Balsamiq

Biweekly Release: Version 1.7!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great easter/spring break and are fully recharged for the months ahead.

This is the first blog post from our new web server, so if you find any broken links or anything that doesn't quite work right leave a comment and we'll fix it right up OK? Thanks! 🙂

Most of our work this week has been behind the scenes, streamlining our operations in preparation for future growth. I described the details in a long post over at our Tech Blog. Here's a little mockup of our server history so far if you're interested.

What's new in this release

Even if the new build doesn't include any earth-shattering new feature, we decided to up the release number from 1.6 to 1.7 in celebration of our new hardware infrastruture.

We don't really have offices, so our servers are our a little bit like homes, so to speak. 🙂

New features:

• All versions: Added 34 new icons!
  
• Mockups for JIRA is now compatible with JIRA 4.1, which just released last week.
• All versions: Groups now support linking and can have a name. These are the first step in our development of the components feature, whose time has finally come. Marco is deep in it, refactoring the innards of our code to allow you to edit group contents with double-click and all that good stuff. As always, we're doing this incrementally and with your help, so stay tuned on Twitter (@balsamiq) for updates!
• All versions: Added the "Select None" command (CTRL+SHIFT+A).

How do I update?

Easy! Just use our badge button below!

As always, if you hit any snags with the new build let us know immediately and we'll fix it right up! 🙂

For posterity, these are the version numbers of today's release:

• Mockups for Desktop: version 1.7.5
• Mockups for Confluence: version 1.7.6
• Mockups for JIRA: version 1.7.6
• Mockups for XWiki: version 1.7.4
• Mockups for FogBugz: version 1.7.6
• Web Demo: version 1.7.6 launch it

What's next?

• After a few days in Phoenix for the IA Summit, where we were proud to co-sponsor the birthday bash of Richard Saul Wulman, the original "information architect", Mike is getting back to work on fixing up the HTML and CSS of myBalsamiq.
• If everything goes as planned, the jQueryUI guru we hired as a contractor should be starting to work on the tricky Javascript pieces of myBalsamiq. I'm really excited about this, I'll write a post about it when it's over.
• Luis has been having fun integrating myBalsamiq with Sendgrid. Soon when you'll create a project in myBalsamiq we will also automatically create a mailing list for it and manage it for you. Handy!
• Marco is DEEP in the components feature, locked in a room and not allowed to be disturbed under any circumstance...I just gave him a case of Red Bull and slide him pizzas from under the door once in  a while. That's how important (and incredibly hard to build) the components feature is. 😉
• Val and I are handling the by-now usual 400+ weekly customer transactions, and working on streamlining her work a bit more as well.
• Next week I'll also start looking into turning the Mockups for Desktop demo from nagware to a timed-trial, as well as sneaking a proper "check for updates" feature (finally).

In short, we're cranking, and it feels great. 🙂

Onward!

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