Neu 1.0 is now officially out of beta and released.

Neu is a simple application that makes it easier to create new documents in the Finder, without you having to open an application first. You can find out more here.

Although it’s a relatively small product, Neu represents a bit of a landmark for me as it’s the first piece of commercial software that I’ve released since giving up the “day job” and returning to life as an independent developer. As such it was a deliberately small project that was at least partially intended as a way for me to get up to speed with various technologies such as the Sparkle update framework and integration with the FastSpring online store. It’s also had to take a back seat for quite a while as I’ve been distracted with some other projects.

That said, Neu is a real tool that I wanted for my own use, and hopefully it will prove to be of some use to others.

So what’s next?

For Neu, I’ve had a couple of reports of minor cosmetic bugs, so I’ll work on a 1.0.1 release which should follow fairly quickly. After that, I’ve got a number of features that I’d like to fit into a 1.1 version, including support for more complicated templates, and possibly some smart detection of the “best” place to create new files when you aren’t working in the Finder. I’m also planning on trying to do a Mac Application Store edition of Neu - it’s possible that that will result in some changes to the application, which will also find their way back to the version I’m publishing myself.

Other than Neu, I’ve also got quite a few Mac and iOS applications in development, at various stages of completion! I’ll post some more news here as they get nearer to seeing the light of day. Currently I’m working on three things Twitter related (one on the Mac, two on iOS), but I’ve also got all sorts of other ideas. If there’s something that you want to see done though, feel free to send me your ideas too (although bear in mind that if you do, there’s every chance that I’ll run off with them and attempt to make money!).

Fairly hot on the heels of version 1.0b22 comes version 1.0b23.

Essentially the only change for this version is that I’ve enabled the “Buy Neu Online…” button, which now actually takes you to our online store - where you can indeed purchase a license for Neu, for the princely sum of $10 (which works out at about GBP6.50 if you’re in the UK).

Barring any reports of problems I expect to officially anoint this version as release “1.0” in the next few days.

If you feel inclined to buy a license in the meantime, that would be splendid, and the license file that you receive should work fine with the b23 version and later versions. It’s probably worth me pointing out that this is the first product that I’ve sold through my new FastSpring store, and whilst I’ve every confidence that it will work ok, please don’t panic if you do encounter any issues. Just get in touch with me and I’ll sort things out for you right away.

I’ve just released a new version of Neu - 1.0b22.

You can now run Neu with neither a menubar or a presence in the Dock, and the Dock menu for Neu now has a slightly different set up of items in it compared to the status menu.

Double-clicking on an item in the grid view now behaves as if “Create” was clicked.

I’ve added a Hot Key for “Create and Open” as well as “Create”.

There’s a new preferences panel to edit which filetypes get keyword expansion applied to them.

I’m still working on the infrastructure for purchasing the application, and there’s now a reminder window for unlicensed copies. Whilst it is still free, if you would like to help me test neu, please download it. If you’d like a free license, to help test the registration system and to get rid of the reminder window, send me some feedback and in return I’ll send you a license file which will continue to work once the application has been released.

In addition to this I’m also working on a Mac Application Store version of the application, which I hope will be available when the store opens.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been trimming down the content of this site now that I’ve split my personal pages off onto Born Sleepy.

For now at least I’m aiming for a very simple front page with just a list of products and a small news section on the right-hand side bar. Other areas of the site are still accessible from the navigation links at the top-right, but even these should now be minimal.

Let me know what you think of the new look. Is it too simple? Is there some vital information missing?

I’ve decided to split off my personal pages and blog from this site, and move them to a sister site Born Sleepy.

For now the new site is a clone of the old one, but they will gradually diverge. I want to simplify the main Elegant Chaos website and remove some of the more personal stuff from it so that it’s a little less confusing for people who arrive at the site simply wanting to know about Elegant Chaos and the software we sell.

If you have an RSS/Atom subscription to my blog (or the whole of this site), you might want to head over to Born Sleepy and subscribe there instead.

For the sake of history, and to preserve old links, I will continue to host all previous posts on both sites, but as time goes on I will set up some permanent (http 301) redirections to try to teach the search engines etc where the definitive copy now lives.