Two Applications That I am Awaiting Updates For

It always inspires confidence when a developer continues to release maintenance builds between major updates. Here are two apps that haven’t had any love for a long, long time.

TaskPaper

taskpaper-icon.jpgTaskPaper is a specialized notepad for making project delimited lists of actions. In other words, it’s a To Do application.

I wrote about TaskPaper a few months ago and my review was largely positive. It’s simple and to the point. Unfortunately, the application hasn’t been updated since I installed it, and in fact hasn’t been updated since November 12, 2007. It’s been abandoned at version 1.0.3 – buggy and unloved (at least by the developer). Instead of fixing TaskPaper and releasing a non-beta version, the developer has decided to begin working on version 2 and releasing periodic builds in his support forums. Each release is bracketed with warnings of instability and missing features – I’ve used a few of these releases and features seem to appear and disappear from build to build. A dialog box appears at launch warning the user that 2.0 isn’t ready for serious work.

I’m really disappointed at this. Version 1 was great, and it felt very near completion. The developer is still offering the abandoned application for ‘an introductory price of 18.95$’ – a premium for a bug ridden application. Despite my initial enthusiasm for the little app, this situation compels me to urge caution to anyone considering purchasing TaskPaper.

CSSEdit

cssedit-icon.pngCSSEdit is one of my favorite applications. Without this instantly previewing style sheet creator, I never would have made it as far as I have learning CSS. It’s an amazing tool and I use it daily.

I mentioned CSSEdit in my article ‘Convert Your Mac Into a Blogger’s Dream Machine‘ and unlike TaskPaper, CSSEdit is a solid beast. It’s never once crashed on me and I’ve never experienced any bugs, despite heavy use. But CSSEdit too hasn’t been updated for a long time – 2.6, which brought lots of new features as well as Leopard compatibility, was released October 25, 2007. CSSEdit is far more stable and finished than TaskPaper, but there are lots of small feature updates that could be implemented to improve the application – the ability to bookmark preview sites and autocompletion of URLs in the preview window would be really nice, as well as smarter autocompletes over all. I’m still in love with this app and encourage anyone who works with CSS to give it a trial run, but I’m hoping that the developer releases a new version soon.

2 Responses to Two Applications That I am Awaiting Updates For

  1. Jesse Grosjean
    August 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 am

    Hi this is Jesse Grosjean of TaskPaper.

    I agree I should have planned things differently so that I could get a steady stream of releases out. But I don’t think it’s quite fair to say that I’ve abandoned the product. Version 1.0.3 is pretty darn stable, at least I’ve always gotten very few crash reports from it. And version 2.0, which I’ve been working on it nearly full time for the past year, is going to be a free upgrade for 1.0 users.

    Anyway, I wish I’d been able to release 2.0 sooner too. But I just want people to understand that it’s a continuation (free upgrade) of the 1.0 product, and I’m working on it as fast as I can.

  2. Peter
    August 22nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm

    Hi Jesse.

    I appreciate the personal response.

    TaskPaper is an application that I use everyday to track the things I need to get done. Its straight forward functionality is a perfect match for the way that I keep myself organized. I admit that the language of the post is a bit strong, but I did not mean to imply that TaskPaper is itself an incapable application. I use and like it, which is why I expressed disappointment that version 1 has been put on ice so that version 2 could realized.

    I meant for the word ‘abandoned’ to apply, not to the whole TaskPaper project, but only to the development of version 1. I’ve used some development builds of the new version so I know that there is lots of work still being done, but the consistency of the the original TaskPaper makes it the stronger version and that’s why I wish a few more of the bugs had been resolved before version 2 came to receive 100% of its developer’s attention.

    In any case, thanks for your comment. I have no plans to abandon TaskPaper myself anytime soon and am excited for the final release of 2.0.

Think different?