SmallNews 2.5 - now works on Lion
SmallNews
Saturday, July 30, 2011
SmallNews 2.5 is available for download. This version works with Mac OS X 10.7/Lion.
To get it to work with Lion, it is now a much bigger download than before. While this version does work with Leopard and Snow Leopard (10.5 & 10.6), I have left 2.4 available for download, as this has exactly the same functionality and a much smaller download.
That said, there is one other fix in SmallNews 2.5. A problem with creating PDFs of individual articles from the database is fixed. If you didn’t have Prince XML installed, this would fail. Now, it handles the installation of Prince XML for you.
Mac OS X Lion and Small apps
SmallDVD
SmallNews
SmallShrink
Monday, July 25, 2011
I am pleased to say that both SmallDVD and SmallShrink appear to be working perfectly OK with Mac OS X 10.7 / Lion. If you spot any problems with them on Lion, please do let me know.
Unfortunately, SmallNews has a problem, and doesn’t even start up. I will have a look at this and issue a new release when it’s fixed
Review of 2010, plans for 2011
SmallDVD
SmallNews
SmallShrink
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
At the start of 2010, I wrote about my plans for SmallDVD for the year. This is a quick review of those plans, plus thoughts for 2011.
The plan was to make a few improvements to SmallDVD 2, and start work on SmallDVD 3 which would replace the current AppleScript application with Objective C. The first of these was done, with 2.3 and 2.4 being released, but I’ve made absolutely no progress on SmallDVD 3.
SmallShrink had two releases, 0.3 and 0.4, which has taken it to a state where it works on most DVDs, but would still benefit from further improvement, particularly in the user interface.
SmallNews has had the most active development on it, with five releases, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, adding significant features such as ePub and Kindle support. I also have a 2.5 release almost ready which adds the option for storing articles in a CouchDB database.
So, plans for 2011. I would still very much like to get SmallDVD converted to Objective C, but it’s quite a big task, and the current version does do almost everything I want of it at the moment. I’ve actually been using SmallDVD a lot less recently, as I have been using disk/network video players (firstly a Networked Media Tank then a new Apple TV) in place of DVDs. So I don’t have a huge amount of motivation to rewrite SmallDVD at the moment.
SmallShrink I was using extensively with my Networked Media Tank, to rip an ISO image of a DVD. But for the Apple TV, I use Handbrake instead. So I’m using this a lot less frequently now as well.
SmallNews is the one I use every day, but again, it does almost everything I want it to do already.
I have considered working on getting some of these apps into the new Mac App Store. But I recently read about VLC being removed from the store because Apple’s distribution mechanism contravenes the GNU Public License (GPL). As SmallDVD and SmallShrink use a lot of GPL-licenced components, it would appear to rule out ever putting them in the App Store. SmallNews may be possible, but I’d have to check the licenses of the (fewer) open source components it uses.
So, right now, I’m not sure exactly where I’m going to spend time in 2011. If you have suggestions or requests, please do feel free to submit them through the feedback button.
SmallNews 2.4 - now with Kindle support
SmallNews
Sunday, October 31, 2010
SmallNews 2.4 is available for download. The main new feature in this release is support for the Amazon Kindle.
On the settings page, you can tick the box to create the Kindle version, and optionally provide an email address to send it to. This works well with the Kindle’s “personal documents” delivery service; if you put your @free.kindle.com address in here, the file will be delivered to your Kindle next time it connects by Wifi (more details on Kindle personal documents here)
The Kindle version generated is actually a .mobi (Mobipocket) file, so should also work with other readers which support this format, but I haven’t tried any of these. It is generated using Amazon’s kindlegen utility, which is only available for Intel Macs, so this feature will not work on PPC.
The licence prevents me from including kindlegen in the distribution package, so the first time it is needed, it is downloaded from Amazon. So if you are going to use this, you ought to agree to Amazon’s terms and conditions first.
One other change in this release - previously, PDFs could only be created if Prince XML was already installed. In this release, Prince XML will be downloaded the first time it is needed, in the same way as kindlegen. So, again, you ought to agree to the licence agreement before using this. Prince XML will be downloaded even if you had previously installed it, but it will be kept separate from your existing installation.
Kindle
SmallNews
Saturday, October 23, 2010
I finally got round to ordering my Amazon Kindle, and it arrived yesterday. First impressions...
- It’s very light, and very nice to hold
- It’s much, much quicker than my Sony Reader,.
- The screen contrast seems better as well, making it easier to read in poor light that the Sony was.
- Emailing PDFs to it via your @free.kindle.com address works well
- The 6” inch ebook format PDF from SmallNews works well on the Kindle screen. The text could perhaps do with being one point larger, but that might just be my ageing eyes.
However, one big disappointment for me is that it doesn’t support PDF bookmarks, which makes it much harder to navigate around a PDF created by SmallNews. This is a major thing for me, so I am going to look into the possibility of SmallNews creating a Kindle native format edition.
SmallNews 2.31
SmallNews
Monday, September 27, 2010
Oops. The “fix” in SmallNews 2.3 for occasional crashes when writing to MySQL actually made things much worse. It wouldn’t crash… but it just wrote empty data to the database.
That’s fixed in SmallNews 2.31.
[ UPDATE: However, this does seem to have reintroduced the crashing problem. It only seems to happen on MacOSX 10.5 when using a MySQL database. More investigation required. In the meantime, to workaround the problem, just set the database type to “none” ]
This version also adds a new PDF format option. “Mobile phone” will create a PDF with pages 42mm x 42mm. The main device this is aimed at is a Samsung Genio, on which it looks pretty good. It also works OK with my Nokia E63, and I would guess it should be OK with other phones with QVGA screens and PDF readers.
SmallNews 2.3
SmallNews
Friday, September 24, 2010
SmallNews 2.3 is available for download.
This release has no visual differences to v2.2, but makes a big change to the configuration of site-specific handlers. Instead of this configuration being stored in the application, it is now retrieved dynamically from the internet. This means that new handlers can be added in without a new version of the software.
A total of 12 site specific handlers are currently available, including new handlers for macosxhints.com, macrumors.com and punto-informatico.it.
You can see a full list of handlers - this is dynamically created based on the current configuration.
If you would like additional handlers added to the configuration, please just drop me a message via the feedback button.
There is also a fix to prevent occasional crashes on MacOSX 10.5 when storing articles in a MySQL database.
Two things planned for v2.4:
- Enabling the output to be sent to an email address when ready
- Adding a little utility to allow any HTML to be converted to ePub or eBook-sized PDF
SmallNews 2.2
SmallNews
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
SmallNews 2.2 is available for download. The main new feature in this release is a new way of selecting which PDF formats are created. Instead of a whole load of tick boxes, you now select the versions you want to create, and specify a prefix for the output filename of each.
The date is appended onto each filename. Obviously, each format should have a different prefix, or they will get overwritten.
There are 5 PDF formats available:
- Print (A4 page) - 1 columns (this is a new option)
- Print (A4 page) - 3 columns (the previous default)
- iPad
- iPhone / iPod Touch
- 6" ebook reader (e.g. Kindle, Sony Reader)
It is now also much easier for me to add new PDF formats to the list, so if you have a particular request,
let me know.
For any of the PDF versions to be created, you must have
Prince XML installed (as before).
This version also includes a major overhaul to the way site-specific handlers work. There isn't much to see at the moment, but this will make it a lot easier to add new handlers - this with be the focus of the next release.
A few minor changes to the handlers have been made:
- Removed handler for The Times (as it has gone behind a paywall)
- Added a handler for the new BBC News design (news and sport feeds from the BBC are now handled differently, as they have different formats)
Finally, there is a new "Test selected" button on the Feeds page which enables the feed selected from the list to be tested independently. This is like the test option on the Settings page, but removes the need for cutting and pasting the feed. This is useful in checking how well a particular feed is handled, without running through the entire creation process.
SmallNews and the new Amazon Kindle
SmallNews
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Despite it's dominance of the US eBook market, I've always been rather cool towards the Amazon Kindle. Several reasons for this:
- Amazon never did a "proper" international launch - you had to order direct from the US, which seemed bizarre given the size of Amazon's operations in UK and Europe. There was also no UK/European book store.
- I felt it was too much of a closed platform, only capable of reading books from Amazon in their own format, whereas other readers had much better format capability (this has improved over time though). There was also that fiasco with books being deleted from users' devices without their approval.
- I always thought they were rather ugly - much less attractive than the Sony Reader.
- It always felt a bit too expensive.
The recent launch of the new model has gone a long way to addressing many of my reservations. The new model is significantly cheaper, sold direct from the UK, with an new UK store imminent. And the addition of Wifi support means there appears to be a simple and free way of getting "personal documents" onto the Kindle. So it seems to me that a SmallNews PDF ought to work quite well as a "personal document". So I think I'm going to buy one, and add a feature to SmallNews that allows the created PDF to be emailed to specified address. It's my understanding that this is the easiest way to get a PDF to a Kindle without plugging it in to your computer - email it to your @free.kindle.com address.
It will be September before I get a Kindle to test it on, so I'll release an update then.
UPDATE: I notice that the new
UK Kindle book store
is now open, somewhat ahead of schedule. But I'm appalled at how small the price difference between paperback books and eBooks is - typically about just 40p, which is less than the cost of the (free) postage. However, a part of this is the (equally surprising) fact that you have to pay VAT on eBooks, but not printed books. Where is the sense in that?
SmallNews 2.1
SmallNews
Friday, June 04, 2010
SmallNews 2.1 is available for download. This has two changes since v2.01:
- Added the option to create an iPad-optimized PDF file
- Fixed a bug which prevented ePub working on MacOSX 10.5 (Leopard)
I've been using my iPad to read the news for over a month now and have observed a couple of things.
- Yes, it a very nice device to read news directly from the newspaper web sites, and for a while I did this instead of using SmallNews. However, I found I was reading a lot less of each day's newspaper, as it lacked the page-turning experience of a real newspaper, and I was constantly getting distracted by other links on the page. So I went back to using SmallNews.
- iBooks is OK, but it's not a very good newspaper reader. There's just something about it which doesn't feel right for reading newspapers. So I have switched to using GoodReader (only 59p/99c), which is a great PDF reader.
- None of the existing PDF sizes created by SmallNews were quite right for the iPad screen - they all worked, but none of them were perfect. So I added another option to generate an iPad landscape-optimized PDF.
So there are now 4 different PDF versions available. This is clearly getting a bit silly, so in the next version I am going to change the way the PDF formats are chosen, allowing you to specify page size, font size, number of columns, etc, with the option to choose from a list of presets.
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