Lithoglyphics

LadyBugz 1.5: Case History View Got a Facelift

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 04:58:00 -0700

We’ve just released LadyBugz 1.5. The most important change, which we believe you will discover immediately, is that we have completely rewritten the case history view.

Each FogBugz case comes with a number of “events”. The events record the history of the case — like when you created the case, assigned the case, edited the case, or when a case was created by an incoming customer email. In previous versions of LadyBugz, we used a separate table view to list the events, and you had to click on each individual event to see the details — such as the body text of the incoming customer email.

Since LadyBugz’s initial release, we have received many requests that we consolidate the event list into one single history view, much like FogBugz’s own web interface. We believe this major change makes much sense, especially when a case has a long change history or a lot of correspondences with the customer.

The new case history view enabled us to take on implementing a number of frequently requested features. In LadyBugz 1.5, if a case is opened by a customer email, the case history now also lists all the other cases opened by the same customer. You will then be able to view those related cases by clicking on the listed case numbers.

There are other improvements and bug fixes, and we have listed them in the release notes.

As in the previous versions, we have learned a lot from your feedback, and we hope the new version will be of greater help for your project management needs. And as always, let us know if you like the improvements, or if there are other things you think we can do better. Write us at: support {at} lithoglyph {dot} com. Cheers!

Mondrianum 2.5

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:57:15 -0700

We have just released Mondrianum 2.5. This version fixes a bug that picking color in the cover flow view might fail.

If you are using a version of Mondrianum that is earlier than 2.4, you will receive a light notification at the top right corner in your Mondrianum color picker. We are also using this opportunity to retire our old download server, so we highly recommend all users upgrade to this version.

TapExpense 2.5, Mondrianum 2.4.1, and What We Are Doing Lately

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:09:00 -0700

It’s a bit embarrassing that we finally got the time to write about a recent TapExpense update, which was released two weeks ago.

TapExpense 2.5 adds an email-based backup/restore mechanism. It is also the last version that supports iPhone OS 2.2 devices. While we no longer receive any inquiry from iPhone OS 2.2 users, we just want to be careful. Some important productivity apps, like Things from Cultured Code, still support iPhone OS 2.2.

We will discontinue iPhone OS 2.2 support from this release on because it’s just about time. With iOS 4 and iPhone 4 now on the market, we should start catching up with many iOS advances. Take the email-based backup/restore mechanism for example. Because on iPhone OS 2.x there is no way to send an attachment to yourself, we are confined to sending you a long, seemingly meaningless string in an email, which is actually a “restore URL” that you can paste into your Mobile Safari’s address bar, which will then open TapExpense to start the restoration process. On iPhone OS 3 and higher OS versions, we will be able to leverage the in-app mailer and make the process smoother.

We have also updated Mondrianum to version 2.4.1, although it’s really just a minor update that changes the version info (“auto update”) URL stored within the app. This is mainly to retire our old file-hosting site in about another two months. We didn’t put 2.4.1 on Mondrianum’s automatic version notification, but we will do that in the next minor release when it’s about time.

It’s going to be a hot summer in Taipei (yesterday the highest reached 38ºC), and we are having a busy time helping our existing clients add iPhone 4, iOS 4 and iPad support into their apps.

We are also making steady progress on our own apps, especially LadyBugz. Some features and fixes have taken us substantially more time than we initially thought, but we believe it will be worth the efforts.

As always, please write us to support{at}lithoglyph{dot}com if you run into any problem, or if you have any comments or suggestions.

Thanks all!

LadyBugz 1.3: Virtual User Support

Fri, 14 May 2010 08:09:00 -0700

We released LadyBugz 1.3 yesterday. Version 1.3 supports virtual users and subcase tree collapsing. It also includes an important bug fix. Improvements include:

Virtual user support. FogBugz recommends us create virtual users such as one named “Up for Grab”, so that unassigned cases can still have an assignee.
In View menu, two new menu items are added: “Expand Subcases” and “Collapse Subcases”. Now the subcase tree can be expanded/collapsed in one batch.
The “default mailbox” bug is now gone. Previously, when you were to reply an email, LadyBugz always showed that it was going to use your default mailbox for the sender address. In fact, it chose the project’s designated mailbox, but a UI bug made you think it used the default one). Anyway, that was not good, so the bug was fixed. Also, for each mailbox, FogBugz gives you the choice between using the mailbox’s own name (such as “Acme Support ”) or using your own name (such as “Jane Doe ”) before the email address. LadyBugz now gives you the choice too. It will also use the same name and address when replying to subsequent user replies.
Fixes the bug that, when reactivating or reopening a case, “Resolve and Close” button still showed up and was enabled.
Fixes the bug that, when Case List Conditions got changed, the total unread count on the dock icon badge could become out of sync.
Fixes the bug that, when clicking on the dock icon, account window did not reappear to the front.

You might have already noticed that FogBugz just released version 7.3, and there are a number of new features (such as editing event contents) that we very interested to see if they will be available through it’s API.

We have also received many suggestions and feature requests from you. We have heard you, and we will continue improving our application. Write to us at support{at}lithoglycom{dot}com and let us know how LadyBugz works for you. Or visit our support forum for LadyBugz. Thanks!

LadyBugz 1.2 and a Handier Way to View Attachments

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:48:14 -0700

We have just released LadyBugz 1.2. This version adds one major feature, and that is what we call the in-app document viewer. If you use Tweetie for Mac, the famous Twitter client, you probably already use it everyday: You click on a link to an image, and Tweetie opens the image in its own window, never leaving for your external browser.

When we go through our own cases, we often come upon attachments sent by our users. Attachments can be screenshots, crash logs, PDF files, or screencasts (often sent by advanced users or clients’ project managers). Before LadyBugz 1.2—which is also what we do with FogBugz’s own web interface—we just download the attachments and open them in an external tool.

LadyBugz 1.2 now gives you an alternative: You can just view the attachment inside LadyBugz. For media clips (video and audio files), this is now the default. When you double-click on those attachments, a QuickTime player window opens up and starts playing the clip. For document and image files, double-clicking still downloads them by default, but there’s a new “View Document” (or “View Image” for image types) menu item in the context menu when you right-click on those attachments.

Version 1.2 also fixes a serious bug that, when you Send and Close an email case, the reply didn’t get sent at all (but the case got closed). It’s now fixed.

Last week, LadyBugz got featured in both FogBugz’s own blog and its newsletter. Many people have since then downloaded a copy and given us a lot of valuable feedbacks. We will continue working on LadyBugz to make it a great FogBugz client app.

That’s LadyBugz 1.2. Download it at our website and try it out. Thanks!

LadyBugz 1.1.2: New Display Option, Tag Removal Support, and Performance Improvement

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:02:00 -0700

We have just released LadyBugz 1.1.2. This version gives you a new option to cascade the case hierarchy on either the case number column (which is the default and was the only way in previous versions) and case title. So before we only had something like this:

Now we can also have something like this:

To cascade the case hierarchy display on case title, use the new menu in View > Cascade On. When the case hierarchy display is cascaded on title, it looks closer to the way FogBugz web interface presents the structure.

1.1.2 now also supports tag removal. We stumbled upon a discussion thread on FogBugz’s own forum which led to the solution. We have previously also filed cases to FogBugz to inform that there is currently no way to remove Version and Computer fields. We’ll keep ourselves updated on the related issues.

Finally, 1.1.2 also fixes a performance issue. After we reduced peak CPU usage significantly in 1.1, we were told that LadyBugz could become unresponsive sometimes, especially when loading large number of cases or events. The notorious Spinning Beachball of Death would show up, although the app always resumed working after a few seconds of blocked UI. So this is now fixed. It also taught us a valuable reason how asynchronous HTTP requests should be made in an operation queue-based architecture (with lots of care taken to deal with OS X quirkiness, too). That will leave up to a future write-up on the topic.

So in short, although this is a minor update, we’d still recommend you update to the latest version. You can download LadyBugz here. Complete release notes can also be found here. Let us know if 1.1.2 works indeed better for you. Thanks!

LadyBugz 1.1.1

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:46:00 -0700

LadyBugz 1.1.1 is a minor update that fixes two bugs: A bug that could cause LadyBugz to crash during periodic refresh, and a bug that made certain incoming mail events not appear even if you selected them.

With LadyBugz, you can manage FogBugz cases and reply to customer emails within an efficient, native Mac application. Download LadyBugz from our website and try it now. And let us know how we do, too. Thanks!

LadyBugz 1.1

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 10:03:59 -0700

We just made live the version 1.1 of LadyBugz today¹. This version has three new features that had been requested over the the past week, and improves greatly on performance. The new features are:

Audio and video attachments can now be opened and played within LadyBugz, so you don’t need to download them before opening them.
Send and Send & Close now have shortcut keys (Shift-Cmd-D and Ctrl-Cmd-D, respectively).
A new option under View > Per-Source Column Settings enables each source object (project, milestone, filter, person) to remember its own column settings and sorting orders.

And one important improvement:

LadyBugz now uses far less CPU than it did when performing periodic refreshes. We have revised the design and resolved the problem of giving the CPU too much load.

For details, please refer to the Release Notes.

Download or upgrade to LadyBugz 1.1 now. You can try it for 30 days (yes—we’ve extended the trial period), and buy a single license for US$55.

We’re probably a few hours ahead of your timezone, so we’re out of the April Fool craze a bit earlier too… ↩

LadyBugz 1.0.1

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:23:00 -0700

We just released LadyBugz 1.0.1. This is a minor upgrade that fixes a number of bugs and issues:

LadyBugz could crash after computer woke up or lost network connection.
Incoming email event did not show the originating email address, but instead displayed the person the case was assigned to.
Scroll bar in the source list could irregularly expand or shrink after Refresh All or periodic refreshes.
And a few more UI adjustments.

If you have enabled automatic update check (which is the default), LadyBugz should inform you that 1.0.1 is available shortly. If you’d like to download the new version now, visit our website. Detailed release notes are also available here. And, if you find LadyBugz good, buy a license for US$55 to become a registered user.

Thanks everyone for giving us encouraging feedback and suggestions on our first Mac productivity app!

LadyBugz, a FogBugz Client for Mac

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:30:00 -0700

LadyBugz is a FogBugz client for Mac. It’s also our first productivity app for Mac.

We have been FogBugz users since early 2009. There’s something special about FogBugz, and it is that it’s not an issue tracker designed for programmers, but it’s also designed for people who do customer service and support, and hence is also designed for your customers.

And now we’ve come up with a native client that further enhances FogBugz’s strengths:

For project management, LadyBugz lets you drag-and-drop cases to any assignable objects in your FogBugz installation. So to assign a case, just drag the case to a person. To change project, drag it out of the present project and drop to another.

For customer service integration, LadyBugz makes it easy to reply to emails, view and send attachments, and integrates with your address book. It has snippet support so that you can use everything you’ve built up for your customer service frontline.

You can download LadyBugz and try it for 21 days, and a license is US$55. A full introduction is available on our product page.

A New Beginning: What We've Been Up to

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:24:00 -0700

2010 marks a new beginning for us. We are launching a new Mac application this week (more on that in our next posting), studying a new platform, and continue providing a wide range of development services to our clients. You might even have noticed that we’ve changed our blog host to Tumblr, which we love very much, and made a number of changes to our website.

Here is a roll call of what we’ve been up to lately: LadyBugz is the first Mac software product that we have developed as an independent software vendor. It is a FogBugz client for your Mac, and will greatly enhance your FogBugz workflow. Some say Mac software development has been sidelined by the emergence of its little brother iPhone. The fact is that we spend our working hours on our Macs, and the Mac still gives the richest user experiences and enables more complex tasks. That is why we think LadyBugz will help many FogBugz users, just like many Twitter clients make it a richer service.

It was a happy surprise for us to discover that a few weeks ago, Mondrianum, our Adobe Kuler plug-in, was featured in Garr Reynolds’s 2009 book. Garr is known for his book and web site, Presentation Zen, and we can’t be more thrilled that our little creation was chosen by a prominent author.

The past two years we’ve seen more client work coming from the iPhone market. Our iPhone product, TapExpense, is happily serving its role as a simple, no-frills expense tracker. This January TapExpense was featured in Business Next, a Taiwanese magazine on the information industry and digital lifestyle, and was chosen by a panel organized by the magazine’s publisher as one of the best iPhone apps in Taiwan. We have plans for TapExpense and we will roll out new advances at a steady pace.

That quickly sums up what we’ve been up to. This is an exciting time to be a software developer, and we hope our apps and services make a difference to people’s work and daily life. The best is yet to come!