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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 15 February 2016

PopChar X 7.4 — Ergonis Software has issued PopChar X 7.4 with support for displaying all the color flags that are available in Apple Color Emoji. You can also search for country names (rather than use combinations of so-called “regional indicator symbols,” such as “CK” for the Cook Islands flag), and this functionality requires OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite or later (with an extended flag set available in 10.11 El Capitan).

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The character discovery utility also improves metrics adjustments for certain fonts (such as handwriting fonts), fixes a a minor cosmetic issue with the group pop-up button on Retina displays, and improves the app’s clipboard-based insertion technique. (€29.99 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 4.5 MB, release notes, 10.6+)

Read/post comments about PopChar X 7.4.

Piezo 1.5 — Rogue Amoeba has released Piezo 1.5 with the addition of the Instant On component (also found in other Rogue Amoeba titles such as Audio Hijack and Airfoil), which enables the minimalist audio recording app to capture audio from already-running applications. Additionally, Rogue Amoeba has pulled Piezo from the Mac App Store due to Apple’s sandboxing limitations, which made Piezo less and less effective over time. (For more details on Piezo, see “Piezo Makes Audio
Recording Dead Simple
,” 8 December 2011.)

If you previously purchased Piezo from the Mac App Store, you can download it directly from the Rogue Amoeba Web site. The app will recognize Mac App Store buyers and will lead them through a brief, one-time migration process that provides a complimentary license key (make sure to get your license key before recording with Piezo). See this Rogue Amoeba blog post for license migration instructions, as well as more background on Rogue Amoeba’s decision to leave the Mac App Store.


Piezo 1.5 also improves VU meter animation and ensures that the Sparkle-powered software update mechanism runs securely over HTTPS. ($19 new, free update, 8.4 MB, release notes, 10.9+)

Read/post comments about Piezo 1.5.

Hazel 3.3.7 — Noodlesoft has released Hazel 3.3.7, a maintenance update that offers a few fixes for the file cleanup utility. The new version fixes a couple of instances of rules not triggering (where “date last matched” is used and when using “did change”), resolves an issue with events being filtered out in cases where a nested condition used a “sub-file…” target with the file event in a subfolder, and fixes a problem with conditions using “this week/this month/this year…” matching randomly when they shouldn’t. ($29 new, free update, 9.0 MB, release notes, 10.8+)

Read/post comments about Hazel 3.3.7.

1Password 6.0.2 — After releasing 1Password 6.0 (and subsequently version 6.0.1; see “1Password 6 for Mac Adds Teams, Expands Sync Options,” 18 January 2016), AgileBits has now followed up with 1Password 6.0.2, which adds a preference that enables you to control which vault opens when you unlock the password manager. The update also improves the autosave feature to better understand which sites to avoid, renames the Everyone and Your Vault vaults in 1Password for Teams to Shared and Personal to avoid confusion, fixes a bug that prevented 1Password mini from showing
logins for certain site variations (such as showing on amazon.com, but not amazon.co.uk), resolves an issue that caused the Option key to not reveal passwords in 1Password mini, and ensures that anchored 1Password mini windows retain their contents after unlocking.

1Password 6.0.2 is a free update for owners of 1Password versions 4 and 5 (upgrade prices for version 3 and older vary). As of this writing, the Mac App Store version of 1Password remains stalled at version 6.0.1. ($49.99 new from AgileBits and the Mac App Store with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members when purchased from AgileBits, free update, 43.8 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

Read/post comments about 1Password 6.0.2.

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