EagleFiler 1.5.8 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• EagleFiler can now import rich text copied or dragged from Firefox and Google Chrome.
• Made various optimizations to improve the responsiveness of the user interface, particularly when resizing the main browser window.
• Searches by Filename, Title, From, and To/Cc, as well as matching in smart folders, are now diacritic-insensitive. For example, you can now search for resume and find résumé. (Anywhere and Notes searches have always been diacritic-insensitive.)
• Added the Copy Filename, Copy File Path, and Copy File URL AppleScripts.
• Added support for Growl notifications via GNTP (requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later).
• When printing an image, EagleFiler will now center it and scale it down, as necessary, to fit the paper.
• The Import From Apple Mail script now works in Full Screen mode on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• EagleFiler now skips importing temporary files for Microsoft Excel and invisible files from IntegrityChecker.
• Tried to work around a bug in Mac OS X 10.6 that could cause EagleFiler to open multiple copies of the same library.
• The update checksum script command is now synchronous, and it gains an optional for parameter that takes a list of records. This is much faster for bulk operations.
• When rebuilding a library, EagleFiler now restores all the tags, not just the ones that were in use.
• EagleFiler is better at checking fallback locations when reading OpenMeta tags.
• EagleFiler is better at handling errors when setting OpenMeta tags.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler could crash after a token field malfunction.
• Fixed a bug importing the selected Web text from newer versions of Safari Reader.
• Fixed a bug displaying e-mail messages when the Source URL column was shown.
• Fixed a bug where the color of newly created tags could be set to white instead of black.
• Fixed a bug where the wrong tag could be applied if you clicked a checkbox in the Tags inspector while renaming a tag.
• Fixed a bug that could lead to a tag temporarily not showing in the source list after changing its position in the hierarchy.
• EagleFiler’s reporting of unexpected errors is now more detailed and more robust.
• The Importing Mail From Outlook section of the manual now explains how to use a smart folder to capture mail from multiple Outlook folders at once.
• The manual now specifically recommends telling iWork applications to include previews with their documents.
• The direct build of EagleFiler is now code-signed, too.
• Cache folders for EagleFiler’s helper tools now have a reverse domain name prefix.
• The preferences for the Apple Mail capture script are now stored in the main EagleFiler preferences file.
• Launched applications no longer inherit EagleFiler’s Python environment variables, which could cause problems if they also used Python.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

2012-01-24: EagleFiler 1.5.8 was submitted to the Mac App Store.

2012-01-26: EagleFiler 1.5.8 is now available from the Mac App Store.

EagleFiler 1.5.7 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Added support for Growl 1.3.
• Added support for importing hierarchies of mailboxes from Apple Mail on Mac OS X 10.7 via drag and drop from the Finder.
• The Import From Instapaper via NetNewsWire script lets you quickly import all your new Instapaper articles into EagleFiler.
• The Replace in Filenames (Regex) script lets you batch-rename files using regular expressions.
• On Mac OS X 10.7, EagleFiler supports emoji tag abbreviation pictures.
• Various operations, such as arrow-keying through the records list, are faster and more responsive.
• EagleFiler can now display previews for OmniGraffle documents that are internally compressed.
• Added the PrefersRichText esoteric preference, which can be used if you want the EagleFiler: Import service, Import From Clipboard, and New Record ‣ From Clipboard to create plain text files instead of rich text files.
• The commands in the Go menu now bring the focus to the source list for more predictable keyboard navigation.
• Improved capturing of large batches of messages from Microsoft Outlook.
• The Info inspector can now be opened via Command-I as well as Command-Option-I.
• Records now have a universal type identifier scripting property, which should make certain kinds of AppleScripts much easier to write.
• Pressing the Esc key will now cancel editing in the source list or records list (for consistency with Finder).
• Clarified the error message when importing non-standard-format archive mailboxes from Apple Mail.
• You can now use the ImportSkipFilenamePattern default to specify a regular expression. When EagleFiler imports a folder, any files whose names match the pattern will be skipped.
• EagleFiler no longer maintains the same default note text between multiple invocations of Capture with options. This behavior can be reversed via the RememberCaptureNotesState default.
• Fixed a bug where, in rare cases, files imported via the To Import folder were incorrectly thought to be duplicates if they had the same names as files that had been previously imported and recently moved.
• Fixed a bug where an AppleScript would hang if it tried to start a scan for new files while another scan was already in progress.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler sometimes thought that files whose names ended with a period were missing.
• Fixed a bug reporting Spotlight importer errors.
• Fixed a bug where the contents of the Quick Look window weren’t always updated before it was shown, leading to flicker.
• Fixed a bug importing locally stored Web pages.
• Fixed a problem with saved view state and Full Screen mode.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash if there was an internal error launching a helper tool.
• Fixed a bug where the = character wasn’t always treated as a word separator in phrase searches.
• Added logging to help track down tag completion errors.
• Updated the French localization.
• Added a 1024×1024 application icon.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

2011-12-07: EagleFiler 1.5.7 was submitted to the Mac App Store.

2011-12-12: EagleFiler 1.5.7 is now available from the Mac App Store.

EagleFiler 1.5.6 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Adjusted the fonts, styles, and colors in the Tag Cloud window so that it’s easier to read.
• EagleFiler’s viewer displays more information for vCard files: categories, notes, phonetic/maiden/related names, related dates, social network profile URLs, etc.
• Added the Remove Duplicate Files script.
• Added the Import From Scanner script. Save this script as an application and set it as the target of your scanner software (e.g. the Fujitsu ScanSnap Manager). When you scan a file, EagleFiler will prompt you to enter a title and other metadata and then import the scan into your library.
• EagleFiler’s capture key now works with Opera 11.50.
• It is now possible to empty a library’s trash via AppleScript.
• When editing plain text or RTF files on Mac OS X 10.7, EagleFiler no longer uses atomic (a.k.a. safe) saving because this exposes bugs in Lion’s file versioning feature, causing interoperability problems with applications such as TextEdit if you’re editing the same file in more than one application at a time.
• EagleFiler now takes you out of search mode when you click on a different source. You can restore the old behavior via the ClearSearchWhenChangingSources esoteric preference if desired.
• Added the PDFWebBackgrounds esoteric preference, which can be used to prevent EagleFiler from drawing colored backgrounds when importing a Web page in PDF format.
• Added the ErrorsOpenForDuplicates esoteric preference. Normally, EagleFiler will open the Errors window when a file has been skipped during an import because it’s a duplicate. However, you can also set EagleFiler to log the error without opening the window, for example if you expect there to be duplicates and don’t care to see them reported.
• Added the TextToolSkippedNames esoteric preference so that it’s now possible to skip indexing of files that cause Core PDF to hang.
• EagleFiler is better at closing a library while operations are in progress.
• Worked around an OS bug so that EagleFiler is once again able to capture from smart mailboxes in Apple Mail.
• EagleFiler’s Spotlight importer plug-in works better with FoxTrot.
• The default plain text font is now Menlo 11 rather than Monaco 10.
• Fixed a problem where the window title would be too long if you had a large number of sources selected.
• Fixed a bug that could in rare circumstances cause EagleFiler to create two records for a single file.
• Fixed a bug importing a legacy/archive Apple Mail .mbox package via Scan for New Files.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler wouldn’t give up on rebuilding a mailbox when the file didn’t exist.
• Updated various screenshots and documentation.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

2011-10-03: EagleFiler 1.5.6 was submitted to the Mac App Store.

2011-10-10: EagleFiler 1.5.6 is now available from the Mac App Store.

EagleFiler 1.5.5 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Fixed some bugs that could prevent EagleFiler from capturing messages from Apple Mail under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (particularly if Mail contained a large number of messages or an IMAP path prefix was in effect).
• Added text editing toolbar for setting the font, style, size, etc. when editing rich text documents (requires Mac OS X 10.7 Lion).
• EagleFiler is now able to capture from Apple Mail when it’s in Full Screen mode. However, due to limitations of the OS, capturing will not work in Full Screen mode if you have multiple Mail viewer windows open.
• Updated the Using EagleFiler’s Capture Key From Preview instructions for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• Added the Refetch Web page script, which can be used to convert bookmarks to Web archives (or other formats), to download the latest versions of pages that may have been updated, and more. Any existing metadata that you’ve added is transferred to the new files.
• The Word Count script now shows the number of words in the current selection, as well as the total number of words in the document.
• Added the MediaStylePDF esoteric preference so that it is now possible to override the stylesheet that EagleFiler uses when saving a Web page as a PDF.
• It is now possible to replace a library’s Files folder with an alias to redirect it to another location.
• When opening a large batch of files in Preview, they now appear in a single window, and this also avoids a -1712 error that Preview would report when told to open the files individually.
• The Import Bookmarks… command now works with format-html files from Pinboard that have no file extension when downloaded by certain browsers.
• When creating a new mailbox file, EagleFiler now assigns it HFS type 'TEXT' so that Entourage and Outlook will know that they can import it.
• Updated the Export… instructions for Outlook.
• Removed NOT from the documented search syntax, since it doesn't work with Match Partial Words. Instead, you should use - or ! to exclude matches that contain a particular word.
• When using Reveal in Library in the Errors window, the relevant browser window is now brought to the front.
• EagleFiler no longer adds a list of recent libraries to its Dock menu when running under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, since this is now a built-in feature of the Dock.
• Improved the indexing of Microsoft Office documents.
• Improved various error messages when capturing.
• Fixed a bug where the Import Bookmarks… feature would create a tag with a blank name if the bookmarks did not have any tags.
• Fixed a bug where the contextual menu in the Tags window didn’t work under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• Fixed a bug where capturing from NetNewsWire didn’t work if the item had no title.
• Fixed a bug with smart folders that use source URL criteria.
• Reduced EagleFiler’s memory usage by removing a workaround for a PDF bug that seems to have been fixed in the final release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• The manual now explains how to open the Library folder on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler’s Spotlight importer for .eml files didn’t work properly under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Now, it works, although its functionality is limited due to sandbox restrictions.
• Fixed a bug with re-personalizing via an x-eaglefiler URL.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

SpamSieve and Lion’s Apple Mail

Summary: After updating to Lion, Apple Mail will not automatically launch SpamSieve. After launching Apple Mail for the first time, you must manually launch SpamSieve once (e.g. by clicking its icon in the Dock). Thereafter, Apple Mail will automatically launch SpamSieve, and everything will behave normally.

If you’re updating from Snow Leopard, the first time you launch Apple Mail under Lion it may disable SpamSieve’s plug-in. While the plug-in is disabled, Mail will not auto-launch SpamSieve, you will not see the SpamSieve commands in Mail’s Message menu, and Mail will move all new messages to the Spam mailbox without consulting SpamSieve.

For most users this will not be a problem, as a few new messages are easily dragged back to the inbox. (There’s no need to train them as good, since SpamSieve didn’t think they were spam.) However, if you’d like to prevent any messages from being misfiled, you can, before updating to Lion, open Mail’s Preferences window, go to the Rules tab, and uncheck the SpamSieve rule. This will temporarily disable it.

To get SpamSieve and Mail working again, just launch the SpamSieve application (e.g. by clicking on its icon in the Dock). It will detect that the plug-in has been disabled and automatically re-install it. (If, for some reason, this does not happen automatically, you can choose “Install Apple Mail Plug-In” from the SpamSieve menu.) If you had unchecked the SpamSieve rule, go back to Mail’s preferences and check it to re-enable SpamSieve.

EagleFiler’s Capture Key and Lion’s Apple Mail

Use of the capture key is currently not recommended with Apple Mail on Lion. It does not work when Mail is in full screen mode, and for some users it will report errors when capturing messages or import the messages as a complicated folder structure instead of a mailbox file. An update to address these issues is forthcoming, and you can contact technical support if you’d like to try a pre-release build of EagleFiler.

Update: This is fixed in EagleFiler 1.5.5.

EagleFiler 1.5.4 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Added the Import Bookmarks… feature, for importing from Delicious, Pinboard, and browsers such as Safari. EagleFiler will preserve the tags, titles, and descriptions that you’ve set, as well as the original bookmarking date.
• EagleFiler can now capture from the Cruz Web browser.
• EagleFiler can now capture the current tab from the NewsRack RSS reader. It saves the selected text in a note.
• When capturing from NetNewsWire, the selected Web page text is now saved in a note.
• EagleFiler now works in full screen mode on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).
• When importing from Safari Reader (via drag and drop or the service), EagleFiler can now detect the proper URL for the original page.
• Made some changes so that Web pages imported as PDFs no longer have duplicate copies of certain dynamic elements such as ads.
• Importing Web pages as PDFs is faster.
• You can now type Command-Return (or Enter, as before) to dismiss the Capture with options, Quick entry, and Batch Change… dialogs.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for switching between the tabs in the Capture with options and Quick entry windows.
• When dragging from the records list or the source list to the Finder, EagleFiler now copies the file by default. You can hold down the Command and Option keys before starting the drag in order to create an alias (the old behavior); this can be useful when assembling a burn folder.
• Added instructions for importing individual messages from Postbox and Thunderbird.
• Added the Rename for Dropbox/Windows script.
• Wrote the Change Rich Text Font script for changing the font across multiple existing RTF or RTFD documents.
• The Scan for New Files feature now supports the UnscannedFilenames default so that you can set certain filenames that will always be ignored by scans.
• Pressing Return in the source list now edits the name of the selected item, rather than opening it in a new window.
• Added the RespectImageDPI esoteric preference, which can be used to improve the display of images that do not have the correct resolution set, thus making them appear way too small.
• The Reveal in Library button in the Errors window now selects the record in an existing window instead of opening a new one. This makes it much faster to deal with “Missing File” errors. The RevealInLibraryNewWindow esoteric preference is available for those who prefer the old behavior.
• The viewer pane now displays custom icons for bookmarks, which is useful if you’ve used setWeblocThumb.
• It is now possible to set the Date Added via AppleScript.
• It is now possibly to specify the Web page format when importing a URL via AppleScript.
• EagleFiler now caches file attributes for longer, which should speed up some smart folders and sorting operations.
• Improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).
• Improved responsiveness when dragging and dropping text into EagleFiler.
• EagleFiler now allows the colon character in tag names.
• Improved the display of messages that erroneously declare themselves to be both HTML and plain text by treating them as HTML.
• It is now possibly to exclude certain filenames and extensions from indexing if this is necessary to work around buggy Spotlight importer plug-ins. This is controlled by the SpotlightImporterSkippedNames and SpotlightImporterSkippedExtensions defaults.
• If there is a crash while importing a folder from the To Import folder, EagleFiler will now “resume” importing it into the same folder the next time the library is opened. Previous versions would instead import the remaining files into a second folder, leaving you with two partial hierarchies instead of one complete one.
• Made various improvements to EagleFiler’s error logging.
• If you try to move a file into a folder that no longer exists, EagleFiler now reports a regular “Missing File” error for the folder, rather than an internal error.
• Adjusted the help page titles to fit better in the menu and search results.
• Made an optimization so that menus pull down more quickly. (More work in this area is in progress.)
• Worked around a WebKit bug that could (in rare cases) cause EagleFiler to save the content of a Web page before it had completely finished loading.
• When capturing from Apple Mail, EagleFiler now reports a better error when no messages are selected.
• Fixed a problem where EagleFiler would not detect certain captured messages in a mailbox if Entourage or Outlook had exported them with malformed headers.
• Fixed a bug where the Close & Lock command sometimes mentioned the name of a library that had already been closed.
• Fixed a small memory leak when indexing .eml files.
• Fixed a bug where the EagleFiler: Import With Options service would sometimes import as plain text instead of rich text.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler sometimes didn’t completely close a library after its last window was closed.
• Made various changes to try to work around a crash that could occur when there’s an error emptying the trash.
• Fixed a bug where the Info window might not load correctly if it had been open the last time EagleFiler quit and no library was open.
• Fixed a bug where the browser window was sometimes not brought to the front when re-opening recent libraries.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

It’s Your Choice

We’re happy wherever you choose to purchase our software. The Mac App Store makes it very convenient to buy, download, and install, and you get updates via the store. The purchase is tied to your iTunes account. If you buy direct, you drag-and-drop to install and get updates via the application’s auto-updater or the Web site. Either way, you can sign up for a mailing list or RSS or Twitter feed to be notified about new versions and important product news.

Prices

Pricing is substantially the same, although there will be slight differences due to Apple’s pricing tiers and currency conversions. All Mac App Store purchases are for single-user licenses. Purchasing direct, you can also buy family packs and get volume and educational discounts. Although you pay the same price, Apple’s higher fees mean that direct purchases send 25+% more of your money to C-Command.

Trials

Each product has a fully-featured 30-day trial version that’s available from the Web site. If you purchase direct, you can click a link in your order confirmation to enter your serial number and take it out of trial mode. If you purchase from the Mac App Store, you should first delete your trial version so that the store doesn’t see the application as already installed. Your preferences and user data will be seamlessly shared between both versions.

Updates and Upgrades

Our standard policy has been to provide customers lots of free minor updates and 50% discounts on major upgrades. The Mac App Store does not support upgrade pricing, so currently we can only guarantee the 50% discount if you originally purchased direct from C-Command. We’ll do the best we can, however, and Apple may make more options available in the future.

Initially getting into the Mac App Store took longer than we would have liked. Because DropDMG and EagleFiler use encryption, there was some additional paperwork that needed to be completed with the U.S. government and Apple before the apps could be submitted to the store. Then it took more months for Apple to review the apps and be convinced that they followed the guidelines. Now that the applications have been approved, we’re optimistic that updates will be available from the Mac App Store more quickly. However, there will always be some delay. For example, having previously approved DropDMG 3.0.5, Apple took 17 days to approve the 3.0.6 update.

Transfers

If you purchase via the Mac App Store, the direct version will recognize your receipt from Apple. So you’ll always have the option of downloading the software yourself to get the full features and the latest updates. (Thanks to Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software for the clever idea that makes this possible.) Apple, unfortunately, provides no way to transfer purchases in the other direction, for existing customers who would prefer to receive updates via the Mac App Store.

Feature Differences

We intend the Mac App Store and direct versions of the products to be as similar as possible, however some differences are necessary in order to comply with the rules for Apple’s store. Our first priority is to design the direct versions as best we know how; they should not be limited by Mac App Store considerations. Secondly, if a feature cannot be accepted in the Mac App Store, we will try to adapt it or make it available in another way. This may not always be possible or practical, however. Here are the current differences between the Mac App Store and direct versions:

DropDMG

• The direct version has a button in the preferences for installing the command-line tool and man page. With the Mac App Store version, you can install these manually via Terminal.
• Some files and folders have ownership or permissions such that DropDMG needs an administrator password to correctly copy them. The direct version will ask for the password as needed. The Mac App Store version will stop and report an error.
• The direct version has a checkbox in the preferences to Always run with root access. This lets DropDMG run unattended and copy the aforementioned files without asking for your password each time. With the Mac App Store version, you can enable this feature via Terminal.
• The direct version runs on Mac OS X 10.5 and later; the Mac App Store version requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later.
• Update (2011-10-13): The Mac App Store version defaults to “Ask Later” for the destination folder, rather than “Next to Source.”

EagleFiler

• The direct version automatically adds a “Save PDF to EagleFiler” command to each application’s Print dialog. With the Mac App Store version, you can install the PDF service manually.
• The direct version uses OpenMeta to share your recently used tags with other applications. The Mac App Store version can read the list of recent tags but cannot update it.
• Previous versions of EagleFiler maintained an error log in the file ~/Library/Logs/EagleFiler/EagleFiler.log. Mac App Store applications are not allowed to write to this folder, and Mac OS X’s logging subsystem has improved since EagleFiler’s log feature was designed, so both versions of EagleFiler now use the system log database, which appears under the “All Messages” section of Console.
• The direct version runs on Mac OS X 10.4 and later; the Mac App Store version requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later.

EagleFiler 1.5.3 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Choosing Print now always prints the contents of the record viewer, even if it doesn’t have focus, since this what most people want most of the time. To print the source list or records list, hold down the Option key.
• Improved EagleFiler’s responsiveness when indexing e-mail attachments.
• Optimized various operations when selecting and dragging large numbers of records.
• When importing a hash-bang URL, EagleFiler is better able to save the dynamically loaded content into the Web archive.
• Improved the display of Web archives that use JavaScript to load and format their content.
• Improved compatibility with pre-release versions of Apple Mail.
• Improved the speed and accuracy of searching large numbers of mailboxes.
• Added the EnableJavaScript esoteric preference, which can be used to turn off JavaScript when displaying Web pages.
• The Verify section of the manual now has some advice for how to recover from errors.
• EagleFiler now logs its errors to the system log database rather than a separate log file.
• Added another workaround to prevent crashes when importing or indexing due to a bug in Mac OS X 10.6.
• To avoid duplicates and infinite loops, EagleFiler no longer follows folder symlinks when importing.
• Fixed a bug where multiple copies of a library could be loaded if you clicked several x-eaglefiler links before EagleFiler had launched.
• Fixed a bug where Scan for New Files could start importing a folder and growl before all of its contents had been imported.

For information about previous releases of EagleFiler, please see the version history.

EagleFiler 1.5.2 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Made some optimizations so that typing in the viewer and in text fields is more responsive.
• Made some changes to hopefully work around a bug in Mac OS X 10.6 that, for some users, had been causing intermittent crashes when importing lots of files.
• When importing due to Scan for New Files or the To Import folder, EagleFiler now skips symlinks. This prevents accidentally referencing files outside the library folder.
• Added the Reload OpenMeta Tags AppleScript.
• Worked around a problem with the eDrawings Viewer Spotlight importer plug-in that could cause indexing to hang.
• Added accessibility titles to the Preferences window.
• Improved the German localization.
• EagleFiler is now code-signed.
• Fixed a bug where changes in the tags bar could be lost if you were viewing a Web archive and moused over a link.
• Fixed a bug where file sizes in the records list were not displayed using base-10 megabytes when running on Mac OS X 10.6.
• Fixed a bug where setting the basename property via AppleScript wasn’t undoable.
• Fixed a regression where EagleFiler could not import a file whose name contained a colon unless it was running on Mac OS X 10.6.
• Fixed a bug where the scan for new files script command returned before it was actually possible to close the window.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would let the JavaScript in a Web archive close the window.
• Fixed a bug where clicking on a tag toolbar button or in the Tag Cloud discarded changes made in the Info window’s tags field.
• Fixed a bug where the tagging toolbar buttons didn’t work if certain fields in the Info window were in edit mode.
• Fixed a regression where fields in the Info window could be incorrectly enabled when there was a multiple selection.
• EagleFiler will now note in the log if a file was modified in the future, as this can prevent indexing from completing.
• Common types of errors when setting OpenMeta tags are now logged more concisely.
• No longer logs errors when Quick Look fails to generate a preview.
• If a damaged index file prevents a search from completing, EagleFiler now shows the search results that are available and logs an error, rather than confusingly making it look as though you weren’t searching at all.
• The build number is now available as a tooltip on the version number in the about box.
• Fixed a bug where the Spotlight indexer didn’t work for .eml files with CRLF linebreaks.
• Worked around a Finder problem that could prevent capturing from MarsEdit.
• Fixed a bug where the Open With contextual menu item didn’t work when EagleFiler was in the background.
• Fixed a regression where capturing didn’t work with Safari 3.

EagleFiler 1.5.1 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• EagleFiler no longer tries to import cache folders created by beta versions of Dropbox.
• Fixed a bug where tag winnowing didn’t work properly with no folder selected.
• The progress text field below the source list now has a tooltip so that you can read it when the text is truncated.
• Fixed a bug where uncommitted changes to the Info window’s tags field weren’t saved when switching to another application, if multiple records were selected.
• Fixed a bug where changing the tags sometimes didn’t take effect if you were concurrently editing in a tags field.
• Fixed a bug where tag changes in the Info window didn’t take effect if you closed the inspector before doing anything else.
• Fixed a bug where tag auto-completion in the Info window didn’t work when multiple records were selected.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent renaming to a long filename containing a period.
• Added a warning log message if the CTLoader haxie is installed, as it can cause imports to freeze.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would always show the introductory help if you had created exclusively encrypted libraries and none were accessible when launching the application.
• Fixed a bug where an AppleScript would hang if you asked it to show the options dialog and then clicked the Cancel button.
• Fixed a regression where the Batch Change… window sometimes didn’t set the tags properly.
• Worked around changes in Together so that it’s once again possible for EagleFiler to import tags and notes via the capture key.
• EagleFiler now skips importing InDesign lock files (.idlk), so it no longer complains about them being missing when InDesign releases the lock.
• Fixed a bug where invalid Spotlight URL metadata from SiteSucker could prevent EagleFiler from importing a file.

EagleFiler 1.5 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

Highlights

• The new Quick entry hotkey lets you create a new RTF or text file from from within any application. You can enter the contents of the file, choose which library and folder it’s saved in, and set metadata such as the tags, label, and notes.
• When importing via drag and drop or Save PDF to EagleFiler, you can now hold down the Option key to have EagleFiler show the options dialog (which was previously only available when capturing). This lets you set the destination folder, tags, label, notes, etc. There is also a new EagleFiler: Import (Ask for Options) system service, which presents the options dialog when importing the selected text or file from another application, and the options dialog is also available for bookmarklets.
• You can now perform quick tag “searches” by selecting multiple sources (folders, smart folders, mailboxes, tags) at once (holding down the Command key). Previously, EagleFiler displayed the union of all the records in the selected sources. Now it displays the union of the records, but only those that have all of the selected tags. This makes it possible to easily winnow records by tag without typing a search query. For example, to see the flagged files in a folder, select the folder and the flagged tag. To see the records that are both flagged and unread, select both the flagged and unread tags.
• The main window now displays much better previews for iWork documents than what Quick Look provides. For Keynote, Numbers, and Pages documents that were saved with an embedded preview, EagleFiler can now display full-size previews with multiple pages and highlighted search result text. This also works for OmniGraffle documents, and it works on Mac OS X 10.4 (where Quick Look is not available).
• Double-clicking a folder or mailbox in the records list now opens it in the same window rather than making a new window. This should make browsing faster. If you do want a new window, you can Option-double-click or use the Open in New Window command.
• There’s a new Move To command in the Record menu and the contextual menu, which lets you quickly move records to a different folder.
• You can now add files directly to EagleFiler’s library folder (or a subfolder) in the Finder. When EagleFiler scans for new files (which it does when you open the library or use the Scan for New Files command), it will automatically import any files that it did not previously know about. You can turn off the ScanForNewFilesOnOpen esoteric preference if you don’t want EagleFiler to automatically scan when the library is opened.
• EagleFiler can now index and search files that are attached to e-mail messages. This includes text, RTF, PDF, and Word files, as well as file types that have Spotlight importers.
• Smart folders that search for “contains any/all tags” are about 10 times faster than in EagleFiler 1.4.
• There’s a new Web page format called PDF (Single Page), which creates PDF files that are optimized for on-screen viewing in a single, continuous page.
• Added the OCR With PDFpen and OCR using UNPDF scripts, which let you perform optical character recognition on PDF files in EagleFiler. For more information, see the How can I run optical character recognition (OCR) on my PDFs? section.
• The tags bar can now be used to assign (or remove) tags from multiple selected records at once. This also works in the Info inspector. (If the records have differing tags, EagleFiler shows the Batch Change… button, as before.)
• Add the Close & Lock command, which closes an encrypted library and also locks it (by ejecting the disk image) so that accessing library’s contents requires the passphrase.

Source List

• The Go menu contains new commands to quickly jump to Records (to search the whole library), the built-in smart folders, flagged, and unread, along with some commands that were previously in the the View menu.
• You can now use Copy Record Link to create URLs that, when clicked, select particular folders, smart folders, or tags in the source list.
• Choosing Select All while the source list has focus now selects all the records, which is more useful than the previous behavior of selecting all the sources.

Records List

• The new Open With submenu lets you view a file or mail message using a particular application rather than the default. You can use Always Open With to change the default application that’s used when you double-click.
• The New Record ‣ From Clipboard command lets you create new files in EagleFiler by “pasting” (the shortcut is Command-Shift-V) text snippets into the records list.
• You can now drag and drop onto individual folders in the records list. This works for importing files from other applications, moving records within a library, and copying files from other EagleFiler libraries.
• You can now three-finger swipe left or right on a multi-touch trackpad or Magic Mouse to go to the previous or next record in the list.
• There are new columns for Notes, Source URL, flagged, and unread.
• Tooltips now show more information: the kind, size, relative path, source URL, tags, and notes.
• The icon column now has a title in the hiding/showing menu.

Mail

• The new Merge Message Files command lets you recombine e-mail messages stored as individual .eml files into a single mailbox file. This lets EagleFiler store the messages more efficiently and allows for interoperation with other applications that can read mbox files.
• When importing a .eml file, EagleFiler now changes the file’s dates to match those of the contained e-mail message.
• Apple Mail is pickier than it used to be about which mbox files it will import. When importing and exporting messages, EagleFiler is now more aggressive about normalizing the message formats so that Apple Mail will accept them.
• EagleFiler can now import mailboxes that were exported by Apple Mail’s Archive Mailbox… command. However, it’s still best to capture the messages directly from Mail. The archive mailboxes use a non-standard mbox format, and EagleFiler cannot read the message status flags or MailTags metadata from them.
• When merging mailboxes, the date added is now set to that of the newest mailbox instead of the current date.
• When converting e-mail messages to .eml format, EagleFiler now exports the tags to OpenMeta.
• If you’ve set Entourage or another mail program as the default opener for .eml files (rather than Apple Mail), EagleFiler now shows the appropriate application name and icon in the Record menu when an e-mail message is selected.
• EagleFiler can now import .rssmbox folders from Apple Mail. Capturing RSS messages from Mail does not work, however, due to limitations of Mail’s AppleScript support.

Viewing and Editing

• You can now open the Quick Look window by pressing the Spacebar or clicking a toolbar button.
• The new Slideshow command (and toolbar button) opens a full-screen Quick Look view of the selected record or records.
• Added Replace, Replace All, and Replace and Find commands to the Edit ‣ Find menu. The menu commands are probably less convenient than opening the Find panel, however you can use System Preferences to assign them keyboard shortcuts, to make text editing much faster.
• Added to the Edit ‣ Spelling and Grammar menu: Check Grammar With Spelling and Correct Spelling Automatically. EagleFiler remembers these settings per-window.
• Added commands in the Edit ‣ Transformations submenu: Make Upper Case, Make Lower Case, and Capitalize.
• Added options in the Edit ‣ Substitutions menu: Show Substitutions, Smart Copy/Paste, Smart Quotes, Smart Dashes, Smart Links, Data Detectors, and Text Replacement. EagleFiler enables these features by default when editing, and it remembers per-window how you’ve configured them.
• Added the Strikethrough command to the Format menu.
• Improved the quality of the thumbnail images when EagleFiler displays a record in the inline viewer using Quick Look.

Searching

• Added a Spotlight importer plug-in so that the contents of .eml files (messages that you’ve dragged out of their mailboxes into folders) can be searched outside of EagleFiler.
• Indexed searches can now find text from additional e-mail header fields such as Bcc and various sender and mailing list fields. This change takes effect for newly imported mail, or if you hold down the Command and Option keys when opening a library and tell EagleFiler to rebuild its indexes.
• Added label text to the smart folder editor that explains how to create new Any/All/None criteria.
• Note files are now given the associated record’s tags so that they can be searched by tag via Spotlight.
• EagleFiler is now able to search invisible content in Web archives: link titles, image alt text, and hidden elements (e.g. spoiler text). Previously imported Web archives will be reindexed the next time you open the library.
• EagleFiler is much faster at indexing Web archives.

Capture

• When capturing a Web page from Safari, EagleFiler now stores the selected text in a note.
• EagleFiler can now capture from Google Chrome, DEVONthink Pro 2, and Microsoft Outlook 2011.
• When capturing from Journler, EagleFiler now preserves the category (as an EagleFiler tag) and assigns tags to any subsidiary resource files that it imports (rather than just to the main file).
• EagleFiler now plays the capture sound after running the script, rather than before, so you can use the sound as an indicator that it’s OK to close your Safari window or NetNewsWire tab.
• The source items for a capture are now displayed on a separate tab, since they usually didn’t fit in the single-line text field.
• Improved the error reporting when capturing from Entourage and Firefox 3.6.
• Added the PlayCaptureSound esoteric preference so that it is now possible to make EagleFiler silent when you press the capture key.

Documentation

• Added the How can I run AppleScripts from EagleFiler’s script menu? and How can I run optical character recognition (OCR) on my PDFs? sections to the manual.
• If you’re launching EagleFiler for the first time or it looks like you don’t have any libraries, EagleFiler will open the (revised) Basics section of the manual to help you get started.
• Added an About Stationery and Scripts item to the New Record submenu to make it easy to open the relevant documentation.
• Updated the How can I put my library on my iPhone? and How can I access my library from multiple Macs? sections of the manual with additional information about Dropbox and other sharing software.
• Updated the Importing Mail section of the manual with instructions for importing IMAP mail from Postbox and Thunderbird.
• Added a warning that SugarSync does not support filenames containing : at the Unix level (/ in the Finder).
• Added commands to the Help menu for displaying the keyboard shortcuts, example AppleScripts, and opening the bookmarklets information page.

AppleScript

• You can now get the viewer’s selected text via AppleScript.
• Added the asking for options argument for the import script command so that you can show EagleFiler’s options dialog when importing.
• It is now easier to set the source URL when importing via AppleScript.
• Added the basename property for records, which should simplify many common AppleScripts.
• Added the text content property for records, which is useful in circumstances where AppleScript’s contents doesn’t work.
• You can now initiate a capture or capture with options via AppleScript.
• Changing the source URL of a bookmark via AppleScript now writes the new URL into the bookmark file.
• Tag abbreviations are now settable.
• Added the load OpenMeta tags command, which lets you write AppleScripts that bring changed tags from OpenMeta to EagleFiler, rather than the reverse (which EagleFiler does automatically).

Interface Tweaks

• EagleFiler now shows the spinning progress indicator for all types of activity (not just imports and merges), and next to the spinner it describes one of the more important things it’s currently doing. This should make it much easier to see what’s happening without having to open the Activity window, although you can still do that by clicking the progress indicator.
• The notes text view now accepts click-through, so it’s smoother to switch to it and begin typing.
• You can now Tab (and Shift-Tab) between the source list and the records list without having to hold the Control key.
• When running on Mac OS X 10.6 or later, EagleFiler now displays file sizes using base-10 megabytes (to match the Finder).
• The default behavior is now to open x-eaglefiler links in an existing window if possible. You can use the esoteric preferences to make it create a new window instead.
• The Info inspector now shows a proxy icon in its title bar for the file being inspected, and you can Command-click on it to show a path menu.
• The new Edit Notes menu item (Command-Shift-E) opens the Info inspector and gives the notes keyboard focus. This makes it easier to quickly add notes to a record.
• When importing a single record, EagleFiler’s Growl notification now shows a thumbnail of it instead of the EagleFiler icon. This can help you see whether a Web page was imported correctly or whether it depends on session state that is not available to EagleFiler (requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later).
• The text view options (e.g. whether Check Spelling While Typing is enabled) are now synchronized between the viewer and the Notes view in the Info inspector.
• Added the CaseSensitiveTagCompletion esoteric preference, which makes it easier to type new tag names that are similar to existing tags but with differing case.
• Removed Contents of Record from the default toolbar because most of its functionality is now available by double-clicking.
• Enabled undo in various text fields (this requires Mac OS X 10.6 due to a bug in previous OS versions).
• To reduce clutter, the Activity window is now hidden by default. (If you open it via the menu or by clicking the progress spinner, EagleFiler will remember to re-open it.)
• Moved the Close commands higher in the File menu.
• Improved the design of the Software Update… and Purchase… windows.
• Improved the progress icon for metadata backups.
• Updated the disk image layout.

Miscellaneous

• When importing a file that it downloaded itself, EagleFiler has always stored the source URL. Now it also tries to store the source URLs for files downloaded by other applications.
• EagleFiler is better at displaying and opening alias files.
• Various non-downloadable URLs are now always imported as bookmarks.
• EagleFiler’s metadata backup files now use relative rather than absolute paths. This makes syncing libraries between multiple Macs more efficient.
• The date added is now restored from metadata backups.
• EagleFiler does a better job of cleaning up the title when importing a file.
• Added ! as an allowed tag character.
• Added « and » as allowed tag name characters.
• Improved EagleFiler’s error reporting when opening search index files.
• Improved EagleFiler’s error reporting when a mailbox file is missing.
• EagleFiler is faster at creating bookmarks from non-Web URLs.
• Made some improvements to the crash reporter.
• EagleFiler can now import plain text notes from metadata backup files that are missing the RTFD data.

Bug Fixes

• EagleFiler now reports an error rather than hanging when you ask it to import an x-eaglefiler URL.
• Made a change to prevent Zooom/2 from causing an internal error when resizing the source list.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would sometimes quit when coming out of trial mode.
• Fixed a bug in which EagleFiler would let you try to rename a file using an invalid name.
• Fixed an internal error when formatting file sizes.
• Fixed a bug where setting the title/filename/from/tags from the selection in the viewer didn’t work if the field in question was currently being edited in the Info inspector.
• Fixed a bug where changing a the filename in the Info inspector didn’t update a linked title.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would sometimes report an error when displaying an e-mail message.
• Fixed a bug with tag auto-completion and non-ASCII characters.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler could hang when importing non-Web URLs.
• Worked around a bug in Firefox that could prevent EagleFiler from importing dragged images.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler stripped a trailing period from the name when importing a folder.
• Worked around some OS bugs that caused slowness and prevented EagleFiler from displaying Web archives created from Safari Reader.
• Fixed a bug where a smart folder that searched for an empty From didn’t work.
• Fixed a bug where PDF files that are unreadable by Preview could not be imported into an EagleFiler library.
• Worked around an OS bug that could cause crashes when indexing Web archives.
• Fixed scaling when printing PDF files.
• Fixed a bug where choosing Actual Size when viewing a PDF didn’t make the change stick.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would re-save metadata property list files that hadn’t changed, which could lead to incorrect folder modification dates and sorting.
• Fixed a bug displaying non-Roman Finder label names (requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later).
• Fixed a bug where the scroll position of a .eml file could get reset when switching applications.
• Fixed a bug where certain long filenames would be imported with hexadecimal abbreviations.

Change Control in Project Management is one of those problems you have to solve. Using cards, paper, and folders is just messy, but it can work. EagleFiler can work with this mess and make it a paperless or less paper solution.

EagleFiler 1.4.14 is now available. This is a free update that fixes a problem with EagleFiler 1.4.13:

• Fixed a regression that sometimes caused errors when opening a library window when running on Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5.

EagleFiler 1.4.13 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• Improved EagleFiler’s responsiveness with libraries containing many files.
• Updated the instructions for how to make EagleFiler’s capture key work with Preview on Mac OS X 10.6. EagleFiler will automatically show this when you try to capture from Preview.
• Google Chrome does not have sufficient AppleScript support to work with EagleFiler’s capture key, so EagleFiler will now display a message that tells how you can add an EagleFiler button to Chrome’s toolbar.
• Added the Convert Plain Text to Rich Text script.
• Added # as a word character for indexing, so that you can search for preprocessor directives and hashtags. This will take effect for new libraries or if you rebuild your indexes by holding the Command and Option keys when opening a library.
• Added the Drag and Drop section of the manual and expanded the Importing Mail and The Edit Menu sections.
• Improved the styling of the Apple Help.
• Fixed a bug searching for certain terms with Match Partial Words enabled.
• Fixed a regression where EagleFiler wouldn’t launch on a PowerPC G3–based Mac.
• Fixed a bug dragging iChat files.
• Fixed a bug where messages didn’t sort properly by Date Created.
• Fixed a bug where some closed windows still showed up via AppleScript.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler would crash when processing certain invalid URLs.
• Worked around a bug in Mac OS X 10.6 that could cause inconsistent font sizes in the contextual menus.

• A second look at EagleFiler
• How to make a blog ideas database with EagleFiler

sudo defaults write /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled -bool YES
sudo chmod a+r /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info.plist

(The above two commands also work on Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.)

This procedure seems to work for lots of people, and we believe it to be safe. However, you should be aware that you are modifying the Preview application to work in a way that Apple did not intend.

Update (2011-07-26): For Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, use these commands:

sudo ditto -c -k --sequesterRsrc --keepParent /Applications/Preview.app /Applications/Preview.app.zip
sudo defaults write /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled -bool YES
sudo chmod a+r /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info.plist
sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Preview.app

This also saves a ZIP archive of your original copy of Preview, in case you want to go back to the unmodified version.

• Using EagleFiler
• Setting up an encrypted Library in EagleFiler
• How to use EagleFiler Stationery to make a database

I think most EagleFiler users could benefit from using stationery more. You can use it to easily create different kinds of documents, use it as as sort of database (as Moore describes), and you can even write scripts to apply metadata when you create a new record via stationery. For example, a script could assign tags and name the new file based on the current folder or date.

EagleFiler 1.4.12 is now available. This is a free update that includes the following enhancements:

• EagleFiler is faster at building a mailbox’s table of contents after importing it.
• You can now use the characters []{}=#. in tag names.
• The Date Created for e-mail messages now shows the date from the message’s headers rather than the creation date of the mailbox file.
• Added the ViewEMLOnTiger esoteric preference, which is useful for people who want to use Microsoft Entourage as their external mail viewer on Mac OS X 10.4.
• Tweaked the spacing in the source list to match Mail.
• Tweaked the positions of the tag icons in the source list when it’s set to large icon mode.
• The New Record ‣ Open Stationery Folder command now opens the folder instead of revealing it.
• EagleFiler is now more robust with respect to errors when importing mail from Entourage, Mailsmith, and PowerMail.
• Fixed a bug where read records might be tagged as unread when restoring from a metadata backup.
• Fixed a bug where, in some circumstances, EagleFiler could display an error message or crash when undoing too many times in the record viewer.
• Fixed a bug where the Tag Cloud didn’t immediately update after changing the font in the preferences.
• Fixed a bug where Command Up/Down didn’t move the insertion point in a text document when the viewer had keyboard focus.
• Fixed a bug opening files in MacVim.
• Fixed a bug where EagleFiler didn’t show the alternating row background colors after a failed search.
• Fixed a bug capturing from Flock when using Mac OS X 10.4.
• Fixed a bug capturing large amounts of mail from PowerMail at once.
• Fixed a regression where some icons in sheets were drawn as dimmed.
• Fixed a bug where New Record ‣ Open Stationery Folder and Reveal in Finder didn’t work if TableText or another old application was running.