MarsEdit 4.5.7 is now available on the MarsEdit site and on the Mac App Store.

This update continues to fine-tune the app’s behavior both by fixing long-standing bugs and addressing some new issues introduced in recent updates. Here is the complete list of changes for this release:

• Fix the Set Date panel to default to Today again as it used to
• Fix an issue that prevented Quick Post documents from prompting to save changes
• Improve the contrast of status bar text in Dark Mode
• Fix the Preview Window’s default template to be dark styled in Dark Mode
• Fix an issue where “View on Web” would go to the web home page instead of the specific post
• Disable Quick Look in “Uploaded” section of Media Manager because it doesn’t work properly yet
• The selected blog in Preferences now automatically switches to the selected blog in the main window

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

This update addresses a few edge case scenarios that are nonetheless serious for those who ran into them. Hopefully this rapid cycle of bug fix releases will slow down soon, but I want to make sure the app is as stable as possible before I let it rest a while!

Complete list of changes for this release:

• Fix a crash when running JavaScript for OSA scripts
• Restore proper drawing of the menu bar selection highlight when the icon is clicked
• Fix an issue where a script with lots of AppleScript log messages could get stuck running
• Fix the behavior of the “Create App-Specific Scripts” folder when no User Scripts folder exists yet

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

FastScripts 3.0.4 is now available on the FastScripts home page, or by selecting “Check for Update” from the FastScripts menu.

This update is a quick follow-up to Monday’s 3.0.3 release, which included some fairly substantial “beneath the surface” changes to how scripts are run. There turned out to be some pretty substantial side-effects to those changes, but I hope that I’ve addressed most if not all of them in this update!

Complete list of changes for this release:

FastScripts 3.0.4

• Restore ability to run Automator Actions
• Restore functionality that suspendsw script execution while conflicting keyboard shortcut is still held
• Fix a crash that could occur when aliases in the script folder become unresolveable
• Fix a bug that could cause variables in scripts to become undefined after interacting with other apps
• Improve the error message that is presented when trying to run a shell script without executable permission

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

FastScripts 3.0.3 is now available on the FastScripts home page, or by selecting “Check for Update” from the FastScripts menu.

This update changes FastScripts’s script execution to be a bit more consistent with the way Apple’s own Script Editor, and Late Night Software’s popular Script Debugger, run scripts. Specifically, scripts are now run on a separate thread from the main thread of the script running application.

One of the major changes in FastScripts 3.0 was to move execution of scripts from the FastScripts app itself into separate script runner processes. Because the script processes were unique for each script, I assumed there would be no advantage to putting scripts on their own thread within that application. However, some subtle performance issues turn out to be possible when the script is running on the main thread.

Because Script Editor and Script Debugger both run their scripts on separate threads, I think that most script authors are probably well-accustomed to the implications. Because most of the behavior of scripts is the result of sending events to other apps, there aren’t too many risks to running in a separate thread. The main thing to be aware of is if a script uses Cocoa frameworks directly, it needs to take care to run custom UI on the main thread.

The update also includes some other performance and usability improvements:

FastScripts 3.0.3

• Changes to script execution to make behavior more consistent with Script Editor’s behavior
• Improvements to event handling performance in Cocoa UI presented by scripts
• Fixes for bugs that prevented some changes to script folders from being reflected in the menu
• Asking for the “count” of args in script’s run handler now works without error
• Fix a bug that prevented the “Create Scripts Folder” items from working in some cases

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