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WHAT a Release!

· Posted by Peldi in Products · 8 Comments

Hello again friends!

After this morning's total myBalsamiq update disaster, we get back to our regularly scheduled programming...


It's been a little over a month since our last release, but it sure feels like a lot longer: we've been busy!

First of all, let's see what's in today's release. Get comfortable, 'cause this is a HUMONGOUS one! 🙂

The focus of this release is to pick any low-hanging fruit that make the app better, to reduce our customer support load and to pay back some technical debt accumulated in the past.

Changes that apply to all versions of Mockups

Note: these changes are not available in myBalsamiq yet. They'll be available on the next release (not sure when, but soon).

  • Controls are now scaled down in the UI library!
  • Added text color, state and font size support to the Search control. Thanks Damien for requesting it!
  • Added text color support to Checkbox, Radio Button, Checkbox Group and Radio Button Group. Thanks Chris M. for requesting it (via email)
  • Added border color support to ComboBox, Date Chooser and Numeric Stepper. Thanks Chris M. for requesting it (via email)
  • Added a disabled state to the Tree control.
  • Added background color support to browser control. Thanks for requesting it Chris Gruel and Ryan, cobnutweb and Eric T. (via email)
  • Added link and bar color support to the Link Bar control. Thanks to stephen and Melvin Ram for requesting it!
  • Added border color support to the Text Area control. Thanks Carol P. for requesting it (via email).
  • Added opacity support to the Scratch Out control. Thanks Ivor Potter for requesting it!
  • Added text alignment support to the Button control. Thanks Christian for requesting it!
  • Added multiline support via \r to the Button control. Thanks Martin L. for requesting it (via email)
  • Added font size support to the Multiline Button control. Thanks Jeffrey G. for requesting it (via email).
  • Added text alignment support to the Sticky Note control. Thanks Maria for requesting it!
  • Alert Box buttons are now linkable. Thanks pablo.hcontreras and stephen.onkea and Humancell, Chros Thornton hasen12 and karinammorales for requesting it!
  • The State inspector now only shows you the states that are common to all the selected controls. I could have sworn that's how it worked from the beginning! Oh well. 🙂
  • Made Charts and Geometric Shapes fit within their boundaries better.
  • Added a new "Forms" category in the UI library. Why didn't we do this sooner?
  • added arrange and align menus in edit menu

  • Changed the behavior of the advanced Data Grid formatting options. Now if you specify a percentage, it will win over the column's native width (it used to be the other way around). Thanks missprintt, Ben Norris and John Daues for helping us realize that this is the behavior people expect.
  • Added support for up+down arrows / inactive sort in datagrid (with v^ or ^v). Thanks stuartchamberlain and Jeff for requesting it.
  • Fixed all the display bugs we could find in the DataGrid control. Thanks Adi Roiban and Bruce C., Amy U. and Jeffrey G. for reporting bugs via email.
  • Changed keyboards shortcut for Align Center CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+2 to CTRL+ALT+2 (that SHIFT is no longer needed now that Unlock all is CTRL+3).
  • The selected Tab background color now matches the background fill of tabs (both horizontal and vertical tabs). Thanks Josh and Isaac Wood for requesting it!
  • Vertical Tabs now look nice even on the right-hand side and with long labels. Thanks briknow for reporting it and to Bob K. for emailing us about it.
  • Added multiline support via \r to Tabs Bar and Vertical Tabs Bar controls. Thanks karenImor for requesting it!
  • The Quick Add list now gets wider when it needs to show long labels. Thanks Win7Guru and Martin Kessner and Ryan for requesting it!
  • Added better tooltips for the color inspectors everywhere, so that you know if you're affecting the text, the border, the background, etc.
  • Added a link to Little Big Details in the Help menu. We love the site and are proud to support it!
  • Panning by holding down the space bar and dragging is fixed. Sorry for the injection, and thanks Felix, chrismrink and Gianni C. (via email) for reporting it!
  • Fixed the last of the text clipping / "words go missing" issues in in the Button and Multiline Button controls. Thanks to all those who reported it here and here, and to Jeffrey G. for reporting it via email
  • Fixed vertical alignment of text when using system font in the Pointy Button control.
  • In the iPhone Menu control, the second label no longer gets cut off when using System fonts. Thanks Sean for reporting it!
  • Fixed a bug with cropped groups moving around when you switch mockups. Thanks Andreas F. for reporting it (via email).
  • The Balsamiq Mockups icon looked a little stretched in the About box. It's fixed.
  • Fixed Down Triangle and Down Filled-In Triangle icon labels (they were swapped). Thanks gelzerr for reporting it!
  • Fixed an Runtime Exception when loading certain malformed mockups.
  • Fixed an infinite loop caused by a bug in the Tooltip control. Thanks Andrew H. for reporting it (via email) and to Russell for reporting it here.
  • Harmonized menu capitalizations in all of our products (they were all over tHe pLAcE)
  • We now enforce a minimum height if no text is present in form controls. Thanks bkvlinden for reporting it.
  • We no longer allow empty text on Radio Button Group and Checkbox Group controls (it just reverts to the default text if you delete it all, like some other controls).
  • The UI Library scroll position doesn't get reset on save or mockup switching any more. Thanks Jon Chambers and surfermikel for reporting it!
  • Fixed an issue with the focussed state of the Button control not "sticking" on application restart.
  • The Label control didn't have equal top and bottom padding - it's now fixed. Thanks Andreas Weder for reporting it.
  • The Undo and Redo tooltips in the Property Inspector were not in sync with the rest of the UI. Fixed.
  • Fixed the vertical position of the header label in the List control. Thanks rafa for reporting it!
  • Added Geometric Shapes to the "Containers" tab in UI Library. Thanks guenne for requesting it!
  • Changed the name of Numeric Stepper to Numeric Stepper / Spinner / Spin Control. Thanks Chris M. for requesting it (via email).
  • Fixed a couple of bugs around going full-screen or opening a new file while cropping images or groups.
  • Fixed a bug with the mouse cursor not getting back to normal after leaving a crop action.

Changes to Mockups for Desktop

  • Added CTRL+ALT+S shortcut for "Save All"! Thanks to all who asked for it here and here and via email.
  • Added a keyboard shortcut (the letter "E") for editing the current mockup while in full-screen mode. Thanks ckhan for requesting it!
  • You can now save a non-dirty new mockup from the right-click tab menu. Thanks Lana P. for the request.
  • Added an option to "Discard All New Mockups and Quit" when trying to quit with multiple unsaved mockups open.
  • You can now add custom icons from your account assets folder even if the mockup has never been saved. Thanks Scott for bringing this up!
  • Added support for custom icons that have alpha transparency. Thanks Brad for requesting it!
  • Fixed a bug when using custom icons in symbols and editing their source. Thanks Ryan and Stéphane Bouteille for reporting it!
  • We now fail more gracefully if you have an invalid path in your configuration file. Thanks corianda for reporting it (via email).
  • Fixed a bug that resulted in a new empty file being created if you double clicked on a bmml file while you had a new and dirty mockup already open. Thanks Leon for reporting it!

Changes to Mockups for Confluence

  • The plugin now supports usernames with colon (":") in them. Thanks Femke M. for reporting it

Changes to Mockups for Jira

  • Big update! Balsamiq Mockups for JIRA is now a Version 2 plugin! No more restarting JIRA in order to install, uninstall or update. You can do it all via the Universal Plugin Manager now! We updated the Mockups for JIRA Admin Guide to reflect this welcome (and long overdue) change. A little snag is that in order to update to today's build, you'll have to delete the old plugin from .../atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/lib manually and restart JIRA one last time.
  • We refactored a bunch of our code to make it fit with our other plugins. A side-effect of this change are the handy new "Save" and "Close" buttons in the top-left of the editor. If you see anything not behaving as expected, let us know and we'll fix it right up!
  • Another side-effect of the refactoring is that image uploads now happen from within the editor itself! No more html pop-ups, it now behaves just like in Mockups for Confluence. Smoother.
  • The plugin now supports usernames with colon (":") in them.

Changes to Mockups for Fogbugz

  • Big refactoring effort. The plugin is now compatible with FogBugz onDemand again (this broke because of a recent change in FogBugz onDemand itself). A side-effect of this is that our plugin is no longer compatible with FogBugz version 8.3.41 and prior (i.e. purchased before 2/2/2011). If you are running an older FogBugz and really cannot update it, you can find the last version of our plugin compatible with your FogBugz in our build archives: MockupsFogBugz2.1.13.zip.
  • Fixed a display but on the Mockups for FogBugz onDemand pricing table.
  • Fixed and issue in FogBugz 8.7 and url-encoded attachment names.
  • Fixed a bug with Google Chrome giving a "double http header" warning on some image attachments.

How do I update?

If you're using myBalsamiq, please wait until we update it with these changes (stay tuned on this blog).

For other versions, simply install from our download page on top of your current installation. You won't have to re-register.

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 2.1.15
  • Mockups for Confluence: version 2.1.14
  • Mockups for FogBugz: version 2.1.14
  • Mockups for JIRA: version 2.1.15
  • Mockups for XWiki: version 2.1.14
  • Web Demo: version 2.1.16 launch it

What else is going on?

Although the list above is quite impressive, it pales in comparison to the effort we've been putting in test automation in the last few months. We now have over 500 unit and integration tests in the Mockups editor itself. We have Selenium-based bots running HUNDREDS of tests on myBalsamiq and now Mockups for JIRA (bots for other plugins coming shortly). We integrated most of the automated tests into our continuous integration server so that if a test fails, the whole build fails. We are changing our processes so that no new feature goes out the door without having an automated testing suite to go with it.

In short, we have a lot of code now, and don't want it to break. Since we rely on your feedback so much, your trust in our release quality is really important for us. These automated suites will help us ensure we maintain that quality and sleep better at night. 🙂

Of course there will always be bugs, but we're doing the best that we can to prevent them and catch them before you do. Thanks for your understanding if we miss some.

Let's see, what else did we do since the last release...

As a last note, I'll be giving a talk in London on April 17th, then Mike and I will be manning a booth at UX London. At the end of April I'll be in Las Vegas for MicroConf, and it looks like I'll be speaking at Business of Software 2012 in Boston in the fall again. Yay! I hope to meet some of you in person at those events!

Alright, back to figuring out how to update myBalsamiq quickly and safely.

Onward!

P.S.Many thanks to our good friend Mims Wright who helped us with many of today's changes!

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

Leave a Comment

Comments (8)

  1. Hi Peldi, yes that’s all ok now, thank you very much!

  2. We have updated all the builds, there shouldn’t be a 2.1.14 left. Please try again if you had trouble. Thanks!

    Peldi Guilizzoni
  3. Hello there, I discovered Balsamiq today and I was willing to give it a try but I having the same problem of Vidu about the version.
    I tried even to get the .exe from http://builds.balsamiq.com/archives/mockups-desktop/ as suggested but no way, I get the 2.1.15 .exe file and the version is the 2.1.14… it’s curious as I see that the 2.14 .exe file and the 2.15 .exe file have the same size, while the other 2.15 versions are bigger than the other 2.14 versions.
    I’m doing something wrong?
    Many thanks in advance.
    Best regards

    Angelo

    [Peldi: Hi Angelo, we’re taking another look. In the meantime, please use the big “install mockups” button on http://balsamiq.com/download instead of downloading the .exe. It will work.]

  4. Hm… the full screen presentation mode isn’t working for me in this version. Known bug?

    [Peldi: no! Works here. 🙁 Can you please post more details here? http://community.balsamiq.com or support@balsamiq.com. Thanks!]

  5. Thank you!

    Ron Vutpakdi
  6. Updates don’t work. I finished the installation and see the version details to be –

    Version: 2.1.14 – 02/21/2012 07:47 (Air)

    [Peldi: there might be some aggressive proxy caching the build between our server and your machine: try getting the build from the build archives instead: http://builds.balsamiq.com/archives/mockups-desktop/ ]

  7. Is it my imagination, or does the link on the front page still go to the late February version?

    [Peldi: try clearing your cache]

    Ron Vutpakdi
  8. Well there goes this week’s deadlines 🙂 gonna spend so much time fiddling and playing with these awesome updates I’m not going to get as much work done as I planned 🙂

    Cheers guys, keep up the great work.

    Andrew halliday