Socialite 1.0.3 is available now!
We're been hard at work on all our apps recently - with some free updates to LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver coming out shortly - however today we're releasing Socialite 1.0.3. This is a small maintenance update that fixes a couple of minor niggles with Google Reader, an all-new Twitter Retweets sidebar option, and improvements to the Facebook status stream to show updates from third-party clients. We've also changed the Twitter API rate limit restrictions [as Twitter now offers a higher API limit each hour] with Lists being refreshed much more frequently.
As you'd expect, Socialite 1.0.3 is a free update and available now via the Check for Updates option or our Downloads page - details of all the changes in this release are, as ever, detailed in the Socialite Version History.
Some news on LittleSnapper for iPhone
Over the past few months, we've been giving LittleSnapper for iPhone some thought. We love the application as it is, however since its launch, we've remained entirely focused on the Mac, building applications for a platform that we love. Given our continued focus on the Mac platform, we're excited to announce today that BitBQ LLC have acquired the code behind LittleSnapper for iPhone, and will be continuing the development of the application under a different name in the new year: Cinder.
In order to finish the acquisition, we removed LittleSnapper for iPhone from sale in the App Store earlier this week: and BitBQ will be launching the renamed application soon to ensure that folks can continue to upload to Ember on the go.
If you're an existing LittleSnapper for iPhone customer, we'd recommend you head over to the BitBQ Web site to learn about the acquisition and news of the application's reappearance on the App Store.
Socialite 1.0.2 is now out!
Hot on the heals of Socialite versions 1.0 and 1.0.1, we're pleased to announce that Socialite 1.0.2 is now out! Socialite 1.0.2 includes a few tasty (and much requested) features, as well as a some bug fixes and enhancements.
Twitter users will be glad to see a new 'My Timeline' folder which displays just the tweets from those that you follow and excludes tweets from listed users - so you can find the tweets you want, when you want.
Another newly added Twitter feature which was greatly requested by users on our community forums is the 'Quote' action. Clicking on 'Quote' will instantly create a RT: quote, much like the original classic Retweeting function that was supported before the introduction of Twitter's native Retweeting. So for those of you that aren't keen on Twitter's new method - just hit 'Quote' to post in the classic style!
After the last Socialite update some users found that they were having issues with Twitter, Flickr and Facebook connections. We've been hard at work to fix this and are pleased to announce that Socialite 1.0.2 includes a number of fixes for these issues. If you were experiencing problems where you would be locked out of your account, removing and re-adding the service to Socialite in 1.0.2 will fix this.
Socialite 1.0.2 is available now via our Downloads page as well as Socialite's built-in Check for Update option and if you haven't checked it out yet, grab your copy today!
We're hiring!
Earlier in the year, the Realmac team went from five to seven folks with the arrival of Keith and Luke. It's been an incredibly busy 8 months too: with LittleSnapper, Ember, RapidWeaver and Socialite updates and releases.
Looking ahead to 2010, we've got some big plans lined up: and we're actually on the hunt for some more super-talented folks to join us at HQ! If you're a Cocoa developer, Web developer or User Interface Designer and fancy joining us in our Brighton office, head over to our Jobs page and show us what you've got!
RapidWeaver 4.3.1 is now available
Today we’re pleased to announce the availability of RapidWeaver 4.3.1. This minor update is recommended for all 4.x users, and contains a number of bug-fixes and improvements.
The 4.3.1 update is available now through RapidWeaver’s built-in software update system, as well as via the Realmac Software downloads page. Happy weaving!
LittleSnapper 1.5.3 is now available!
In amongst a flurry of work on Socialite and RapidWeaver 4.3.1 (more details on both of those soon!) we're today pushing out LittleSnapper 1.5.3 to fix a couple of minor niggles in version 1.5.2. Full details of the changes in this release can be found on the LittleSnapper Version History page.
As always, the 1.5.3 update is available now through LittleSnapper's software update system, as well as via the Realmac Software downloads page.
About the new LittleSnapper Menu Item
With yesterday's release of LittleSnapper 1.5.2 we totally re-worked how the LittleSnapper menu-item works. Sure, it looks the same and works in almost the same way as the last release of LittleSnapper. But it's not! The new menu item in version 1.5.2 is an entirely separate mini-application (known at Realmac HQ as NanoSnapper) that is able to run all the time, capture snaps and save them to your library without the main application itself running!
To set up the menu item to launch at login, make sure you're running LittleSnapper 1.5.2 (and that you don't have more than one copy on your system!). Simply open the LittleSnapper General Preferences (shown above) and ensure that you check the Status Item: Launch at Login option. If you previously added LittleSnapper to your startup items in the System Preferences -> User Accounts pane, you can now remove LittleSnapper from the list - though be sure to leave NanoSnapper if it's listed.
As you're probably aware, it's simply not possible for us to include a true dockless mode for LittleSnapper. However, feedback from users showed that most wanted to hide the dock icon and simply have the capture tools available - which this shiny-new menu item offers. Enjoy!
LittleSnapper 1.5.2 is now available!
We've been busy at work on updates to LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver, and today we're making LittleSnapper 1.5.2 available! There's plenty of small tweaks and improvements - as well as an all-new menu item that allows you to use LittleSnapper's capture tools (and keyboard shortcuts) without the main application being open.
The 1.5.2 update is available now through LittleSnapper's software update system, as well as via the Realmac Software downloads page.
A New Member of the Realmac Family
We're thrilled to announce today that Realmac Software has acquired EventBox from developers The Cosmic Machine! If you're not familiar with the application, EventBox brings all your social networks together into one convenient place. Supporting Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Google Reader and a host of other services, EventBox is a great product for keeping in touch with your contacts around the world.
We've long been fans of The Cosmic Machine's vision for the application, and want to build on EventBox's great start to make it rock even more. When we ship EventBox 1.0 in November, the application will be a Realmac Software product - and have a new name too: Socialite.
We're hard at work on getting Socialite ready for its big 1.0 debut, however if you want to find out more about the acquisition be sure to visit our product page or follow @SocialiteApp on Twitter for all the latest news!
Introducing the LittleSnapper Bookmarklet
If you've been paying close attention to Ember, you'll notice there's an option on all websnaps to 'Snap URL in LittleSnapper'. This option (which you can try out on this image) allows you to snap a fresh copy of the website instead of importing the copy that's shown on Ember. The new feature, which arrived in the LittleSnapper 1.5 update lets the Ember site launch LittleSnapper, and tells the application to snap the URL of the webpage.
As you can imagine, there's another handy use for this feature: a bookmarklet that lets you launch LittleSnapper and snap a page from within your browser! To install the bookmarklet, simply drag the link below to the bookmarks bar in your web browser.
Whilst we've got LittleSnapper open all the time here at Realmac HQ, we know that some people prefer not to have it running all the time and this little addition (along with another change that you'll be seeing in version 1.5.2) should make it just a little quicker to save pages to your LittleSnapper library regardless of how you run the application.
Between a rock and a hard place
Ever since LittleSnapper 1.5 arrived earlier in the summer, we've been hard at work looking into reports about the application not remembering FTP passwords. We spent considerable amounts of time resolving a few bugs for v1.5.1 - however some users continue to experience issues when using LittleSnapper in dockless mode. Whilst we've looked into numerous ways to fix this issue, we've had to take a long hard look at the dockless mode and come to a hard decision for the feature.
As of LittleSnapper 1.5.2 we will be removing Dockless mode, and whilst that will cause consternation amongst some users, we wanted to ensure you're aware of the reasons for us pulling the feature - something we really didn't want to do.
The Backstory
Hiding the dock icon for an OS X application, whilst far from rare, is not actually supported by Apple. As such, it requires a little black magic to get an application running without a dock icon, and developers have to modify a setting contained within the application itself in order to achieve the hiding. In earlier releases of Mac OS X, this wasn't such a problem - however in Leopard and more notably Snow Leopard, developers are encouraged to code sign each release of their applications and this is where modifying the internals of an application can become an issue.
When a developer code signs an application, a signature is generated that is only valid for the application when we build it, and should the application's internals be modified (say, by toggling dockless mode on or off) the code signature is marked invalid by the operating system. This means that the OS doesn't allow the application access to any previously-authorised system resources - in LittleSnapper's case, the Keychain that stores your FTP and SFTP passwords becomes off-limits.
"So why not simply avoid code signing entirely?" I hear you cry. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Apple's push for Code Signing on the desktop is continuing, and on the whole that's a good thing. It means that data such as the passwords in your Keychain remain safe, yet at the same time they're accessible to unmodified code-signed applications that you've authorised to use Keychain data. Given that we expect Apple to continue pushing code-signing, removing code-signing is simply not an option - particularly in the longer term.
We know that some users will be highly critical about the removal of the dockless option - and rest assured we've looked into a number of different options to try and avoid dropping the feature. However, alternative routes to re-enable this functionality are both hacky in nature and by no means guaranteed to work in future updates to OS X.
Should Apple offer us a supported way to enable dockless mode in the future, rest assured that we'll do everything we can to get this feature back into a future release of LittleSnapper.
Further Reading
If you're looking for a little more discussion on the topic, then we'd recommend that you read the following post for some background - and for any developers reading this, we've filed rdar://7253116 which you're welcome to duplicate via Apple's Bug Reporter.
LittleSnapper reviewed by Macworld USA and UK!
It's been a busy couple of weeks for LittleSnapper reviews with both the US and UK Macworld magazines reviewing LittleSnapper!
Macworld UK reviewed LittleSnapper in its recent Autumn 2009 edition - and were kind enough to award LittleSnapper 5 stars and an Editors' Choice award! Macworld's buying advice was very clear:
LittleSnapper is an indispensible application for all web designers; the sheer joy at not having to stitch together shots is itself worth the asking price. But the additional annotation, sharing and editing options make it worth investigating for anybody involved with the web.
The folks at Macworld magazine in the US also published a review of LittleSnapper 1.5 on their Mac Gems blog recently - and we're excited to see it awarded 4 coveted mice! Here's a choice quote from the review:
LittleSnapper’s user interface displays a level of finesse, found only in the best of Mac software, that makes the program a joy to use.
It goes without saying that we're hard at work on LittleSnapper (and of course RapidWeaver) - expect more LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver news soon!
Celebrating 100,000 posts on the Realmac Forums!
The Realmac Forums have always been a hugely popular area for our users to discuss all things Mac, Realmac and more. However, today we're absolutely thrilled to announce that the Realmac forums have hit 100,000 posts since their re-launch in May last year!
On behalf of everyone at Realmac HQ, I just want to take this opportunity to thank all the folks who moderate the forums - as well as all our wonderful users who've helped make the community what it is today. It's been a fantastic 16 months for the new forums - and we can't wait to see them grow further as we welcome new LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver users to the fold!
Grab an Ember swag-pack!
From time to time we like to order some Realmac-related goodies - and to celebrate the launch of Ember we've recently ordered some Ember t-shirts. Modelled by six members of the Realmac team below, we've also saved a few of these shirts and starting today there's a chance for you to score one!
Some of the Realmac Team (L-R): Luke, Danny, Aron, Dan, Nik and Keith (Ben wasn't able to make the shoot)
To win one of ten Ember Swag Packs (containing either a white or charcoal tee and some Ember button badges) simply share your Ember images on Twitter using our embr.it short URL service. Any tweets containing embr.it URLs posted from now until noon (UK time) on Monday 21st September will be entered into the competition - and be sure to follow @emberapp on Twitter as we'll be announcing the 10 winners via the Ember Twitter account on Monday afternoon!
If you're wondering how to create a shortened embr.it URL, simply visit the bottom of any Ember page and click 'Generate'. Registered users can customise the URL 'slug' too by making sure they're signed in when trying to create a short URL.
Happy tweeting!
RapidWeaver 4.3 is now available!
For the past couple of weeks, we've been hard at work finalising RapidWeaver 4.3 to make sure it runs beautifully on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Today, after much testing and feedback from users, we are absolutely thrilled to publicly release RapidWeaver 4.3!
RapidWeaver 4.3 is recommended for all users - whether you're on Leopard or Snow Leopard - and a free update is available via RapidWeaver's built-in Check for Updates option as well as the Realmac Software Downloads Page! There’s tonnes of small improvements and bug fixes in this release - if you’re curious about what’s been fixed, be sure to check out the release notes.
On behalf of everyone at Realmac HQ, thanks for your patience with this release - and happy weaving!
LittleSnapper 1.5.1 is now available!
Hot on the heels of our RapidWeaver 4.3 Release Candidate this morning, we're thrilled to announce LittleSnapper 1.5.1 is now out! Featuring full Snow Leopard compatibility, as well as a few bug-fixes this update is recommended for all customers - regardless of whether you plan to run LittleSnapper on Snow Leopard.
The download is available from the Realmac Software downloads page, as well as via the built-in Check for Updates option.
RapidWeaver 4.3 Release Candidate 1 is now available!
With Apple's next OS X update just around the corner, we're super-excited to announce that RapidWeaver 4.3 Release Candidate 1 is now available! This version of RapidWeaver is designed to work seamlessly on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and features a number of improvements, small features and bug-fixes.
As Snow Leopard is all-but-confirmed to ship a little earlier than everyone expected, we've not yet declared 4.3 'Gold Master'. However, this build has been tested at Realmac HQ on both Leopard and Snow Leopard and after a round of public beta testing is now ready for public use!
If you encounter any issues with RapidWeaver after Snow Leopard launches, please be sure to let our support team know and we'll work with our developers to make sure any outstanding issues are fixed by the time RapidWeaver 4.3 graduates from Release Candidate to final release!
RapidWeaver 4.3 Release Candidate 1 is localised in French, German, Italian and Japanese too!
Download RapidWeaver 4.3 Release Candidate 2 (Build 5363) Now!
Updated 9th September 2009 to reflect availability of Release Candidate 2
Introducing LittleSnapper 1.5 and Ember
It's been an incredibly busy week here at Realmac HQ and today we're ecstatic to finally reveal the all-new LittleSnapper 1.5 update along with a brand-new version of our QuickSnapper service !
There's tonnes of new features in this release - from tag autocompletion and management to a brand-new super-smart screenshot engine and much more - and best of all, it's a free update for all LittleSnapper users. If you don't already own a copy of LittleSnapper, you might want to drop by our online store as we're also lowering the price for a limited time to just $24 to celebrate the new release.
Our web developers have also been busy with QuickSnapper's all-new successor - Ember. Ember is the best way to share your snaps from LittleSnapper, and now features many much-requested features to share your inspiration. You can now build your own collections from any public images on the service - our own online scrapbooking tool, if you will - and also submit your snaps to Categories. The aim of these categories (which the Realmac team will be curating over the coming months) is to nurture a great design resource for all the mediums that our users work with - and we can't wait to see what you submit!
We're keeping a free, Fusion Ads supported, membership available for users who don't require all the collection features, however you can also upgrade your account for $24 a year to unlimited uploads and collections. We even throw-in free LittleSnapper upgrades for our Ember Pro members for the year of your membership!
Our web developers will be continuing to roll-out more features and subtle improvements in the coming days and weeks, so stay tuned for some more Ember goodness soon here on the Blog - and be sure to follow Ember on Twitter!
Whenever we release an update to one of our apps, we're always asked "What about an update for (the other)?". To answer the question for RapidWeaver: we're hard at work on the 4.2.4 update and beyond, and we'll be announcing more details about that update in the not-too-distant future!
A quick, post-launch update: Ember's free accounts allow you to share up to 30 snaps a month, and create a maximum of 3 collections per account.
Something new for LittleSnapper 1.1
With LittleSnapper 1.1 slowly approaching release, we're finally happy to start talking a little more about what's in the release. Last week, we shared the details of the all-new Tag Management features that will be in the release. Today, we're unveiling another aspect of the release: no name for now, just a shiny new logo to pique your interest.
We're incredibly busy with the release and working feverishly to get it into users' hands very, very soon - so stay tuned for more in the not-too-distant future!
A Word About Snow Leopard
Ever since Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, we've received a number of messages asking about Snow Leopard support for our applications. Like every Mac developer, we're going to be updating our apps for Snow Leopard - here's the details.
RapidWeaver
Only RapidWeaver 4 will be updated to run on Snow Leopard. Though we're not updating RapidWeaver 3.6.7, it remains available for download & purchase and we're continuing to support users of 3.6. As you'd expect, the Snow Leopard update for RapidWeaver 4 will be a free maintenance release.
LittleSnapper
LittleSnapper will of course be updated for Snow Leopard in a free maintenance release.
Realmac Apps & Snow Leopard Previews
We continue to receive reports from users about their experiences with the Snow Leopard previews. Whilst we're always grateful for bug reports, we would like to remind users that Snow Leopard previews are pre-release builds of the OS intended only for developers, and that the code-base is always changing. As such, we do not support users running RapidWeaver or LittleSnapper in Snow Leopard developer previews.
We don't have any announcements to make regarding the release dates for the updates right now, however we hope to have Snow Leopard-compatible versions of LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver 4 available around the time Snow Leopard is officially launched in September.
A Sneak Peek at LittleSnapper 1.1
As always, we're incredibly busy at Realmac HQ with updates for RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper. Today I thought I'd share a quick sneak-peek of a substantial update to LittleSnapper - version 1.1 - that our LittleSnapper team are working on. There's tonnes of enhancements and new features in the release, and whilst we're not quite ready to announce every new feature, here's two big features we're adding: tag management and autocompletion. They're two of the most frequently-requested features in LittleSnapper, and I'm thrilled to announce they'll be available alongside some other great additions very, very soon!
Our web gurus are also hard at work on a massive update to the QuickSnapper service that we'll be announcing shortly. Stay tuned for more details soon!
All-new RapidWeaver Video Tutorials
Over the last few months, we've been hard at work improving our RapidWeaver video tutorials. Today I'm excited to announce that we've just published a series of 14 narrated video tutorials for RapidWeaver that cover most of the common questions users might have.
All the videos are available in the all-new Support area we unveiled last week, so why not pay the RapidWeaver Video Tutorials page a visit?
Some Support Changes
For some time now, we've been running a secondary Helpdesk support channel alongside our incredibly popular forums. After looking at ways to ensure that our technical support is the very best around, we're today announcing some big changes to how we provide support for LittleSnapper, RapidWeaver and QuickSnapper.
From the end of today, we will no longer be offering technical support via the forums. Instead, we're going to be offering support via a shiny new help desk area. The system we're using allows folks to open discussions with the Realmac Software team as well as use the powerful FAQ system to find answers. All our current email support channels have now been moved to the new system, so if you send us an email you'll be moved over to the system automatically - and if you've got a ticket open with our older Get In Touch system, you will be able to update it as necessary until it's resolved.
The community forums remain a great place for users to chat, share tips, and help each other out with things that we cannot support (for example, theme modifications) and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our forum moderators and posters for their contributions.
The Realmac team will still be around the forums to talk about all things Realmac and listening to suggestions for our products, and all the previous discussions about LittleSnapper and RapidWeaver technical support remain in an archive here. Over the coming weeks, we're going to be rolling out some all-new video tutorials for RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper as well as yet more FAQs and documentation in the Support Centre, so stay tuned!
LittleSnapper 1.0.4 is now available
After the last update to LittleSnapper, a few users started encountering some issues when upgrading their libraries to the new format. We've been hard at work to fix this issue and are pleased to announce that LittleSnapper 1.0.4 (which fixes this library migration issue) is now available!
There's only one fix in this update to ensure smooth library migrations - however we recommend that all users update to the latest version to ensure they're running the latest version of LittleSnapper.
LittleSnapper 1.0.4 is available now via our Downloads page as well as LittleSnapper's built-in Check for Update option.
RapidWeaver 4: Reviewed and Updated
Whilst we've been hard at work on RapidWeaver 4.2.3 fixing a few issues that users have been encountering, a copy of this month's MacFormat dropped through the letterbox at Realmac HQ. In the June 2009 edition of the magazine (available now at a newsagent near you) there's a group test of OS X website creation apps. RapidWeaver was up against stiff competition in a test of 6 applications, but we were super-excited to discover that MacFormat crowned RapidWeaver the group test winner with this choice quote:
[RapidWeaver is] easy enough to use for a beginner, but offers great value in its scope for expansion.
We're absolutely thrilled to see RapidWeaver take the honours in a large group test, and to keep people weaving even more rapidly, we're also releasing RapidWeaver 4.2.3 today - an update that we strongly encourage all RapidWeaver 4.2.2 users to download. This update fixes a number of issues, including linking to blog posts and assets, as well as significant improvements in memory usage when saving files.
As always, you can grab the latest version of RapidWeaver from our Downloads page, or use RapidWeaver's 'Check for Updates' option to download the update.
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
It's been almost a year since we sat down to prototype the product now known as LittleSnapper, creating over 40 pages of wireframes for the application and spending countless hours ensuring that it looks, works, and behaves as you'd expect. We built the application because, at the time, we saw no product that had the features we ourselves wanted (DOM snapping, webpage-orientated organisation and full webpage capture in one beautiful application). We built LittleSnapper because we saw an opportunity to innovate.
The Mac developer community is known for its mutual respect for others work. Applications compete on their own unique features, and developers create applications that, whilst similar, serve the needs of a different set of users: take Pixelmator and Acorn, for example. That is, most developers.
In amongst a quick check of Twitter mentions for LittleSnapper, we discovered an app (let's call it Product X) that had seen a fairly notable update this week mentioned alongside LittleSnapper. Ever curious, we decided to see what was new and innovative in the updated Product X. We all downloaded the application here at Realmac HQ, installed it and were all astounded at the striking similarities between ‘Ours’ and ‘Theirs’.
Sidebar Inspector
Source Lists
Built-in Browsers and Element Snapping
Product Page Layout & Icons
A Little Perspective
We love competition - we thrive on it. The prospect of developers coming up with applications that are uniquely better than our own is something we're always wary of, and this possibility encourages us to make sure that our own releases are the best they humanly can be. But far-from-creative imitation, even as a sign of flattery, is not part of the community in which we're fortunate enough to be a member.
All of us at Realmac have been saddened by this episode. After many months of prototyping, designing, and refining the look and feel of LittleSnapper it's pained us to see such a liberal borrowing of our hard work. That said, we've got plenty of exciting tricks up our sleeves - and can't wait to see how others respond to our forthcoming updates!
LittleSnapper 1.0.3 Available Now
We’re thrilled to announce that LittleSnapper 1.0.3 is now available. This small maintenance release has plenty of fixes to make LittleSnapper even better including full drag-and-drop support for snaps and the ability to copy snaps out via the Edit menu.
This update also features an improved snapping engine that handles websites with absolute-positioned elements (such as the footers on the MacHeist site) correctly when using the ‘Snap from Current Browser’ option.
The update is available via LittleSnapper’s built-in ‘Check for Updates’ option as well as from our Downloads page.
Happy Snapping!
LittleSnapper Getting Started Videos
If you're looking for a quick guide to getting started with LittleSnapper, then we've got two new videos to compliment our short Feature tours that you'll definitely want to see. We've produced these for elsewhere on the Realmac site, but are making them available via the company blog whilst our web gurus finalise the video placement on the site.
There's a video that shows you how to get started with LittleSnapper, and also a short video that shows you how to take advantage of the LittleSnapper menu item.
We're not the only ones getting LittleSnapper videos produced, however. The folks at Supportcasts.com have also prepared a freely-available short introduction to LittleSnapper for users to enjoy.
Read MoreLittleSnapper 1.0.1 Available Now
We're excited to announce that LittleSnapper 1.0.1 is now available. There's a number of bugfixes - and also a new feature or two! You can now specify the location of your LittleSnapper library, build even more powerful smart collections with new options for "Today", "Is / Not Tagged" & "Is / Not Annotated" in the rule-builder and choose for an image's web address to be automatically copied to the clipboard after you've uploaded it to a webservice.
For more in-depth details on what's new on 1.0.1, head over to the Version History page. To get the latest version of LittleSnapper, you can either Check for Updates from within LittleSnapper, or visit our Downloads page to grab this free update for registered 1.0 customers.
Read MoreTen Top Tips for Super Snappy Snapping
After the launch of LittleSnapper last week, we've had plenty of feedback on how to improve the application and a few questions on how certain features work. Now that you've all hopefully had a chance to play with LittleSnapper, I thought I'd share ten tips to improve your LittleSnapper workflow.
LittleSnapper is out!
We're super-excited to announce that LittleSnapper has hit 1.0, and is now available to download and buy! It's been an incredibly busy few months since we announced the product, and we've been utterly thrilled at the response to the launch.
If you've not already downloaded a free demo copy of LittleSnapper (requires Mac OS X Leopard) then head on over to the Downloads page. The demo has just one limit: a maximum of 30 snaps in your library until you register - there's no time limits. If you want to create a larger library, you can pick up a copy from the Realmac Software store for just $39 including a free QuickSnapper account!
We'd like to thank all our fantastic beta-testers who took the early builds for a spin and gave us feedback: we can't wait to bring you more updates to LittleSnapper (and of course RapidWeaver) in the future!
Read MoreRapidWeaver 4.2.1 is available!
Late last month we released RapidWeaver 4.2.1 that fixes a number of small issues - including a bug which prevented RapidWeaver 4.2.0 from checking for updates. Whilst this means that RapidWeaver will be able to check for updates in the future, it does unfortunately mean that users of version 4.2.0 will not be notified of any updates.
To make sure everyone knows about the new version, we're posting today to let you know that 4.2.1 is indeed available! If you want to know what's changed be sure to check out the release notes, and to grab the update simply visit our Downloads page and install RapidWeaver into your Applications folder.
Happy Weaving!
Read MoreApple Store Presentation Roundup
As some of you may have heard, Dan, Ben, Danny and I headed up to Apple's flagship Regent Street retail store for our evening demo of RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper. Thanks to everyone who stopped by for the demo: it was great to see so many people show up!
During the 40-minute presentation we built a website in under 15 minutes using RapidWeaver 4.2.1, answered a number of questions about RapidWeaver, and also gave our very first public demonstration of LittleSnapper by snapping a website, tagging and rating the snap, and then quickly sharing it to the QuickSnapper service. We also revealed one small new tidbit that LittleSnapper will be launching some time in early December. We know you are all eager to hear more about the launch of LittleSnapper, so stay tuned for more news soon. We'll be announcing details such as pricing when the application ships.
If you missed yesterday's presentation, don't worry: we're going to be back in the Apple Store a little more often in 2009, so hopefully you'll be able to come and say hello at a future demo. We know that some folks will be interested in seeing the slides from yesterday's presentation, so we've made them available for download in PDF format, should you want to take a look.
On behalf of everyone at Realmac, thanks again to all those who made it to the store for the presentation, asked us questions, and stopped by for a chat: we'll see you all back in the theatre at Regent Street soon!
Read MoreSay Hello to RapidWeaver 4.2!
We're thrilled to announce that RapidWeaver 4.2 is now available! After a number of months work, RapidWeaver 4.2 ships with a number of important bug-fixes and improvements, but most of all this latest release sees the availability of four new localisations: French, German, Italian and Japanese!
We know a number of our international users have been eagerly awaiting the localisations, so head on over to the Downloads page and grab this new version! If you want to see what's new, be sure to check out the release notes - and if you have any issues with this release, please report them in the Technical Support forums.
Read MoreRapidWeaver and LittleSnapper at the Apple Store
It's been over two and a half years since we last gave a presentation at the Apple Store on London's Regent Street. However, I'm super-excited to announce that we're going to be back in the theatre at Apple's flagship store exactly one month today: on Monday 24th November at 7pm.
We've got an hour in the theatre, and will be showing you how to build a beautiful website with RapidWeaver. If that's not enough, we'll also be giving the first public demonstration of LittleSnapper. Whether you're a RapidWeaver fan or eagerly awaiting LittleSnapper, this is an event not to be missed!
Myself and other members of the Realmac team will be at the store to answer any questions you may have, so if you're in London that evening why not pay the Apple Store a visit and meet us? See you there!
Read MoreLittleSnapper in action: Sharing
If you're eagerly waiting to see LittleSnapper in action, your wait is over! As you may have guessed from our teaser page, we've built some powerful (yet incredibly easy-to-use) sharing options into LittleSnapper. Today, we're going to give you a brief video tour of LittleSnapper to show just how easy it is to snap and share a webpage using Flickr.
We'll be taking the wraps off some more LittleSnapper features in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that soon! In the meantime, why not visit our special area in the Realmac Software forums to talk about LittleSnapper?
If you want to share this video, we've also uploaded it to Viddler, where you can grab the code to embed it in your own blog and leave visual comments.
Read MoreOne Week Later
Almost a week has flown by since we previewed our new product LittleSnapper at Apple Expo in Paris: and what a week it's been! The reaction to LittleSnapper has been incredible, with our preview receiving plenty of coverage from the Mac press: Ars Technica and The Unofficial Apple Weblog [TUAW] were just two sites to cover our announcement.
Whilst out in Paris we also showed a few members of the media an early build of LittleSnapper. Christopher Phin [Deputy Editor, MacFormat UK] briefly mentions the demo in a re-cap of the Expo for TechRadar:
We also caught up with the boys from Realmac Software in Brighton to see their new project, a screenshot-taking and -cataloguing application called Little Snapper; it shows that company's commitment to polished, beautifully-executed applications.
As well as speaking with MacFormat, iCreate France and Vous et Votre Mac, we also caught up with MacGeneration who were eager to hear about LittleSnapper and the localisation of RapidWeaver [more on that soon!]. If you're fluent in French, be sure to take a look at MacGeneration's article which also features a photo of Dan, Ben and myself!
We'll be releasing more details on LittleSnapper later this year: but in the mean time be sure to sign up for our LittleSnapper VIP list. If you want to get your hands on LittleSnapper before it's available for public download and receive an early adopters' discount, you'll need to be on that list!
Read MoreSay Hello to LittleSnapper
Today is a very special day for all of us here at Realmac, as we're finally able to talk publicly about the little 'something' that we're previewing at Apple Expo Paris: our all-new application LittleSnapper.
What is LittleSnapper?
LittleSnapper is a tool to help users take, organize and annotate screenshots.
LittleSnapper takes screenshots of your desktop, full webpages and specific page elements (just like Safari's WebClip feature). Each snap is then added to LittleSnapper's Library, where you can organize them by date, star-ratings, comments or tags.
We've built-in some rather lovely (but very powerful) annotation tools, perfect for giving feedback on designs or scribbling over your snaps. Sharing your screenshots will be super easy, but we’re not quite ready to share all the details just yet!
Who is LittleSnapper aimed at?
LittleSnapper is aimed at designers, developers, user interface gurus or anyone wishing to organise a library of screenshots. For example, you might be a web designer tracking the latest trends or simply looking to keep a portfolio of your work. If you’re a UI designer you could be looking to build a library of inspirational interfaces for future reference. You could even use LittleSnapper to quickly scribble on your snaps and provide feedback to clients and users. However we like to think uses for LittleSnapper are endless and can't wait to have it ready for release.
When can I get my hands on it?
At the moment LittleSnapper is still in development. However, we hope to start beta testing shortly and plan to have version 1.0 out later this year. Until then, check out the LittleSnapper homepage where you can sign up for our VIP list. Over the next couple of months we'll be sharing a few more tidbits about LittleSnapper to those who signup, you'll also receive an early adopters discount and be able to download LittleSnapper 48 hours before everyone else!
We're incredibly excited about LittleSnapper here at Realmac HQ, and can't wait to share more with you shortly. Stay tuned!
Read MoreWe're heading to Paris
Bonjour tout le monde! It's just one week until Apple Expo Paris - Europe's largest Apple-related trade show. Whilst we're not having a booth of our own this year (as we have in previous years), all of the team from Realmac HQ will be paying the show a flying visit on the 17th & 18th September to preview a small, yet exciting new product.
We're looking forward to sharing more news on this all-new application very soon - particularly as it's aimed at a slightly different market than we've previously developed for. If you're a member of the press covering the show, and wish to meet up for a demo, simply drop us a note and we'll be in touch!
Be sure to keep an eye out for the Realmac team who will be wandering the show floor with some all-new Realmac schwag, so be sure to snap some up! We'll be posting more information on the announcement here on the company blog after the Expo, so stay tuned!
Read MoreRapidWeaver 4.1 Now Available!
We've been hard at work on RapidWeaver 4.1 for some time, and we're excited to announce today that RapidWeaver 4.1 is now available! Along with a number of bug-fixes, there are a couple of new features in the release: the option of QuickLook support for your save files, and an automatic image resizing option when dragging in images. We've also made it even easier to publish your sites to Apple's MobileMe service.
RapidWeaver 4.1 is a free update to all registered 3.6.x and 4.0.x customers - and available now from our Downloads page. If you want to read more about what's new in RapidWeaver 4.1 simply head over to the version history.
On behalf of everyone here at Realmac, thanks to all those who tested this latest version - and Happy Weaving!
Read MoreAustralian Macworld reviews RapidWeaver 4
Here at Realmac HQ, we recently received a surprise package from the other side of the world. After the run of great reviews from the UK Mac press, it was great to see a copy of Australian Macworld magazine with a review of RapidWeaver 4 drop through the letterbox!
Whilst the review may be short it's certainly very sweet, proclaiming that RapidWeaver 'takes the pain out of web publishing'. Reviewer Tim Haddock awards RapidWeaver a very respectable 4.5 Mice rating and concludes the article:
“RapidWeaver 4.0 strikes just the right balance between customisability and ease of use.”
This flattering review appears in the very latest issue, August 2008, which is available at Australian (and New Zealand) news-stands now!
Read MoreRapidWeaver 4 reviewed by iCreate
After some great reviews in MacUser, MacFormat and Macworld UK, RapidWeaver 4 has been reviewed by UK Mac magazine iCreate.
The team at iCreate were impressed with the user experience in the application calling it 'extremely Apple-ish', and awarded RapidWeaver a 4-star rating. Appearing in Issue 58, which is available today, the review is full of praise for RapidWeaver 4 - here's just one quote from the article:
“For those who want just that little bit more [than iWeb] in terms of flexibility and features, RapidWeaver makes a lot of sense. It avoids the expense and plethora of features provided by the likes of DreamWeaver while being easily capable of producing advanced and professional-looking domestic and commercial websites.”
The iCreate write-up completes the set of reviews from all the major Mac magazines here in the UK, and we're thrilled with how RapidWeaver has fared. Achieving nothing less than 4 out of 5, it proves that RapidWeaver 4 really is the best version of RapidWeaver ever!
Read MoreMacFormat reviews RapidWeaver 4
Here at Realmac HQ, we're steadily building up a collection of (frankly, rather excellent) RapidWeaver 4 reviews from the likes of Macworld USA, Macworld UK, MacUser and many more. Today sees another addition to our reviews library, as MacFormat (UK) have published their RapidWeaver 4 review in the very latest issue that hit news-stands just this morning.
Awarding RapidWeaver 4 a 4.5/5 rating, Deputy Editor Christopher Phin highlights some of the new additions to RapidWeaver such as the overhauled Manual, the four new themes and the new user interface. In summing up the double-page review, MacFormat’s verdict is short and sweet:
“[RapidWeaver is] still the best way to build a professional website with ease on the Mac”
We’re thrilled with the overwhelmingly positive reaction to RapidWeaver 4, and we’ll be releasing RapidWeaver 4.1 shortly - stay tuned for more information!
Read MoreRapidWeaver 4 wins Macworld UK Editor's Choice Award
Earlier on in the year, RapidWeaver 3.6.6 a nominee for a Macworld UK 2008 Award. Hot on the heels of RapidWeaver 4 receiving a ‘4 Mice’ rating from MacUser magazine, we are thrilled to see that RapidWeaver 4 has been awarded a 5 star rating from the reviewers at Macworld UK. Not only that, but the application also received a coveted 'Editor's Choice' award!
The review, which appears in the August 2008 issue of the magazine, recognises many of the new features in RapidWeaver 4.0 - here’s just one quote from the article:
“With a simpler interface and streamlined workflow [RapidWeaver] beats just about any entry level site builder on the market.”
We’re ecstatic about the review here at Realmac HQ, and look forward to seeing many more reviews appear in the near future!
Read MoreRapidWeaver 4: The MacUser Review
With RapidWeaver 4 now having been out for a month, the first magazine reviews of the new version are starting to hit the presses. The first to appear is from MacUser magazine here in the UK. Reviewed by MacUser Editor Nik Rawlinson, RapidWeaver 4 receives a fantastic ‘4 Mice’ rating and we’re thrilled with the review here at Realmac HQ.
The review appears in the most recent edition of MacUser - Volume 24 No 14 (4th July 2008) - now available on a news-stand near you!
Read MoreSay Hello to Team Realmac
After a week of painting, floor-mopping, drilling, desk-building, and more, we're thrilled to share with you the first shot of our new HQ. Whilst Andre, Josh and Kevin couldn’t join us for a complete team photo (they're based all around the world), we commemorated the move with a photo of the five Brighton-based team members in front of one of our "Realmac Green" walls!
If you're wondering who's who, say hello to (L-R): Nik Fletcher (PR Ninja), Ben Counsell (Web Guru), Daniel Counsell (Big Chief), Aron Carroll (Web Guru) and Danny Greg (Cocoa Junior).
Over the coming weeks, we'll be sharing some more photos of the new office (as artwork goes up on the walls) so stay tuned!
Read MoreOn The Move
Eagle-eyed Realmac watchers may have noticed we recently added a new face to the Realmac team - welcome "Lil" Danny! We've also been looking for a new office, as we're out-growing our current location. Thankfully Dan has found us a new home and next week sees us move to the new location!
Boxed!
Here at Realmac HQ, we often get asked whether RapidWeaver is available in any retail stores as a physical, boxed, product. For a couple of years now, RapidWeaver has been available throughout Europe as a boxed product thanks to our resellers, however that didn't help our American customers - many of whom wrote to ask 'When are you coming to the US?'. For all those who have been patiently waiting for boxed copies to become available: your wait is over as we've teamed up with Smith Micro to bring boxes of RapidWeaver to every single US Apple Retail Store including the Apple Company Store in Cupertino! It's also available at many other resellers, including Amazon.com.
Supporting Acts
With the launch of RapidWeaver, we've changed a few pieces of the jigsaw here at Realmac HQ. One that is of most interest to our users is how we're handling support. Previously, we received all support requests through the HelpDesk and we felt this could use minor tweaks.
We've also significantly improved the documentation for RapidWeaver 4.0 so if you're looking for an in-depth guide to RapidWeaver, be sure to check the Support page to download the new manual in PDF form. You can even pick up a printed edition of the manual (shown below) via Lulu.
Say Hello to RapidWeaver 4
After almost a year in development, we're thrilled to finally launch RapidWeaver 4.0! The new version is a substantial upgrade to the way the application works, so in order to make the transition as smooth as possible, here's a few tips to help ensure your update goes without a hitch. We've also got a newly-updated Frequently Asked Questions page that you might also want to read through.
RapidWeaver 4.0 is Leopard-only, and will not work with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). However, we are going to be updating RapidWeaver 3.6 for Tiger users soon - so don't worry if you've not yet upgraded to Leopard.
