Into The Unimaginable

Today I pushed Schoolhouse 3.1.2, which fixes an outstanding issue with MobileMe syncing not properly handling the Course Folders introduced in 3.1.

Today I’m pushing out Schoolhouse 3.1, the first maintenance update for Schoolhouse 3. This build adds several features that were highly requested, including the aforementioned course folders and a new, more powerful calendar view that is more akin to iCal.

I’ve been working now and then on Schoolhouse 3.1, for those of you who keep up on these kinds of things. I’m interweaving my dev time with my school projects and my part-time job, but I do have some small amounts of time every few days to get some work done.

So what changes, you might ask, are going to be in it?

Well, first off, is an autosaving feature. I’ve had several people email me about situations where they leave Schoolhouse open constantly and have accidentally let their batteries die, and thus, since Schoolhouse never closed, nothing was saved. Autosave will remedy this by saving automatically every few minutes if things change.

Next is Course Folders. They will work similar to how Terms did in Schoolhouse 2, in that courses can be grouped into Folders. The folders can represent whatever you choose: semesters, quarters, majors, professors you like vs. professors you hate, whatever.

Those are just two features that are going to be in Schoolhouse 3.1. What else is in store I’m no revealing yet.

I am proud to (finally) announce the release of Schoolhouse 3.0. This version is a major update, and introduces a completely new foundation to Schoolhouse.

Schoolhouse 3 is Shareware. Yes, I’ve moved to the paid model. *screams*. Well, we all have to eat, right? And it is at a reasonable price, in my opinion. $14 and you have the app. That’s a lot less than most of those fancy to-do managers that are in the $50 to $80 range. I mean, we’re students, right?

So, new features? First are Appearance Rules. They work like Mail’s message rules in that they define how tasks in Schoolhouse appear (bolded, italicized, colorified, etc.), and are definable using a nice interface in the preferences.

Second is Websites. You can add websites to your courses or library, and access them directly in Schoolhouse. It’s quick and easy for course websites that you look at frequently.

Next is MobileMe syncing, for those who have multiple Macs. Turn it on in the MobileMe system preference pane.

Another great new feature is a quick entry pane, which has become a popular trend in to-do apps. You can define a shortcut key in the General preference pane.

That’s four cool new features, but you should download the app to check them all at.

Django is indeed an amazing framework. But one of the greatest new features of the 1.0 release is the ability to create your own django-admin actions (you know, the command line actions that do things like database syncing?). It’s really handy for things that you do repeatedly.

The cool thing, though, is that since these are executed as just a normal python script, you can use cron to schedule them to happen automatically. This is really nice for things that I need done on a regular bases, like emailing users. I can create a model in Django for my email, set up a django-admin command to check to see if there are emails waiting to send, and then use cron to poll every now and then and send them out.

Today I released Schoolhouse 2.2, an update that is long overdue. This update fixes compatibility problems that have cropped up in the latest Leopard updates, as well as some other outstanding issues. Along with bug fixes, Classcasting has been removed. Your library should upgrade just fine, and if you have any issues feel free to contact me and I’ll try to help. I realize I’ve been particularly silent on Schoolhouse (as well as my blog) for three weeks shy of a year now. I can only ask my readers and users that you forgive me. I am working my way back to my projects and am continuing to work on the future of Schoolhouse. I’ll keep you posted.

So as many have noticed, 10.5.2 broke Schoolhouse in a way. Some actions cause beachballing (the spinning color cursor) on Intel Macs running the Leopard update. I’m trying to figure out exactly what is causing it, but in the meantime, one user pointed out that if you Get Info on the Schoolhouse app in the Applications Folder in the Finder, and Select the Rosetta option (to force the app to run in PowerPC compatible mode), it works fine. This is a temporary solution for everyone who can’t access there stuff anymore. In the meantime, I wanted to point out that I am trying my best to work on Schoolhouse. As you hopefully understand, schoolwork takes priority every time, and the past couple weeks I have been swamped with work. So Schoolhouse is coming along (including hopefully a fix for 2.1), but I can only work on it when I have the time. I love it, it’s my wonderful own project, but I have to focus on homework and studying when I need to.-L

Yes, it’s true. I have been working on the next generation of Schoolhouse. Now that the semester is over, I have a lot more time to devote to it, too. While I won’t go into a whole lot of detail right now, since it’s still in development, I do want to talk about a couple things. Number One: I am planning for it to be Leopard-only. This is mainly because there is so much in Leopard (developer-wise) that I would love to take advantage of. This includes Core Animation and the Calendar Store framework. Yes, you heard that right. The Calendar Store. (That’s iCal’s database for those who don’t know.) I’ll leave it at that. Number Two: As I was talking to a developer friend of mine, we realized that Schoolhouse will need a new icon to go along with the update, and to be 512×512 for Leopard’s new resolution independence. While I was comfortable with what I came up with for 2.0, I feel that the icon design would be better fit to someone else for such a big (and let’s face it, important) icon. So…I thought I’d throw it out there to see if anyone reading my blog wanted to take a whack at making a new icon for Schoolhouse. For a new icon, I was thinking maybe a literal schoolhouse, viewed perspectively from above like Pages and Keynote’s icons. I just like that look on the Leopard dock rather than the tilted Mail style. But it doesn’t have to be a literal Schoolhouse, any idea that an interested party can come up with I would be interested in. If you want to try, just make a mockup, whatever you think, and shoot me an email with it. If I like the design, I will be glad to honor you in the about box. Yeah, the financial situation forbids me from hiring an actual graphic artist for this.Well, that’s it for now. I will continue to give hints about Schoolhouse 3 as I continue development, and it’s progressing fast. As always, ideas and suggestions are welcome.

It’s been a while. I’ve been busy with class and work lately, but things are starting to slow down. Where shall I begin? Apple was incredible. Absolutely incredible. I cannot stress how much I loved being out there. It was sad to leave, but I came back with the knowledge that I was going back next summer. So happy. And as a plus, I get to work a little big on some projects for my team during the year if I have time.Class is going alright. The year seems like it’ll be good. Fall break is fast approaching already, which I can’t believe. Before you know it, it’ll be Christmas break again!I’m working this year at our campus newspaper, the University Daily Kansan. (The best college newspaper in the country, IMHO). I am their “Web Coordinator/Online Manager”, which basically means I run the software that in turn runs the website, and the web apps that we have. Right now I’m working hard at upgrading the online classifieds application, Hawkchalk. It’s going fairly smoothly. Another major project is updates to the UDK Facebook Application. There’s been a huge userbase grow out of just two months of usage. I think we’re at about 1,000 users so far. All of the UDK’s great webapps were originally written by my predecessor, a great guy named Ryan Berg. I just hope I can live up to his reputation.The Kansan is great. It’s amazing (and a little unnerving) to me how good everyone is at their jobs… The ads staff (which I am a part of) is a well oiled machine.As for the remaining part of my time, I’m cooking dinner on Wednesdays again this year at the hall, which is great. Gives me yet another creative outlet. Walking around on campus, I wonder how people ever leave here. (I know the answer…tiredness from class…) It’s so beautiful here in the fall. The weather right now is just right. 60-70 degrees, partly cloudy every day.Hmm…kind of a sparatic blog post, I know. But that’s how I am. This just in! and such. 

So I’m sitting at work today, and I get an email from one of the users of Schoolhouse. They are like…”Great software, and congrats on getting into the new issue of Macworld!”

…WHA? I don’t take Macworld anymore, needless to say. So after work I lead my roommates on a voyage to find a copy. Borders. They have to have it, right? Not a single copy. I don’t know if they just don’t take it or what. Finally I find it at Safeway. Sure enough, I’m in there. One of the 63 Great Mac Downloads reviewed this month. I get four out of five mice. Pretty awesome!

So thanks to the people at Macworld for the mention. I’ve never been in a magazine before…