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.
Nothing bad happened, so there's been no changes since the release of 4.2.1 beta 2 last week (excepting a version number change and various street cred that comes from being legit).
Go grab it at the download page and enjoy!
Huzzah!
We've figured out the issue that was causing kernel panics when saving files for some users. Turns out, it had to do with the file icon getting written out. Kevin spied a line of code that was at fault, and was thinking of commenting it out, and then Ken was all, “Fly, you fools!!” and he jumped right up on the build machine and started bellowing “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!” at the kernel panic, and just like that it was gone.
Or, something to that effect.
Anyways, you can find the kindly release at the beta page, enjoy!
I recently stumbled across a very cool blog post during my regular aimless web surfing diligent Omni-related research, and I thought some of you might find it interesting—especially if you use OmniGraffle for wire framing websites (did you know you could use OmniGraffle for such a purpose? You totally can! OmniGraffle: Not Just For Adding Amusing Word Bubbles To Your Photos).
Check it out: Creating prototypes with OmniGraffle. “With this simple process you can create working prototypes with exported PDFs or HTML with clickable images/image maps.”
Hey, you all remember my last blog post concerning the release of OmniGraffle 4.2? Remember how I said that it was the end of development for OmniGraffle 4?
Well, I was wrong.
Oh, and sufficiently chastised for it as well. (not by anyone here at Omni, we're all too nice for chastising, however I have friends in other circles who aren't as forgiving)
Anyways, we found a few important bugs in the final 4.2 release, they have been addressed and such, and the beta release is available at the recently-resurrected beta page.
You OmniGraffle fans probably already know about Graffletopia, which hosts a tons of cool stencils for your downloading pleasure. We've also got quite a few linked from the OmniGraffle extras page, and of course it's super easy to make your own stencils by selecting New Stencil from the Stencils menu and dragging in images.
Currently we aren't including very many ready-made stencils in the app itself, though, so we're going to be working on adding more Omni-created stencils to Graffle's built-in library of objects (and updating a few of the existing ones).
Here's where you can help: what sorts of image collections would you like to see in the app? I am personally voting for a Macworld booth layout stencil (complete with $100-per-day rented trash can!), some cool photo borders, and maybe some DVD/DVR/remote icons (so when my in-laws visit we can create a foolproof graphical set of instructions to help them operate the television without accidentally resetting everything to Spanish, adding a season recording of “Deal Or No Deal?”, and turning the screen magenta), but I figure you guys might have some ideas that are even MORE useful.
Post your stencil requests in the comments, and thanks for helping us out!