Firstly, The Escapers would like to wish all our customers a very happy christmas and new year, and thank you all for your continued support!
In amongst the work I do at The Escapers, I've been looking for a replacement for my iPhone, yes, I know, it hurts me too, but the lack of a keyboard and reliable email is just getting too much for me, and don't get me started on Copy/Paste situation (try emailing a user a lost serial key, and you'll see where I'm going with this)
So, I've just bought myself a Nokia E90, and after owning it for around 48 hours, I thought I'd note a few initial reactions to it....
The UI is ugly, well compared to the stunning iPhone OS anyway, but it's probably more functional, the 'Desk' screen shows me appointments for the day, a few recent emails and todo items, it's a simple thing that the iPhone really needs to have. I can go to all my regular apps through a single key press, nice.
The keyboard is great, the first time I picked it up I could type faster than I could on the iPhone, and I don't suffer finger fatigue like I do with the Apple creation.
Push email works! For all my accounts! Delivered within a minute! Not just Yahoo! (You may be able to tell I'm quite excited about this). I'm using the new Nokia Email system (catchy name guys) , which is in beta, but is really great and reliable, even in low signal areas like my flat (It's like a faraday cage, I don't know why....) For someone who can spend hours everyday travelling, this is very important.
Copy and Paste, I keep forgetting I can do this now, it's great. The iPhone needs it, I don't care how, but it needs to get done, seriously.
The web browser, it's WebKit (Safari) based, so it's rendering is fine, just as good as the iPhone, just not as slick, movement around the page and selecting things is a bit of a chore due to lack of touch screen, the iPhone browsing experience is still the best on any handheld IMHO.
The E90 is a bit of a brick, so it's two handed operation only really, which I don't like, as on London public transport, sitting is a luxury only afforded to the lucky few, and on the Tube, holding on to something is important unless you want to end up in another travellers' lap.
The verdict so far....
The Nokia is a much better email device, but the iPhone is great at everything BUT the email.
If email is not important to you, get the iPhone, if it is however, the E90 may have the edge....
Happy holidays!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
More on Flux 2.0
A quick update on Flux 2.0. Well, first of all, for those who have asked... it's going pretty good, we've been able to dedicate a lot of time to it, and we're pretty much ahead of schedule at the moment. We've been focusing on a few different areas, almost all of which were suggested by our lovely and remarkably handsome user base...
1) Speed. We all know that Flux 1.0 can get a bit bogged down on a complex site, we're made many efforts in the past to fix this, but our efforts have only got us so far. For Flux 2.0, speed was a number one priority and as of right now, the speed is incomparable to Flux 1.0, to the point that we'll probably downgrade our suggested minimum specs, I've not yet tried Flux 2.0 on a G4, but I'd hazard a guess that it would be pretty useable.
2) Site import. Flux 1.0 was designed to be a ground-up editor, and site import was limited to well-formed XHTML sites, and even then, there was a limit to what Flux 1.0 could import. That's all changed now, and site import is dramatically better, we've been importing loads of sites from places like csszengarden.com, no problem on any of the sites.
3) UI, major changes are to the CSS editing, which has been re-written from the ground up, to not only support much more CSS, but make it easier, quicker, and take up less screen real estate. We've also made a lot of changes to the code editor to make updates much more "live" and snappier to update changes in code to the WYSIWYG view.
Just one last confirmation to those who have asked, Yes! Flux 2.0 will be free for all users! Even if you bought Flux from MacZOT or MacUpdate, or some other deal, it's still a free upgrade! :-)
1) Speed. We all know that Flux 1.0 can get a bit bogged down on a complex site, we're made many efforts in the past to fix this, but our efforts have only got us so far. For Flux 2.0, speed was a number one priority and as of right now, the speed is incomparable to Flux 1.0, to the point that we'll probably downgrade our suggested minimum specs, I've not yet tried Flux 2.0 on a G4, but I'd hazard a guess that it would be pretty useable.
2) Site import. Flux 1.0 was designed to be a ground-up editor, and site import was limited to well-formed XHTML sites, and even then, there was a limit to what Flux 1.0 could import. That's all changed now, and site import is dramatically better, we've been importing loads of sites from places like csszengarden.com, no problem on any of the sites.
3) UI, major changes are to the CSS editing, which has been re-written from the ground up, to not only support much more CSS, but make it easier, quicker, and take up less screen real estate. We've also made a lot of changes to the code editor to make updates much more "live" and snappier to update changes in code to the WYSIWYG view.
Just one last confirmation to those who have asked, Yes! Flux 2.0 will be free for all users! Even if you bought Flux from MacZOT or MacUpdate, or some other deal, it's still a free upgrade! :-)
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
What's going on at The Escapers...?
Since we released Stuf a few weeks back, we've mostly focused on that, getting out lots of free upgrades and answering questions on our forum. Now that things are beginning to calm down a little, and we can get back to business as normal, we've started to re-apply our focus back to Flux, at least in part.
So, what does this mean for Flux? Well, what it means is that we're working now, not on little updates, but on the biggest change Flux has ever had, both under the hood and in the UI. This new version will be released as Flux 2.0, and improves upon Flux 1 in a host of areas, such as vastly improved site import, huge speed increases, and major changes to palettes and other areas of user interface. We've not put a timeline on this, as we'd hate to miss the date and disappoint all our users, but we hope it's going to be sooner rather than later. The good news for existing users is that this will be a free upgrade for all.
We've got Flux 2.0 working on our machines right now, and so far it's looking great, so much faster on PowerPC machines, as well as Intel powered Macs. Flux 2.0 will be Leopard only, as it incorporates many features of that OS, and maintaining two code bases would be just too much for a small company like ours.
We'll keep you up to date on progress as best we can, and make this the best release of Flux we've ever had.
So, what does this mean for Flux? Well, what it means is that we're working now, not on little updates, but on the biggest change Flux has ever had, both under the hood and in the UI. This new version will be released as Flux 2.0, and improves upon Flux 1 in a host of areas, such as vastly improved site import, huge speed increases, and major changes to palettes and other areas of user interface. We've not put a timeline on this, as we'd hate to miss the date and disappoint all our users, but we hope it's going to be sooner rather than later. The good news for existing users is that this will be a free upgrade for all.
We've got Flux 2.0 working on our machines right now, and so far it's looking great, so much faster on PowerPC machines, as well as Intel powered Macs. Flux 2.0 will be Leopard only, as it incorporates many features of that OS, and maintaining two code bases would be just too much for a small company like ours.
We'll keep you up to date on progress as best we can, and make this the best release of Flux we've ever had.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Shadow exits beta and gets a new name!
Launching tomorrow on MacZOT.com, Shadow goes on full release under it's new name "Stuf"!
After something like 17 beta releases, and incorporating many user requested features and ideas, we decided it was time to put Stuf out on the open market. We felt it was the right time to release as we felt that Stuf is now strong enough to face a much wider market, and the very different concerns and needs that each of these many users may have. Stuf will still get constant development, as is the policy of The Escapers and will take pride of place as the second ever product from us at The Escapers.
Why did we change the name? Well, the first reason is that there is already an application on the Mac called "shadowClipboard" and we simply felt that it was unfair and wrong to keep calling our app Shadow, particularly as they serve fairly similar purposes.
The second reason, was that the name "Shadow" was meant to portray the idea of a "shadow" clipboard on different computers, but as time went on, we found that most users were not using the network capability much, but more as a general repository of text, pictures etc. so we tried to think of a name which would represent this better. We came up with "Stuf" and I hope you like it and consider it an improvement!
So, what's next from The Escapers? Well, right now, we're going not going to think about any new apps, and focus on Flux and Stuf, we're going to be adding many features and improvments to both and I hope you'll notice these in upgrades to come.
All the best!
After something like 17 beta releases, and incorporating many user requested features and ideas, we decided it was time to put Stuf out on the open market. We felt it was the right time to release as we felt that Stuf is now strong enough to face a much wider market, and the very different concerns and needs that each of these many users may have. Stuf will still get constant development, as is the policy of The Escapers and will take pride of place as the second ever product from us at The Escapers.
Why did we change the name? Well, the first reason is that there is already an application on the Mac called "shadowClipboard" and we simply felt that it was unfair and wrong to keep calling our app Shadow, particularly as they serve fairly similar purposes.
The second reason, was that the name "Shadow" was meant to portray the idea of a "shadow" clipboard on different computers, but as time went on, we found that most users were not using the network capability much, but more as a general repository of text, pictures etc. so we tried to think of a name which would represent this better. We came up with "Stuf" and I hope you like it and consider it an improvement!
So, what's next from The Escapers? Well, right now, we're going not going to think about any new apps, and focus on Flux and Stuf, we're going to be adding many features and improvments to both and I hope you'll notice these in upgrades to come.
All the best!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
New releases abound!
Hi everyone, this is one of the best blog posts I've written in a while, because it's not a groveling apology...
We've finally got a release of Flux out the door , which addresses a lot of known issues, and maybe best of all, there is now a PDF manual! The manual is an ongoing work, which we'll update along with Flux releases. We've also overhauled the website, and new screencasts are on the way.
In other great news, we've released a new product! It's called Shadow, and it's multiple clipboard manager, which lets you copy on one computer, and paste on another. It's all done with network trickery and Bonjour. Right now, it's in beta and it's free, so grab yourself a copy on the house. We've made it free right now, because a zillion apps on the Mac use copy and paste, and we need to make sure there are no gotchas we've missed.
We see Shadow as a great partner app for Flux, and was initially built in-house exactly for that reason, we got tired of emailing each other stuff, having to save everything down to a network share. I've forgotten who said it first, in a fit of frustration : "Why can't I just copy here and paste there, is that so much to ask!?".
So let us know what you think, drop us an email or write on the forum.
Cheers!
We've finally got a release of Flux out the door , which addresses a lot of known issues, and maybe best of all, there is now a PDF manual! The manual is an ongoing work, which we'll update along with Flux releases. We've also overhauled the website, and new screencasts are on the way.
In other great news, we've released a new product! It's called Shadow, and it's multiple clipboard manager, which lets you copy on one computer, and paste on another. It's all done with network trickery and Bonjour. Right now, it's in beta and it's free, so grab yourself a copy on the house. We've made it free right now, because a zillion apps on the Mac use copy and paste, and we need to make sure there are no gotchas we've missed.
We see Shadow as a great partner app for Flux, and was initially built in-house exactly for that reason, we got tired of emailing each other stuff, having to save everything down to a network share. I've forgotten who said it first, in a fit of frustration : "Why can't I just copy here and paste there, is that so much to ask!?".
So let us know what you think, drop us an email or write on the forum.
Cheers!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
An update on developments at The Escapers
In the past few weeks we've had a lot of emails and posts on the forum asking us what's going on with the development of Flux. As most of our users will note, by our standards, we've not done a release in a little while, and to make matters worse we've not been very vocal in explaining why.
Well, while we've been working to make Flux use Core Animation, and along with it, make Flux go a whole load faster, We've run into a few problems along the way which we did not anticipate. Most of the problems relate to Core Animation not behaving in quite the way we expected, and also different behaviour on machines with varying amounts of video memory. Personally, I think that Apple has done a wonderful job of abstracting the idiosyncrasies of each GPU and making very different processors appear the same to the programmer, but there are still nagging problems which has made progress similar to wading through treacle.
We've also been overrun with work relating to other aspect of The Escapers and Flux, all of which will become apparent in the coming weeks.
So, please bear with us during this quiet time of updates, we're working hard to make Flux as great as we can and sometimes we forget to tell everyone what's going on, for that I can only apologise.
Well, while we've been working to make Flux use Core Animation, and along with it, make Flux go a whole load faster, We've run into a few problems along the way which we did not anticipate. Most of the problems relate to Core Animation not behaving in quite the way we expected, and also different behaviour on machines with varying amounts of video memory. Personally, I think that Apple has done a wonderful job of abstracting the idiosyncrasies of each GPU and making very different processors appear the same to the programmer, but there are still nagging problems which has made progress similar to wading through treacle.
We've also been overrun with work relating to other aspect of The Escapers and Flux, all of which will become apparent in the coming weeks.
So, please bear with us during this quiet time of updates, we're working hard to make Flux as great as we can and sometimes we forget to tell everyone what's going on, for that I can only apologise.
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Leopard question...
Apologies to everyone for the lack of activity on this blog, but the thing is, we've been busy boys and it's all relates to the above question. The thing is, what we all know, but we at The Escapers choose to mutter quietly and while nobody is listening, is that Flux can be a little slow even on pretty fast Macs. We're been looking at all kinds of ways to resolve this problem, and while moving a lot of code to pure C rather than the Objective variety has improved things a lot, it's only got us so far.
So, in The Escapers "Labs" (That's my flat), we're been cultivating a Leopard-only version of Flux which makes heavy use of Core Animation, which is a Leopard only feature. This has given Flux an incredible speed boost, especially on Macs with great graphics cards, so even older Macs get a great benefit, as although say G4 Powerbooks lack a bit in CPU speed, they more than make up for it with the GPU.
The problem with all this is that if the "Labs" version goes mainstream, we lose support for Tiger. We could of course maintain two versions of Flux, building features into the "Labs" version, then if they're Tiger-compatible, use them in the older version. This is a lot of work, but could be worth it if we find we have a lot of users sticking around on Tiger.
Please let us know how you feel about this, either mail us if you want a personal response, or maybe post on the forum or here on the blog. We know that Tiger is not that old, I myself run a G5 with Tiger as well as my Leopard powered MacBook, but the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages. Let us know what you think!
So, in The Escapers "Labs" (That's my flat), we're been cultivating a Leopard-only version of Flux which makes heavy use of Core Animation, which is a Leopard only feature. This has given Flux an incredible speed boost, especially on Macs with great graphics cards, so even older Macs get a great benefit, as although say G4 Powerbooks lack a bit in CPU speed, they more than make up for it with the GPU.
The problem with all this is that if the "Labs" version goes mainstream, we lose support for Tiger. We could of course maintain two versions of Flux, building features into the "Labs" version, then if they're Tiger-compatible, use them in the older version. This is a lot of work, but could be worth it if we find we have a lot of users sticking around on Tiger.
Please let us know how you feel about this, either mail us if you want a personal response, or maybe post on the forum or here on the blog. We know that Tiger is not that old, I myself run a G5 with Tiger as well as my Leopard powered MacBook, but the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages. Let us know what you think!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Some screengrabs and a forum for your perusal
Just a quick post to say we've got some fresh new screengrabs up at www.theescapers.com, just for those who asked nicely.
Also, due to popular request, we've set up a forum! We encourage everyone interested in Flux to sign up and start posting, hopefully we can build ourselves a community here:
http://theescapers.com/phpBB2/
Let us know what you think, suggest features, and you can play a role in shaping Flux into the tool you need!
Also, due to popular request, we've set up a forum! We encourage everyone interested in Flux to sign up and start posting, hopefully we can build ourselves a community here:
http://theescapers.com/phpBB2/
Let us know what you think, suggest features, and you can play a role in shaping Flux into the tool you need!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Themes in Flux
For a while at the Escapers, we've been looking at supporting 3rd party templates in Flux, although this is technically fairly trivial, we need the 3rd parties to support it, without them, it would be pointless.
So, simply, if you're a designer, and you fancy making some templates for Flux, get in touch!
Cheers!
So, simply, if you're a designer, and you fancy making some templates for Flux, get in touch!
Cheers!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Flux isn't beta any more!
I find myself quite disbelieving as I write this, Flux is not beta anymore, it's just doesn't sound right, but it's true.
I'm sure bugs will turn up, and like all software, it'll never be perfect (apart from maybe TextWrangler, I'll have to think about that.)
We've added some really nice features too, like layers, so you can edit hidden areas without moving everything out the way.
We still want feedback, comments and suggestions of course, so keep 'em coming, especially the nice ones, helps me get out of bed in the morning.
Thanks to everyone who helped us debug the beta, you all know who you are.
I'm sure bugs will turn up, and like all software, it'll never be perfect (apart from maybe TextWrangler, I'll have to think about that.)
We've added some really nice features too, like layers, so you can edit hidden areas without moving everything out the way.
We still want feedback, comments and suggestions of course, so keep 'em coming, especially the nice ones, helps me get out of bed in the morning.
Thanks to everyone who helped us debug the beta, you all know who you are.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Work on Flux is still happening!
Hello all,
First of all, a belated happy new year to you all. Secondly, I'd like to reassure everyone who has expressed an interest, that Flux is still very much under development. We've missed deadlines more times than I really care to admit, and while I could offer a wide range of reasons and excuses why this has happened, I'm not going to. The simple fact is that we promised more than we could deliver in a relatively short space of time, and we're now experiencing some pretty bad karma for that. All I can really do is apologise right now and promise to all Flux customers that we WILL issue a release soon, and many more after that.
First of all, a belated happy new year to you all. Secondly, I'd like to reassure everyone who has expressed an interest, that Flux is still very much under development. We've missed deadlines more times than I really care to admit, and while I could offer a wide range of reasons and excuses why this has happened, I'm not going to. The simple fact is that we promised more than we could deliver in a relatively short space of time, and we're now experiencing some pretty bad karma for that. All I can really do is apologise right now and promise to all Flux customers that we WILL issue a release soon, and many more after that.
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