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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 1 June 2015

DEVONthink/DEVONnote 2.8.5 — DEVONtechnologies has updated all three editions of DEVONthink (Personal, Pro, and Pro Office) and DEVONnote to version 2.8.5. The three DEVONthink apps receive native support for ebooks (.epub and .ibooks) and TextBundle files, making them searchable and enabling you to convert them to plain text. All DEVONthink editions improve compatibility with OS X 10.10 Yosemite, enhance PDF text annotations,
add support for files to the sharing extension, and improve Web site export to convert cross-links in Markdown documents, formatted notes, and HTML pages. DEVONthink and DEVONnote also gain the capability to convert Finder labels to internal labels when possible and receive a new DisableFinderTags hidden preference to disable reading and writing of Finder tags. (All updates are free. DEVONthink Pro Office, $149.95 new, release notes; DEVONthink Professional, $79.95 new, release notes; DEVONthink Personal, $49.95 new, release notes; DEVONnote, $24.95 new, release notes; 25 percent discount for TidBITS members on all editions of DEVONthink and DEVONnote. 10.7.5+)

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Audio Hijack 3.1 — Bringing back two popular features, Rogue Amoeba has released Audio Hijack 3.1 with the return of Silence Monitoring and File Actions. Open the File Limits section of the Recorder Block to control how Audio Hijack reacts to silence: remove the silence, start a new recording based on it, or end your recording entirely. For File Actions, select one or more recordings in the Recordings tab of the Home window to pass audio to another audio editor (such as Rogue Amoeba’s Fission), add files to iTunes, or use the Share sheet to send files around via email, iMessage, and more. The audio recording utility
now avoids forced auto-ducking from sources like FaceTime and Mac OS X Dictation, and deals better with audio devices that come and go. The update also adds support for AIFF and WAV recordings with higher sample rates (88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, and 192 kHz), works around QuickTime bugs in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and adds several keyboard shortcuts for turning off and pausing all recordings as well as splitting them. ($49 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update for version 3.0 licenses, $25 upgrade from older versions, 16.0 MB, release notes, 10.9+)

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PopChar X 7.1 — Ergonis Software has released PopChar X 7.1 with extended support for emoji characters. When an emoji character is not available in the current font, it’s now shown in the Apple Color Emoji font to avoid empty cells in the PopChar table. PopChar also shows the names of the emoji skin tone characters. The character discovery utility quickens startup speed, works around a bug in FileMaker that prevented certain characters from being inserted, resolves a problem that caused the character table to scroll to an unexpected offset after a font change, fixes a confusing message when a new version is
available, and improves how registration information is displayed. If you haven’t yet upgraded to version 7, upgrades are priced at €14.99 for a single-user license and €22.99 for a family pack. (€29.99 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 3.8 MB, release notes, 10.6+)

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BBEdit 11.1.1 — Bare Bones Software has issued BBEdit 11.1.1, a compact maintenance release for the venerable text editor. The update fixes a crash that would occur on OS X 10.9 Mavericks when using Save As on a document in the front window, includes language keywords when generating completions for predefined names, resolves a bug in which custom color schemes were written out incorrectly, fixes an issue that prevented certain clipping names (such as !important) from being autocompleted in CSS, fixes a few small memory leaks, and blocks the Silverlight plug-in to prevent BBEdit from crashing. ($49.99, free update,
11.5 MB, release notes, 10.8.5+)

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Little Snitch 3.5.3 — Objective Development has released Little Snitch 3.5.3 with a significant reduction in the CPU load used by the Little Snitch menu bar item. The network monitoring utility also improves compatibility with OS X 10.10.4 Yosemite, fixes a bug that could cause the menu bar item to get stuck in highlight mode, improves searching for denied connections in the Network Monitor, and fixes a problem that prevented editing of multiple rule selections. ($34.95 new, free update, 21.2 MB, release notes, 10.8+)

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OmniFocus 2.2 — The Omni Group has released OmniFocus 2.2 with the capability to customize the Today Extension. All users can choose between Overdue, Due Today, Deferred Until Today, Flagged, and Inbox notifications, while those with the Pro edition can choose a Custom Perspective. The Getting Things Done-inspired task management app now adds unavailable items to badge counts, fixes a bug that would cause a hang after clicking into completion cells in Quick Entry, adds fuzziness to the interval at which OmniFocus syncs while idle to prevent traffic spikes, and fixes several instances of crashes. ($39.99 new for
Standard edition and $79.99 for Pro edition from The Omni Group Web site, $39.99 for Standard edition from Mac App Store (with in-app purchase option to upgrade to Pro), 24 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

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LaunchBar 6.4 — Objective Development has released LaunchBar 6.4 with the addition of the Action Editor, which enables you to quickly create new actions or modify existing actions. You can create new actions from scratch or use script templates, duplicate existing actions and customize them to your needs, configure and modify action scripts with various scripting languages, and manage action resources. The keyboard-based launcher also adds a New Folder with Selection action for multiple selections; enables you to share one or more snippets folders with other computers, co-workers, or friends; ignores currency symbols
during calculations; improves the Instant Calculate feature; fixes unreliable music playback with iTunes 12 when shuffle mode is active; and ensures iCloud documents are opened with the default application. ($29 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 13.2 MB, release notes, 10.9+)

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Microsoft Office 2011 14.5.1 — Microsoft has issued version 14.5.1 of its Office 2011 suite, which fixes a major bug with Outlook that was introduced by the recently released version 14.5 update. Version 14.5.1 patches the same security vulnerability included in version 14.5, which could allow remote code execution from maliciously crafted Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files due to how Office 2011 handled files in memory. However, that previous release rendered Outlook’s main window invisible in OS X 10.10 Yosemite (earlier systems didn’t seem to be affected), and required either a restoration of version 14.4.9 from a backup or a deletion of preferences via Terminal (as noted by this Apple Support discussion thread). It may be worth holding off on installing this latest update for a few days to make sure that the fix is truly in for Outlook’s invisibility cloak. (Free update from the Microsoft Download Center or through Microsoft AutoUpdate, 114
MB, release notes, 10.5.8+)

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