Feeder and Poster are on Mac App Store for its launch today. Together requires more changes than those two apps and should follow in a couple of weeks, provided it is accepted and depending on how long the review process will take.

Poster

Poster is now $9.99. The version on the Mac App Store is identical in its functionality, however it will not offer to install export plug-ins for Aperture or iPhoto, as installing additional software is prohibited. Versions of the plug-ins are available for download from my site. These new versions of the plug-ins will check for updated versions as those cannot be delivered through the main app. On the price drop, existing customers will be refunded the difference.

Feeder

Feeder is on the Mac App Store with its price unchanged. This version is almost identical to the regular version with the exception that it will not offer to wake your Mac from sleep for scheduled publishing, because that requires admin privileges, which is also prohibited by the Mac App Store. A workaround is to schedule wake from sleep manually in System Preferences.

Finally, a note about version numbers, which aren’t quite in line. Poster 1.0 in the App Store has all the relevant fixes from Poster 1.0.1. Feeder 2.1.6 is on my site today to bring it in line with the App Store version, but doesn’t add anything significant for existing users so it won’t appear in Feeder’s automatic software update.

Thanks to changes by Facebook, Feeder 2.1.2 adds the ability to post to groups and pages when announcing items on the site. If you use Feeder to announce on Facebook, even if you don’t need to post to a group or page, there are a few things you need to know.

Authorization

You will need to authorize Feeder to post to Facebook again for two reasons: Facebook has changed their authorization scheme and Feeder needs to be granted new permissions to work with your groups on Facebook. If you don’t reauthorize Facebook, your posts won’t be sent to Facebook when publishing.

To reauthorize Feeder:

• Show the Info view by choosing View > Show Feed Info from the menu.
• Click Settings and then choose Announcements
• Click the Change button next to your Facebook account name
• Log in to Facebook and follow the prompts

Posting to a Group or Page

Once authorized, there’s new a pop-up menu in Feeder’s Announcements view for choosing where to post, which will list any Facebook pages you administer and all the groups to which you belong (it’s not possible for Feeder to determine which groups you administer).

The list is only retrieved when you first authorize Feeder, so if you create a new group or page, choose Refresh from the pop-up menu to update the list. If you only want to post to your wall as before, you can just leave this as “Profile Wall”.

When posting to a group, the post will appear to come from you. When posting to a page, the post will use the page name instead.

Better Thumbnails

Another improvement is that Feeder will now try to use a thumbnail from the item you’re announcing. If you’re using the Media RSS extension, Feeder will send the Thumbnail URL. If not, it’ll use the first image it finds in your post, if any. If it can’t find an image, Facebook will do its regular thing of choosing one from the corresponding web page.

Feeder 2.1 is available today. This version adds support for WebDAV, updates the iTunes preview to match the recent changes to the iTunes Store and supports themes for previewing iTunes U feeds. This release also adds drag and drop Sparkle appcasts, improves MP3 tagging, working with Twitter accounts and will now run as a 64-bit application on Snow Leopard.

Publishing and Announcements

Feeder can now publish feeds using WebDAV, which could previously only be accomplished by connecting to the server as a disk in the Finder and publishing using File Export. The same system is being used to publish to iDisks now too.

Feeder 2.1 also dramatically improves the experience of authorizing Twitter accounts, thanks entirely to Twitter implementing xAuth, an alternative to OAuth for desktop and mobile apps that removes the need to use a web browser to authenticate and authorize applications. This not only makes it much easier to authenticate with Twitter, but also to use different accounts for different feeds, as you no longer need to log out of one Twitter account on the web to authorize another.

64-bit and Snow Leopard

Feeder now runs as a 64-bit application on Snow Leopard. While this is not something you should notice, it will become more important once all your applications make the transition to 64-bit, as the Mac OS X will no longer need to load its 32-bit versions of everything, improving performance and saving memory. Feeder will also use QuickTime X on Snow Leopard when working with audio and video files.

Podcasting

Feeder’s iTunes preview has now been updated to match the recent changes at the iTunes Store and adds customizable colors for iTunes U feeds. Feeder is now also using a completely different third-party framework for tagging MP3 files, which should improve both the reliability of Feeder and compatibility of the audio files.

More

In addition to the above, there are many more tweaks and changes in this release, including drag and drop Sparkle appcasts (drag an application to create a zip file and fill out the version numbers, etc), gestures to zoom the preview, navigate the list and switch editing modes and more.

To see full list of changes and download the latest version, see the Feeder Release Notes page.

Feeder 2.1 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later, costs $39.95 and is a free upgrade for all registered Feeder 2.0 users. Feeder 1.x users can upgrade for $14.95.

One Finger Discount is a promotion inspired by the current MacHeist nanoBundle that is running for the rest of the week, offering a discount of 20%, or one fifth, the full price of the software. It is being run by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software, developer of MarsEdit and more.

At the time of writing, it includes the wares of over 80 independent software developers, including Reinvented Software, but more are being added all the time. So, to get 20% off the full price of Together, Feeder or anything else you’ve been fancying on the list, then go to the One Finger Discount page to find out how.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is publicly available today. Both current releases of Feeder (2.0.5) and Together (2.2.11) are fully compatible. If you are installing Snow Leopard, please ensure you are using these versions, which can be downloaded through the Sparkle automatic update system built into the apps, or from their respective product pages.

You may notice that the Services menu has been cleaned up in Snow Leopard and this affects Together users. You can now choose which items to show and set shortcut keystrokes for the Services menu in System Preferences. Unlike the mess of before, Snow Leopard only shows the services that are relevant to the current selection.

An additional enhancement is that items in the Services menu now appear in contextual menus. This is intended to replace contextual menu plugins across the system, as those will not work with 64-bit applications.

Speaking of which, I plan to make both Feeder and Together 64-bit applications on their next major release (Feeder 2.1 and Together 2.3). Together will be released first and Feeder will follow. Feeder is much more reliant on a number of third-party components than Together, so that transition will take longer.

I plan to take advantage of more Snow Leopard technology in my apps in due course, while retaining Leopard compatibility for a while.

I’ve been using Snow Leopard for a while now and my favorite enhancement has got to be the improved Exposé, especially the way an app is put under the spotlight when dragging to its Dock icon. I think Snow Leopard is my favorite release of Mac OS X since 10.3 Panther. Big headline features are great, but a focus on thoughtful enhancements and improved performance always seems to make me smile.

So, if you’re installing it today, I’d like to wish you a happy Snow Leopard day!