A change of plans.

I previously discussed a rather ambitious Simon 3.1 update, where I was refactoring the data model to use Core Data, and many other related changes. Pretty much redesigning the core of the application, including splitting it into multiple processes. But that turned out to be too ambitious for my current time constraints. It was taking a long time, with a significant risk of data integrity. So I recently decided to postpone that for a future update.

Therefore, I put that code aside and went back to the 3.0.2 codebase, and implemented a more modest set of enhancements for the new 3.1 release:

• Enhanced the Web (HTTP) plug-in to fetch cookies in the background, to improve performance and avoid a risk of hanging if the OS's shared cookie storage deadlocks.
• Added a limit on the number of simultaneous checks, to avoid overloading. By default the limit is 5. If there are already that many tests being checked, subsequent ones are queued until one finishes. The limit can be changed via a hidden preference, e.g. "defaults write com.dejal.simon MaximumActiveChecks 1".
• Improved the logic for calculating the next check time, especially for tests that were due while Simon wasn't running.
• Fixed a bug with scheduling of tests that could cause performance issues with lots of tests.
• Marking tests as viewed or unviewed now updates the log tables immediately (that action was only listed in the Activity log when the next item was listed).
• The license button now updates correctly when Simon is running for multiple days. (Standard edition only.)
• The editor windows now open to the Summary page for New and Duplicate, or to the last-used page for Edit, since setting the name is usually the first thing to do for a new test etc.

I will come back to the Core Data etc refactor in a future update, probably next year. But in the meantime I have a bunch of smaller updates planned (as I always wanted to do after the big 3.0 upgrade), that will have more immediate benefit for my customers.

Download Simon 3.1b1 now!