Version 2.4.1 released

A while back I mentioned a known bug in Alarm Clock that had been really bothering me. The problem occured when the application attempted to play a song that was protected, and the user wasn't authorized to play it. When this happened, QuickTime would pop up a dialog box prompting the user to authenticate, and the alarm would fail to play. Granted this happens very rarely, and probably only affected a few users, but the fact that it might bother even 1 user is enough to keep me up all night working on it.

Well I'm proud to announce that I found a solution for it, and this is no longer a problem as of version 2.4.1. In fact, I tested this problem on my main 2 competitors' apps, and both of them failed. So it looks like I may be the first alarm clock app to solve this little dilemma.

And while the above paragraph might sound like I'm tooting my own horn, my biggest goal is to improve the overall reliability of software alarm clocks. Not simply mine, but all software alarm clocks, especially on the Mac platform. After all, the reason I made my own alarm clock in the first place is because I wasn't satisfied with the reliability of other products on the market. And I'm guessing that my competitors probably read this blog, so this will help motivate them to solve the problem in their own software, giving all of us (no matter what product we use) a more reliable application.

And the other fix I made is a little embarrassing.
I somehow forgot (or deleted it at the last second) the CFBundleName key in the info.plist file of the application. Generally this isn't a big deal at all, except that the Sparkle (auto update) framework relies on this key to function properly. So the auto update feature in version 2.4 is broken. So users will be notified there's an update, and they'll have a button that says "download and install"...except it won't work! The download will work fine, but it will fail to properly install the application! And so users will be left with a broken application on their computer! Oops! (ouch).

Well I've fixed the problem, but users will have to manually download version 2.4.1 from my website.
When they're notified that there's a new version available, the release notes tell the user that the auto update feature is broken, and it provides the user with a link to directly download the file.

My apologies for this goofup! The auto update feature should work flawlessly in the future.

Version 2.4 released

I've had a lot of spare time recently to work on the alarm clock. Why have I had so much spare time? Because an ice storm hit the city that I live in and knocked out power for nearly the entire city. My apartment lost power as well, and it took 2 weeks to get it back! I spent those 2 weeks at my parents house, and at my girlfriend's parents house. There wasn't a whole lot to do of course, so I sat around and coded.

During this time I managed to add 2 new features to the alarm clock that I've been wanting to do for a long time, but have been putting off for some reason. The first thing I did was give the application a proper preferences panel. A standard one with buttons at the top, like this:


The second feature (which is a bit obvious from the image above) is automatic software updates. I've been meaning to get around to this for so long, but never got the chance. Well now it's implemented. In the future, when updates are released, users will automatically be notified, and the downloads can be downloaded and installed with a few clicks!