MarkBlog

What's going on?

2006-07-30T13:56:00.000+02:00

I'm sure you have noticed that NoteMaster has been pretty much on hiatus for the last few months. I'm sorry for this, but I also want to make it clear that this is a hobby project that I take care of in my leisure time; and in the last few months, my "real life" has been quite demanding and taken precedence. I hope you'll understand that: I don't get any money out of NoteMaster, and the reason I'm keeping the project running is dedication.

But now that's out of the way - it doesn't mean NoteMaster 1.5 won't see release, not at all! I'm now getting back to working on it, and in addition to ironing out the few bugs that remain and polishing the new features, I'm looking into upping the editor features, which might mean soft word-wrap, more sophisticated syntax highlighting (like JavaScript highlighting inside of HTLM), code folding and other treats. I'll want to make sure 1.5, as the first final release after about 1.5 years of beta phase, is as perfect as possible!

So no, this project isn't dead at all. I just want to apologise for the long periods of waiting time, and then I'm back to work (hopefully with more frequent progress reports in the future!).

Announcing NoteMaster 1.5

2006-04-30T21:06:00.000+02:00

You know, when it comes to professionalism, I most of the time suck. How else would I now have to tell you that there's no final NoteMaster 1.5 ready for you to grab right now, although I proclaimed an April release? There you are.

Well, it might be a weak excuse, but the reason I broke this promise is actually that I'm committed to my promises very much (yeah, sure). There have been a lot - and I mean a lot - of feature requests in my mailbox. Turns out I shouldn't have said "yeah, I'll implement that for the final release" all the time in reply, because now I'm bound to hold these promises. But I hold them gladly, very gladly, as they were very valuable for NoteMaster. With NoteMaster, I had three things in mind:

A great user interface
A more refined editing experience that saves you time and work
Comprehensive editing features you've come to expect

And in NoteMaster 1.5, the first final release, I'm quite confident I've brought to life what I wanted. A lot has changed from previous releases, explaining the longer-than-usual development time. You'll get more on these new features later, and this site is getting a remake quite soon. But for now, just take a look at this NoteMaster 1.5 screenshot.

Stay tuned. NoteMaster 1.5 will be released on May 5th at 8:47 PM GMT (OK, I made this up, but it's close, I hope).

NoteMaster: Happy Birthday!

2006-04-01T21:05:00.000+02:00

It's NoteMaster first anniversary today - I published the first Beta on April 1st, 2005. And now, there's something waiting for you:

NoteMaster 1.5. Final. Coming in April.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

2005-12-23T21:14:00.000+01:00

Well, the first public Beta of NoteMaster has been made available on April 1st (I'm not kidding you!), a full nine months ago. As NoteMaster has evolved, it has found many satisfied (and some not-so-satisfied, but I'm working on that) users, a fact that I can't help but feel proud of. And I can guarantee you, I've got something more up my sleeves for future versions.

I'm off for enjoying the holidays, and I wish you the same: A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

NoteMaster 1.3.4

2005-11-30T19:32:00.000+01:00

Finally, 3 weeks late, I can present NoteMaster Beta 1.3.4 to you. You can get it right now on the Downloads page.

What's new?
Plenty. Of course, there are lots of bugfixes - including one that fixes a severe lag that occured while typing and selecting text - but there's new functionality as well. That includes the customizable hotkey system and an all-new scripting system which now does not only support VBScript and JScript, but also offers a well-documented and logical object model to scripts. Also, the much-requested "force single instance" and "notify on external changes" options have been included. Take a look at the Changelog for an overview.

Why didn't you upload it until now?
I know, I told you in the last post I'd have put it online by November 13. I'm sorry. I actually had it ready that Sunday, but I found a bug while testing in the last minute, and decided against releasing NoteMaster on time.

I installed NoteMaster 1.3.4 and now, when I try to launch it, it just crashes with an error message.
That actually is the bug I mentioned above. It occurs extremely seldom and I also believe it does so only on Win9x systems (not on 2000 and XP). Try to delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\NoteMaster branch using regedit and it should work (which will delete all of your personal NoteMaster settings, unfortunately).
I will take effort to fix this for the final release.

I found this bug and this doesn't work and I think it'd be better to implement that and wouldn't it be nice to have feature X. Can I tell you about that?
Yes, please! I really need your feedback on NoteMaster and it does indeed help. In NoteMaster 1.3.3 and 1.3.4, there were many features and bugfixes that were actually requested by NoteMaster users.
NoteMaster has a feedback feature found in the Help menu. You can use that or just send an E-mail to notemaster@computrax.com.

Did you incorporate everything you wanted into this version?
No ;-) There's always that one feature you wanted but then have to dismiss to release on time. For example, I wanted to overhaul the project management, but just didn't have time. I hope I'll have done it in the final 1.3.5 (or 1.4), though.

NoteMaster 1.3.4 Teaser

2005-11-05T18:00:00.000+01:00

First off, I'm sorry for staying away from blogging for so long, I've been really busy. But in case you're wondering whether that means that NoteMaster has been neglected - it so doesn't.

There's a lot new in NoteMaster, not numerically, but regarding functionality:

Fully customizable hotkeys
NoteMaster allows you to customize your hotkeys to fit your needs through a new Options page.

Much improved scriptability
The totally overhauled scripting feature has been integrated into the main editing interface and now allows you to use JScript besides VBScript. In addition, a new and well-documented scripting object model makes scripting easier than ever.

"Force single instance" and "Notify on external changes" options
Finally, you can have NoteMaster use only a single instance and notify you when external applications make changes to a file opened in NoteMaster.

Apart from that, there are bugfixes: command line parsing issues have been fixed and scripts executed through the Tools/Scripts menu finally always work (certainly that's been one of the more embarassing bugs...).

Expect the final version somewhen next week. Also, note that this will most likely be the last beta version, and 1.3.5 (or maybe 1.4) will be the first final version, so I need your feedback more than ever (you can still E-mail me at notemaster@computtrax.com, or use NoteMaster's built-in feedback feature).

NoteMaster 1.3.4 progress: Customizable hotkeys

2005-09-26T18:06:00.000+02:00

I can now say I've finished a working customizable hotkeys implementation. This also fixes some issues with hotkeys that had to be pressed twice (like Ctrl+Home).

Hotkey customization was among the features most often requested, so it was one of the top things to implement for 1.3.4.

Currently, I'm implementing an Options front end to customize the hotkeys (depicted in the photo). After that, I'm planning on improving the macro/script feature, which I'm not exactly satisfied with yet. I expect NoteMaster 1.3.4 somewhen towards the end of October, so stay tuned.

NoteMaster E-mail address possibly Joed

2005-09-07T13:13:00.000+02:00

In my inbox today I found a message that was highly alarming: It was an auto-responder confirmation, but from an E-mail address I had never encountered before, nor have I ever been writing to this E-Mail address.
I suspect this to mean that somebody sends mail with a deliberately faked From header to make it appear as though the E-mail had been sent by notemaster-at-computtrax-dot-com (a so-called Joe Job). Any mail you get, though, most likely hasn't.

The mentioned E-mail address is a contact point if you have feedback regarding NoteMaster, but usually I do not use this address to send any E-mail; I reply using my regular mail account.

I have no idea why somebody has done this and what they have to gain from it, nor do I know what's in the mail they send (although I have my suspicions), but I've got do something about this soon. For now, I can just assure you that you will never get mail from me if you haven't asked for it.

UPDATE Sep 11: The problem grows more acute, I got another auto-responder notification. Since I haven't been sent any "E-mail unknown" warnings yet, it seems the Joe jobber doesn't use an automated system, which gives me a tiny but pointless hope that he/she will stop when I tell them PLEASE STOP THIS.

If you want to send me feedback, please use the Send Feedback command in NoteMaster, because I have to consider abandoning notemaster@computtrax.com. I might thereafter provide an additional feedback form directly on the website.

NoteMaster 1.3.3 available

2005-08-24T19:35:00.000+02:00

I just made the new NoteMaster 1.3.3 available; you can get it right away from the Download page. (Sorry, but a changelog is not yet available.)

It includes (as partially described in my previous post) four new major features:

The integral browser supports the Mozilla/Gecko control.
Startup time and general performance were greatly improved (-4000 KB average memory need).
Sessions can now be manually saved and restored (menu: File/Sessions).
Much better toolbar handling (the tool bars' state is now saved and restored; the tool bars can be locked).

And, in addition, a vast number of fixed bugs (like the Serif font issue on 98/ME systems).

Much of these improvements were made because of user feedback; I, again, want to thank everyone who took the time to report bugs or suggest features. This showed immediate results in this release; so, please, if you encounter bugs or have improvement ideas, please use the Help/Send Feedback command.

This release also means we're one or at most two Beta versions from the final release away, which I hope to issue before the end of the year. Stay tuned!

NoteMaster progress

2005-08-03T15:41:00.000+02:00

I've put some major work in NoteMaster during the last few months and hope to introduce NoteMaster 1.3.3 soon. Here's a teaser of what's new:

Mozilla control integration: The integral browser allows you to choose on-the-fly whether you want to render pages using the Internet Explorer engine or Mozilla's.
Improved window management: The "Open Documents" panel now enables you to select multiple documents and save or close them all at once.
Improved persisting of settings: Settings are now remembered correctly.
Much improved tool bar handling: NoteMaster will now save your tool bars' state and restore it. Also, you can now toggle visibility of individual toolbars, as well as lock all tool bars.
Many bugs fixed, in areas such as syntax scheme handling and file opening.
Easier to understand captions and labels in NoteMaster's user interface.

I hereby want to thank everyone who reported bugs and suggested features to me: you're really a big help. Remember, bug reports and feature suggestions can be sent by choosing the "Send Bug Report" command from the Help menu (or just E-mail to notemaster@computtrax.com).

RSS and a text editor

2005-07-17T13:43:00.000+02:00

NoteMaster has always evolved around things I considered to be of assistance to the user, in any way. The idea of helping people to get their work done more quickly and better was what started the NoteMaster project; a very user-oriented editor, focussing on what (I believe) people like me, web developers, programmers really need.

And, of course, I'm always looking for things that could make NoteMaster even more useful. One of these things is RSS support. Yes, RSS support in a text editor.

RSS can really do more things than just serve you your daily newspaper (although that's great enough); it lives up to almost every need of synchronisation. In NoteMaster, I found these possible uses in particular:

Checks for new versions

An RSS feed consisting of XML descriptions of new versions could notify NoteMaster when updates are available. If the XML pieces were attached using an enclosure tag, the actual contents could even be human-readable.

Project Manager

I've been planning a big project manager for a long time now, but I'm not confident that it'll appear within the 1.x releases. RSS could allow for data-sharing project collaboration even without a VCS, for smaller team projects.

This should be the proof that RSS (and syndication in general, as I believe Atom will eventually replace RSS) has more applications than just the obvious ones and can enrich any program. It is well suited for working in the background, and that is what makes syndication technology so appealing.

1.3.3: Expect the integral browser to support Mozilla

2005-06-20T22:14:00.000+02:00

When I take a look at my site stats, it shows something rather interesting: more than half of all visitors use a browser different than IE (mostly Firefox). And actually, there're quite a lot of reasons for doing so.

I don't want to get started with Internet Explorer's lack of functions, but rather with its lack of standards support: Especially for professional web developers, it surely is a good idea to use a more standards-compliant browser for previewing pages.

So, I have now nearly finished implementing a Mozilla/IE engine switcher for the integral browser. Of course, this doesn't only work for previewing pages, but also for browsing documentation, looking up search terms etc. Mozilla support will be in 1.3.3.

Also to expect is a more sophisticated window management allowing you to use the Open Documents panel to arrange only selected windows and thereby make real use out of NoteMaster's hidden full MDI functionality (by the way, you can still restore and minimise document windows by using the appropriate commands in the Window menu). Certain bugs will also undergo some revision: For instance, at the moment, the automatic recovery will just overwrite copies of files with the same filename without asking. This means that if you have two open documents C:\Text.txt and C:\Folder\Text.txt, you will be able to recover only one of these both files after a crash.

NoteMaster 1.3.2: Now it's official

2005-06-19T15:11:00.000+02:00

I just announced NoteMaster 1.3.2 on its homepage.

With the release of NoteMaster 1.3.2, I also decided to make a new home page for the NoteMaster site. It aims at giving visitors more incentive to download NoteMaster with a quick feature overview.

Enjoy the new release! As always, to report bugs or suggest features please E-mail me or use NoteMaster's built-in bug report feature (Help Menu -> Send Bug Report).

NoteMaster 1.3.2 is here

2005-06-17T18:59:00.000+02:00

Today I uploaded the new NoteMaster 1.3.2.

The bad news first: It doesn't include an automatic updater as I originally planned. But I have taken care that the installer smoothly overrides an already existing version of NoteMaster, so upgrading shouldn't be a problem at all.

Also, I've added the missing English license agreement and the comdlg32.ocx.

Concerning the program itself, I've fixed quite a lot of bugs and added a bunch of useful new features. For example, the files in the Navigator panel now properly open on double-clicking and the infamous crash-on-exit bug is gone.
Try the new Open Document panel - I could have named it "Window List" as well - to keep track on all opened documents, see their save states and switch between them. Also, the Auto Complete feature has undergone significant improvements: It now allows you to choose whether you want to display all words in the current document or the current syntax scheme's keywords.
And now there is tabbed browsing, you can define your own homepage for the integral browser, there is a greatly improved Recent Files and Folders menu, ...

The new release is not yet announced on NoteMaster's home page, but you can already download NoteMaster 1.3.2. Read the Changelog for an overview on things that have changed in this release.

NoteMaster's Mysterious Crash on Exiting

2005-06-13T22:57:00.000+02:00

You surely already have encountered this: When you exit NoteMaster, you will receive one of those Windows crash reports telling you that NoteMaster unexpectedly terminated.

Of course I know about that error. But I don't have the faintest idea of what to do about it. This error is obviously nothing I have control over in the code. NoteMaster's code smoothly handles the exiting process, and while I'm in the IDE I cannot reproduce the crash. So, apparently it's got something to do with the VB runtime again, which is - er - quite buggy.

The crash isn't acceptable, so I'll try whether I can find an ugly workaround for this problem. Wish me luck.

NoteMaster rejected on Tucows

2005-06-07T18:58:00.000+02:00

I got an E-mail today telling me that Tucows has just rejected NoteMaster. This is because the reviewer found a German license agreement during setup even when he/she had selected English as the installer language.

This is a bit irritating, because this doesn't have something to do with the program itself. However, I do see their point - I wouldn't install software that only shows me a license agreement in a language I don't understand, I wouldn't have a clue of what I agree to.

I've got a new German as well as English license agreement here which is likely to make it into 1.3.2.

NoteMaster won't start after a fresh install

2005-06-04T22:09:00.000+02:00

If you download NoteMaster, install it and then disappointingly find that it doesn't even run, you're probably lacking the comdlg32.ocx file in your System directory. NoteMaster is dependent on this library; if it is missing, NoteMaster will silently fail to load.

This is, of course, an issue with the installer, and the next installer (which I plan to make available for download alongside with NoteMaster 1.3.2 next week) will address it. As for now, if you know a bit about Windows, you could add the file yourself (but please only if you do know something about Windows).

If you want to do so, download the OCX you find on the first Google result for "comdlg32.ocx". You should save it in your System directory (on XP this is probably C:\Windows\System32). Then right-click the file and choose to specify a program to open OCX files with. Browse to your System directory and choose the regsvr32 program. Finally, just double click the file and Windows will register it for you.

That's it! NoteMaster should properly run now. Of course, this is a bit complicated for average users (although NoteMaster is a code editor). As I said, I'll fix it next week.

The Blog, reloaded

2005-06-04T11:49:00.000+02:00

While this blog hasn't had any new posts since January, I am now reviving it after recognising how important it is for spreading the word of NoteMaster. A blog is a very useful way of informing a large audience all at once, and RSS - as well as Atom - is becoming more and more important. Since I recently bought a Mac, I already enjoyed Safari RSS, which will certainly help in further spreading RSS.

About a month ago I already cleaned up the blog a bit in the hope of being able to offer two different language versions - English and German -, but this will probably not happen. Instead, I'll switch over to write English most of the time, and if I sometimes can't manage to deny myself from holding forth about German politics (which will certainly happen seldom), I hope you'll understand I'll use German then. So, I'm holding this two language problem very much like the Glazblog.

New NoteMaster is being worked on

2005-06-04T11:40:00.000+02:00

Now after a month's break, I'm working on a new NoteMaster version again. Most importantly, this will fix several bugs, like the toolbar resizing or the MRU menu.

I also plan to introduce an automatic update check; NoteMaster will be updated based on user feedback quite a lot these times, and I really want to save the user from having to visit computtrax.com, downloading the setup file, uninstalling the old version and installing the new one every time. So, this feature will certainly be a progress.

Additionally, several usability improvements are being made, like an improved menu item order and access to more MRU files and even quick access to recently used folders. I always developed NoteMaster with usability in mind, as a text editor should speed up your work and not slow it down.

The new NoteMaster will be available here in the near future.

Neuer NoteMaster-Alphabuild

2004-12-29T18:45:00.000+01:00

Auf der NoteMaster-Downloadseite habe ich nun einen neuen Alphabuild zum Download bereitgestellt. Dieser Alphabuild (1.2.12) enth�lt einen verbesserten Installer, der sicherstellen soll, dass alle Abh�ngigkeiten korrekt installiert werden. Features haben sich nicht ver�ndert.

NoteMaster - 1.2.13

2005-01-09T12:51:00.000+01:00

Im neuen Jahr habe ich gleich die Fertigstellung von NoteMaster 1.2.13 zu vermelden. Es gibt einige neue Features:

Tabs am rechten Bildschirmrand wurden entfernt und durch „Panels“ ersetzt, die sich nicht automatisch ausblenden, sondern auf einen Klick hin. Hier ein Bild:

Durch Klick auf die �berschrift lassen sich die Panels wechseln.
Unterst�tzung f�r externe Programme wurde hinzugef�gt.
Das Hilfesystem wurde umgestellt. Die Hilfe liegt jetzt nicht mehr in einer einzigen XML-Datei, sondern im Ordner {NoteMaster}/Help/{Sprache}. (Momentan ist die Hilfe allerdings nur auf Deutsch verf�gbar.)

Allerdings ist diese Version immer noch voll von Bugs und auf mehreren Testrechnern gelang es mir nicht, sie zum Laufen zu bringen. Ich werde mich dieser Probleme noch einmal annehmen.

NoteMaster 1.2.13 steht auf der NoteMaster-Website zum Download bereit.

Now Playing: Howard Shore - The Return Of The King (Featuring Sir James Galway, Viggo Mortensen, And Ren�e Fleming)

NoteMaster: Neue Version in Arbeit

2004-09-21T15:31:00.000+02:00

Ich arbeite momentan wieder an einem neuen NoteMaster-Build. Folgende neue Features werden auf jeden Fall hinzukommen:

Neue Schnellsuchleiste: Eine neue Symbolleiste erm�glicht direkte Suche, ohne auf den Suchen-Dialog zugreifen zu m�ssen. (Dieses Feature ist Firefox-Usern wohlbekannt.)
Speichern von Sitzungen: NoteMaster kann jetzt Sitzungen (auch als Arbeitsbereich bekannt) speichern und wiederherstellen. Es ist allerdings noch unklar, ob es m�glich sein wird, auch manuell Sitzungen zu speichern und wiederherzustellen und nicht nur bei Programmstart/-ende.

Au�erdem werden einige Bugs beseitigt und die Hilfe erweitert. �ber weitere neue Funktionen kann ich noch nichts sagen; im Moment geht es vor allem darum, vorhandene Fehler zu korrigieren.

Der neue Build wird wahrscheinlich Versionsnummer 1.2.9 tragen und unter www.computtrax.com/notemaster/downloads.html bereit stehen.

Blindtext-Generator

2004-09-17T18:59:00.000+02:00

Interessante Idee: der Blindtext-Generator. Blindtext l�sst sich mit einer einstellbaren Anzahl von Zeichen erstellen. Das Verdrie�lichste am Entwerfen eines Designs ist mit diesem Tool im Nullkommanichts erledigt...

Firefox 1.0 Preview Release

2004-09-15T18:32:00.000+02:00

Gestern wurde das Firefox 1.0 Preview Release ver�ffentlicht. Ich habe es allerdings noch nicht ausprobiert und benutze immer noch Version 0.9.3. Es scheint einige neue Features zu geben; ein Posting auf O'Reilly beschreibt einige: The World's Best Browser Just Got Better. (Der Artikel fasst au�erdem noch einmal einige der wichtigsten Vorteile von Firefox gegen�ber dem Internet Explorer zusammen.)

Detailliertere Informationen finden sich in den 0.10 Release Notes. Es scheint, als ob Firefox nun aus Kompatibilit�tsgr�nden document.all unterst�tzt.

Ich bin gespannt auf die endg�ltige 1.0 Final!