Together 3.6 for Mac is available today. This version adds iCloud in the direct version of the app, new library management features, compatibility with macOS Sierra and a variety of other improvements.

iCloud for Everyone

With macOS Sierra, Apple has made iCloud available to apps sold outside the Mac App Store, which means the direct version of Together for Mac can now work with iCloud libraries and use those libraries with Together for iPad and iPhone (available as a separate purchase from the App Store). When you first open a library in the direct version of Together 3.6 you’ll be offered to store the library in iCloud.

Import Text Files as Notes

Together already has separate downloadable importers for Evernote and Yojimbo, but to assist with moving from other apps, Together can now import text files as notes.

While Together’s normal file import will keep the files in their original format, this will convert text files you select or that it finds in any folders you select to Together notes, preserving the folder hierarchy and including any Finder tags. Supported formats include RTF, RTFD, plain text, Word, HTML and web archives.

Updating Smart Groups

Smart groups have been changed for compatibility with iCloud. Currently smart groups that search file content or check for linked files are considered incompatible, because results will differ between devices.

Incompatible smart groups in iCloud libraries will be shown with a warning icon and will not update on either Mac or iOS. You can edit these smart groups on Mac to change the affected rules (which will also be marked with warning icons) or remove them from the library. You will not be able to create new smart groups that use incompatible rules in iCloud libraries. Non-iCloud libraries are unaffected by these changes.

Changes for macOS Sierra

With macOS Sierra, iCloud Drive can now keep your Desktop and Documents folders consistent across Macs and make those files available to iOS devices. However, Together libraries cannot be kept in iCloud Drive without the risk of data loss and unresolvable errors in the case of iCloud libraries.

If you enable the option to store your Documents and Desktop folders in iCloud Drive, Together libraries in those folders will be moved when first opened, and an alias put in their place, so you can still access your folders in the Finder as before. The alias will work across Macs running macOS Sierra.

The same problem affects libraries whose folders have been stored in other file syncing services such as Dropbox. Together 3.6 will prevent iCloud libraries from being stored in Dropbox and Google Drive, and this will be extended to all libraries in future. Other services — indeed, any case where a single Together library file can be accessed by more than one Mac at a time while the app is running — will result in the same problems and should not be used to store Together libraries.

The new location mentioned above is known as the Default Location in the app, which is a folder in your Library folder that can be accessed by the app and extensions such as Together’s Share extension, and will allow those extensions to do more in the future.

And More…

Quick Open has been improved, there’s now a default font for empty rich text files, the Path row in the mini info view now shows the path relative to the library, the name and URL can be edited in the share extension, the Shelf can remember the last import group when import options are enabled, and web page text can be imported as a new notes. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Availability

Together 3.6 is available from this site and the Mac App Store today and is a free upgrade for all Together 3 users. Together 2 users can upgrade for $24.99 from this site. To Try Together, download the version from this site, which works as a fully functional 15-day trial until you enter your registration details. Together for iPad and iPhone can be purchased from the App Store for $9.99.

Together 1.6 for iPad and iPhone is available today. This update adds Spotlight searching, improved text formatting for notes and rich documents, updating smart groups, an improved Share extension and more.

Search Content

Together can now search file content on iOS 10, both in the app and with the systemwide Spotlight search. All items will be added to the device’s Spotlight index to index their names, comments and tags, along with the content of notes, rich and plain text documents, web archives, HTML files, bookmarks, mail messages and PDFs, making these available to both the systemwide Spotlight search and in the app. In addition, when using Spotlight, you can continue the search in Together.

Together indexes content for downloaded items straight away, and temporarily downloads other indexable items in the background when there is a Wi-Fi connection to extract their content.

Improved Text Editing

When editing notes and rich text documents on iOS, there is now a toolbar for accessing new features to change fonts, styles, alignment and colors, and create bulleted and numbered lists. The toolbar also makes existing features easier to reach such as text highlighting and inserting a photo or video. It’s now also possible to find text in notes, rich text files and plain text files.

Updating Smart Groups

Smart groups will now update on iOS without needing to make the roundtrip to Mac, provided they are compatible with iCloud libraries. Currently smart groups that search file content or check for linked files are considered incompatible, because results can differ between devices.

Share Extension

Together’s Share Extension has been improved on iOS so you can now set tags on the items that get imported, and it will also use iCloud when available, so those changes appear on all devices without needing to open the app on the original device first.

And More…

Previews can now be made full screen on iPad in landscape, the total number of items (or found items) is now shown under the item list. On iPad, the New Item sheet no longer covers the whole screen, and there are VoiceOver improvements for expanding and collapsing folders, along with clearer labelling across the app.

Together 1.6 for iPad and iPhone is a free upgrade for all existing users or $9.99 otherwise, is available now on the App Store and requires iOS 10. For a full list of changes, see the release notes.

Feeder 3.2 is now available. This versions adds drafts, improves the editor, accessibility and updates support for publishing and sharing to social media sites.

Drafts

Feeder can now save drafts of items for later publication, including changes to items that are already in the feed. New and edited items are now autosaved as drafts and listed in the new Drafts section of the main window. When you close an editing window, you can choose to keep it as a draft or save it to the feed. Existing items in the feed will show a draft icon next to the title in the list, and editing those items will edit the draft, not the feed version.

Drafts do not need to be valid until you save them to the feed, which allows for partially complete items — e.g. you can fill out an enclosure’s URL without knowing its size. If you try to save an item to the feed that doesn’t validate, Feeder will offer to save a draft instead.

Unlike the autosaving in previous versions of Feeder 3, drafts are now stored in the library folder, so if that folder is shared with other Macs via Dropbox or iCloud Drive, etc, the draft will be available on all Macs using that library and you will always be working on the latest version.

Editor & Accessibility Improvements

In addition to drafts, the item editor has a number of improvements that are related to accessibility, but are useful in general. There are now separate Editor menu items to perform tasks like choosing enclosure files and fetching attributes, which would otherwise be performed by clicking the gear icon next to the field. There is also a “New Item With Enclosure” item in the File menu, which could previously only be accomplished by dragging and dropping the enclosure file on the list. Various other parts of the app have been updated to be more accessible in a descriptive way too.

OS X Changes

Many parts of the app have been updated to use new technologies in OS X, including publishing to Amazon S3 and WebDAV, sending pings, Facebook, Twitter, URL shortening, downloading and reloading feeds, fetching enclosure details, thumbnail generation and posting to WordPress blogs. These changes are essential to keep Feeder working on future versions of OS X. You should not notice any difference in the functionality, but please get in touch if something stops working for you.

Other Changes

The landscape list has been updated to show columns other than “Title” in grey, matching what you see in Finder windows, and dates are now formatted consistently with the rest of the app. The appearance of the server browser has been improved, and there are various other minor improvements and fixes across the app. See the release notes for full details.

Availability

Feeder 3.2 is a free upgrade for all Feeder 3 customers and is available now on the Mac App Store and directly from this site. Upgrades from Feeder 2 are available exclusively from this site for $24.99. The version from this site also works as a 15 day trial, which can be tried before purchasing or upgrading.

Together 1.5 for iPad and iPhone is available today. This version improves the document picker, working with items, and background updates for iCloud libraries, along with various other improvements.

Working with Items

Notes and any editable text stationery (rich text, plain text, etc) are now created in place instead of in a sheet, so you can access all the features you expect, and empty new notes are automatically removed when you navigate away, just like the Mac app.

You can now also create folders, groups and labels when working with those items too, so if you are in the Info popover and need a new label, you can create it there. The same applies when moving items to folders or adding items to groups.

There are a number of other improvements for working with items too. Swiping items in the list will show more options, depending on the group or list being shown, so you can remove items from a group, folder, label or favorites.

You can now also paste unformatted text into notes and rich text documents. When opening item links, Spotlight search results or using handoff, if the item isn’t in the current library, but the library is on your device, Together will offer to switch to that library and then open the item.

Document Picker

In Together 1.5, the document picker has been improved so that you can now see your tags and search for items, as in the app itself.

Together’s document picker extension was introduced in version 1.4 to access Together libraries from within other apps on your iPhone or iPad in the same way you access files on iCloud Drive. Using the document picker you can, for example, open a Pages document stored in Together’s library from within Pages. When Pages saves your changes, they’ll be sent to iCloud and updated in Together on all your Macs and iOS devices, even when Together isn’t running.

iCloud

Together 1.5 will now continue sending updates to iCloud when the app isn’t active. Previously if you switched apps before Together had a chance to complete saving an item to iCloud, the changes couldn’t be saved until you opened the app again. Together can now also process incoming iCloud changes when the app isn’t active, so in most cases they’ll already be in your library by the time you switch back.

The transition to CloudKit in Together 1.4 for iOS and Together 3.5 for Mac back in January has been a huge success. Together users stored over 1 million items on iCloud in the first 60 days alone, including many large libraries (e.g. 20GB, 30GB) working smoothly across Macs and iOS devices. Now the app has control over the process, the iCloud-related issues that plagued earlier versions, such as crashes and corruption have been eliminated. Finally, iCloud is the powerful, robust and secure cloud storage platform it always promised to be.

It’s not possible to mass beta test Mac apps that use iCloud, and testing the iOS app alone wouldn’t be effective, so thanks to everyone for their patience while I’ve ironed out wrinkles and addressed oversights during the first few months.

Availability

Together 1.5 requires iOS 9 or later, costs $9.99 from the App Store and is a free update for all existing users. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Together 3.5 for Mac is available from the Mac App Store and requires OS X El Capitan. A 15-day trial of Together for Mac is also available from this site, but does not include iCloud, because Apple restricts that to apps sold through the Mac App Store.

Allison Sheridan (of NosillaCast Mac Podcast) has created a combined tutorial for Together 3 for Mac and Together for iPhone and iPad for ScreenCastsOnline.

In the tutorial, Allison covers all the essential getting started steps for using Together, including:

• Together Layout
• Import Files & Folders
• Organize with Folders and Groups
• More Import Options
• Import Using the Shelf
• Creating New Documents
• Create Stationery
• Linking Documents
• Organizing With Metadata
• View Options
• Preferences
• Together for iOS
• Encrypting Items
• Share Sheets

This clear and comprehensive tutorial (along with many others like it) is available to all existing ScreenCastsOnline members, as well as to non-members for purchase in the new ScreenCastsOnline Showcase App for iPad and iPhone.

Links:

• Preview of Together tutorial
• ScreenCastsOnline Showcase App (iPad and iPhone) or search for SCO Showcase App on Apple TV.
• 14 day free trial on the ScreenCastsOnline Website (iOS or Mac)
• ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine (Together will be in the April Issue when published)