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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 for iPhone
We're pleased to announce that LittleSnapper for iPhone is finally available. You can buy it at the App Store for just $2.99 (USD).
You can learn more about LittleSnapper for iPhone over at the micro site we published earlier this week.
Happy Snapping!
A little announcment
For the last few months we've been working on a new 'little' app for the iPhone and today we're really excited to be able to finally announce it… Say hello to LittleSnapper Touch!
LittleSnapper Touch will allow you to snap photos and selected parts of webpages and post them to our popular online image hosting service QuickSnapper.
Unfortunately the app's not available just yet, as we're busy putting the finishing touches to it, however once we've had a short period of beta testing you'll be available to grab a copy on the App Store.
Pending Apple's approval, we aim to have the finished product out in early April.
5 Mice for LittleSnapper!
The first printed review for LittleSnapper is finally in, and I'm glad to say it's positively glowing. The lovely folk over at MacUser awarded LittleSnapper a rather impressive 5/5 mice!
As you can probably guess, everyone here at Realmac HQ is absolutely thrilled with the rating and the following verdict is the icing on the cake:
“If you create screen grabs for a living, write technical manuals or need to snap on-screen material for a blog, this is a truly useful, innovative tool.”
If you want to read the full review, it appears in MacUser (Vol 25, No 04), and is available at all good news-stands now.
Read MoreTwo Snappy Updates
I'm pleased to announce the release of LittleSnapper 1.0.2. This new version adds a handful of new features and enhancements including, image resizing and automatic URL copying after upload. Take a look at the release notes for the full list of changes.
To get the new version you can run the auto-updater inside LittleSnapper or just grab a fresh copy from our downloads page. Oh, and that's not all…
QuickSnapper also received a small update today. We've added "Favourites", so when you find an image you like you can now add it to your favourites list. Go give it a try!
Happy Snapping!
Read MoreLittleSnapper 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 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 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 More