The Sente Blog

Sente for iPad: Progress

By Michael on July 18, 2010 1:48 PM | 8 Comments | No TrackBacks

Over two months have passed since my last update on the development of Sente for iPad. I think it is time for another update.

We have had two Preview releases and have had very positive and useful feedback from the testers. Sente for iPad, however, is not yet feature-complete, so we are not yet in beta test mode.

In my last update, I said that we were shooting for an early summer release. Well, this is not going to happen. Early summer is here and we still have some important work remaining. I know that this will be disappointing to many, but we continue to push hard to complete v1.0 as soon as we can.

So, Sente for iPad will not be out until later this summer. It is hard for me to be any more precise than that because this is new territory for us and it is difficult to schedule the unknown.

On the other hand, we are excited about how Sente for iPad is turning out and I think you will like it when it is released. Having access to your entire Sente library on your iPad is great, and having the data on one or more iPads synced almost immediately with any number of desktop copies, no matter where they are, is amazing.

So, for now, all I can suggest is that you enjoy your summer vacations. We will be taking ours a bit late this year.

Michael

Safari 5: Proceed with Caution

By Michael on June 13, 2010 10:57 AM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

Apple has recently released the first public version of Safari 5 with some cool new features, which make it very tempting to download and install. But I would like to recommend caution before you click on that download link.

We are aware of several problems with Safari 5 -- some of which can break critical features in Sente. And it is likely that there are more problems yet to be discovered.

The biggest problem we have seen is that installing Safari 5 on systems running OS X 10.5 will simply break web browsing in Sente. Attempts to load many web pages in Sente's embedded browser will cause Sente to crash. It does not matter whether you are actually running Safari 5, just whether you have installed it or not. There is no approved method for uninstalling Safari 5, so you will be stuck until you either upgrade to OS X 10.6 or Apple fixes the bug. We are not aware of anything we can do to fix this problem.

The problem is that installing Safari 5 is not like installing a new version of Firefox or any other browser. Installing a new version of Safari changes OS X's internals for web access, the very code that Sente and many other applications depend on.

I have some confidence that Apple will address the problems with Safari 5 quickly, but it seems that their public debates with Adobe may have lead them to rush this out the door without as much testing as it deserves, given how critical Safari and WebKit are to real world users.

I am sure that many of you will have found this post only after installing Safari 5 and experiencing problems. The best that I can offer for the problems that we are aware of is to consider upgrading to the most recent version of OS X. Even if this does not solve the problem, it makes it far more likely that you will see a quick fix from Apple.

Michael

Sente for the iPad: Testers

By Michael on April 30, 2010 1:37 PM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

[UPDATE: We now have an essentially full list of eager testers, so we will not be adding new people at this time. We have kept just a few slots open, so if you have a particularly compelling case for why you think you should be included, you can write to us, but we will be using the remaining few slots very judiciously.]

We are working toward the first in a series of preview releases of Sente for the iPad and we are looking for a few iPad-owning Sente users who would be interested in trying out the software and giving us feedback. Participants in this program need to own both a Sente 6 license and an iPad. Users currently using Sente synchronized library feature are particularly welcome.

If you are interested, please write directly to our support address. Because Apple tightly limits the number of devices that we can authorize, we will be forced to limit the number of participants in the previews. I apologize in advance to those we are not able to include in the program.

Michael

Sente on the iPad, Update

By Michael on April 27, 2010 2:15 PM | 12 Comments | No TrackBacks

We have been hard at work on Sente for the iPad and I wanted to give everyone an update on progress.

Redesigning the user interface for the iPad has been an fascinating process. There will be a lot more discussion on this topic in the coming months, but I have to say that I have found the process to be both more challenging and more rewarding than I expected. You all will be the final judges of the success of our efforts, but I am personally pleased with overall feel of the iPad version of Sente. It is a much simpler, more direct interface than desktop Sente. Some of this comes from leaving out features, but much of it comes from the power of the touch interface. I think you are going to like it.

As I mentioned in my original post on this subject, there are a number of technical hurdles that we have to overcome to get Sente running on the iPad. I am pleased to report that some of the most important hurdles have been cleared. Here is some of what we have gotten working thus far:

Opening Sente 6 libraries and displaying the contents (I regularly work with a library with 1,500 references in it and performance is very good. I have run tests on libraries with over 10,000 references successfully; things definitely slow down, but if it is a matter of having the library or not, it is definitely better than not working at all!)
Built-in Smart Collections (All the standard ones, plus some new ones.)
Sync. (Any number of desktop copies, any number of iPad copies, all kept in sync in near-real-time with minimal set-up. I will write more about this in a later post.)
Targeted browsing. (Very similar to the desktop version and with support for most of the same sites.)

Some hard problems remain, but this is important progress.

So, when will Sente for the iPad be released? This is difficult to answer right now, but I will say that we are shooting for an early-summer release.

What I can say with greater confidence is that Sente for the iPad is going to address the most frequently voiced needs for on-the-go reference management. We have been listening very carefully to what people are saying they want in an iPad version of a reference manager, and we think we are addressing every one of the most common requests. It will not do everything that desktop Sente does (e.g., no word processor integration) but it will do what we think most people want to do from the iPad.

Michael

Sente 6.1 Beta, Round 2b

By Michael on March 4, 2010 4:18 PM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

We are ready now to begin general beta testing of Sente 6.1 and we welcome the participation of anyone who cares to help.

The complete list of new features for Sente 6.1 is provided below, but the big changes are:

User-specified attachment filing and refiling. You can now decide how your attachments should be filed and named, even when placed in the library bundle. Further, it is easy to change your mind on the details (at least until synchronization is turned on).

Synchronization of attachments filed outside the bundle. It is now possible for Sente to automatically synchronize attachments files outside the library bundle. We still strongly encourage people to store their attachments within the bundle for many reasons (like how easy it is to move a complete library from one place/computer to another).

Ability to delete PDF annotations. You can now remove annotations (e.g., highlighting) in a PDF within Sente.

Unfortunately, supporting synchronization of attachments with user-selecting filing requires some changes to the Sente 6 library. This means that when you first open a Sente 6.0 library in Sente 6.1, you will be asked for information on just how the update should be performed. Specifically, Sente needs to know how attachments should be filed, and it will apply the specified rules to all existing attachments. This means that existing attachments are likely to be moved during the update. Please take seriously our statements about creating a complete backup before updating your library!

One more important issue to be aware of is that synchronized libraries will have synchronization turned off as part of the update from 6.0 to 6.1. This is necessary to support the new-style attachment filing options. Unfortunately, this means that you will need to re-start synchronization from scratch once you are happy with your attachment filing strategy. We know that for large libraries, it can take hours for the initial sync to complete, but we could not find a way around this requirement.

So, if you are willing to try the beta release of Sente 6.1, here are the instructions for doing so. Please give us your feedback on the software as soon as possible, so that we can release it to everyone soon.

Michael

Sente 6.1 Beta Instructions -- PLEASE READ BEFORE RUNNING THE SOFTWARE

The current beta can be downloaded here:

http://thirdstreetsoftware.lunarpages.net/Sente-6.1.2.zip

PLEASE NOTE: launching this version of Sente, and doing a Library Update (which you must do to run the beta) may result in all of your attachments being moved! Do NOT proceed with the beta if you are not prepared to first make a complete backup of your library and attachments!

We have done a lot of testing on this beta, but your library may be set up in a way that we have not been able to test and so you may encounter problems that we are not aware of (that is why this is BETA software!). We appreciate your help in testing the new release, but please be aware that it could cause problems for you that would not be easy to recover from if you do not have good backups.

Sente 6.1 is not entirely backwards compatible with Sente 6.0, so it is important to proceed carefully during the beta test period. To use this beta version:

0) Review the release notes for Sente 6.1 below

1) exit Sente

2) make a copy of the library you are going to open in Sente 6.1 -- you will be using the copy for testing

3) make a backup of all of your data, including PDFs, because Sente 6.1 may move your attachments and if something goes wrong, you will need to restore from backup

4) select the copy of your library in Finder and control-click (or right-click) on this file, and select Open With > Other...

5) select the beta copy of Sente 6.1 as the application to open this copy of your library

6) answer the questions on the Library Update window that appears and click on Apply

Please send us feedback on the beta to our support address using the form on our web site.

Thank you for your help testing Sente 6.1.

Michael

New in Sente 6.1.1

Attachment Filing and Refiling

Attachments can now be organized using a user-specified filing and naming strategy, either inside or outside the library bundle. Further, it is now possible to synchronize attachments that are filed either inside or outside the library bundle. (We still encourage filing attachments within the library bundle because it makes moving the library from one location or machine to another much easier.) Starting with 6.1, all attachments in a library must be handled in exactly the same way -- that is, you cannot have some attachments filed by Sente and others not.

With a synchronized library, each copy of the library can place the attachments either inside or outside the library bundle, but the filing and naming must be the same on all copies.

It is now possible to change the filing strategy on a library and Sente will automatically refile all attachments automatically. Once synchronization is turned on, the location, but neither the filing strategy nor the naming strategy can be changed.

The interface for configuring attachment handling is under the Setup category in the source list.

Miscellaneous

- Updated support for AppleScript. Please check the AppleScript dictionary for details

- Reorganized portions of the main menu

- Added ability to turn sync off permanently for a copy of a library

- Added commands that used to exist only in the top bar of the attachment view to the main menu

- Added ability to select and delete highlighting in PDFs

- Added ability to click on links in PDFs when in region select mode

- Added ability to increase or decrease the text size in the embedded web browser

- Updated targeted browsing support for ACS, Web of Knowledge, ACM beta site, EBSCOhost, InterScience, Science Direct, JSTOR, National Library of Portugal and Springer.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed several bugs with scanning of Pages documents: citations were sometimes incorrectly combined into a group; text attributes (like italics) were not being correctly applied when generating rescannable files

- Fixed a problem in handling clicks on the red button on a Sente window

- The attachment view in the main window now correctly remembers its height

- Corrected a problem that sometimes resulted in the reference editor being stuck in a closed state

- Corrected a problem that resulted in the footer saying Synchronizing even after sync was complete in some cases

- The date added is now updated correctly when a reference is copied into a new library

- Corrected a problem that caused tag values to be ignored when searching or filtering on "all fields" (for this to work on existing references, you will need to do something like add and then remove a bogus tag to all references -- this will update the cache of searchable text for each reference)

Sente 6.1 Beta, Round 1

By Michael on February 12, 2010 4:25 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

We are ready to begin beta testing on Sente 6.1 with improved attachment handling and other enhancements. Because of the extent of the changes, we want to ease into the beta testing by releasing it only to experienced Sente users who are currently filing attachments inside their library bundle.

If you file your attachments inside the library bundle and are willing to test the new release, please use our support system to send us your email address. We will send release notes and instructions to you.

Michael

Sente on the iPad

By Michael on January 30, 2010 9:06 AM | 21 Comments | No TrackBacks

Well, Apple has now made the iPad official. We think it looks like a wonderful device and one that will be very useful in the academic world. Now many people want to know what our plans are for supporting the iPad.

The bottom line is that we are excited about the new platform and we will release a version of Sente for the iPad as soon as we can.

We are not yet prepared to commit to any particular functionality, but we think some of the key characteristics of iPad Sente are rather obvious, so there is little advantage to keeping them secret. Here are some of the key features that we expect the application to include:

Mobile libraries synchronized with desktop Sente. Frankly, many of the design decisions that went into synchronized libraries in Sente 6.0 were made with the rumored tablet in mind and we think Sente's synchronization mechanism is well-suited to the task. One library, multiple devices. New references and edits show up everywhere almost immediately. And "download on demand" for attachments means that you can have as many or as few PDFs on your iPad as you want, and quickly obtain any others as needed with a single click.

On-the-go PDF reading, markup, tagging and note-taking. The iPad is clearly much better suited to reading PDFs than the iPhone. To make this most useful, it is essential that users be able to do markup, note taking and tagging as they read. And, of course, all markup, notes and tags will be quickly and automatically synchronized.

We would not normally make such public statements this early in the development cycle -- one never knows exactly what kinds of unexpected hurdles will be found as we work on the software -- but in this case we think our users should know where we are headed. We have been hoping for and planning for the iPad for some time, and we are very excited to be able to begin serious development.

Anticipating the next question... we do not yet know when this application will be released. When we know more, we will tell everyone, but right now we simply do not have a schedule.

Now we want to hear from you. Would you like to see Sente on the iPad? How would you use it? What do you think the must-have features are?

Michael

Sente 6.1: Attachment Filing Enhancements

By Michael on January 17, 2010 12:01 PM | 8 Comments

Since the release of Sente 6.0 we have had a lot of useful feedback from users. Early on we recognized that one of the most important messages we were getting from users was that the way that Sente 6.0 filed and named attachments in the library bundle was a problem. We made a commitment to address this issue, and we have begun testing a new approach that I would like to describe here.

First, some background. In 6.0, if you asked Sente to store attachments within the library bundle (which is required if you want attachments synced) they were given a name based on an internal identifier. This was great for us because it let us sync attachments with confidence that we were not going to accidentally overwrite files on any of the machines on which a synchronized library was installed. However, it caused a number of problems for users, including:

Sending one of these files to a colleague gave them a file with a long, incomprehensible filename
Requiring the attachments to be held within the bundle made them less accessible to other programs, like DEVONthink

This is changing in Sente 6.1, due out in a few weeks. In this new release, you will be able to specify how attachments will be filed and named, much like in Sente 5. For example, you can have your files organized by journal, year, author and then named with the title of the paper. Or organized by year and named with the author's name + year + title.

Also, you will be able to have attachments filed outside the library bundle and still synchronized. So you can place your PDFs in ~/Documents/Sente instead of the bundle and still have them synchronized across multiple computers. Further, the location can be different on each synced computer. It can even be in the bundle on some computers and outside the bundle on others. The folder hierarchy has to be the same on all computers, but the starting location can be different on each.

There is a catch to this, however. We have to know that the file 2007/Smith/My Paper.pdf is intended to be the same on all computers because when it is updated on one computer, it will be copied to all others, and we have to be confident that we can simply replace the similarly filed/named file on each machine. For this reason, the folders in which Sente attachments are filed must not be used for any other files. That is, you cannot intermingle other PDF files with your Sente PDF files, for example. For this reason, when filing outside the bundle, Sente will always insert a folder with the library name in the path. For example, if you specify ~/Document/Sente as the root folder for filing attachments for "My Library" Sente will start the filing in ~/Documents/Sente/My Library.

There are some other limitations on the new approach. For example, the file naming patterns are hard-coded into Sente (as opposed to being bibliography formats, as in Sente 5). This is done because we have to know that the naming scheme is supported on all synchronized copies. We will add new options based on user requests, but you will not be able to create your own formats using bibliography formats.

Sente 6.1 also includes the ability to refile all existing attachments based on a new scheme. For example, you can convert from having PDFs organized by journal and year, to being organized by author and year. Sente will automatically move and rename all attachments for you. However, this cannot be done once synchronization has been turned on for a library. If you need to do this, you will need to make a new copy of the library, set up attachment filing the way you want it, and then turn sync on for the new library. You can move the entire attachment hierarchy on any copy of a synced library (e.g., you can move it from within the bundle to somewhere outside the bundle, or from Documents/Sente to Documents/PDFs); you just cannot change the organization or naming below that level once sync is turned on.

Here is a shot of the attachment configuration screen:

Screen shot 2010-01-14 at 4.07.27 PM.png

One other change we have introduced since 6.0 was released is that we no longer support "mixed state" for attachments. That is, if you have told Sente to file all attachments inside the bundle with a particular filing/naming scheme, all attachments in that library must be filed in that way. You cannot have any attachments in that library stored anywhere else.

We are still encouraging users to store attachments within the library bundle because it is much easier to make many common changes (e.g., just move the entire library from one location to another and everything will still work). But we are also making it easier to handle changes like the migration from one computer to another even when the attachments are filed outside the bundle.

We are currently testing these changes internally and expect to make them available to a few outside testers in the next week or two. Not long after that, we will make the official release of Sente 6.1 with these changes.

One Topic per Support Thread, Please

By Michael on October 29, 2009 11:14 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Overall, we are liking the new forum/support system on our site. We are quite a bit behind in answering questions, but at least we know pretty much where we stand and we only have to look in one place to see the queue. And we have had feedback from a number of users who also seem to be liking the new system, as well.

But I would like to make one request: Please do not extend existing threads with questions that are not directly related to the title of the thread.

I know how easy it is to just hit Reply and say, "while I have your attention..." but this has two very negative effects:

First, it makes for long threads, which take a lot more time to scan through before we feel like we can answer the last message in the thread. This just slows us down and means that support for other issues suffers.

Second, it means that when we look through the list of outstanding issues, we cannot tell what the subjects are without reading the entire thread. The original topic might have been "migrating data from Sente 5" but the new topic is "how tags work." It is not hard to see how this makes support harder.

Many users are already in the habit of starting new threads for new topics and we appreciate that. Some others may read this and pause before writing "oh, and one other thing..." and we appreciate that.

For the others, this post is just something we can point to when we send out a reply to a change of topic with a request that a new thread be started. It is hard to write that in a way that does not offend anyone, but we are not trying to be rude. We are really just trying to keep up.

Michael

Sente 6 Released

By Michael on October 21, 2009 7:06 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We are very pleased to announce the official release of Sente 6.0. This new version includes a number of important enhancements, like:

Synchronized Libraries. Sente 6 makes it easy to maintain multiple copies of a reference library, including attachments such as PDF files, on multiple computers. This works well for users who regularly work on more than one computer. Because permissions can be set differently on each copy, this feature is also useful for sharing a library with colleagues.
Hierarchical Reference Tagging. Sente 6 makes it easy to assign and use tags on references. And tags can be arranged hierarchically, in which case Sente will treat references with child tags as though they had also been assigned the parent tags. This makes organizing a large research library much easier than it has ever been before.
PDF Markup. This new version also includes PDF markup commands that can be used to highlight passages or other regions in a PDF file. This information is synchronized along with the PDFs themselves, so the marked-up copy is available in any synchronized copy of the library almost immediately.
Hundreds of New Bibliography Formats. This significantly increases the likelihood that the format someone needs is already built-in.

Along with the release of Sente 6 comes a new web site design and a new support system.

Sente 6 requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher.

Sente 6 is a free upgrade for anyone who purchased a Sente 5 license on or after January 1, 2009. Others can purchase an upgrade for $39.95 for a single user license.

If you purchased Sente 5 after January 1, 2009, Please send your Sente 5 license code to our upgrade address with the subject "Sente 6 Upgrade". Processing upgrade requests may take us as long a 7 days -- we appreciate your patience.

If you purchased Sente 5 prior to January, 1, 2009, you can purchase the update for $39.95 -- see our Purchase page.

If you have a Sente 1, 2, 3 or 4 license, there is not a discount on the upgrade -- you will need to purchase a new license to run Sente 6.

Everyone who purchases a Sente 6 license (either as a new license, or an upgrade) will receive all updates in the 6.x line at no charge.

We would like to thank all of those who participated in the testing and evaluation of our early releases of Sente 6. You contributions made a big difference in the final product.

Michael

The Sente Blog

Discussions of Sente, academic reference management, on-line research, bibliographies and related topics.

Sente for iPad: Progress

Safari 5: Proceed with Caution

Sente for the iPad: Testers

Sente on the iPad, Update

Sente 6.1 Beta, Round 2b

Sente 6.1 Beta, Round 1

Sente on the iPad

Sente 6.1: Attachment Filing Enhancements

One Topic per Support Thread, Please

Sente 6 Released

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