Updates to iCalMaker, JPEGCleaner, quickWebAlbums, and websiteCleaner

It is amazing what can be achieved in a few days away from the office….

During a brief trip I was able to update the following programs:

iCalMaker:

The program has now been taken to version 1.7. This update includes:

New Features:

• Added ‘record-stepper’ in the comma-/tab-delimited data import window – this allows the user to step through the records to check the match with order import
• Added a ‘comma-/tab-delimited’ data counter – very useful during the import of large data-sets as it gives an indication of progress and provides a ‘Cancel’ button

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a ‘comma-/tab-delimited data import bug which prevented data from being correctly displayed in the ‘import-order’ window
• Greatly improved memory handling during the import of large comma- and tab-delimited data sets (noticeable speed improvement)
• Improved the hadling of comma-delimited file import
• Better handling of "","" data
• Better handling of ‘mixed’ comma-delimited formats where inverted-comma are not consistently used, e.g. 3/4/04,9:20 am,3/4/04,10:30 am,"meet me at the restaurant, after the meeting" data
• Improved hadling of ‘extra’ commas in field text, e.g. 3/4/04,9:20 am,3/4/04,10:30 am,"meet me at the restaurant, after the meeting" data
• Recompiled using Xcode 1.5

This update took the most work….

iCalMaker can is shareware ($30 USD) and can be downloaded from http://www.mmisoftware.co.uk/downloads/icalmaker.dmg.sit

JPEGCleaner, quickWebAlbums, and websiteCleaner:

These three ‘one trick ponies’ contain some common code at their core. A minor (but annoying!) bug was discovered in the ‘common-code’ and therefore needed to be fixed.

The ‘one trick ponies’ are $5 (USD) each and can be found at: http://www.mmisoftware.co.uk/pages/otp/

General ’round-up’ of what has been happening……

Well, things have been busy….

Skiing:

Just got back from an excellent week of skiing at St Anton, Austria…. (see the picts – site generated using Web Photos). The place is amazing. The skiing was great and the ‘after ski’ partying was awesome.

Programming:

Work on iCalMaker 1.6, quickWebAlbum, webSiteCleaner and JPEGCleaner was finished last week and the programs were released. (Download – iCalMaker, quickWebAlbum, webSiteCleaner or JPEGCleaner)

Bug reports:

There is only one bug report on the books at the moment and this is to do with mailMaker. It appears that if an e-mail contains more that 900 characters that the program will not work on some machines. The source of this bug is currently unknown….. Worryingly mailMaker is the worst selling program on the site. It was always thought that this was because users were confusing it with software that may be used to produce SPAM, however, it now appears it may be due to an unreported bug (the bug did not show up in beta testing and I am currently unable to reproduce the bug)!

If you do encounter bugs in any of the the software please report it to bugs@mmisoftware.co.uk.

Other news:

The main website is currently undergoing a major redesign. The site has grown significantly over the last year and is in desperate need of a ‘make-over’. Watch this space for further news…..

Minor updates

Minor updates of the ‘one trick ponies‘, webSiteCleaner, JPEGCleaner and quickWebAlbum have been released. All three contain updates to the esellerate purchase engine and webSiteCleaner also contains a minor bug fix.

Download webSiteCleaner, JPEGCleaner and quickWebAlbum.

All ‘one trick ponies‘ can be purchased ($5 USD) either using the integrated eseller in the program or at the secure MMISoftware store.

Trial versions of all programs are available, just download the programs using the above links and give them a try

quickWebAlbum and JPEGCleaner updated to address some memory issues

All the programs from MMISoftware are regularly used and this process reveals problems with design/coding and also drives the future development of the software.

During the holiday period I was using quickWebAlbum and JPEGCleaner to send photos to friends and family and to create som quick online web albums. During this process it was discovered that both programs were ‘memory inefficient’ when handling large number of files, this problem has now been corrected. Also, quickWebAlbum was ‘falling over’ when it encountered pictures of a ‘weird’ size (i.e. panoramas were causing some problems).

If the programs pass final beta testing they should be released tomorrow (14th Jan 2004)…..

Chasing very weird bugs….

I have received a few reports of JPEGCleaner, mailMaker and iCalMaker not exporting correctly to the users default mail program.

A lot of digging, and testing, and I think I have finally tracked the problem down to Toast (not the bread product but the application for burning CDs)!

The clue to the problem was the programs were working fine on the a development machines, an iBook running 10.3.1, an iMac running 10.3.1 and and one running 10.2.8, however a ‘lamp-stand’ iMac running 10.3.1 was producing an error in the logs of:

## Component Manager: attempting to find symbols in a component alias of type (regR/carP/x!bt)

However, the export would work, and the error still appeared in the logs, if the mail application was launched before mailMaker sent the messages.

A quick Google showed that this error had been reported before and linked to Toast and a QuickTime component that it installs (Toast Video CD Support.qtx). However, there was no solution to the problem mentioned on any of the sites, other than removing the component, and nothing over at Apple gave a solution.

The work around appears to be to make sure the receiving application, i.e. the mail client, is running before mailMaker sends the messages, and if it is not, start it! The programs, JPEGCleaner, mailMaker and iCalMaker now do this….

Busy few days bug chasing and adding new features

Bugs are funny things. No matter how much you test a program you can be sure that there is some one out there with a computer set up in such a way that your program won’t work! And ever so often a user will say ‘does your program do X?’ or ‘it would be great if it did Y’, and you think ‘why didn’t I think of that!’ (if you have some idea, or bug reports, please send them to: bugs@mmisoftware.co.uk or feedback@mmisoftware.co.uk)

So a round up:

mailMaker: Added support for export to PowerMail. Also caught a really nasty bug which was causing the program to crash for some users on Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.2.8. There is also another weird bug that I haven’t been able to solve. It appears that if Toast is installed, and the default e-mail program is not running, then mailMaker cannot send the messages to the e-mail program.

JPEGCleaner: No bugs to deal with but support has been added for importing jfif files and exporting as jpeg.

iCalMaker: Added some new features such as support for the export of iCal "invitations" direct to Apple Mail, Eudora, Microsoft Entourage, Mailsmith and PowerMail, and direct support for the export of iCal files to PowerMail. Also caught a number of bugs.

The bugs:

• some problems with the import of tab- and comma-delimited files
• problems with unicode text not to be exported correctly to iCal
• some repeat events not to being correctly formated in vCal (Palm) export
• solved a problem that was causing the return and delete keys from working as advertised
• have all been squashed!

Also, corrected some broken links in the ‘Help System’.

The beginning…

Why a weblog?

Well, I thought it would be an interesting way to keep a record of work on programs at MMISoftware and to keep users informed of current work and future developments.

Last week saw updates to all the software produced by MMISoftware. Some of the updates were a as a result of recent changes in 10.3 which ‘introduced’ a number of ‘bugs’ in JPEGCleaner, quickWebAlbum, webSiteCleaner, and Web Photos. Interestingly the bug was the same in all programs and just needed the movement of one line of code! Whilst updating the other programs Power on X was also re-compiled.

Meanwhile, work was finished on iCalMaker version 1.5. This update addressed some Panther compatibility issues and introduced a raft of new features…