Houdah Software now has an official blog. We will discuss news, tips & tricks regarding our Mac & iPhone products: HoudahSpot, HoudahGeo, HoudahGPS, ACTCurrency, ACTPrinter, ACTSudoku, …

My personal blog will no longer include product or sale announcements for Houdah Software. It will instead focus on subjects related to software development. I will continue to announce open source code provided by Houdah Software. I may also publish the occasional movie review.

BTW, you owe it to yourself to go see Avatar. It is spectacular. Though the story may be somewhat predictable, this movie combines spectacular images with some excellent story telling.

HoudahSpot 2.6 improves integration with other applications by the way of Mac OS X services. HoudahSpot itself provides a "BlitzSearch" and a "Search Location" service.

HoudahSpot 2.6 brings many more enhancements:

▪ HoudahSpot 2.6 adds toolbar buttons for "Add ALL Group", "Add ANY Group" and "Add NONE Group".
▪ A "Search Location in HoudahSpot" service is now provided in the Finder as well as in other applications working with files.
▪ Users may narrow down a search by command-clicking folders in the path control at the bottom of the window.
▪ The grid view now has a slider to adjust icon size.
▪ The grid view now provides the same contextual menu as the list view.
▪ One may now see the MDQuery string passed to Spotlight.
▪ Clicking a "+" button on a criterion row duplicates the current row. This makes it easier than ever to refine a search.
▪ HoudahSpot 2.6 improves integration with other applications through Mac OS X services. Services are also available for the contextual menus.
▪ The BlitzSearch service is now enabled by default under Snow Leopard.
▪ Result list font size is adjustable and preference is persisted.
▪ HoudahSpot 2.6 features new toolbar and preferences icons by Lars Herrmann.
▪ The keyboard shortcut for item deletion has been changed to match other applications.

For details, have a look at the screencast.

Get 7 great graphics applications for the price of one: $39.99 instead of $251

The MacGraPhoto bundle allows Mac users to get 7 premium graphics applications for the price of one or even for free. Applications in MacGraPhoto bundle will satisfy most of imaging needs of any Mac user: image editing, applying effects, format conversion, batch processing, vector drawing, geo-tagging photos, framing them or even creating posters and postcards.

Most Mac bundles lack focus - they collect unrelated applications, and many Mac users usually need only a couple of them. MacGraPhoto bundle is focused exclusively on graphics: it is a hand-picked selection of 7 premium applications from 7 different companies. Most of these applications received Apple "Staff Pick" or Apple Design Award.

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.

Get 10 great Mac applications for only $49.99 at themacsale.com. The bundle includes HoudahGeo (regular single-user license).

HHDualShortcutButton has been updated to be Cocoa only. No more Carbon code!

This makes it require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

According to the Cocoa User Interface Validation documentation: "The protocols NSUserInterfaceValidations and NSValidatedUserInterfaceItem provide a standard way to validate user interface items—that is, to set their state as appropriate for the current application context".

Unfortunately, automatic user intreface validation is provided only for menu items and toolbar items. Wouldn't it be great if NSButton could also benefit from this set-up?

That's what HHValidatedButton implements. It is a drop-in subclass of NSButton. It channels validation through validateButton: and validateUserInterfaceItem:.

Only two more days left to get HoudahSpot in a bundle of excellent applications valued at $450. Get them for only $49.99 at themacsale.com

This project is based off the objectiveflickr project by Lukhnos D. Liu. Most of the credit goes to him!

Please refer to the objectiveflickr for framework documentation and to the locr.com web site for API documentation.

ObjectiveLocr is used by HoudahGeo (Mac photo geotagging), locrUpload (locr upload client for iPhone) and locrExplorer (full-featured locr client for iPhone).

Klaus Meßlinger has written an extensive review and walkthrough of HoudahGeo on his Mac photography web site.

I just open-sourced a couple of classes to simplify working with UITableViewControllers to create property editing interfaces.
The controllers and views of this project may be used to easily create interfaces much like Apple's Settings applications. They make up most of the UI of the free LocrUpload application.
The PropertiesViewController may be used to modify attributes of any key-value-coding compliant container. Typically a container would be a NSMutableDictionary or a NSUserDefaults instance.
The controller is typically configured in a subclass by providing a set of descriptors. Descriptors are immutable objects describe the properties to expose and the UI elements (text field, switch, ...) to use. Seeing that descriptors are immutable, it should be easy to store them in a file rather than building them in code.
The SelectionViewController is used by the PropertiesViewController for multiple choice values.

HoudahGeo 2.2 shapes up to by another major release for HoudahGeo. Indeed HoudahGeo 2.2 will revolutionize the geocoding workflow for iPhoto '09 users.

HoudahGeo 2.2 tightens the integration with iPhoto '09 by being able to write metadata back to the iPhoto database. (Obviously it is recommended to have a current backup of the database.) Integration with iPhoto is now completely seamless: HoudahGeo offers a view of the iPhoto database to start off the workflow. At the end of the workflow iPhoto's Places will feature the freshly geocoded images.

HoudahGeo 2.2 also fixes all outstanding bugs related to manual geocoding using Google Earth.

Moreover the current beta already includes various fixes for minor bugs. As the development progresses, more features are expected to make the cut for the final release of HoudahGeo 2.2. Watch this thread for announcements of further beta releases.

Download HoudahGeo 2.2 beta 1.

Apple has finally given LocrUpload for iPhone its blessing.

LocrUpload allows you to share your iPhoto photos on the locr.com community. locr is more than a photo sharing community. In addition to a free account, innovative software and an international community, locr.com makes it possible to tag your photos with location information and geodata anywhere in the world.

I discovered locr when I was asked to add locr upload capabilities to HoudahGeo. locr integration is now available in HoudahGeo 2.1 or later as well as in the freeware HoudahGeo LE (Locr Edition).

While HoudahGeo is a commercial product, LocrUpload for iPhone is ad-free freeware. I don't make any money of it. It is simply a product I wanted to exist. Combined the iPhone and locr make a great set-up to share geocoded photos while on the go. I foresee myself frequently sharing the occasional snapshot.

Get LocrUpload for FREE from the iTunes AppStore.

Seems like I forgot to blog the recent updates to HoudahGeo.
HoudahGeo indeed saw two major updates. HoudahGeo 2.0 was a big step taken just in time for a Macworld Expo release. It brought a truckload of enhancements:
▪ Enhanced time zone support
▪ Extended GPS device support
▪ Access to Aperture masters
▪ Access to iPhoto originals
▪ Lightroom 2 integration
▪ Waypoint geocoding
▪ Improved reverse geocoding
▪ Map inspector panel
▪ Track log inspector panel
▪ Flickr sets support
▪ ...

HoudahGeo 2.1 brings integration with locr.com and CDFinder. It is now possible to upload photos directly from HoudahGeo to locr. There photos may be viewed in context with location descriptions and similar photos.
HoudahGeo 2.1 also added a number of smaller refinements including a contextual menu.

Don McAllister of shows how to combine Trails on iPhone with HoudahGeo to create a low budget geotagging solution to make the most of iPhoto's Places feature.
Don went out on a mini ScreenCastsOnline roadrip to take some photos of two famous Liverpool landmarks. In episode SCO0186 he takes you through the complete process from start to finish demonstrating Trails, HoudahGeo and iPhoto '09.

Houdah Software just had its best month ever in Mac software sales. iPhone sales were not too shabby either.

The HoudahGeo/HoudahSpot mix is a reversal from the previous trend with HoudahGeo taking the lead. This is most likely due to the release of HoudahGeo 2.0, as well as the renewed interest in geocoding spurred by iPhoto '09

Drop by and pay us a visit at booth 3526-A at the Special Interest Pavilion in North Hall. The first 100 visitors to visit the Macworld Attendee Registration page may claim FREE (a $25 value) show floor passes on us.

Discounts are all over the place today. Head over to houdah.com and use coupon code BLACK08 to claim your 50% discount on critically acclaimed HoudahSpot and HoudahGeo.

BTW, a major free upgrade to HoudahGeo is on track for a Macworld Expo release.

AppCraver.com published a raving review of ACTSudoku: ACTSudoku - Friendliest Sudoku App Yet

ACTPrinter made the list of top 10 productivity apps.

About 70% of the ACTPrinter sales happen in Japan. This has pushed ACTPrinter to the number 2 spot in the Japanese top 100 paid applications.

ACTPrinter - the printer for virtual paper on your iPhone - sold 1296 copies yesterday!

Peter Cohen did a nice write-up on ACTPrinter for Macworld. Much appreciated!

In this Macworld article Rob Griffith details his top ten gripes about Leopard.

I happen to agree with most of his concerns. Yet Leopard is the best operating system I have ever used. And a joy to write software for.

I am most flattered that Rob lists HoudahSpot as solution for his number one complaint: the inept Spotlight interface.

This month's issue of the UK magazine MacFormat comes with a FREE copy of HoudahSpot 2.0.9. It also brings a coupon code for a discount on HoudahSpot 2.2.

HoudahSpot is mentioned in episode 49 of Mac Roundtable. Thanks Don, glad you like it!

I am giving E-Junkie a try. Unlike Share-It.com, this is not a full-fledged sales processor. E-Junkie basically provides the shopping cart and the payment processor integration. I will use PayPal for a payment processor. The extra work I am stuck with now is handling the VAT.

My hopes are that the elegant "fat-free shopping cart" will lead to lower abandonment rates. Let's not forget that the E-Junkie + PayPal solution comes cheaper.

This weekend, get ACTSudoku UNLIMITED for FREE! This is your chance to discover what makes ACTSudoku truly unique.

Same great product. Same license. Same upgrade privileges. 100% off! No strings attached.

We do ask for a small favor: If you like ACTSudoku, please post a review on iTunes. Otherwise write us at support.iphone@houdah.com. Customer feedback shapes the future of our products.

BTW, we make great Mac software too: HoudahSpot & HoudahGeo.

This week only, ACTCurrency is available for FREE on the iTunes App Store.

All I ask for is for you to write a review on iTunes. Blog entries are welcome too. So are emails with feature suggestions or bug reports.

The target audience for ACTCurrency is travellers. ACTCurrency may handle any currency. For 35 major currencies, it additionally supports automatic exchange rate updates. As ACTCurrency always performs currency conversion both ways, it serves to answer both questions you may ask when faced with a price in a foreign currency. "How much is this in my home currency?" "How does the price back home convert to the local currency?"

ACTCurrency has been slapped by bad reviews from users who failed to read the simple instructions. Most importantly however, the recent release of ACTCurrency 1.2 addressed the main concern voiced by users: automatic updates to exchange rates. It is time for these reviews to be pushed from front page.

Right in time for the presentation at WOWODC 2008, I have created a demo / sample application for Houdah WebObjects Frameworks. HoudahMovies is a bare minimum demo application for HoudahAgileComponents. It does not use custom actions, controllers, views or cells. It does however show how a CRUD application may be created using a small set of rules and no code at all.

HoudahMovies should serve as a starting point for your exploration of the Houdah WebObjects Frameworks.

In the lower levels of the Houdah WebObjects Frameworks, you'll find a lot of cool goodies which are not demoed by HoudahMovies: custom qualifiers, rule-based EOValidation, ... Check the Wiki for more information on the various frameworks.

I have just secured a $1250 sponsorship slot on the Daring Fireball RSS feed. Watch for it in July!

HoudahSpot is celebrating it's second anniversary. Today, to the day, HoudahSpot 1.0 was released. Since then HoudahSpot has come a long way. In late 2007, HoudahSpot was rewritten from the ground up to become HoudahSpot 2: Leopard Edition.

It has since earned much praise from its users and the press. This includes a glowing 4-mice review in Macworld.
HoudahSpot has been featured as 'Pick of the week' on MacOSXHints.com and earned a recommendation on the MacBreak Weekly podcast.

Happy Birthday HoudahSpot!
Head over to MacZot.com for a 52% discount. Today only!

On May 5, HoudahGeo will be featured at a deep discount on MacUpdate Promo (MUPromo). Don't miss this opportunity! Summer holidays are coming fast: you will have some photos to geocode.

Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline.com has done a fantastic job presenting HoudahGeo & HoudahSpot.

I have the screencasts hosted on YouTube, but do provide links to higher resolution QuickTime movies hosted on the Houdah.com web server. I wonder if there are more elegant solutions?

Easter mEgg Hunt reveals list of participants

Easter egg hunting season is open!

Today marks the start of the first ever "Easter mEgg Hunt": Seasonal fun and discounts for Mac users. Select Mac indie developers have joined forces to offer Mac users some seasonal fun as well as the opportunity to earn discounts on quality Mac software.

Participating sites will show a banner: Spot the Eggs, get Mac Software, 20% off. This takes visitors to the "Easter mEgg Hunt" homepage. From there they start the hunt for eggs on other participating sites. Eggs are small images which link back to the "Easter mEgg Hunt" site where their contents is revealed.

Each egg contains a coupon code valid for a 20% discount at 3 participating stores. The same coupon is hidden in 3 eggs placed on 3 different sites.

While on the hunt, visitors get a chance to explore product sites and may there learn about Mac software for which they are about to earn discounts.

Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline has produced a screencast showing off both HoudahSpot and HoudahGeo.

He does a fantastic job explaining both products. Go see the screencast.

Today marks the release of HoudahSpot 2.1. Thus update is just about as important as the release of HoudahSpot 2.0.

Wasn't HoudahSpot 2.0 a complete rewrite? How can an incremental update get even close to being as important? Short answer: BlitzSearch.

Thanks to BlitzSearch, HoudahSpot 2.1 now is a complete replacement to Apple's Spotlight UI. No more: let's just do a plain Spotlight search for starters. Oh well, gotta switch over to HoudahSpot after all.

With BlitzSearch, queries can be started with the same convenience as Apple's Spotlight menu. Only down the road you will find the full power, flexibility and customizability of HoudahSpot.

Spotlight (the UI) is dead, long live Spotlight (the technology).

For the first time ever, I have computed download to sales conversion rates.

January HoudahGeo: 3.07%
January HoudahSpot:  1.42%
January combined: 2.10%

December HoudahGeo: 2.68%
December HoudahSpot: 1.33%
December combined: 1.95%

Sales-wise January has been my best month ever.

HoudahGeo gets the better conversion rate. It is however much lower than the figure Andy has quoted. I'd be curious to hear other developer's experiences.

HoudahGeo is much more constraining on the trial period. It is virtually useless in trial mode: you can export only 3 images at a time.
HoudahSpot is fully functional for 30 searches with no time limit.

Looking at the download stats for HoudahGeo and HoudahSpot, I noticed that I still get a lot of downloads on long since outdated versions of both products.
I suspect this to be the effect of download sites deep linking to the ZIP files. Thus I have set up the following rewrite rules to redirect any deep link to the latest download:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*houdah.com.* [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !.*latest.zip
RewriteRule  .* http://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/download_assets/HoudahSpot\ latest.zip [R]


From the crontab I call:

cd /home/houdahco/www/houdahSpot/download_assets ; ln -sf "`ls -lrt | cut -c54- | grep -v \">\" | tail -1`" HoudahSpot\ latest.zip


This makes sure that the "HoudahSpot latest.zip" link always points to the latest version.

Interview with Pierre Bernard, Founder of Houdah Software



(Via http://kupuk.com.)

Houdah Software has acquired the rights to the study card software Ebbinghaus.

The original author, Christian Kienle, has already invested a lot of effort in the development of Ebbinghaus 2. In the coming month we will finish that work and release the finished product under our own brand.

We tentatively plan to rename Ebbinghaus into HoudahStudy.

In line with Christian's original plans, version 2.0 will be released as shareware.

You are welcome to discuss this topic in the Houdah Software discussion forums.

HoudahSpot has been reviewed by Rob Griffith for Macworld's Mac Gems column. HoudahSpot was found worthy of a 4 mice rating.

Rob didn't yet get a chance to see HoudahSpot 2.1 which should to be ready next week. I think he'll like that version even more.

Time flies. A week has passed since Macworld.
I however left San Francisco only on Monday. Thus I am still trying to cope with jetlag. As I write this, it is 6:26 AM here. I have been up for over an hour. I went to bed late and plan to return there within minutes.
I just wanted to write down a couple more thoughts about my Macworld experience as an exhibitor:
- Sales this month are good, very good
- Only very few sales can directly be linked to visits to our booth. I.e. use of coupon
- I guess this means I get more benefit from initial press coverage than from actual visits
- People were very excited about the Wintec WBT-201. I should have been selling those.
- The ADC package included a business card sized ad in Macworld magazine. So far only 1 sale can be tracked directly to that ad
- I have signed for another turnkey booth for next year
- HoudahGeo outsells HoudahSpot about 2:1. Only HoudahSpot works only with Leopard which has a 20-30% market share. Some potential

Today is the last day of the Macworld Expo 2008.
I am exhausted! I've been working the booth all week. Been on my feet, talking (loudly) to countless people, ... for about 8 hours straight each day. Never took more that 15 Minutes off. 1 or 2 breaks a day. Being a single person company can be hard work. But, boy, is this exciting.
Couple of thoughts:
- The ADC booth is really nice
- Macworld allowed me to make contacts I couldn't ever have made otherwise (resellers, journalists, book authors, ...)
- People show much more interest in HoudahGeo than in HoudahSpot
- I discovered new uses for HoudahGeo (travel agents, environmentalist documenting forrest damage, ...
- I had waaaaaaaaaaay to many flyers. Of the 4000 I will hand out less than 1000
- I didn't have enough business cards. People love business cards. I don't.
- Demoing makes you uncover bugs.
- People don't seem to notice bugs if you just keep talking, close the window and move on.
- Releasing new features before Macworld was not all that useful. I don't get to show all features in a single demo anyway
- Releasing Google Earth geocoding was a good thing to do. This is a killer feature for demos.
- I already got nice press from Macworld's Rob Griffiths. Hoping for a Macworld review now :-D

I am in an update mood. Next week I will be showing off HoudahGeo & HoudahSpot at Macworld. Obviously I want them to look their best.

This week already saw the release of HoudahGPS 2.0 (now 2.0.1, oops) as well as a point update to HoudahSpot 2.

The real big news will be the release of HoudahGeo 1.4. This comes with an arm-long release note. Mmmmh, many new goodies in there. You may grab HoudahGeo 1.4b1 (BETA) here.
I am left with two more days for testing and updating the documentation.

Since the release of HoudahGeo 1.3, both HoudahSpot and HoudahGeo are priced in Euro. This move has become a necessity caused by the ongoing deflation of the US dollar.

The choice of EUR versus USD for software pricing has oft been discussed on the MacSB discussion group. Many developers are afraid of losing US customers by switching to a "foreign" currency. Indeed it's a fact of the business that the US makes for the largest share of customers.

For Houdah Software, the share of USD customers is at about 40+%. The distant second rank is being fought between the United Kingdom and Germany.

The news is that nothing has changed in the predominance of US customers. Actually December has seen a 43.59% share of US customers.

Our friends at Rogue Amoeba have invited Santa to the Mac world.

MacSanta is a web site with daily promotions offered directly by the featured software publishers. Using the coupon code MACSANTA07 in the respective web stores customers get 20% off the daily featured products. Previously featured products are sold at a 10% discount with the MACSANTA07TEN code. BTW, all the proceed go directly to the developers. You actually invest in the future of the product you buy.

December 21, is the day Houdah Software's products will be featured. Check us out!

(Giving MarsEdit a try)

Over the past weeks, a couple of Leopard incompatibilities have shown up in HoudahGeo. As I was already working on a HoudahGeo update, I decided to rush things a bit and make HoudahGeo both a feature and bug fix release.

HoudahGeo fixes some minor and major Leopard issues. In previous versions, Google Earth export has proven to be unreliable on Leopard. Also, an API change - a fix - on Apple's side made reimporting images into HoudahGeo troublesome. The system API finally respects time zone information in EXIF tags. HoudahGeo did not expect this.

On the feature side you will find: XMP sidecar support, improved Google Earth export, customizable EXIF/XMP export,...

Enjoy!

On a dark corner of the loneliest street stands Lord Semtex. He ain't no Lord. Nor Lady. Nor Lair. He hacks. He cracks. Disassembles. Swaps bytes. Patches assembler. Speaks machine language with his peers. He's a master of his craft. A hax0r crack!

His breakfast serial box holds many a surprise. KCN screw. License files. Keygen. What he doesn't unlock himself he gets from Rapidshare.

By the moonlight he stands. His trenchcoat holds his warez. You get a furtive look at his filez. Freshly unlocked Houdah software. Bright shine the icons of HoudahGeo and HoudahSpot.

Suddenly your conscience speaks. What's that noise? The moaning of a developer trying to nourish his family.

You want to keep with the law. Earn a full license legally. Access to customer support. Update rights.

Get HoudahSpot for FREE
Get HoudahGeo for FREE

Ho! Ho! Ho! MacSanta brings daily discounts for the holiday season.

And he has an RSS feed too. So you won't miss a single gift idea.

It's been one week since the release of HoudahSpot 2: Leopard Edition.

There is much to be said about HoudahSpot 2. It's been a complete rewrite. So I could talk about code. I could talk about features. The list of new features is impressive.

But there is one thing that probably not many will notice, despite it being somewhat of a revolution. HoudahSpot 2 is priced in Euros.

Well the US Dollar isn't doing all too well lately. Especially when looked upon from outside the US. My bills need to be paid in Euros. Yet I kept getting fewer and fewer of these from my sales made in USD. I was faced with a choice: raise the price or drop the USD pricing. Raising the price may rub some people the wrong way. Given the USD downhill ride the US buyers should however be used to inflation by now. Altogether it's a viable solution. Yet a temporary one. The dollar doesn't seem to want to stop the joyride. Moreover it seems more like a patch - a half hearted bug workaround - to the real problem: my revenue should be in the same currency as my expenses.

So I went on a dare. Threw over board common wisdom. Despite the fact that most of my customers are US based, I decided to price HoudahSpot 2 at 14.95 Euros. That's some $22 as of this writing.

A week later, I can start analyzing sales stats and draw first conclusions. HoudahGeo is still selling better than HoudahSpot. But that's to be expected as HoudahSpot works only with Leopard. More interesting though is the fact that 60% of my HoudahSpot customers this week are US based. That's actually a bit more than my average share of US buyers.

Thus - based on the admittedly small sample of a week's sale - pricing in Euros doesn't seem to scare away US customers.

BTW, HoudahSpot was mentioned in the first ever episode of the MacSB podcast.

It's been a week since I have released HoudahSpot 2: Leopard Edition.

Actually such a major release is a process which spans over several days. Of course there is some preparation. E.g. the web site was updated long before the actual release. Even after the cut off date there is still some work to do. I for one send out complimentary licenses to all the people who I feel deserve some recognition. These are mainly people whose code somehow ended up in the application. Then there are the download sites. Minor fights with one of them…

And then there is the wait. For reasons beyond my knowledge HS2 made it to Apple's Downloads page only yesterday. There is also the wait for initial reactions and reviews to which you may want to react.

With all that done, I am free to move on to the next project. I have decided not to start an all new project until after Macworld.

That means an update to HoudahGeo is in order. The question I have been trying to answer for close to two days now is "which update?".

Well, there are some minor Leopard quirks and one bug introduced by a change of API behavior. So I could tackle those and do a 1.2.9 release this week.

I could also have a list at the long long list of feature ideas and requests and do like 1/3 of them and call the result HoudahGeo 1.3 or 1.5. Or I could just do both. A bug fix release tomorrow, followed by a major update in a couple week's time.

And then there is all the stuff I would love to do. That would probably be worth a version jump to 2.0. Now I would love to have that ready in the Macworld timeframe. But that seems somewhat unlikely.

BTW, don't hesitate to drop me an email if you'd like to beta test HoudahGeo 1.3, 1.5 or 2.0.

Minutes ago I have released HoudahSpot 2: Leopard Edition. The press release will go out tomorrow.

Despite having a known name, HoudahSpot 2 actually is a brand new product. This makes it my third commercial product release. Still I have only 2 out there. Indeed HoudahSpot 1.5 has retired to Freeware-land.

I must admit that I had doubts about going 2.0 with HoudahSpot. It's been quite some time since HoudahSpot sales have stalled. Maybe users held out on promises of Leopard improvements. Maybe the competition grabbed the larger share of customers by copying many of HoudahSpot's features.

Now I am more that glad I invested the time to create HoudahSpot 2. There is the satisfaction of having leapfrogged a competition which failed to grasp the best of HoudahSpot's unique features. Most important is however the feeling to have released a very strong product. Since the release of HoudahSpot 1.0, I have become much more proficient with Cocoa. Under the hood HoudahSpot 2 is noticeable prettier.

I am also proud to have found a good feature set balance. HoudahSpot 2 packs quite a lot a features and enhancements without adding to the complexity of the interface. Steve Jobs would boost the fact that the toolbar now has fewer buttons than before.

HoudahSpot 2.0 is probably the strongest release I have ever done. It benefits from many new Leopard goodies. Most important of these is garbage collection. This alone will do away with most of the bugs I have seen in the past. I should also thank my beta testers who helped me to iron out many quirks ahead of time.

I have just pushed HoudahSpot 2.0b2 (Leopard Edition) out the door. It has taken giant steps towards release quality. Kudos to all beta testers!

One thing is still missing: AppleScript support. This has been requested in the past. My plans were to include basic support in 2.0. Now I am not quite sure it will make it into 2.0.

The main problem with AppleScript is that I hardly ever use it myself. Thus I have a very hard time assessing needs. Actually I spend about as much time trying to toss together a test script than I spend on the Cocoa side. It's always hard to know if it is my script or HoudahSpot who is misbehaving.

So currently I am thinking I should support the following:

- get the currently selected results from the application
- get all results from a given document

I expect scripts to read something like this:

tell application "HoudahSpot"
tell document 1
get every resultItem
choose from list result with title "Items" with prompt ""
end tell
end tell


tell application "HoudahSpot"
set sel to the selection of application
end tell


OK, I know the above scripts are probably not correct. I do appreciate feedback on how to correct them.

More importantly thought I would like to hear your needs for HoudahSpot scripting.

HoudahSpot 2 has finally entered beta stage. What a relief!

The beta is available by invitation only to registered users. Please email me if you are interested. Leopard is required.

What's new (partial list):

- Complete rewrite for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
- All-in-one interface: results are shown next to the search query
- Live editing of queries: you may change criteria without stopping the running query
- Exclude files by location: alongside a scope for the search you may define a list of places to ignore
- Limit output by attribute. E.g. show only the 100 most recently modified files
- Unlimited customizability of result columns: Show and sort by any attribute you can think of
- Preview files using Apple's QuickLook
- Copy-paste support. You can copy from the result list to your favorite text editor or spreadsheet
- Customizable global shortcuts
- ...

Don't miss:

- Templates
- Default template. This is the most powerful concept in HoudahSpot


What is gone:

- The file browser is gone. I doubt many used it. Many actually commented that they did not understand its purpose
- French and German localizations


What will be added before 2.0 GM:

- Some kind of AppleScript support (input, feature request are appreciated)
- Ability to copy or alias files
- The Help documentation will be rewritten for HoudahSpot 2.0
- A crash catcher/reporter

You may have guessed it: HoudahSpot 2 is running behind schedule. The original idea was to release HoudahSpot 2 the day Leopard is released. For quite a few good reasons, this idea was dropped quite a while ago. I however hoped until very recently to get a private beta out this week. Didn't happen. I am still at least a week from beta.

The next version of HoudahSpot will be called HoudahSpot 2.0. It surely deserves the name: it is a major upgrade which requires the very latest OS version. It also brings quite a few juicy new features. E.g. QuickLook enabled file previews. Yummy!

It still feels odd to call it a 2.0. For one, it is going to be more like a 1.0 release. HoudahSpot has been rewritten from the ground up. Only select bits of code have found their way back into the 2.0 code base. Thus much of the code is brand new and has not been exercised a lot.

The other "oddity" is that HoudahSpot 2 will drop some existing features. These are features which expect to have a rather small following. Truth is I am just guessing and reading between the lines of support mails. E.g. it seems few people cared about the file browser. Actually I have gotten quite some feedback of people who did not even get it. So now it is gone. I leave file browsing to the Finder.

HoudahSpot 1.5 is available in English, German and French localizations. HoudahGeo on the other hand is available in English only. I hardly ever get requests for localized versions of HoudahGeo. I don't see many French or German customers buy HoudahSpot. You guessed it: the localizations are gone from HoudahSpot 2. Sure, they might return. For now however the focus is on getting HoudahSpot 2 out the door - in English.

Note: This is a repost of an entry originally published on my former blog. Meanwhile I have used the same template for HoudahGeo.

Recently I set out to rewrite the documentation for HoudahSpot. My ambition was to create true to the bone Apple Help.

First I went shopping for a tool to help me in this task. This query wasn't very fruitful.

Then I came across this article by Andy Matuschak. Finally I got Apple Help: how it works and how it is laid out. With the help of Andy's toolkit, I could actually have gotten started writing. But I wasn't going to settle on writing HTML by hand. I have put those times behind me.

Inspired by Andy's work, I have created a RapidWeaver template to look like what Apple includes with their applications. The template handles the vast majority of pages. Exceptions are the front page, the index and the search result pages.

From here on creating the HoudaSpot documentation was much like authoring a standard web site. While I could mostly use standard hyperlinks, there are a few occasions where I use Apple's proprietary tagging technique. I create the tags right from within RapidWeaver by abusing of the otherwise unused sidebar title field.

The front page and search result template had to be written in HTML. For the index page I settled on the SiteMap plug-in.

The fruits of my labor - both theme and site minus the index - are available for download. Go write some documentation.

The official release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is only hours away. Rumor sites actually report some got lucky and received their copies early. Obviously the press got their copies too. Developer - paying ADC members - unfortunately still haven't seen the GM build.

I have submitted some nasty feedback to ADC - suggesting I will ask for a refund if they fail to provide early access to Leopard. At least I got them scared to the point of calling me. Trouble is that the person on the phone couldn't (wouldn't ?) understand the issue. She thought I was asking whether ADC members will receive a copy of the release DVD. It turns out that isn't decided either. Up to know this was a given to me.

The upshot is that I am unable to make a definite statement as to the Leopard compatibility of HoudahGeo and HoudahSpot.

The good news is that - as of the latest Leopard pre-release build - HoudahGeo was working pretty well under Leopard. There is only a small glitch in the way sheets are displayed. They ought to have rounded corners, but Leopard seems to insist on drawing square corners around the round ones. This will be fixed in a forthcoming update.

HoudahSpot, on the other hand, does not work at all on Leopard. That news isn't all bad though. HoudahSpot was in for a complete rewrite anyway. Thus HoudahSpot 2.0 will be a major update and require Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Today I have released HoudahSpot 1.5 (Tiger Edition) as freeware. Thus: Tiger users get HoudahSpot for free. As they upgrade to Leopard they will need to purchase a license or recycle a previously bought 1.x license.