Development Blog

12.02.2008 - 2.0.0 released
It appears that due to a bug, the beta is expiring at the begining of Dec instead of the end. The new pages are not complete yet, but you can access the released version of inkBook 2.0 here.

8.31.2008 - a13 released - The last beta
There are a lot of people that are already depending on the 2.0 beta. So I've decided to make this the last beta. I'll work on getting the 2.0 registration and payment system up and runing. Then I can release a final version that won't expire. After that I will add the remaining features in free point updates.

Full Screen Themes
Due to popular demand, I have added a new option to a Theme's preferred size attribute, fullscreen. To get a full screen document, set the document theme to one of the fullscreen themes before you modify the new document (or set a fullscreen theme as your default theme).

8.30.2008 - New release soon
The move has not gone well at all. This is a terrible market to sell a house in right now. And, the house we intended to purchase fell through at the last moment.

inkBook will be updated before the 1st (or very early on the 1st) PST. I apologize for the delay and this will be the last beta before inkBook 2.0 goes final. By popular demand, some new full screen themes are being added.

6.30.2008 - a12 released - Spotligt support
Things have been crazy around here. We are selling our house and getting a new one. I spent untold hours fixing all of the little details on the house that you never seem to get around to until you go to sell it. I also dusted off my proof of concept code on a project called inkStorming. You can get a sneak peek of it in the GottaBeMobile review of the Axiotron Modook. Oh, and did I mention, WWDC! Like I said, it's been crazy.

inkBook now has Spotlight support! Also, a bug was fixed that caused inkBook to become unresponsive when pasting a large number of objects.

Special thanks to Brian McGuffy for filing the unresponsive application defect report.

Development Blog

5.20.2008 - a11 released - A little polish
I've got lots of family visiting at the end of this month. So I'm getting this build out a little early. It's mostly polishing of the tagging and audio features along with some bug fixes. This build will expire at the end of June!

GottaBeMobile has a Axiotron ModBook First Looks Video and he mentions inkBook!

Complete Change List:

• Fix drawing bugs with Pencil, Paint Brush, and Calligraphy Pen
• Disabled zooming until I can get it to work decently
• New tagging images
• First pass of new audio recorder images and controls
• Fix erasing ink when clicking with eraser but not dragging
• Smoother window resize drawing when using tabs
• Auto-Scroll to top of page when flipping pages
• Fix page scrolling defect on open file and resize that hide/show scroll bars

4.29.2008 - a10 released - Now with Audio Recording
Core Audio is confusing. I eventually scrapped my Core Audio code and re-worked it in QTKit. This proved to be much nicer, but forces inkBook 2.0 to require Leopard.

Under the edit menu there is a new "Insert Audio Recording" menu item. This will add an audio recording object. Hover the cursor over the microphone to have the audio controls pop up. Use these controls to record and playback audio. Be careful, if you record twice on the same audio object, you lose the inital audio recording.

Once you have an audio recording you can hover over a word and press the speaker button to jump to 5 seconds before that word was recognized.

The graphics are just placeholders for now. I am more interested in feedback on how well audio recording and playback integrates with your workflow.

Complete Change List:

• Audio Recording and playback
• Palettes now remember their visibility state across launches
• Added one second delay before tag buttons appear.
• Fix tracking so tag button don't disappear when attempting to click on them.

3.30.2008 - a8 released
This release focuses on new features. Unfortunately, one of the biggest new features is still not ready, even for a beta release and has been disabled. This also means that I have not gotten to all the reported bugs yet.

Tagging - You can now tag an ink object by dragging a web link, or a file on top of it. Then, mouse over the object and click on the tag button to open the link. The UI is very rough right now and will change before the final release, but this should give you a feel for the new feature.

Spotlight or Google queries Right-click or use the Ink menu to perform a Spotlight or Google search of the selected objects.

Complete Change List:

• Initial implementation of Tagging (http:, mailto:, file:)
• Search selection in Google or Spotlight (from ink/contextual menu)
• Disabled registration window controls.
• Change registration window text to beta info.
• Fix restoration of document size.
• Fix restoration of theme background style embedded in documents
• Fix laggy (slow) drawing that could sometimes occur.
• Initial support for audio recording (but disabled)

3.09.2008 - Pricing & Upgrades
I've gotten a lot of questions about upgrades and pricing. I might as well just announce it here.

• inkBook 2.x - $40.00US
• inkBook 2.x (upgrade from 1.x) - $20.00US

I should also point out that you cannot purcahse inkBook 2.0 yet. Nor will a 1.x registation number work in inkBook 2.0. In fact, the registration code in the 2.0 betas is currently broken and I don't plan to touch it until 2.0 nears release.

2.24.2008 - a7 released
Special thanks to the beta testers: Nick, Brian, Wally, and Prof. Sterling. The following defects have been fixed.

• Fix flipping to page with text area.
• Fix saving documents with themes that have no background image (Color only)
• Fix saving and restoring of modified sizes of images
• Fix preferred theme attribute
• Switch document size to theme preferred size if no data yet

Note: In an effort to test the automatic update, the 2.0.0a7 version is only available via the automatic update built into inkBook. Choose the "Check for Updates..." item under the inkBook menu. Please let us know if something goes wrong.

2.24.2008 - a6 released
A lot of work has been done to the underlying engine. Most notably, the sketching mode no longer goes through the Ink API. This means that you can draw dots and graphs much easier then before. However, it also means that you can no longer select and move items around when in sketch mode.

The brush engine is also going through a revamp. The highlighter brush went through the most changes. If a stoke is painted in an unexpected manner. please send it to me as an ibk file.

There is a new rudimentry zooming feature. To be honest it doesn't work very well and will undergo major changes in upcomgin versions.

A special thanks to Nick for pointing out that text areas where not being saved. This has been fixed.

2.03.2008 - Creating your own theme
Note: these keys are subject to change until inkBook 2.0 is out of beta.

All user themes go into ~/Library/Application Support/inkBook/Themes
(You can also put them in the /Library/....)

An inkBook theme is:

• A folder that has a .ibtheme extension
• The folder contains a file called Info.plist
• The Info.plist is a standard plist file...

The following keys are required:

• identifier - reverse dns unique id for the theme (uniqueness is enforced.) com.yourco.blah
• displayName - Name that is used in the UI

Optional keys:

• backgroundImage - relative path to image in the .ibtheme folder (include file extension)
• backgroundImageStyle - String, either "tile", "stretch", "border" (tile is default)
• backgroundColorRed - Number 0.0-1.0 red component of background color (if no image or image has clear spots)
• backgroundColorGreen - Number 0.0-1.0 green component of background color (if no image or image has clear spots)
• backgroundColorBlue - Number 0.0-1.0 blue component of background color (if no image or image has clear spots)
• backgroundImageBorderRect - String "{{left, bottom},{right, top}}" If the style is "border" then this key slices the image into 9 pieces. The 4 corner pices are fixed with and height. The middle pieces are tiled to fit the document size.
• preferredSize - String "{widht, height}" The preferred size of a document that uses this theme. You can also specify "portrait", "landscape", or "imageSize". Portirait and landscape use the current printer setup adjusted to be either portrait or landscape. imageSize sets the preferred size to the same size of the image specified with the backgroundImage key.

2.03.2008 - Catching Up
I'm back! Thank you to those who have provided feedback so far. I've been playing catch-up since my hiatus. More soon.

1.20.2008 - Bereavement
I know I promised to provide more detials when Macworld was over, however, there has been a death in the family and we are frantically packing for an unexpected trip to Louisiana. I am named after my grandfather. Actually, I'm named after both of my grandfathers, but in this case we shared the same first name. Your prayers during this week are most welcome.

1.15.2008 - Going Beta
This is the initial public release of inkBook 2.0. More details to follow after MacWorld is over.