MarsEdit 4.6: Share Extension, Color Scheme Choice, and Micro.blog Improvements

July 28th, 2022

MarsEdit 4.6 is now available on the MarsEdit site and has been submitted to the Mac App Store.

This update adds a new Share Extension for macOS, to support listing MarsEdit as one of the targets from any of the standard, system-wide share menus that supports sending images to another app. Now, when you have a photo in Preview, Photos, or any other app with the share menu, and you want to blog it, just select MarsEdit from the Share menu list to add it to a post. If MarsEdit doesn’t appear in the menu, you may need to enable the MarsEdit Share Extension in System Preferences.

The update also includes a new preference for choosing whether MarsEdit runs in Dark Mode or Light Mode, independently from the system default setting, and a couple fixes to improve the experience for Micro.blog users.

Here’s the complete list of changes for this release:

  • New Share Extension supports opening images from the Share menu of other apps
  • New Color Scheme preference to choose Dark, Light, or System appearance
  • Improve appearance of color preference indicators on a future update to macOS
  • Fix a bug that caused incorrect character count when HTML entities were included in post
  • Fix an issue that caused the Media Manager selected blog to change unexpectedly
  • Micro.blog specific improvements
    • Title is now hidden by default until post exceeds 280 characters
    • Added support for creating new categories

If you enjoy MarsEdit, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, writing about the app on your own blog! Thanks for your support.

FastScripts 3.1.1: Gentle Update Reminders

July 21st, 2022

FastScripts 3.1.1 is now available on the FastScripts home page, or by selecting “Check for Update” from the FastScripts menu.

This update includes a change to the Software Update mechanism so that when future updates to FastScripts are available, you will be prompted with a passive system notification, rather than the full update dialog that demands your immediate attention. Because of this change, you will be asked after updating to approve notifications from FastScripts. I recommend approving this request.

Complete list of changes for this release:

FastScripts 3.1.1

  • Software Updates are now announced via system notifications when authorized
  • Recently run scripts are now exposed by FastScripts’s own scripting interface
  • The FastScripts menu can now be presented by keyboard shortcut even if the menu bar icon is not visible
  • Check for Updates now includes a link to Version History when there are no new updates
  • Mitigate a problem that could occasionally cause a delay when invoking a script
  • Recent Scripts now appear below App-Specific Scripts in search results

If you enjoy FastScripts, please consider spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter! Thanks for your support.

Black Ink 2.2.4: Improved Keyboard Mechanics

July 14th, 2022

Black Ink 2.2.4 is now available on the Black Ink site and on the Mac App Store.

This update adds support for a common keyboard-navigation convention in other crossword apps: holding the shift key while pressing the arrow key to change words without changing direction. It also includes some other keyboard navigation improvements, as well as some bug fixes:

  • Puzzle Notes popover is now keyboard navigable
  • Shift-arrow keystroke now changes focused word without changing the current direction
  • Puzzle picker now supports left arrow key to navigate from calendar view back to puzzle list
  • Refinements to focused square coloring
  • Check for Updates now includes a link to Version History when there are no new updates
  • Fix some subtle issues with determining the valid dates for downloading puzzles
  • Fix issues with text encoding of Across Lite puzzles with unicode characters

If you enjoy Black Ink, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, and spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter! Thanks for your support.

MarsEdit 4.5.9: Mitigate Repeated Crash Reports

June 29th, 2022

MarsEdit 4.5.9 is now available on the MarsEdit site and the Mac App Store.

This update includes a few minor fixes, including a change to mitigate problems of the crash reporter appearing repeatedly for some users. These users are typically using a Mac that has a limited amount of disk space free, and in the process attempting to free up disk space, the system preemptively terminates MarsEdit. Starting with MarsEdit 4.5.9 the app may still be terminated by the system, but the app’s built-in crash reporter will no longer treat these as reportable incidents.

Here is the complete list of changes in this update:

  • Avoid displaying the crash reporter dialog when the app is force-quit by the system or user
  • Updated status bar text throughout the app to use standard system font
  • Check for Updates now includes a link to Version History when there are no new updates
  • Fix an issue where the font picker could get stuck on the preferences-based font settings
  • Fix a bug that caused the inferred title of a title-less post to be one character off

If you enjoy MarsEdit, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, writing about the app on your own blog! Thanks for your support.