So I spent most of today working on Alarm 3.5.8, which is coming along nicely. Most of the time was spent refactoring leftover code from v3 or v3.1 as well as just plain terrible code that exists for v3.5 only. Also in 3.5.8, there is a great new feature coming that one of my friends suggested. However, I do not want to spoil the surprise until the release date. I should be able to get that version out the door within about 2 weeks so look forward to that. I promise that 95% of you out there will like it.
To summarize upcoming releases:
3.5.8 – Probably April 20-27.
3.5.9 – Probably May 14-21.
3.5.10 – Probably June 7-14. (if necessary)
3.5.11 – Probably July 1-8. (if necessary)
Also, since 3.5.0 was released on June 21, 2008, Alarm 3.5, which is already the longest running version, will be the first major revision out for an entire year. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing though. I think it’s probably because I’ve focused more on refinement instead of adding features. I’m glad that I did, as this is the most stable version of Alarm ever. It’s only going to get better.
Ok, I’m not perfect. Alarm 3.5.7 was released today to fix a regression I introduced in 3.5.6. Whoops.
Today, I’m releasing Alarm 3.5.6. Download it from the website or from the auto-update service. This version contains 5 theme refreshes which should make them a bit easier to use. Also, it contains about 2-3 bug fixes for bugs which have been there for a while.
If you haven’t realized it, I released Alarm 3.5.5 on February 27. Download it.
Today, I’ve uploaded the new alarm site! Feel free to browse around. It’s not yet complete, but I’ll be adding stuff little by little over the next few weeks.
Ok, Alarm 3.5.4 is code-complete and I’m planning on releasing it on Friday (or sooner) depending on any regressions or other bugs I find during the next few days. This version contains more bug fixes than I’d like to admit to, but here are the major ones:
-Random playlist was not properly reordered after adding or removing items.
-Vista UAC and Limited Accounts. Should work now…finally!
-Prevent Windows Update Restart shown on limited accounts even though it can’t be set on them.
-Cannot load/save playlist on Vista with UAC enabled.
-Custom theme edits sometimes still applied on Cancel.
As you can see, Vista and it’s limited accounts are my enemies. Anyways, that’ll be released on Friday through the update service, probably the same day or possibly Thursday on my website, and then it’ll show up on download.com probably sometime next week. If you want it now, as always you can send me a message and I’ll give you a link.
As for the future of Alarm, I’m planning on doing about 1 more minor revision on 3.5, then halting development for a while, as I have a lot of stuff to work on in the other areas of my life (senior design, etc). I would really, really like to get Alarm 4.0 out before graduation, but because of the nature of it (a near-complete rewrite) I probably wont be able to. Also, the maintenance on that version would be time consuming, which is not really what I would need when getting ready to go to grad school.
Thats all for now.
In Alarm 3.5.3, I have fixed about 7 bugs and added a new feature. I also added about 10 themes.
Also, as of today, Alarm 3.1 is no longer supported to be auto-updated to 3.5. There are way too many files to update every time I release a new version. If you’re using 3.1, you should have updated a long time ago!
As a final note, I’m pretty sure that I’m up to 2800 downloads total among all the websites that host Alarm 3.5.2. I should get an estimate of who actually uses it based on how many people update to 3.5.3. I’m pretty happy about all this “having users” business.
I should be releasing 3.5.2 this weekend with a playlist update and a single bug fix. Check for updates on Sunday.
Ok, so today I released Alarm 3.5.1 which includes 2 bug fixes and a new feature called “Quick Alarm”. You can download it at http://alarm.russell-patterson.com. This version also adds support for unprotected wma files.
Go get it!
