Central Atomics

Rocketbox 1.0.6 available, adds Mac OS X 10.6.5 support

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:17:00 -0600

Hey folks,

A quick update. Rocketbox 1.0.6 is available which adds support for Mac OS X 10.6.5.

Go and download it: http://www.getrocketbox.com/download.html

Release Notes:

Added support for OS X 10.6.5

Rocketbox 1.0.5 available - Adds 10.6.4 compatibility

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:00:32 -0500

A real quick note, I just yesterday released Rocketbox 1.0.5 for Mac OS X 10.6 users. The only change is added support for Mac OS X 10.6.4.

If Mail warns you that Rocketbox is incompatible after upgrading your Mac, than this is the Rocketbox update you need.

That’s all for now!

Download it here: http://www.getrocketbox.com/download.html

Release Notes:

Added support for OS X 10.6.4

Rocketbox 1.0.4 - Urgent upgrade

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:02:00 -0600

Rocketbox 1.0.4 is now available and contains a major bug fix. All users are urged to upgrade immediately, you can download the newest version from http://www.getrocketbox.com/download.html To learn more please continue reading.

Today a Rocketbox user alerted me to a serious bug where registered users can be locked out after 30 days of use. I confirmed this bug, and I’ve put together a fix that is now available as Rocketbox 1.0.4. I am very sorry and embarrassed for letting this bug slip past.

To prevent errors like this in the future, I’m putting together a tighter testing process and offering the beta to more users for longer.

If you have any concerns or questions please contact me.

Release Notes:

Fixes a major bug where even if the user is registered they can get locked out after 30 days

Rocketbox 1.0.3 now available

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:16:49 -0600

Another day, another Rocketbox release! In all seriousness, I didn’t intend on putting out another release so soon. However, I corrected some serious bugs and wanted to get the fixes in user’s hands ASAP. There are two important fixes and one minor tweak that is helpful for users with huge amounts of e-mail.

The first fix is for an issue where some e-mails weren’t being read properly (do to encoding issues). What this means is that some e-mails weren’t being indexed and they were missing from the search results! If you’ve had missing search results this is most likely the culprit. Download this version and it will reindex your e-mail, then try your searches again. If that doesn’t help then get in touch with me at my support page.

The second fix is semi-embarrassing. I have debug hooks in the app that dump logs into ~/Library/Application Support/Rocketbox. Those logs usually get cleaned up and it’s no problem. However, I disabled the code that cleans up the files during testing and forgot to enable it! So there is some crud in that folder, but Rocketbox 1.0.3 will automatically clean it up.

The final tweak is a “hidden” preference for setting how often Rocketbox indexes. I haven’t exposed it in the user interface but I wanted to let the users that really need have it ASAP. You don’t need to change this unless you have tons of e-mail. When I say tons I mean over 250,000 messages. If you do want to change it do this in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.mail RocketboxIndexingPeriod -int 300

This sets Rocketbox to index every 5 minutes (by default it is every minute). The value is in seconds. Once again, you most likely don’t need to change this.

Official release notes are below:

IMPORTANT: This release requires reindexing which happens automatically after launching Mail
Fixes a major bug where some messages were skipped during indexing due to an encoding error.
Adds a hidden preference for controlling the frequency of indexing.
Fixes an error where debug logs weren’t being cleaned up in Application Support

Rocketbox Roadmap

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:45:01 -0600

It’s been a great two and half weeks since launching Rocketbox. Feedback has been pouring in, and now that I’ve had some time to digest it all, I thought I’d outline what I have on the drawing board. This list isn’t final, and it’s in no particular order. You’ll see these features making their way into Rocketbox over the next few months, and I’ll add/remove as is necessary. If you have an idea for a feature and you don’t see it here, drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you. In fact, EVERY feature you see listed was the result of user feedback, so please send feedback.

Results List View

This has been a highly requested feature, and I’m going to add it. Search results will be available in list form, very similar to how Mail currently displays search results. A number of users have wanted this view for looking through lots of results, or for when they are want to sort by a particular column other than date or relevance. Of course this will be an additional view, and you’ll be able to toggle between the current view with inline previews and the list view. I also intend on making the current message previews resizable, so that should also be helpful when viewing lots of results.

Improved search field

Currently you can switch between Mail’s search and Rocketbox by using a menu item located in the View menu. While this works, I’m not satisfied with it. What I’m working on is a menu in the search field itself. It will work like Firefox’s search field, where it shows the icon of the current search engine and provides a menu for setting the active search engine. Rocketbox will work in a similar fashion with the search options being Rocketbox or Mail’s builtin search. Along with this change, the gray stripping in the search field will be removed.

Firefox’s search field as an example:

Full message previews

This is another highly requested feature and it will be coming soon. I’m going to add a full message viewer to the Rocketbox window. When you select a search result it will slide up and show you the entire message. I expect that this will really improve your workflow, making it easier to look through search results.

MailTags integration

You heard me right, MailTags integration! I’m working with the great folks at Indev on adding MailTags support. You’ll be able to filter your search results by tag, project and more. I think you’re really going to like it.

Actions

After finding a message, quite often you want to reply, forward, delete or perform some other action. Right now this is more difficult than it should be. You have to double click on a search result, and then use the toolbar items in Mail to perform your action. I’m going to make this easier, by including common actions right inside Rocketbox.

Search by domain

Finally, search by domain is coming. I never realized how often users search by domain names like apple.com, or att.net. Rocketbox doesn’t support this yet, but that’ll be changing shortly. I’m beefing up the way Rocketbox handles e-mail addresses and providing support for search by domain.

That’s the current list of major features underway. Let me know what you think.

Rocketbox 1.0.2 now available

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:18:51 -0600

I’m happy to announce Rocketbox 1.0.2. It contains a slew of tweaks and bug fixes, so I recommend you upgrade as soon as possible! Starting with this version, the version number is now visible in the title bar of the Rocketbox window. So if you don’t see “Rocketbox 1.0.2” in the title bar, you don’t have the latest version. I also realize manually updating Rocketbox is a pain, and don’t worry, the next version will use Sparkle to provide automatic updating.

So head over and download Rocketbox 1.0.2.

Here is the complete list of release notes.

Relevance/Date sort-by’s position is now saved across quitting and launching Mail
Now scrolls to the top of the results when doing a new search
Escape key and command-period now clear search field text
Rocketbox’s connection is now only visible on the local machine, there is no longer an external open port
In Mail search mode, Mail’s filters work again
In Mail search mode, search as you type works again
After clearing out the search field the progress bar no longer spins endlessly
On some machines valid e-mails were being removed from the Rocketbox index, this no longer occurs
Escape key closes registration window
More installer tweaks, should install more reliably
Few tweaks of in app text

Rocketbox 1.0.1 now available!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:15:00 -0600

Rocketbox 1.0.1 is available, with some bug fixes and the single most requested feature!

Users have been clamoring for the ability to switch between Mail’s standard search and Rocketbox search, that feature is now available! I’ve added a handy menu item to Mail that lets you toggle Rocketbox search on and off in the toolbar. Check out the screen shot to see what I mean.

When Rocketbox is turned on you’ll see the gray striped search field, and when Mail’s search is toggle you’ll see a plain white search field.

Also included are a few bug fixes. For users that have had trouble installing, make sure to download this release, it should take care of the install problems. Here are the complete release notes:

Now includes a handy menu item located in the View menu that can temporarily disable Rocketbox. Useful for if you need to use the standard Mail search.
The installer has been improved, so fewer users should have problems with installation.
Now properly follows symbolic links when indexing

Download the new version now

Welcome!

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:42:43 -0600

Welcome to the Rocketbox blog!

I’ll be posting announcements, tidbits, power user tips, and company information, so stay tuned for more!