Oh, we are so close.
For those unaware, a release candidate represents the version of the application that we think is going to wind up being the final release, so in a week or two you can expect the final version of OmniGraffle 5 to be in the spots traditionally held by versions 4, 3, 2, and so forth.
Of course, we're a bit on the cautious side as well, hence the appending of the number 1 after the words “release candidate”.
Quite a few bug fixes and crashes addressed in this release, plus final fit and finish to the localizations.
A very interesting point to bring up:
This release does not have an internal license key as the prior beta releases did, OmniGraffle 5 will operate without a license key for two weeks, so fret not - this is also an important bit of testing going on.
You can download the release candidate from the beta page, and read copious release notes here.
As I gaze out over the release notes, I see there have been many many changes and fixes since the last beta release. I myself am not as familiar with them as I might be, I have been on a short vacation and of course got sick at the end of it, as that's what seems to happen when you go on a short vacation, you get sick.
So some nice folks (notably Andrew and Troy) handled the release today, while I've been watching from afar, trapped in my apartment due to this blasted chest cold.
In any case, we're zeroing in on a final release, getting ever closer, fit and finish and polish and the rest.
You can read Andrew's copious release notes at the historical release notes page, or see them as well at the beta page, where downloading is as always possible.
The dust has settled after the Macworld Expo, and from that chaotic return a new beta release of OmniGraffle 5 has emerged, much like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.
Well, not so much like that, but I like to make my life as exciting as possible.
The big news is that localizations are in place now, there are still a few strings left to be translated yet the application and the Help files are now localized into the seven Tier 1 languages.
Speaking of big, due to the localizations, the downloadable disk images are considerably larger than they had been before (more than twice the size!), as a result we've added English-only downloads in the sidebar of the beta page.
Aside from all that, a couple of crashes fixed, some more bugs addressed, and we move ever forward to a final release.
Please, go and download, and enjoy!
Oh, I know what you're asking yourself:
“What happened to beta 4?”
Well, that particular release wound up on the CD that we're taking down to Macworld, so if you really want to see it, you'll just have to come down and visit us at the booth.
That said, this beta, this beta that is numbered 5, and not numbered 4, has many fixes inside of it, along with those things that were in the beta numbered 4, so I guess you don't really have to come to San Francisco after all. (but we'd like it if you did)
However, what this beta that is numbered 5 does not have are localizations, I'm afraid. They're almost complete but we've run into a snag where the disk images wound up being ginormous, so this go around it's English-only.
Go, see, download, enjoy!
Another beta release, more bug fixes, some localization integrations (they are still not complete, please bear with us).
Notable fixes this go around involve some hefty changes for AppleScript and quite a few fixes to our Visio support. My favorite is the fix to vertical text centering and line spacing. Yep, that's my favorite.
Anyways, go on over to the beta page, download, and enjoy!
Crashes. Fixed.
We got a lot of valuable feedback since last Friday, and there were quite a few crashes we hadn't experienced on our end of things that obviously were being encountered out in the wild.
The most prevalent ones have been fixed, along with a lot of other bug fixes and what-not that you can read all about at the release notes page.
Go, download, and be merry!
As many of you no doubt know, we've all been very busy here at the Omni Group as of late. However, some of us have been busy with something that is not OmniFocus. That's right, OmniGraffle 5 is now ready for public beta testing.
NOTA BENE: OmniGraffle 5.0 beta 1 requires Mac OS X 10.5 to run.
So, what's new with OmniGraffle 5? If I were to tell you its story (which is a technique taught to me by Scott Maier long ago), it would something along these lines…
The basic plot encompasses a new layout engine based on the Graphviz code, offering two new layout types in addition to the two already present. Bezier controls on connection lines are now also in place to make hierarchical layouts even better, along with whatever uses you, the kind reader, may find for them. Along with the new layout engine comes Subgraphs, which are special pieces of hierarchy that can be collapsed and expanded as needed.
There's an exciting subplot involving the Stencil Window where you can view the entire library of stencils, perform searches for them based on their labels, notes, or custom data. You can even search Graffletopia for stencils and download them to your computer easily.
Some elements have gotten a rewrite, such as Master Canvases being replaced by the new Shared Layers, where you can have as many shared layers per canvas as needed, and changes made anywhere to a Shared Layer propagate to all other instances of the Shared Layer. Likewise, the Style: Summary Inspector has been replaced with a new Style Tray where you can easily drag object styles to other objects.
Layers can now display in an accessory view where you can view all of the objects on a layer and more easily move elements between layers and reorder them. The Drawing Tools palette can show all or just some of the tools you want and you can reorder tools as wanted.
For those of you watching on small screens, the ruler accessory view now contains a subset of inspector controls for changing styles, in case you're not keen on having the regular inspectors up all the time.
Lots and lots of other improvements have been put in place as well, too long to list here however there's a handy new tutorial in the OmniGraffle Help to get you started.
There's this one really great part where OmniGraffle 5 supports Quick Look.
And for the spoilerific plot twist at the end of the story: We've added a Visio binary file format parser, so you can directly open the default Microsoft Visio file format, VSD.
We haven't made any decisions about a release date, keep an eye out for an announcement from our marketing team concerning that.
As for pricing, any OmniGraffle 4 purchases made on or after October 31 will receive a free upgrade to OmniGraffle 5 when it ships in early 2008. At release, OmniGraffle 5 Standard will be available for $99.95. Upgrades from OmniGraffle 4 Standard will be available for $39.95. OmniGraffle 5 Professional will be available for $199.95 with upgrades from OmniGraffle 4 Professional costing $99.95.
So, if you're running Leopard, please stop by the Beta Download Page, peruse the release notes, and enjoy!
We've finished up the last of the Leopard compatibility fixes, this time it was a nasty “NSFlippableView” alert when mousing over a canvas name or layer name in the Utilities Drawer when the names were too long for the drawer to show them fully.
Head on over to the Download Page to get the final release of OmniGraffle 4.2.2.
Well, we finished up the remaining compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.5, most importantly the bug where exporting to PDF could lead to creating a folder that the Finder thought was a Graffle file, and possibly overwriting the originating document.
Other notable fixes include the return of folder import and those folks using Subversion should have an easier time with Graffle documents saved out as file packages.
Full release notes and the beta download can be found at the OmniGraffle beta page.
Fairly often here at ye olde Omni Group we get breakfast for lunch, and when it occurs there is much rejoicing. I myself am a simple man, eggs and sausage (or bacon: sweet, lovely, bacon) and some form of breakfast potatoes are all I require. Pancakes (or flapjacks or hotcakes) are a special treat for me, and I love them dearly.
So, last week we were fortunate enough to have french toast (a rare delicacy here due to the nature of preparing them) and we all got on with our favorite breakfast foods.
Tom and Brian proved to be big fans of aebleskivers. (Brian claims that they are both a breakfast food and a home defense technology)
Michaela thinks that poffertjes are the best ever, offered in hot-dog style carts in Amsterdam.
Liz in turn started craving maandazi (apparently hailing from Africa, Wikipedia has let me down here).
Much discussion of breakfast potatoes transpired (I like me some home fries, Rowan prefers the Potatoes Deluxe from the Streamliner Diner on Bainbridge Island (where he used to work).
Bill wanted more pancakes, going so far as to recommend pankeggs which some thought involved beer of some kind, Brian pointed out that McMeniman's stout is used in a recipe at the Kennedy School in Portland.
So, what's your preference for breakfast goodness? Let us know and we can try to convince Terry to serve it up some time.