Fennel Software's Blog

fennel DVDManager: How to Register?

2008-04-15T10:21:00.011+02:00

OK…  So starting with v1.7.5, you can register your very own copy of fennel DVDManager either through our Welcome dialog:

or via the new DVDManager > Register DVDManager… menu item:

A sheet should then pop, waiting for your DML-based license file to be picked:

Just click the Open button… et voilà: you're now a registered user of fennel DVDManager :) !

No confirmation message is gonna be displayed, but there are 2 hints to check whether registration is successfully completed: 1. The li'l Donate button that used to be located at the bottom of the main window should no longer appear.  2. The aforementioned Register DVDManager… menu item should now be labelled Unregister DVDManager….

Note: We're now in the process of sending your very own license file, dear donators+contributors.  So thanks for your patience in the meantime.  And for newcomers, be assured we'll do our best to send yours in the minutes/hours(/days?) following your donation.  (Anyway, you can always contact us if you're worried about not having received yours 'cause mistakes from our side, deprecated e-mail addresses, and/or anonymous donations alas do happen…  Thanks!)

New Version 1.7.5 Available

2008-04-15T10:11:00.005+02:00

We're really glad today to announce a new version of fennel DVDManager to the (Mac)world! Now with a more modern, shiny refresh of its user interface, and a couple of enhancements/bug fixes, it also features a new, non-intrusive registration mechanism which will allow us, over the time, to thank our donators+contributors a bit more for their great support and precious help. Stay tuned for a step-by-step new post on this very subject in the coming minutes(/hours)…

Versions 1.7+ are Amazon-ready!

2008-03-12T12:30:00.004+01:00

As you may have heard, Amazon E-Commerce Web Service 3.0 is scheduled to be shut down on March 31, 2008. As a consequence and if you're on Tiger or Leopard, please be sure you're at least running version 1.7 of fennel DVDManager to keep on enjoying Amazon retrievals. As always, you can grab our latest build from: http://www.fennelsoftware.com/dvdmanager/

fennel DVDManager v1.7.1

2008-01-26T11:12:00.000+01:00

This is a quick post to announce the immediate release of our new version 1.7.1. If the biggest addition is the support for Andy MATUSCHAK's Sparkle module—which will allow us to silently push new updates, faster—, this new build is recommended to all of our users 'cause it also embeds some neat enhancements+fixes re your Amazon and IMDb requests. Enjoy :) !

fsDM hits v1.7

2007-12-11T15:57:00.000+01:00

We're really excited to announce the immediate availability of fennel DVDManager v1.7. This new major version—now qualified for Mac OS X v10.5.1 (Leopard)—packs some nice fixes, some welcome enhancements, and even some long overdue new features!

Unless you still depend on Mac OS X v10.3 (Panther)—alas incompatible now—, we're pretty sure you'll like this solid version which features a brand new Amazon engine (incl. support for .ca and .fr websources), completion for authors, some updated, more-powerful-than-ever DVDFr and IMDb engines, the return of our Synchronize and Update actions, and much more!

So, go grab our latest cookie from our website while it's hot, and enjoy ;) !

fsDM & Leopard

2007-11-03T10:13:00.000+01:00

Hi there! Just a quick note to say that, if we're not ready to personally report re Leopard, some of our users were since Day One—and did (thx!) So the good news is that fsDM seems to be working just fine on this new major version of Mac OS X! And with increased "snappiness" thanks to some optimisations from Apple!!! Yay! You can thus upgrade your system with no fear now that you're aware your favo(u)rite piece of software will still be alive once "there" ;) ! Enjoy.

ALERT: Amazon-based Web Sources at Risk

2007-05-21T00:59:00.000+02:00

Dear fsDM Users,

Through this alert bulletin, we'd like to let you know that we're now aware of problems re the retrieval of DVD details through Amazon-based Web sources. We'd also like to tell you that we've already started investigating what could be the cause of such an issue, and we'll try to keep you informed of our progress towards solving it. Be assured we'll do our best to get your beloved DVD manager back and running as expected as soon as possible. But we don't ignore the possibility that those Web sources may be temporarily removed from fsDM if a new implementation of those retrieval mechanisms was going to be needed…

We're really sorry for the inconvenience, and we'd like to thank you all for your patience and understanding in the meantime.

— The Team

(Credit goes to Graham E. for reporting this alert to us.)

New Build 44 Available

2007-04-05T02:43:00.000+02:00

The subject of this post says it all :) ! Indeed, you can grab a new build of fennel DVDManager to stay up-to-date with the recent changes that once again occurred on the IMDb servers. And you're plain right in thinking we strongly advise you to update your environment… Thanks.

New Build 43 Available

2007-02-23T23:56:00.000+01:00

We've just silently released a new build on our website, fennelsoftware.com. This new archive adds support for IMDbPro items, and fixes a li'l localisation detail for our German users. More importantly, this build also updates our retrieval mechanism following the recent changes that occurred on IMDb servers. So once again, we advise you to upgrade your environment to this [la/grea]test build. Thx!

(1st) Ad Campaign Launched

2007-01-13T12:58:00.000+01:00

As recently announced in a previous post, and thanks to MacBidouille/HardMac teams, fennel DVDManager is currently being freely promoted on their websites!

This is of course super-neat, and we'd like once again to thank them for their efforts to helping us, freeware software developers for the world's most advanced OS, as Apple would have said ;) !

We also want to thank Caroline B., Basheer D., Karine F., Olivier G., Emmanuel M., Helen T., and Dov TS., some of our users who've helped producing the final banners. As previously said, they're all entitled for a "Donator" status!

Here they are, followed by the corresponding HTML code needed to redirect your user to the right localized webpage, in case you'd like to help spread the word from your own website/blog :) !

English Banner:

<a href="http://fennelsoftware.com/"><img src="http://fennel.free.fr/shared/gfx/fennelDVDManager_EN.gif" border="0" alt="fennel DVDManager"></a>

French Banner:

<a href="http://fennelsoftware.com/fr/"><img src="http://fennel.free.fr/shared/gfx/fennelDVDManager_FR.gif" border="0" alt="fennel DVDManager"></a>

We've always wanted to produce such resources for helping promote our li'l project, but we didn't take the time 'till now. So, in a way, MacBidouille/HardMac also helped us find the time needed :) ! We of course plan to enrich those resources with some Web badges and other banners in the future, but feel free to use any of the previous materials right now. Thanks in advance.

And… that's it for today ;) !

fsDM is SixFiles Editor's Choice

2007-01-05T16:33:00.000+01:00

Just a quick blurb to note that we grabbed an Editor's Choice award from SixFiles.com!
Look or Click (for a bigger screenshot):

Oh, and fsDM has also been highlighted in their Featured Software section:

Note: If you read anything on us (be it on the Web, or in the press, etc.), feel free to bring it to our ears 'cause we'd be delighted to read it as well ;) ! Thanks in advance.

New Build 42 Available

2006-12-29T15:33:00.000+01:00

This new archive fixes a nasty regression affecting the editing of Notes (sorry about that…) and also works around a minor bug introduced in v1.6.7—where one may sometimes see 2 Help menus (gasp). So please re-download our latest version; it's vastly recommended to all. Thanks and, while we're at it… Happy New Year to all of you!

Side Note: Wow! We've just pushed build 42 out at 3:33…

Call for Talented Users: We Need You!

2006-12-21T00:10:00.000+01:00

Good news: in a gentle attempt to support freeware development on our beloved platform, we've just been offered an ad placement to promote fennel DVDManager on macbidouille.com, a popular French Mac news site.
Bad news: our team may not have the talent needed to produce a high quality banner :( !

Good news: it's an opportunity for you, our loyal users, to help us design such a banner and then to actively participate in spreading the word around!
Bad news: it's rather "urgent" 'cause we'd like to target this holiday season! (Deadline? As soon as we get a valid candidate; so send yours early and often ;) !)

Good news: we'd be glad to grant some of you a "Donator" status—which means access to some internal builds of our products, news, and much more… So don't hesitate to send us cool ideas, catchy texts, early sketches or, even better, final banners! Thanks in advance.
Bad news: there's no more bad news to report ;) !

Now, some technical details: the banner has to be 468x60; in PSD (best), PNG (better), or JPG (good) if static; in Flash (best) or GIF (good) if animated; and it has to be localisable, hence the recommendation for the PSD format and its support for layers 'cause we're targeting both French AND English.

And to conclude, here is what we envision at the moment: the final banner should display our application icon, with our product name—fennel DVDManager—, and a brief, catchy description/motto, like "Manage the workflow of your DVDs. Simply."… but better :P ! (Dunno if some "Free" tag should be mentioned…)

OK… So it's time again to build something great to promote fennel DVDManager to our fellow Mac users+switchers! We're eager to see what some talented people can produce ;) !

Version 1.6.7 is out

2006-12-09T16:27:00.000+01:00

Hi there. This new maintenance version is mainly released today to address some recent changes that occurred on IMDb sources. You'll see that it also embarks some nice enhancements which were initially planned for v1.7… There's however a drawback in getting v1.6.7 today: we've alas been forced to deactivate our Synchronize and Update actions in this release :( ! Hopefully they'll get back as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we thought you'd better get back *now* the clean retrieval mechanism for IMDb you love instead… But for now, let's enjoy v1.6.7 :) !

fsDM on iusethis

2006-09-10T12:27:00.000+02:00

We've just added a new iusethis badge on this blog and on the product page of fennel DVDManager as well. It is meant to ease the process of registering your "vote" re the use of our li'l app. If you don't know this neat new service for the Mac community, we encourage you to discover it 'cause it's even fun to use, really.

So, if you're a (somewhat) happy user of fennel DVDManager, please use it to let us know you're kind of appreciating our efforts to deliver a simple, yet efficient DVD manager for our beloved platform… and then the counter will grow :) ! Thanks in advance.

Note: At the time of this post, the left-sided counter was stating "26usethis." And we know that we can do better, much better ;) !

Back to Supporting Panther

2006-09-03T23:35:00.000+02:00

Thanks to Gaël F., a generous donator, and with the help of Thierry G., we're today glad to say that we're ready to fully support Panther again. Yay!

While a couple of bugs previously reported to us on this platform have to—and now can—be ironed out, we've already been able to validate fennel DVDManager v1.6.6 to be compatible with Mac OS X v10.3 (instead of being restricted to Mac OS X v10.3.9 and above).

However please keep in mind that, due to limited resources, our top priority is still to provide the best support for Tiger… while being fully committed to solving any issue reported on Panther.

So thanks for your ongoing feedback; and thanks again to Gaël, from all of our users who are still using Panther as their primary system.

fsDM v1.6.6 is out

2006-08-16T03:12:00.000+02:00

Hi There.

We've just released a brand new maintenance version of our simple, yet efficient DVD manager for Mac OS X. The main goal of this release was to update our retrieval mechanism following the recent changes that occurred on the DVDFr source.

But let's just finish this (short) post by a cool story: it appears that we've registered this new version on VersionTracker "just after" Apple's Boot Camp 1.1 beta, as depicted here:

Isn't this neat :) ?

Universal Binary

2006-03-04T18:44:00.000+01:00

At last, starting from v1.6.5, fennel DVDManager is now available as a Universal Binary. This means that it's not only PowerPC-, but also Intel-compatible. Yay!

fsDM v1.6.3 (37)

2005-12-28T10:15:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we've released yet another new minor version of our product (build 36). The main goal of this release was to bring a brand new Dutch localisation to our users (Thanks Bas!), but also to fix a nasty regression some of you experienced re our Find As You Type feature.

Today we're releasing another build (37) simply to complete our Spanish localisation. So there's no need to download again the Standard package if you're not using fsDM in such a language since no other change has been done. Thanks for your attention.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2005-12-24T20:31:00.000+01:00

The subject says it all ;) ! Thanks to all our contributors, donators, and users for their help, support, and feedback during '05. Even if the year has not ended yet, we give you rendezvous in '06 ;) !

All the best & Take care…

On the Road to Tiger

2005-04-29T10:24:00.000+02:00

Or "A tutorial to get your DVD library back once on Mac OS X v10.4":

* If you chose to upgrade from Mac OS X "Panther" (or "Jaguar"), you shouldn't have anything to do: your user's account should be preserved, your data still available; you'd only have to launch (and enjoy using) fennel DVDManager under Tiger.

* If you chose to clean install Mac OS X "Tiger" (i.e., through some formatting of your startup volume), be sure you've backup-ed your entire "DVDManager" folder (which is located in your user's account "Library" folder) before running this erasing installation process: you can either use Finder's File > Create Archive of "DVDManager" menu item (good), or our new File > Export DVD Library to Desktop action from fsDM v1.6 (recommended).

Once under Tiger, you'd only have to expand this ZIP archive into your new user's account "Library" folder, for fennel DVDManager to transparently load your data back on its next launch.

Don't hesitate to contact us for any question… We wish you the smartest transition to Tiger ;) !

fsDM & Mac OS X v10.3.9

2005-04-16T11:52:00.000+02:00

After updating to Mac OS X v10.3.9, some users may have issues when trying to launch fennel DVDManager :( ! FYI, Apple just released Java Update for Mac OS X v10.3.9 (Download — 1 MB) which resolves that issue.

"Lite" Version for Dial-up Users

2005-02-04T09:56:00.000+01:00

Now that our Internationalisation efforts are visible again (FYI, v1.5.1 packs 5 external localisations thanks to our smart contributors), the weight of our "Standard" package is obviously increasing…

As a consequency, we'd like to inform our dial-up users that we'll now provide a "Lite" version of our releases: with only one (1) internal localisation bundled ("English" if taken from our English page; "French", from our French one), it should come slightly thereafter each release. Hope this helps.

fsDM in the Press

2005-02-03T13:10:00.000+01:00

This month edition of the French magazine "Univers Mac" (N° 157 — February '05) features a comparison between 3 DVD catalogers for Mac OS X. Okay, we may finish 3rd here; but the cool thing is that we're not that far behind our "competitors" (and it was already great to have been chosen as an alternative…)

However, the big news is that our just-released v1.5.1 has been qualified to be included in the April issue of Macworld (US)—which will be out during… March!

So, thanks to Pierre, Tim, and all of you for spreading the word around!

Note to Anonymous Donators…

2005-01-30T13:52:00.000+01:00

You might know that our kind donators are granted an exclusive, password-protected access to previews of our next releases… But we have to know who they are ;) !

So anonymous donators, please send us a little e-mail to be added to our list (this is especially true with Amazon gifts since no notification is sent!) Otherwise, we have no means to send you your password once a new "Donator Preview" is available :( ! Thanks in advance.

"Int'l" package no more

2005-01-30T13:45:00.000+01:00

We're taking a new direction regarding Internationalisation… Our "Int'l" package effort may be declared "dead", but it's good news :) !

Indeed, localisations are now 1^st class citizens; they'll be part of any new fsDM version, and will be updated alongside code. So, thanks again for your patience during this rather long English/French-only period ;) !

Happy New Year 2005!

2005-01-01T23:47:00.000+01:00

We'd like to sincerely wish you the best for 2005! This is going to be a great year for fennel DVDManager ;) ! So, stay tuned… Thanks in advance.

fsDM v1.4.2 (v19)

2004-12-29T11:43:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to let you know that a new build (v19) of fsDM 1.4.2 was just uploaded to our servers—following yesterday's build (v18). It includes a new bug fix where previews didn't "stick" when updated from the Internet. Thanks to Xavier L. for the bug report, and sorry for the inconvenience :( !

The wait is over for French-speaking users!

2004-11-08T13:59:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to note that a French-based source (DVDFr) is now available with fennel DVDManager v1.3. Hooray ;) !

Note: We'll still add "Amazon (CA)" & "Amazon (FR)" sources if—one day—their access is opened to developers…

A visual guided tour of fsDM v1.2

2004-10-05T07:24:00.000+02:00

The Swiss website "Cuk" has recently delivered an impressive review of fennel DVDManager v1.2. The good news is they've really appreciated what they've seen—bringing on some cool ideas! (The "bad" news could be that their review is only available in French…) Thanks for spreading the word around!

"Donator Preview" program started!

2004-09-21T02:28:00.000+02:00

As a "Thank you!" to our donators, we initiated this action to give them some privileged access to our development builds; be part of our adventure, help us draw the future of fennel DVDManager! Visit our product page, Download our current development build & Enjoy!

Note: Those archives are password-protected… As a donator, you'll be personally warned by e-mail on any new "Donator Preview" package.

Embrace fennel DVDManager!

2004-09-13T04:33:00.000+02:00

Since our new v1.1 *at last* provides a CSV import, there's no reason left for not jumping into our (leading) platform :) ! Come on & Manage the workflow of your DVDs with Style ;) ! Give it a try, and please spread the word around you: fennel DVDManager v1.1 is out!

Amazon (CA) & Amazon (FR)

2004-09-12T23:55:00.000+02:00

You might have noticed we don't currently provide Amazon (CA) & Amazon (FR) as sources for our Retrieve action… Indeed, we're waiting for Amazon to give its developers access to content from amazon.ca and amazon.fr. It's planned, but they're late :( ! We're sorry for the inconvenience, but be assured we'll do our best to provide them as soon as available. Thanks for your understanding.

fennel DVDManager v1.0

2004-08-31T22:23:00.000+02:00

Alongside new Apple's iMac G5 and Björk's Medúlla (sigh), Fennel Software is very proud to introduce fennel DVDManager to the Mac community.

In a few words, our 1^st product is meant to simply, but efficiently manage the workflow of your DVDs—and not to build an extensive, highly-detailed database of your DVD library.

We decided to "offer" it as a donationware for our loyal users to decide if/when/how our work, time and efforts deserve some support.
Note: PayPal donations or gifts from our Amazon Wish List are more than welcome…

We hope you'll enjoy it! And don't hesitate to contact us (fennel[at]free[dot]fr) for any feedback. Thanks in advance.

Here we go ;) !

2004-08-14T18:37:00.000+02:00

This is the 1^st post of Fennel Software's new blog! So, welcome aboard; and let's start building something *great* all together :) !