Konrad Lawson at The AppleScript Studio Workshop has written a comprehensive tutorial about including Sparkle for automatic software updates in an AppleScript Studio project. The tutorial also mentions Feeder as a way to create the appcast feed:
Link: The AppleScript Studio Workshop – Adding a Check Updates Feature
Together has always been pretty capable in its support for importing all sorts of things, through the Shelf, Dock icon and system services. Together 2.1 adds three new ways to import links and files.
Together can now automatically import files saved in its library folders, meaning you can save files directly to Together’s folders without having to manually import them. This can be enabled by checking “Auto import files added to Library folders” in Import preferences and it’s on by default.
For documents to be imported, you can save them anywhere in Together’s library folders apart from the Support and Trash folders. Together may move the document if it’s in the wrong page (e.g. a text document in the Images folder).
This will probably remove most people’s need for specific watched folders, but that method is still possible and may be useful too.
Together 2.1 also adds support for a global import hot key, which can also be set in Together’s Import preferences.
When the hot key is pressed, links or files will be imported according to Together’s Import preferences. This will work with most web browsers, Mail, Microsoft Entourage and NetNewsWire and the Finder.
A popular request was for Together to have support for bookmarklets, so web pages can be saved to Together with a single click, so this is now available in 2.1.
You can install the bookmarklets in your browser by clicking the Bookmarklets button in Together’s Import preferences. There are three different bookmarklets to save the current page as a bookmark, web archive or web PDF.
Updated October 1, 2008 to reflect changes to Together and MobileMe (formerly .Mac) since version 2.1.
Together can now sync with MobileMe. Syncing can be enabled for a library by checking “Sync Library with MobileMe” in the Library Manager panel (choose Together > Library Manager from the menu).
A synced library will merge with all other synced libraries, therefore only one Together library can be synced per Mac. Syncs will be performed according to your settings in the MobileMe System Preferences panel.
Files that are linked (i.e. the original file exists outside of Together’s library) on a local Mac will be saved as copies in the LIbrary on a remote Macs.
Most other things that are synced to MobileMe with Apple’s Sync Services are small pieces of information such a bookmarks and iCal events, rather than whole files. It works, but there are some things to watch out for:
Here’s a rough guide of how long it might take to perform the first sync:
Future syncs will be faster as they’ll only deal with the files that have changed.
Together 2.1 is released today. This is a large update that includes the most-wanted feature requests following version 2.0, along with some great new features to help make Together easier and more useful. You can download the latest version here.
Together can now sync its library with .Mac, includes AppleScript support and a new way of saving web pages – as PDFs that look identical to the original page, with background images, clickable links and no pagination.
The Shelf has seen a number of improvements, including a new Favorites section, where you can drag groups and items from Together’s library for quick access, Quick Look previews, so you don’t need to go back to Together to see the content of a file, the ability to tag and group Quick Notes and the option to hide the Shelf tab, so it will open when the mouse moves to the edge of the screen.
Smart groups become more useful with the ability to only search specified groups instead of the entire library. With group tagging, Together can automatically tag items added to groups and you can now copy or drag clickable links to Together items to other applications.
Together’s import features have been extended considerably. For starters, Together can now automatically import any files saved in its library folders. There is a new global Import Hot Key for importing files from the Finder, URLs from web browsers and email messages, and there are now bookmarklets for Together, so saving a web archive, PDF or bookmark from your web browser is one click away.
For further integration with Spotlight and other applications, Together can now import files’ Spotlight comments and keywords as tags and export items’ Together tags back to the original files’ Spotlight comments in the Finder.
Together’s user interface is now more customizable, with a choice of icons sizes for items and groups and preferences for the various different previews. Together can now also generate thumbnail icons for web archives and bookmarks.
The Portrait-orientation Info view has been improved so you can see an item’s basic information and its tags, comments, or groups at the same time and the tag browser now has options for which system tags to show.
These are just a selection of more than 60 new features and improvements in this version. The Release Notes page tells the full story and I will be posting more information about these new features over the next few days.
I released Feeder 1.5 earlier. While this is not as big a release as 1.4 and 1.3 before it, it does include a number of useful new features and improvements, particularly for video podcasters. Just about every part of the app has been tweaked in some way though, so I’ll highlight the main changes here. The Release Notes tell the full story.
Firstly, the user interface has been updated for 10.5 Leopard, and because Feeder’s minimum system requirements are now for 10.4 and later, gets some new controls such as date pickers and token fields for things like iTunes keywords.
Feeder has worked fine on Leopard since the big cat’s release, but Leopard’s darker theme almost eradicated the subtle borders on some toolbar icons and the increased contrast made some of the colours appear too saturated. Also, the sidebar gets Leopard gradient and colours, and turns grey when the main window is inactive. These are minor changes but make a big difference.
Feeder’s podcasting support has been improved in particular for video podcasters. Video podcasts can now have thumbnails via Yahoo’s Media RSS extension. These thumbnails are used for video search results and application such as Miro (formerly Democracy Player).
Using the Media RSS extensions is as straightforward as checking “Use Media Extensions” in the Extensions section of the Info drawer (below the iTunes extensions, if you’re using them). That will show the Media Thumbnail field in the editor, where you can drag an image file to upload or specify the URL of an image that is already online.
Finally for video podcasters, this version improves performance when reading and tagging MP4 files, including those used for iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, etc.
Another change useful for any podcaster is that Feeder now has the ability to redirect uploaded enclosure URLs through a site. This is useful for podcast sites concerned with statistics such as Blubrry. You can find the settings for this in the Enclosures section under Settings in the Info drawer.
Feeder’s publishing is now improved to (finally!) support password-less SFTP. This can be enabled by clicking the Options button in the Servers window for an SFTP server. It also allows the creation of additional servers for enclosures and images during publishing setup.
Last but not least, Sparkle appcasting support has been improved. It is now possible for Feeder to automatically generate MD5 sums and DSA signatures for enclosure files. The settings for these can be found in the Sparkle section under Extensions in the Info drawer. Finally, Feeder’s AppleScript has been improved and now includes the ability to edit Sparkle attributes.
Most Feeder releases have an overall theme and in this case it’s mostly about video podcasting, but also about further refining it in its current form. Feeder is a pretty mature product now and actually celebrates its 3rd birthday tomorrow. I have plenty of ideas and plans for Feeder for the next year, so stay tuned!