Written by Phil Miller, on April 27, 2008 at 22:35
A lot of things have been going on here at BoraWare over the past few weeks. PhoneSwitch 1.3.2 with TAKEphONE integration is done and awaiting the release of the next version of TAKEphONE; ChatWorks is being changed around... a lot; and there are a number of new programs on the horizon. Here's what's going on with a little more depth.
PhoneSwitch 1.3.2 I went back and forth on what to call this new verison of PhoneSwitch. I was torn between calling it 1.3.2 or 1.4. This version has enough new features to be called 1.4, but for most users these new features will never be used. In the end I opted for 1.3.2. So what does this fancy new version do you ask? First off it does fix a few bugs. It seems that in versions 1.3 and 1.3.1 the exclude list failed to work at all. This has been fixed in 1.3.2. Another set of bugs occured when launching TAKEphONE iBar shortcuts and Initiate shortcuts. When launching TAKEphONE iBar shortcuts the phone would go in to a continuous redial loop. When launching Initiate shortcuts you were always taken back to Initiate even if you dialed from somewhere else. All of this has been fixed. The new feature is TAKEphONE capture integration. TAKEphONE capture is a feature of TAKEphONE that allows you to highlight a phone number in any program (such as memopad) then push the Phone button to dial that number. Without PhoneSwitch when capturing a number you are taken back to the Phone program. With PhoneSwitch prior to 1.3.1 you are taken back to TAKEphONE after the call. With PhoneSwitch 1.3.2 (and higher) you are taken back to the app in which you captured the number. You can basically highlight a number in a program and with the help of TAKEphONE and PhoneSwitch 1.3.2 dial the number then return to that program again after the call. It's pure convenience.
KeySwitch Basic KeySwitch, the new key remapping utility from BoraWare, is nearly ready for it's initial release. I am currently on a quest to get the key names for each hard key on as many devices as I can. I've developed a helper utility that I will be distributing with KeySwitch to help me find the various key names. Currently I plan to release KeySwitch as a freeware basic version. Should it gain new features later I will probably release a shareware deluxe version as well.
ChatWorks As many are well aware... ChatWorks has really become a stalled project. Why is it stalled? Simply put: it does way too much for one program. It's been in beta longer than I can remember and in it's current state will probably never come out of beta. So what am I going to do about it? Take it apart. ChatWorks has the disadvantage of having the IM part of it drag down the IRC part and the IRC part drag down the IM. I'm going to mirror the current ChatWorks project in to two new identical projects. After that I will strip all of the IM part out of one and all of the IRC out of the other. Two new programs will be formed and developed independant of each other. The IRC part will become ptpChat 2, the IM part hasn't been named yet. Much farther down the road I will bring back the ChatWorks name and write a very small "bridge" program that will link the new IRC and new IM programs together. This will give the end user the option to use the programs seperately or linked together.
ptpChat 1 and ptpChat 2 There's very good news for the ptpChat crowd. I have not only decided to release ptpChat 2 I have also decided to continue development on ptpChat 1. ptpChat 1 had a lot of shortcomings when it came to features and UI. Although I don't have any plans to completely rewrite ptpChat 1 (since that's what ptpChat 2 is) I do plan to make minor improvments such as adding new features. Some new features will be added in tandem, as in ptpChat 2.0 and ptpChat 1.1 might see a new command or dialog box added at the same time. Eventually I'd like for ptpChat 2 to completely replace ptpChat 1. Unfortunately, though, at the present moment ptpChat 1 is far more stable than 2. Some more good news for the ptpChat crowd: there will not be any new upgrade fees. ptpChat 1 and ptpChat 2 will share the same registration codes. Simply register one and use either.
New Titles I've decided not to give any details about my new program, but let me just assure you, it'll be nice.
