Lithoglyphics

Reminder: TapExpense (Old Versions) XLS Export Service Permanent Shutdown after Midnight December 29, 2011 GMT

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:36:00 -0800

If you’re still using the old TapExpense (versions prior to, including, 2.6.1), we’d like to inform you that we’re permanently shutting down the XLS Export Service on the midnight of December 29, 2011 (GMT).

We have been sending email reminders to existing users since the past September. After December 29, the XLS export service will no longer be available to old versions. You can, however, still use the CSV export tool.

Also please note that, if you’re using the newer version sold by Lazy Studio (versions after, and including, 2.6.2), you will not be affected.

We recommend users who want to continue using the XLS export service consider buying “TapExpense 2” by Lazy Studio, who acquired the app earlier this year.

For more information, please refer to the Shutdown Announcement.

Thank you.

舊版 TapExpense 的 XLS 匯出伺服器將於 2011 年 12 月 29 日午夜（格林威治時間）結束服務

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:35:00 -0800

如果您仍在使用舊版的 TapExpense （版號為 2.6.1 或更早），請注意我們將於格林威治時間 2011 年 12 月 29 日午夜（台北時間 2011 年 12 月 30 日上午 8 時）永久關閉 XLS (Excel) 檔案匯出服務。

我們今年 9 月就開始寄送信件提醒現有 XLS 匯出使用者這項消息。過了 2011 年 12 月 29 日，隨著匯出服務的伺服器關閉，舊版 TapExpense 的 XLS 匯出功能也就無法使用。您可以考慮使用 CSV 匯出功能作為替代。

另外，如果您已經擁有由 Lazy Studio 開發的新版 TapExpense 2 (版號 2.6.2 或更新)，您的匯出功能不會受到任何影響。

如果您是舊版用戶，並且希望繼續使用 XLS 匯出功能，我們推薦您購入 Lazy Studio 開發銷售的 “TapExpense 2“。Lazy Studio 於 2011 年 4 月起收購了 TapExpense，成為該 app 的新開發者。

進一步的說明可參考本頁面。

感謝各位用戶過去的支持。

TapExpense Acquired by Lazy Studio

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:55:00 -0700

We are pleased to announce that TapExpense is acquired by Lazy Studio. A new version is just released and becomes available on the App Store. The new version will use the name “TapExpense 2” to distinguish from the older versions. The Lite version will also change the name to “TapExpense Lite 2”.

Please notice that, because the App Store did not provide us with an easy way for such transition, we have jointly decided to remove the old version from the App Store, and submitted the new version to the App Store. This means you’ll not be receiving any new update. In the future, if you want to use the new version, you can buy TapExpense 2 and transfer the existing data to the new version.

Our understanding from our past inquiries with Apple Developer Connection is that the App Store does not guarantee data preservation for version updates from ownership change (i.e. data might be lost as a result of the app’s developer being changed). As TapExpense is a personal finance app, that would be an undesirable scenario. That’s why we have decided to go for the current migration path, which we believe is the best way — no data loss in the process.

To transfer the existing data to TapExpense 2, we have provided two ways:

Use the built-in Backup/Restore
Use iTunes file sharing

We have detailed both methods in a step-by-step guide.

If you have bought TapExpense before March 31, 2011, Lithoglyph will continue supporting until September 30, 2011. The Excel export feature for the old versions will also continue to function until December 31, 2011. After that, you can purchase the new version to continue using the Excel export gateway.

The owner and chief developer of Lazy Studio, Mikimoto Chuang, has been actively involved in the redesign of TapExpense 2.0 and has developed the Excel export gateway. With the acquisition, TapExpense is in the good hands.

For inquiries on the current new version, you can write to tapexpense {at} gmail {dot} com. Thank you for your interest in TapExpense!

TapExpense 由 Lazy Studio 接手開發

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:40:00 -0700

TapExpense 是一套在 iPhone 上的個人記帳軟體，原先是由石磐軟體開發。即日起，TapExpense 以及試用版 TapExpense Lite 由 Lazy Studio 接手開發銷售。

事實上 Lazy Studio 的開發者 Mikimoto 曾經擔任 TapExpense 2.0 改版顧問，協助資料庫規劃以及負責 Excel 檔案匯出功能的製作，同時也長期關心行動裝置的理財議題。相信 TapExpense 在 Lazy Studio 的新家，一定能繼續為大家提供簡單好用的記帳功能。

新版本的 TapExpense，名稱增加一個 “2”，全名改為 “TapExpense 2“，提供試用的 Lite 版本也同樣更名為 “TapExpense Lite 2“。

要請原有使用者注意的是，由於 App Store 架構限制，我們必須將舊版下架，改由 Lazy Studio 這邊發行新版本的程式。App Store 無法為您從一個開發者的舊版，免費升級到另一個開發者的新版。

我們過去也有和 Apple Developer Connection 有書信往返。一般說來軟體轉讓開發，Apple 雖然是有一些自動升級的管道，但他們無法保證舊版的資料不會被洗掉。我們認知到 TapExpense 屬於財務類軟體，使用者的資料必須要有延續性，因此我們與 Lazy Studio 討論後，決定採用目前的方式轉讓，不採用自動升級的途徑，這樣使用者不會有任何資料損失。

未來，當 TapExpense 2 有新功能，而您想從舊有版本轉移資料過去的話，您可以採取以下任一種方法：

使用 TapExpense 內建的資料備份/還原功能
使用 iTunes 的資料匯出匯入功能

我們在這一篇文章中為您詳細說明這兩種方法的操作方式為您詳細說明這兩種方法的操作方式。

如果您是在 2011 年 3 月 31 日前就已經購入 TapExpense 的用戶，石磐軟體會繼續接收回覆您的使用意見至 2011 年 9 月 30 日。同時 Excel 匯出功能也可以繼續使用至 2011 年 12 月 31 日。之後您可以購入 TapExpense 2 來繼續使用 Excel 匯出功能。

我們很高興為 TapExpense 找到新的開發團隊，也感謝您對我們長期以來的愛護與肯定。謝謝！

Tickets Offers 50% Discount for Paid LadyBugz Users

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:42:55 -0800

Tickets is a FogBugz client for Mac developed by manicwave Productions. Jeff Schilling, the developer of Tickets, is offering existing paid LadyBugz users a 50% discount. If you have a LadyBugz license, you can forward the license file to the following email address to get the discount coupon: support {at} manicwave {dot} com.

If you’re looking for a FogBugz client that is on active, continual development and is supported, we recommend you take a look at Tickets. Our thanks to Jeff for offering this to our users.

LadyBugz Becomes a Free App

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:01:00 -0800

(Update: An offer to our existing paid users from manicwave, developer of the Tickets app, detail here.)

We have just released LadyBugz 1.7.1. This version fixes a number of bugs, and can now import snippets automatically from your FogBugz website.

We also regret to announce that we are discontinuing the development of LadyBugz.

As of March 1, 2011, LadyBugz becomes a free download for all: the 21-day trial restriction is now removed. We’ll be offering customers who buy licenses after February 15, 2011 (inclusive) full refund. We will continue supporting the app until April 30, 2011, but we will no longer be able to do any active development.

Also, the digital certificate that LadyBugz uses will expire after March 16, 2011. LadyBugz has been a signed software, and that’s how you have never been asked to confirm if you want to save your FogBugz password in your keychain. This is a standard practice recommended by Apple since Mac OS X 10.5 was released. As the certificate expires, LadyBugz will start to ask you to confirm if you want to trust LadyBugz to access the keychain. This will only happen if you run a new version of LadyBugz for the first time.

We released LadyBugz 1.0, a FogBugz client for Mac, in March 2010, as our first Mac software product. Unfortunately, the product has never been able to sustain itself. Because of this, and also because of various personal reasons, we will no longer be able to continue developing it.

Eventually we will discontinue offering LadyBugz altogether, some time after we offer it for free.

At the same time, we are also releasing the underlying library that LadyBugz uses. BugzKit is an Objective-C library that makes it easy to make FogBugz requests. We’re hoping that by opening up the library, we will be able to contribute to the Mac/iOS developer community, and help people develop new FogBugz clients, especially for iOS devices.

Discontinuing LadyBugz is a hard decision for us. We really appreciate everyone who recommended LadyBugz and gave us valuable suggestions. A redesign of the app icon set, for example, was finally done in version 1.7. We regret that we couldn’t keep a balance between developing our products and fulfilling our other committments. In addition, if you’re interested in take over LadyBugz, we’d also like to talk to you.

One again, thank you for your encouragement, suggestions and recommendations.

LadyBugz 1.7

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:25:26 -0800

If you have just upgraded to LadyBugz 1.7, our FogBugz client for Mac, you may have already noticed that the app icon and toolbar icons have been through a facelift. We have been glad to have Jordan Langille of OneToad Design to help us redesign the icons.

LadyBugz 1.7 also has one notable new interface feature: The three-column layout. It’s available from the menu View > Layout > 3 Columns.

Version 1.7 also fixes a number of crashing bugs in 1.6.11.

While in the past few months a few other commitments required our attention, we hadn’t forgot to continue working on this version. We believe the interface updates will improve the user experience. And again, let us know if you run into any problem. (Also: You can buy a license for $48 now.)

Thanks all!

TapExpense 2.6.1: What's New

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:15:47 -0800

In early January this year we released TapExpense 2.6.1. We had some other commitments that required our immediate attention so we didn’t really have a time to write about it. In short, 2.6.1 fixes the crashing problem in 2.6. We feel bad that it took us a while to finally nail down the origin of the bug, and we’d like to thank our users who bear with us.

Oh, we also didn’t mention what’s new in 2.6, which is actually a big update. In short:

TapExpense now has a file-based backup/restore mechanism. Instead relying on gibberish-looking URLs that are hard to understand let alone use, it now sends you the whole database file as an email attachment. You can open that attachment in your Mail.app, and TapExpense will ask if you want to restore that file. This works across different devices.
An unnoticed feature is that you can also backup and restore using your iTunes! If you’re familiar with Apple’s Pages or apps like Good Reader, you know how to do this: Just save the “Books” folder to your computer, and it’s done. To restore, drag the Default.db in the Books folder to TapExpense, and next time you launch TapExpense, it will ask you if you want to restore that copy.
Category, currency, group, vendor lists can now be sorted. Tap the “Edit” button, and a Sort button will show up along with other editing functions.
Many bugs in version 2.5, such as the buggy landscape mode and issues with the iOS multitasking mechanism are all fixed.

We have received a few emails asking us why we discontinued iOS 3 (formerly iPhone OS 3) support. It’s a tough decision, but the short answer is that we needed the file exchange support which is only available after iOS 3.2 (the first version that supports the iPad, but that isn’t available for the iPhone). We were also in this situation where we no longer had any iOS 3 device to test on. On the other hand, switching completely to iOS 4 enables us to modernize our codebase, and we believe this will be a good thing for the long-term development of the app.

LadyBugz 1.6.9: More Bug Fixes

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:58:33 -0700

We’ve just released LadyBugz 1.6.9. It turns out that 1.6.7 didn’t completely fix the crashing bugs, and from the crash reports we’ve received (thanks everyone for letting us know!), it concentrated in one specific area. We’ve revamped that part of the code, and version 1.6.9 should clear that issue now.

Version 1.6.9 also comes with two subtle interface improvements. When you refresh the case list, it used to scroll the list to the currently selected case even if you had previously scrolled the list to another part you wanted to browse. This annoyance is now fixed. We have also changed the mark-as-read behavior a bit so that if a selected case has new incoming events, it’s no longer marked as read automatically.

We have listed other fixes and improvements in the release notes. As always, write to us at support{at}lithoglyph{dot}com if you run into any issues. Thanks all for your patience and kind suggestions!

LadyBugz 1.6.7

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:48:00 -0700

LadyBugz 1.6.7 fixes two more crashing bugs and starts supporting FogBugz 8.0 beta. So if you are about to or are already testing FogBugz 8.0 beta, LadyBugz will work with your installation now.

Refer to our release notes for details. And as always, you can download a copy from our website. Thanks!

LadyBugz 1.6.6 Fixes the Crashing Bugs

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:08:00 -0700

We have just released LadyBugz 1.6.6, available from our website and through auto update.

After we released LadyBugz 1.6.1, we have received a number of bug reports that it crashed at various places. We realized that our garbage collection transition was not completely done, and there were loose ends that we overlooked. We take those issues seriously, and after a week of testing, we believe 1.6.6 should behave way better.

We want to apologize for the inconveniences caused during this rocky transition, and really thank many of our users who were kind enough sending us the crash reports and bearing with us with betas. We understand that our users rely on LadyBugz to work with their FogBugz support and bug tracking tasks, and an unstable app sucks. We’ll work harder to make sure that LadyBugz helps you and never gets in your way.

As always, let us know if the new version works better for you or if you run into any issue. Write to us at support{at}lithoglyph{dot}com. Thanks all!

LadyBugz 1.6: Better Memory Usage, Bug Fixes and Improvements

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:01:46 -0700

We are pleased to announce that we’ve just released LadyBugz 1.6. This version comes with a number of fixes and improvements. Most important of all, we’ve fixed the annoying memory consumption issue. Some of our users had noticed the problem when they left LadyBugz on their work machine over a weekend, and we are happy to report that it is fixed.

Check the release notes for the other fixes and improvements in this version. If you’re interested in the technical part, Lukhnos has written on his blog why LadyBugz now no longer uses Apple’s garbage collection (gc). Retrofitting manual memory management took us quite some time, but we are glad it’s done.

As always, let us know if this version works better. Write to us at: support{at}lithoglyph{dot}com. Enjoy the new version!

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… ↩