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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 26 August 2013

Keyboard Maestro 6.2 — Stairways Software has released Keyboard Maestro 6.2 with a number of new capabilities in the macro utility, mostly related to Apple Mail (see “Keyboard Maestro 6 Automates Web Pages, Adds Macro Syncing,” 21 May 2013). There are now actions to send and flag messages, along with a number of tokens and status functions to enhance those capabilities. Other new features include the capability to format AppleScript in the Execute AppleScript action, access to Keyboard Maestro variables in JavaScript scripts, the capability to reopen windows in the
Application Switcher by holding down the Option key, and an updated Markdown library from Andreas Zeitler. Keyboard Maestro 6.2 also offers a number of bug fixes. ($36 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, $25 upgrade from previous versions, 25.4 MB, release notes)

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ReadKit 2.3 — Webin has updated the RSS client and read-later app ReadKit to version 2.3 with a number of requested features and bug fixes. In my original review (see “ReadKit for Mac Is Almost the Perfect Reading App,” 8 July 2013), I complained about how two of the most popular read-later services, Instapaper and Pocket, were absent from ReadKit’s share menu. Instead, you had to drag and drop articles into those services, which, in the case of Instapaper, required a premium subscription. Developer Balazs Varkonyi has responded, adding Instapaper, Pocket, Readability, Pinboard, and Delicious to the share menu. All five services have their own keyboard shortcuts for fast sharing, and ReadKit no longer requires a premium Instapaper account for sharing.

Another requested feature implemented in ReadKit 2.3 is the capability to group articles by date or source. You can set a default for sorting, and you can set individual preferences in each smart folder.

ReadKit 2.3 makes major improvements in handling network connectivity. In the previous version, I had constant notifications that ReadKit couldn’t connect to one service or another, even if the problem was only momentary. Now, ReadKit is much more tolerant of outages, and even allows you to archive, star, and delete articles while offline.

The update also brings a number of fixes for bugs related to searching in smart folders, handling of Fever feeds that belong to multiple folders, and fetching starred items from Feed Wrangler and NewsBlur. ($4.99 new from the Mac App Store, free update, 3.8 MB, release notes)

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PDFpen and PDFpenPro 6.0.5 — Preparing for the upcoming release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Smile has updated PDFpen and PDFpenPro to version 6.0.5 to fix OCR functionality, the scribble tool, and the Populate Script menu on Apple’s next-generation operating system. The updates also add several printing improvements, including an added option to print selected pages from the sidebar; support for printing multiple, non-contiguous selections of pages; and enhanced printing via AppleScript. Other changes include an added dictionary lookup using a three-finger tap (on 10.8
Mountain Lion and later), and improved performance with encrypted PDFs and PDFs containing inline images. The Mac App Store versions of PDFpen and PDFpenPro also add the standard OS X iCloud file open dialog. ($59.95/$99.95 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update from version 6.0, 50.0/50.8 MB)

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