Together 2.2 is available today, bringing improvements to tagging, groups, item categorization, tabs, the Shelf, imports and previews. Here’s a summary of the main changes:

Tagging

Together 2.2 introduces intelligent auto-tagging based on items with similar content. When items are imported or saved, Together will analyse their content and tag them based on other items with the same tag.

Also in 2.2, tags can be organized into bundles, and system tags (which show things such as labels, ratings and groups as though they were tags) are also shown in their own bundles. It’s now possible to show items that have all the selected tags in the tag browser, rather than any of the tags.

The new Change Tags panel replaces the Add Tags panel to add or remove specific tags from multiple items or all items in a group. This is useful as is not possible to edit specific tags in the Info view when multiple items are selected and not all items have the same tags.

Items

Together 2.2 adds a new Web Page group to show all web archives, web pages and PDFs of web pages, whether printed from a browser or web PDFs created by Together.

Items’ file creation and modification dates can be edited in the Info view by clicking on the date.

Tabs for items can now be rearranged and will scroll horizontally when there are too many to be displayed in the main window.

Web PDFs have also been improved so that you can specify the minimum size for a web page when creating a PDF in Together, with default settings in Together’s Previews preferences panel that will be used when PDFs are imported from dragged URLs.

Also, the content for notes and text documents can now be zoomed and the default zoom percentage can be set in Previews preferences.

Groups

Groups and smart groups can now be nested in folders. Items can be added to new or existings groups and moved to folders using the Items menu.

Shelf

Together 2.1 added the ability for the Shelf to show options when importing. This is now improved so that, in the case of single-item imports, you can edit the name of the item being imported.

Also, Together will return to the previous application after the Shelf closes and there is a new “Find in Library” hot key to open the Shelf with the search field selected.

Importing

Together now has better handling of file promises. Sometimes when dragging from other applications, the other application is responsibile for creating the file in Together’s library, but Together would only know when that process started and so would show the new item in the library before the copy had completed. This could cause some confusion for larger files, so now Together will wait until the file has been fully copied to a temporary location.

This change also works around a problem where Mail.app will silently overwrite exported email files with the same subject, as Together now has control over the name of the imported file.

There are plenty of other smaller improvements and tweaks in this version. See the Together release notes page for a full list.

Allison Sheridan has created a ScreenSteps (which looks very cool) tutorial on how to create a podcast feed for Feeder as part of her Podcasting on Podcasting series.

You can hear Allison give the tutorial on PoP Episode #9 (enhanced podcast) and read it on her site: Feeder Tutorial.

The Podcasting on Podcasting (PoP) series should prove very useful to budding podcasters as the entire process can be very daunting, as it covers everything from the technical side of recording equipment, software and web hosting on the one hand, and the creative aspect on the other, not to mention considerations such as time and family commitments.

Allison’s been podcasting for a long time now, and occasionally brings in other experienced contributors such as Don McAllister of the excellent ScreenCastsOnline.

The Podcasting on Podcasting series can be found as part of Allison’s main podcast, NosillaCast, at podfeet.com. Allison also contributes to the Mac Roundtable Podcast and the Mac ReviewCast.

Nick Brawn has written a post on scripting Feeder to publish Sparkle appcasts using Leopard’s Scripting Bridge and RubyCocoa, which as well as being potentially useful for developers, serves as an interesting example for this combination of technologies:

Link: Scripting Sparkle Appcasts with Feeder and RubyCocoa

ThinkMac Software released iKanji 1.0 yesterday. iKanji is an application for learning Japanese kanji characters on the Mac. iKanji is a companion application for iKana, which helps you learn Hiragana and Katakana.

ThinkMac developer Rory Prior is a friend of mine (hence the plug) so I got to try iKanji before its release. I’m not learning Japanese and normally wouldn’t feel comfortable writing about such applications, but both iKanji and iKana are clearly exceptional learning tools. I’ve learned so much just trying them out.

Both applications are a superb example of usability on the Mac, look great, and include the sort of thoughtfulness that surprises and delights without ever being gimmicky or patronising. Also, to my surprise, they are a lot of fun.

iKanji’s learning experience is focused around flash cards and includes 2230 kanji built-in, with the ability to add your own, and nearly 20,000 example words. It can also search by kanji, meaning, radical and examples, sort kanji by stroke count or radical, allows you to add your own notes and create your own practice sets. iKanji covers Japanese school grades 1 to 6, JLPT levels 1 to 4 and 214 kanji radicals.

Following on from that are the tests. iKanji has tests for meanings, reading and writing (complete with animated stroke animations). After taking the tests, you’ll be able to see your proficiency with gold, silver and bronze stars marked on the kanji and plotted on a graph to see your performance over time.

iKanji requires Mac OS X 10.5 is available for €20 (around US$31) and can be bought with iKana for €25 (around US$40) at the ThinkMac Software store. Rory’s also confirmed that he’ll be creating iPhone versions of these applications in the (ahem!) near future.

I’m occasionally asked if I can compare Together with its competitors or the approaches of similar applications. For all sorts of reasons, I doubt I’m the right person to ask for an opinion. However, a rummage through this web site’s referral logs revealed some interesting comparisons that have been posted recently:

• Yojimbo vs Together vs Evernote: a review by Rachel Murphy, whose blog includes a number of thoughtful posts on Mac software.
• 8 Web Information Collectors Reviewed by Daniel Jomphe covers DEVONthink Personal, EagleFiler, Journler, Circus Ponies Notebook, Scrivener, SOHO Notes, Together and Yojimbo.
• Solving Mac Information Management: Yojimbo, Journler, Together, VoodooPad, EagleFiler, WikityWidget, Punakea, Leap on NOT a blog
• UX Magazine – Review: Mac Information Managers quickly compares Yojimbo, Soho Notes and Together.

A number of these point out that it’s your needs that count, and that is a crucial point. All apps have their place as they can offer something unique; any app that tries to be all things to all people is going to be a disappointment.

Fortunately you can download and try all these apps for yourself. That said, with so much choice, blog posts like the above, written by real users, can be a great starting point.