[Update - October 28 Apple seeded the final version of Leopard to developers late on Friday. We have been doing compatibility testing through the weekend and are aware of a couple of problems that are being investigated. There is a general problem with assigning hot keys in the menus across the product line. We are investigating this and hope to have a fix shortly.]

With the arrival of Leopard (Mac OS 10.5), we thought it would be a good time to update you on the status of compatibility of our products with the new operating system. The short (and sweet) answer is that, in general, everything works pretty well. There are a couple of caveats, so read on to see the specifics for each product.

Note that all of the testing we have been doing has been with developer preview seeds that Apple periodically distributes to third-party developers. To date we (and other independent software companies) have not received the official GM build of Leopard, so there is always the possibility that Apple has made some last minute change that could cause a problem.

If you have encounter any problems using our applications on Leopard, please send us an email. We are committed to addressing any issues that might crop us as quickly as possible.

You Control

You Control works fine in Leopard, with the exception of two modules, Fast User Switching and Calendar. Leopard has completely redone how it handles iCal events and to dos, so much of the Calendar module is being rewritten to support this. Look for an update to You Control to be released this fall with this functionality.

You Control: Desktops

You Control: Desktops works well under Leopard. As you may be aware, Apple has introduced Spaces in Leopard; this is a virtual desktops application that is basically a simpler version of You Control: Desktops. We think most of you will prefer the configurability and power user features that come with You Control: Desktops.

Note that we currently do not support running Spaces and You Control: Desktops simultaneously, so when you run You Control: Desktops, make sure Spaces is disabled first.

You Control: Fonts

Everything appears to work fine in You Control: Fonts on Leopard.

You Control: Tunes

We have seen no compatibility issues with You Control: Tunes in our testing on Leopard.

[Update - October 28 Unrated stars in the menu bar have a white background; we will fix this in an upcoming update.]

The third beta release of You Control: Desktops 1.3 is now available. Development on 1.3 is winding down, so this may be the last beta release for this version.

Please visit our beta website for additional information about the beta program and the link to the download.

Here’s what’s new in this release:

• Positions of Desktop Items should now be properly preserved between restarts
• Improved how thumbnails are highlighted in the menu bar
• Default highlight color now uses the System’s highlight color
• Fixed a bug that could cause desktop transitions to go in the wrong direction when the desktops are rearranged in the list
• “Stop Engine” option changed to “Quit Engine”. In the configuration application, this option has been moved to the File menu
• Switching menus to Menu Bar Right should now work more reliably
• Fixed bug preventing the configuration application from automatically quitting when the engine is quit
• Minor bug fixes

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of You Control 1.5.1, the award-winning utility for creating custom menus on the Mac. This maintenance update is focused on improving the functionality of the Pasteboard module, as well as providing various fixes to user-reported issues in other modules. The Pasteboard module is one of 19 modules included with You Control. You Control modules are the building blocks that allow users to create a wide variety of custom menus, with all kinds of information directly available from the menu bar.

We recommend that all You Control users running Mac OS X 10.4 and higher update to this version.

Here are the full release notes:

General:

• “Stop Engine” option changed to “Quit Engine”. In the configuration application, this option has been moved to the File menu.
• Added “Always Show Quit Engine” option to the Preferences tab of the configuration application.
• Switching menus to Menu Bar Right should now work more reliably.
• Fixed bug preventing the configuration application from automatically quitting when the engine is quit.
• Assorted minor bug fixes

Pasteboard

• New Feature: Added menu options for removing specific entries and for clearing the entire list.
• Fixed a problem for some users in which pasting would some times paste the wrong item.
• Fixed a bug in which the preview for items copied from Microsoft Word would contain extraneous html.

File System

• Fixed a bug that could cause the preview of some HTML files to crash the application.

Calendar

• Improved parsing of invalid events that could cause the application to crash.

News Reader

• Fixed a bug in which some links were not loaded properly when chosen in the menu.

iTunes

• Changed the search order when loading the user’s library to be more reliable in situations in which the user moves the library to a custom location.