StitchBuddy-MD

Some issues required an immediate bugfix, especially the first two:

• StitchBuddy crashed on Mac OS X 10.5.x when opening any design. This was caused by using an internal function available since Mac OS X 10.6 (aka „Snow Leopard"), only.
• By eliminating the title bar of the delay screen, it was impossible to enter a license code.
• When the „Stitch Simulator" was closed after forwarding, but without running the simulation, the display showed an unfinished design.

All these issues were fixed with StitchBuddy 2.3.1, which can be downloaded here.

Today I released the first version with features especially for users of OS X 10.7 “Lion”:

• Full-Screen allows you to edit embroideries without any disturbance from the dock or the menu bar, fully integrated with Mission Control
• Resume (aka “Windows Restoration”), prevents the status of open windows incl. zoom level, scroll position, selections / selection mode even if you close and relaunch StitchBuddy

Do you miss “Autosave” or “Versions”? In my opinion Apple’s implementation of a (basically) good idea is quite poor, and Versions and the locking mechanism will need much more refinement, before users will feel confident about it. To avoid file modifications being accidentally saved by StitchBuddy users, I didn’t implement Auto-Saving.

A few customers were reporting that StitchBuddy wouldn’t open embroidery files it claims to handle: The designs were not selectable in the “Open” window (greyed out), and even the Finder refused to open these files with StitchBuddy.

It turned out these customers were using other Mac embroidery software in parallel, and this software assigned file types to embroidery designs, StitchBuddy didn’t know. For some reason this issue wasn’t effecting all users of such a software combination, but only a minority; I wasn’t able to reproduce it myself.

With OS X 10.7 (aka “Lion”) Apple has completely dropped support for Macs with PowerPC processors: Five years after the transition of all desktops / laptops to Intel processors, and shipping the last model with a PowerPC, it is no longer possible to run PPC applications on the current OS. Additionally there is no (officially supported) way for developing PPC applications under Lion.

After long considerations I decided to move forward, and StitchBuddy v.2.2.2 is the last “Universal” application, supporting both, the Intel and PPC architecture: Future versions with additional features will require an Intel processor, but StitchBuddy v2.2.2 will remain available for download.

Today I published StitchBuddy v2.2.1 as a bugfix release. It mainly addresses two problems with OS X 10.7 (aka „Lion"): As mentioned in the previous article Apple decided to change the background color of Quick Look plugins to a solid white, so now StitchBuddy-QL displays black text when used under Lion. As a second issue toolbar icons were not displayed correctly after a printing operation was canceled.

Additional I fixed some minor bugs unrelated to Lion, more details can be found in the version history. Unfortunately one of them prevents the update check of StitchBuddy to notify about this minor release…

I’m happy to announce that StitchBuddy v2.2 is compatible with Apple’s brand-new OS X 10.7 aka „Lion".

There’s one small issue when viewing embroidery files with the Quick Look plugin: As Lion uses a white background, the white text (thread names, etc.) is unreadable. I will fix this problem with a minor release the next days.

Another problem unrelated to Lion was reported by a user, and will be fixed as well: StitchBuddy crashes after entering too small or too large zoom factors manually. Thanks, Gregor!

For over two years many users asked me to support writing of PES embroideries, a file format used by Brother, Baby Lock, and Bernina. A long time I wasn’t able to offer this feature, but finally I was able to decrypt PES version 1.0 embroideries, and now a new release of StitchBuddy is released with write support for this file format. Major new features are:

• write support of Brother / Baby Lock / Bernina PES v1.0 designs
• read and write support of Brother PEC designs
• three new thread charts: Ackermann Isacord, Floriani Polyester, Fufu Rayon
• some minor bug fixes and enhancements (look at the versions history for more details)

StitchBuddy v2.2 is a free update for all registered users. New users are encouraged to download and test the full-featured trial version before purchasing a permanent license for USD 49.95 / EUR 39.95.

I decided to release a minor update of StitchBuddy and both plugins as a specific error should be fixed as soon as possible: Under very rare conditions a JEF file could be corrupted, and wasn’t recognized by Janome embroidery machines, anymore. This issue occurred only if a color change happened to be a jump stitch, too, a possible combination introduced with Janome Designer 3.0N.

Together with this bug fix StitchBuddy v2.1.2 includes some minor enhancements, my favorite is the improved 3D view I mentioned earlier:

I decided not to wait for more feature enhancements before releasing a new version of StitchBuddy: On one hand I’d like to spend the next days with my family celebrating Christmas, on the other hand I want you to benefit from new developments as soon as possible.

Feel free to download version 2.1 of the application and both plugins including the following new features:

• Support for different measurement units (millimeters, inches with decimals, inches with fractions)
• Auto conversion of thread charts
• Selected stitches can be moved by Drag’n’Drop
• New function “Measure” to measure a distance in a design
• Designs can be copied as images or text by Drag’n’Drop, even to Mac OS X Finder (creating JPEG files)

Starting today StitchBuddy and both plugins will share the same version number: As all modules are based on the same core functions, any modification will lead to new releases anyway. The same version number will avoid unnecessary confusions.

I just released a minor update of StitchBuddy and both plugins, because a user stumbled over PES files that couldn’t be opened. Actually she found freebie designs of version 5.5, 5.6, 7.1, and 8.0 at Babylock’s website. Although I don’t know, what is changed in detail, the part of a PES file StitchBuddy uses to read designs isn’t modified. So more PES formats could be supported by changing a single line of code.