Development Downtime

My video card fried on my development machine yesterday (my only machine), so it will be a few days before I'm up and running again. I was been thinking about investing in a new card for a few months, to replace my ancient 8800 GT. This event, however, forced me to upgrade a little sooner than planned. It's a good thing I'd already did the researched and was prepared to replace it. Thanks in part to recent donations, I should only be able to afford expedited shipping and should only be down for a few days.


Update: I've found an older card laying around to use for now. It's OK for a six year old card, but it's not easy on the eyes at all. The scaling blurs text too much to use a resolution lower than native and the refresh rate is a bit low at this size.

A New ArsClip for the New Year

ArsClip v3.2.0 has officially been released. The goal of this version was to go back to older sections of the program and clean up clutter and fix old problems. This did, however, require adding new functionality and features to alleviate some of these issues.

The Configuration window has received quite a bit of work. I've added settings that were previously only found on the Popup window and re-categorized/re-organized the options. Options should be easier to find and the more important options should appear first in the list for each page.

The default view of the popup has been simplified for new installs. This makes learning the program much easier by having much less clutter and implicitly adds value to the 'Full Mode' menu command.

External Editor support adds a convenient way to edit clips directly in the programs associated with text files and bitmaps. This automates almost all of the steps required to edit clips in your favorite editor.

Lastly, I've replaced the the Shift+Select and Ctrl+Select keystroke commands with user definable actions. This adds a quick way to execute any command normally found on the right-click menu.

Housekeeping

It's been a very long time since I've actually read some of my program's pages. I've noticed quite a few outdated things that needing fixing. For example, the screenshots for some of the programs were very old.

To fix this, I've been doing some rewriting and creating new screenshots. I've also included a few award links for my most popular programs. My skeptical side has prevented me from posting most of the awards, since I don't trust many of the freeware download sites.

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Those that visit the Public Betas section already know that I've recently been doing the same type of work with ArsClip and Rename Master. My goal is to improve the initial learning experience and to fix sections of the program created long ago that I rarely visit.

The New ArsClip

Version 3.1.6 of ArsClip is now an official release.

In this update, a new popup trigger method has been added that's very mouse user friendly. The new Trigger Window is a small strip that resides on the edge of the window. After an optional amount of time, the popup is triggered when this window is hovered over.

Another new option is the Destroy Clip option. Sometimes, you copy sensitive information and ArsClip does all too good a job of remembering items. Even when you remove the item from the list, it gets moved into the Removed List and is also shown on the Recently Removed popup submenu. This new option will prompt to delete the clip completely.

Lastly, I've updated the Edit Clipboard to automatically work like most people edit the clipboard - with a text editor. ArsClip will open a temporary file containing the clipboard's contents with your favorite text editor. Saving and closing the editor will automatically update the clipboard with the new text.

As always, bug have fixed in this version. Most notably fixed, is the popup menu position for progams that use non-standard Windows controls -- commonly browsers like Firefox and Opera. ArsClip will move the popup to the mouse cursor automatically in specific cases. The most common case is when the popup shows on the top/left of a program's window.

All of these new features are a direct result of user feedback. Big goes thanks to all those that participated in the Public Beta versions and helped me fix and fine-tune the program over the past few months.

I Forgot

Early last year, an artist made a portfolio stop animation piece and used Rename Master for re-ordering large batches of photos. I was sent a private link to the video and asked not to release because of all the legal issues. Several months later, it was posted but restricted for viewing directly on Youtube's site because of the issues. I, however, hadn't even thought of looking for it online, until over a year later.

So, here is the video. Yes, joejoesoft.com got a mention in the credits.