Synergy Advance version 0.4b3 beta seed

  1. Greg Hurrell

    Full details:

    https://wincent.dev/a/news/archives/2006/04/synergy_advance_6.php

  2. Krypton

    Now that I can get 0.4 to launch, it certainly sucks a lot less than the previous versions ;-)

    I can't seem to find anything in the known issues or bug database about Synergy Advance not using Classic's album art folder (i.e. I have no album art displayed) - presumably this is on the to-do list?

  3. Greg Hurrell

    Glad to hear you think it sucks less! I expect it to suck even less in the future.

    Synergy Advance uses plug-ins to obtain album art. The basic, built-in support just asks iTunes for the art (incidentally, iTunes support itself is also implemented via a plug-in, opening the way up for supporting different players with different plug-ins).

    To the best of my knowledge, this release is the last of the major changes the "plumbing" of Synergy Advance (ie. I don't foresee the need to make any major changes in the depths of the engine), and that means that I can now spend a lot more time on the frilly stuff that gets layered on top. I know that it's precisely the "frilly stuff" that users are most interested in (ie. features), but it's important to have a good foundation.

    In any case, a plug-in for pulling album art out of the folder that Synergy has already downloaded is on that list. It should be very easy to do, less than a day's work, so expect it soon. The only hold-up is that before I can release the plug-in I need to finish the plug-in management user interface so that users can turn plug-ins on and off and change the order in which they have effect (this will enable you to prioritise album art sources: different Amazon country branches, stuff downloaded by Synergy, stuff obtained from iTunes etc).

    Add yourself as a CC to this feature request if you want to receive notification once it's implemented:

    https://wincent.dev/a/support/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=290

  4. Krypton

    Frillyness is where it's at I'm afraid.

    I think 0.4 shows a lot more promise in terms of where things are headed; I can certainly use it without having to have Classic running which is an advantage. I also like how the visual feedback from hotkeys has been cleaned up; both visually and in terms of responsiveness.

    I'm fairly close to upgrading my license

    One thing that does concern me is how many items are in the menu item; it looks a little *too* advanced. Maybe it would be worth thinking of ways to retain the functionality but reduce the visual footprint - as with Safari's download manager for instance.

  5. Greg Hurrell

    One way in which I've tried to hide as much detail as possible is by using the Option key as a modifier to hide alternate menu items.

    I plan to add full customizability to the Global Menu, much in the same way that you can customize Unsanity's FruitMenu and quite a few other utilities. My basic idea is to allow you to add/remove/rearrange menu items in the Global Menu via drag and drop. To keep informed of progress towards this goal, see this feature request:

    https://wincent.dev/a/support/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=314

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