I made a small release last night that fixed a few bugs. The main change is that now SSL is tried first when syncing. This was to provide extra security because Backpack would let some requests go through without SSL even when SSL was turned on.

The next release will feature something many users have been waiting for: List reordering. I’m currently testing it and putting on the finishing touches. If you’d like to beta test it, then just let me know.

Next on the list is automatic syncing. Manual syncing is bugging me and I’m sure it’s bugging you. If you have any ideas about auto syncing or things you’d like to see, then please send me an email.

I’ve just released PackRat v0.9. This one is just some bug fixes that have been bugging you. The big one is a bug that caused PackRat to have connection problems when you changed your Backpack password. So, if you’ve been having problems with this, download the new version. Other fixes are: resizing the tags browser no longer causes a crash, you can create notes without titles, and the Edit Page sheet is now resizable and its initial size is larger so you can see more of your page body.

Even the big guy’s web apps go down. Nobody can guarantee 100% availability of your data.

I just released a new version of PackRat. This one adds the ability to create and delete pages. Create pages with the New Page command under the Backpack menu or the Action toolbar button, or the + button at the bottom of the page list. Delete pages with the delete this page link on a page or by pressing the delete or backspace key, or by pressing the – button at the bottom of the page list.

I’ve also added an Activity Viewer for help in tracking down those Backpack commnication problems and there are a few bug fixes. For more details check out the release notes in PackRat Help.

We’re getting close to full editing. All I need to do is add the ability to reorder your lists and add support for editing reminders.

I finally got a new release out. I’ve been having too much fun on the weekends playing tennis and baseball and hanging out with friends.

Anyway, the main event of this release is the addition of link editing. Now there is a New Link command on the action menu and the Backpack menu for creating a link on a new page. There’s an Add link link on a page with existing links. And of course, you can delete links and links are included in synchronization. A nice touch is that you can drag a page in the page list to another page to create a link. There’s a few bug fixes as well. Check the release notes for the details.

I just released PackRat 0.86. This version adds tag editing. You can now add tags to your pages and edit them offline, and they will be sent up to Backpack when you sync. The full release notes are now accessed via the Help command.

Well, I released the new images feature a little too soon. Turns out I was displaying the full image rather than a thumbnail image from the Backpack site. This was really slowing things down for pages with lots of images. So here’s another release to fix this issue and a few others. Here’s the info:

Bug Fixes

- Wasn’t using thumbnails to display images. This really slowed things down.
- image descriptions now support markup
- Pages wouldn’t display if the note titles were empty

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when dragging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Backpack API Bug: Problems syncing pages with unicode characters, HTML/XML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache
- image thumbnails are not cached in images section

PackRat 0.85 has been released. Some good bug fixes in this one. If you’ve had problems uploading your changes to Backpack, there’s a good chance this release will fix that. Another hilight is that you can now see your files and attachments on a page. You have to be online to access, but you can see what’s there. Here’s the info:

New Features

- Now displays a page’s files. You must be online to access them
- Now displays a page’s images. You must be online to access them.

Bug Fixes

- List and note titles were not converting markup to HTML
- Tables now have borders in the page body
- Wasn’t escaping XML characters on page before uploading to Backpack. This was causing sync errors, often reported as a can’t login error.
- Now will handle uploading changes to a page that has been deleted in Backpack
- No longer hangs when you sync and the selected page no longer exists
- Backpack API Bug: Setting page body or note body to empty results in body being
set to — !ruby/hash:HashWithIndifferentAccess {}. Implemented workaround

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when draging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Backpack API Bug: Problems syncing pages with “bad” characters, HTML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache

A high school news web site has a review of software for students who want to get organized. They mention PackRat along with Yojimbo and VoodooPad. Both are excellent applications and its great to be mentioned with them. Check out the review here.

I’ve just released PackRat 0.84. Mostly bug fixes, but now you can create notes and lists on a new page. You couldn’t do that before. You were stuck doing it in Backpack. Here’s the info:

New Features

_ New menu commands to add lists and notes. This also allows adding the first list and note to a page.
_ New Action toolbar button. Pulls up menu of common actions. So far there is new list and new note.

Bug Fixes

- UTF-8 characters such as British pound, etc. would cause Edit links to not appear
- The title field on the note and page sheet wasn’t always selected when the sheet is first displayed.
- If you entered two new notes the first note would take on the text of the second note

Known Bugs

- Tags browser causes crash when draging sizer (awaiting fix in RBSplitView)
- Help needs finishing
- Problems syncing pages with “bad” characters, HTML tags, or quotes in titles
- Images are not loaded if not in cache
- Backpack API Bug: Setting page body or note body to empty results in body being set to — !ruby/hash:HashWithIndifferentAccess {}. Workaround is to blank out the body using Backpack.