It has been a while, hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?<\/p>\n
Even so, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been working on Trowl, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy to make available the preview for Trowl 0.6. So why 0.6 when the last version was 0.5.4? Well, first of all: we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about 0.0.6 of a version \u00e2\u20ac\u201c does it really matter? ;) But more technically, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made a lot of changes, both to the code behind the scenes and to what you see in the behavior and UI of the app. While a lot of the changes aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t particularly groundbreaking, taken together I think they offer a substantial improvement to 0.5.4.<\/p>\n
Plus there is a .NET Framework 4 version \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming later<\/a>, so I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t delve into that right now.<\/p>\n Before I give you the download link, I wanted to go over a few of the larger changes so you know what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting into.<\/p>\n Backend Code<\/strong> Different Growls for Different Accounts<\/strong> New Tweet<\/strong> Refined Catch-Up Tweets<\/strong> Refined Silence Mode<\/strong> Auto-Silence<\/strong> Settings Backup<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and more. There have been lots of other minor changes and tweaks too. This is actually a slightly more rough \u00e2\u20ac\u0153preview\u00e2\u20ac\u009d version than in the past. So don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised if you find any bugs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just let me know in the comments here, or at the Google Group<\/a>, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll update this post with any bug fix versions as necessary.<\/p>\n So if you get a chance, please download and try out the preview version. I look forward to any feedback you may have. Thanks!<\/p>\n
I mentioned that I made changes to the code that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t immediately obvious on the surface. This includes changes with the Twitter API: some of the calls are updated, and I further refined how Trowl checks your rate limit. There have also been changes to how Trowl parses the results it gets back from Twitter. Finally, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made some modifications to how notifications are sent and received from Growl. Observant users will notice that I added the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153try\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153show X number of notifications on screen at once\u00e2\u20ac\u009d setting. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made this a bit more flexible to handle occasional lost notifications or other oddities. So if you sometimes see more or less than your desired number of notifications, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t freak out. :)<\/p>\n
A new advanced notification setting will force Trowl to register a separate \u00e2\u20ac\u0153New Tweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d notification type for each of your Twitter accounts. What does this mean? Well right now, if you open Growl and look at Trowl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notifications, you will see just one \u00e2\u20ac\u0153New Tweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d notification type. If you switch this setting on, however, it will create a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153New Tweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d notification type for each of your Twitter accounts. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point? By doing this, you can configure each account separately. Want one account to forward to iPhone, and another not? Want one account\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notifications to be sticky, but another to close automatically? Now you have the power.<\/p>\n
You can now use the hotkey CTRL-SHIFT-T to open the New Tweet window from anywhere. (Update: <\/strong>You can now toggle the hotkey option, as well as what the hotkey is.) Also, some minor layout changes were made to this screen. Finally, I added a button to let you switch between reply and retweet. Why? Well, have you ever accidentally hit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reply\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or vice versa? Or did you hit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retweet\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, only to realize you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather do an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153old style\u00e2\u20ac\u009d retweet? Now you can quickly switch between the two types right from the New Tweet screen.<\/p>\n
For a while now, Trowl has offered the ability to show the tweets you \u00e2\u20ac\u0153missed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while it was closed. Using a special \u00e2\u20ac\u0153while you were gone\u00e2\u20ac\u009d notification type, it would show all the tweets you would have normally seen if you hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quit Trowl. You can now toggle this option to show all tweets, or just replies and mentions. (Of course, if you already have the account set up to only growl replies and mentions, this toggle will make no difference.) <\/p>\n
In previous versions, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mode would simply cause Trowl to stop checking for new tweets. When you turned Silence off, it would show all the tweets you missed while it was silent. Now the default action is to not display any missed tweets. If you still want it to do this, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153show missed tweets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has an option to include Silence mode.<\/p>\n
Related to the previous section, Trowl can now detect when your computer goes to sleep. When it does so, you can have Trowl automatically go into Silence mode. When it comes out of sleep, it will turn off Silence, and then show what tweets you missed, if you configured it to do so.<\/p>\n
A new button was added to make a backup of your settings. It puts a file in a location that can be seen by all Trowl versions. If for some reason Trowl loses track of your settings (usually after a version upgrade) it will look for a backup and restore from it. You can also use the backup file to easily transfer settings to another computer, or do a manual reset if something bad happens.<\/p>\n