Webthoughts

I know it's been pretty quiet here lately, but along with some things going on in my personal life, I've been hard at work on the next major version of Print Window. Look for an announcement on this blog very soon (as in, maybe tomorrow...)!

Okay...so I originally promised this on Saturday, but it turns out that it's late Sunday night instead.

The culmination of many months of hard work has finally arrived with the release of the Print Window 3.0 Public Beta. This new version is a major upgrade to Print Window that responds to many user requests as well as some more cool stuff thrown in just because I wanted it.

Some of the new stuff in the new version include:

• The ability to print file listings that can be used as CD covers and DVD covers.
  
• The ability to sort file listings by a variety of criteria.
  
• The ability to manually select what folders should be expanded when printing a file listing.
  
• The ability to change font and size in file listings.
  
• Much more!
  

Also new to this release is the introduction of two versions of Print Window: Print Window Standard and Print Window Advanced. Print Window Standard is freeware and contains many improvements over the previous version of Print Window. Print Window Advanced is $15 shareware and adds additional features over those available in the Standard edition. Both versions of Print Window are included in the same application. The feature set that is available depends on whether a Print Window Advanced serial number has been entered or not.

I have put a lot of research, work and effort into this release. I had a great team of Alpha testers who helped shape the product. I really think Print Window 3.0 is going to be a great product.

I'm making a Public Beta available to help track now any last-minute lingering bugs. Hopefully, those who download the Public Beta will offer their impressions and report any further glitches that I and my Alpha team missed. As an incentive for people to do so, I'm offering a complimentary license to Print Window Advanced to anyone who is first to report a previously unknown bug. See the webpage for further details on this.

The official announcement of the availability of the Public Beta goes out tomorrow! So, if you're reading this on Sunday, you get a sneak peak before everyone else does!

I'm really excited about Print Window 3.0! Hopefully everything is pretty well locked down now so I can provide a quick final release!

Well, in the two days or so that the Print Window 3.0 Public Beta has been available, I've been very pleased at the interest level indicated by the number of downloads as well as initial feedback from users.

There have been some issues that have cropped up that users have reported to me. Some of them appear to be one-shot types of things and others seem to be a recurring theme. The biggest of the latter is an issue where the SearchWare Solutions Crash Detector will appear immediately upon launching the application. Usually this will indicate that the error occured in a method called cApp.checkExpire. I haven't really figured out what is causing this yet as I can not reproduce the problem, but will continue working hard on it until I do.

Remember that, if you report a previously unreported bug, and I can reproduce the problem, there's a free license to Print Window Advanced in it for you!

Print Window 3.0b2 is now available for download. This release fixes a few issues that didn't really show themselves in Alpha testings. A full list of these fixes is available on the Print Window Testing page.

A few more issues still need to be addressed, but I'm looking for Print Window to go final here very soon!