someone that used a pirated copy of SecretBook and liked it enough to actually pay for it. I like those kind of emails.

So I decided I didn’t have time to charge for the upgrade. Undoubtedly this means I earn less money, hopefully I can make this up in future sales of new applications.

So to anyone that has upgraded, perhaps you could do something for me that doesn’t involve paying money. I could really do with help publicising SecretBook, I get a lot of feedback from people telling me how much they like it, but I need to get the word out to more people. This actually helps you too as the more successful SecretBook is the more time I can devote to improving it. So if you can please consider doing one of the following:

Enjoy the free upgrade.

Mobile SecretBook now available at App Store

September 11th, 2008 8

I just received confirmation a few hours ago to say that Mobile SecretBook has been approved. I’ve already had one support request, and that means at least one purchase so it must all be there.

If you do download a copy remember that you need SecretBook 4 to sync (your version 3 license will work with 4 during the preview release). You also need to explicitly turn on network syncing on your Mac. It’s the last option on the first settings page. You can access settings through the toolbar in your document window, it’s the first icon.

Network sync is not on by default because it’s bad manners to do anything network related without telling the user first :-) .

UPDATE: As people have noticed it appears that the availability in the App Store is a bit uncertain. From what I can tell from users the US store is fine, both on the iPhone and inside iTunes. My own experience in the UK App Store is that SecretBook does not seem to be available on the iPhone App Store. It is available in the iTunes App Store, but you cannot search for it. If you go to the Productivity and order by Release Date (the default) then SecretBook is currently the first item on the second page. I presume that things will sort themselves out over time, but I’m only guessing.

iPhone release update

September 5th, 2008 2

Mobile SecretBook was submitted to the App Store a while ago now. Unfortunately with the slow feedback cycle the entire process is taking some time. They initially got back to me with a change they wanted made as I was not following the Apple Human Interface Guidelines in one part of the app. I make the changes Apple recommended but introduced a bug in the code at the same time. I’ve just fixed that bug and retested so I hope we are almost there. Each cycle of this seems to be taking about 5 days, so I’ll only know in 5 days time if this release is successful.

Providing your Device ID

September 5th, 2008 8

To participate in iPhone or iPod touch beta programmes you need to provide me with your device id. This is so that I can create a special build of the application that will run on your device. Apple does this to ensure that only applications sold through the App Store can normally be installed on an iPhone.

To find the device id: