Coherence Labs

Category: TypeMetal

  • WordPress Sync Fixes Coming Soon!

    TypeMetal 2.0.5 will be coming soon to the Mac App Store, with critical sync fixes for WordPress users.

    The Internet is no place to run a server. Malicious hackers are all too eager to test and compromise your system’s defenses, hammering away repeatedly and relentlessly with script-based attacks that will cause grief for the unprepared.

    In response to rising attacks of a particular kind on WordPress sites, WordPress.com and other WordPress hosting services have necessarily tightened their security, which unfortunately caused TypeMetal’s WordPress sync machinery to begin failing. (If you’ve been performing normal syncs and drafting/publishing tasks with an already-established TypeMetal WordPress project, you may not have encountered any trouble. But first-time syncs with a newly added account, or “exhaustive” syncs triggered by holding the “Option” key while clicking “Login” or “Sync”, suddenly began failing, because the prior means to obtain the list of a user’s blogs had been disabled.)

    We’ve worked out a fix for this, which will appear in TypeMetal 2.0.5 as soon as it makes it through App Store review. There’s a new authentication process for WordPress.com accounts, which you’ll be able to read about on the “Connecting to WordPress” page of the User Guide as soon as the new version has been released (though we hope we’ve made it straightforward). There’s a fix for self-hosted blogs too.

    We apologize to those who’ve been affected by this regression, and hope the new version will have your WordPress projects up and running again soon! As a reminder: Always feel free to email “support” at coherencelabs.com, post on the TypeMetal Support Forum, or tweet @CoherenceLabs, regarding any problems you run into. We’re here to help!

    A couple of articles on the nature of the attacks being guarded against, for those interested:

  • A Year of TypeMetal

    A year ago today, TypeMetal introduced the world to an agile and versatile new way to author professional-grade HTML. Since then, it has evolved into a powerful and intuitive WordPress publishing app, while remaining a fully general editor for standalone HTML files.

    What have you built with TypeMetal? How has TypeMetal affected your workflow? And what would you like to see in the future? We’d love to hear your use case stories and feedback on the TypeMetal Support Forum! (App Store reviews are welcome and greatly appreciated too!)

    With profound gratitude to the many customers whose indispensable support has helped sustain this project! — Thank you for making this year possible!

  • TypeMetal 2 Adds WordPress Support

    We’re delighted to announce the release of TypeMetal 2 — a brand new version of our revolutionary OS X HTML editor that brings a first-rate WordPress experience to your Mac!

    With TypeMetal, there’s no separate “preview”: You write and edit directly in your posts as they’ll appear to readers — fully styled using your site’s theme, or in an uncluttered, focus-conducive “Clear View” mode. You also get a complete, synced copy of your posts and pages that you can easily browse, search, and edit on your Mac, even in the absence of an Internet connection. Think of TypeMetal as Mail.app for your WordPress sites — a self-contained experience that provides easy, pushbutton publishing.

    A WordPress Blog Project, Viewed in TypeMetal 2 on OS X

    A WordPress Blog Project, Viewed in TypeMetal 2 on OS X

    In continuous development since the release of TypeMetal 1.0, and building on technology we’ve had in R&D since the project’s beginnings, this new version of TypeMetal provides a whole new way for you to own your WordPress content, while paving the way for integration with other publishing destinations and content management systems in the future. We’ve been using development builds of TypeMetal 2 behind the scenes for a while now, to write and publish news articles such as this one, and we think you’ll enjoy the experience it provides as much as we do. (Like its predecessor, TypeMetal 2 also remains, and will continue to be, a powerful and versatile editor for general HTML files.)

    Using TypeMetal on OS X to Draft This WordPress Post
    Using TypeMetal on OS X to Draft This WordPress Post

    An easy-to-install-and-use, versatile, highly customizable, field-tested, open-source publishing platform that powers millions of websites, WordPress is rightly regarded as a nimble and powerful tool by people who publish everything from personal blogs to company websites. We’re delighted to be able to contribute something to the growing WordPress ecosystem, by providing a seamlessly integrated Mac-native writing experience for WordPress authors to enjoy.

    To celebrate its launch, TypeMetal 2 is on sale for a limited time. Get it today on the Mac App Store! And in gratitude to our pioneering first users, TypeMetal 2 is also a free upgrade for everyone who purchased TypeMetal 1. — Thank you for your indispensable support!

    You can learn all about TypeMetal 2 by browsing its newly updated online User Guide. — See in particular the brand new section on “Using TypeMetal with WordPress”.

    If you’re new to TypeMetal, you’re likely to find past articles on our News feed helpful — in particular, those that have discussed TypeMetal’s approach to semantic HTML, suggested a different way of thinking about HTML authoring, and illustrated the use of snippet sets. (See also: “TypeMetal’s Approach” and “Rise of the Plain Text Editors”.)

    We’ve been working very hard on this new version and hope you’ll enjoy it! As always, please reach out to us on the public TypeMetal Support Forum, tweet us @CoherenceLabs, or send us an email if you run into any trouble at all. We want you to enjoy using TypeMetal, and we’re here to help!

  • TypeMetal 1.2 Adds Embeddable Source Loupe

    Work on the next major update to TypeMetal has been well nigh relentless. But we’ve taken a moment to bring you some oft-requested enhancements without further delay.

    Topping the list in just-released TypeMetal 1.2 is the all-new ability to pin TypeMetal’s floating “Source Loupe” down, embedding it in the associated document window — see TypeMetal 1.2’s updated “General” preference panel for a one-stop spot to configure this.

    The floating Source Loupe, which was designed to facilitate occasional peeks at a document’s underlying HTML markup, is still available for those who prefer it. But some users find its movement distracting, its presence in a separate window a hard-to-manage use of screen real estate, or its transience unsuited to their workflow. The embedded Source Loupe offers additional functionality that users who like to keep the Source Loupe shown will appreciate:

    • Its height is adjustable.
    • There’s no need to leave room below the document window for the embedded Source Loupe to park itself, since it simply borrows space from the content editing area when shown.
    • You can drag, click, and double-click in the embedded Source Loupe to select the corresponding parts of your document, position the insertion point in the content editing area, and open the attribute editor for indicated elements and attributes.
    • You can easily scroll through the HTML markup for your entire document.

    (See the Source Loupe page in TypeMetal’s Help / User Guide for details.)

    TypeMetal 1.2 also adds awareness of HTML 5’s <main>, <dialog>, <rb>, and <rtc>elements, fixes styling of numbered list items in all of TypeMetal’s bundled stylesheets, and makes references to TypeMetal’s bundled stylesheets more resilient to file movement, by using absolute URLs. We’ve also fixed a filesystem scanning crash that could occur if you have filenames that contain ‘/’ or ‘:’ characters, and fixed some inaccuracies in mapping between your document content and the corresponding markup displayed in the Source Loupe.

    As always, we’ve updated the TypeMetal User Guide and Demo build.

    We love getting your feedback — which we welcome you to send via the TypeMetal Support Forum, Twitter, or directly via email if you prefer — and we also greatly appreciate App Store reviews! Stay tuned to our News and Twitter feeds for the latest — and thank you for your support!

  • A Landmark Year

    2013 was a huge milestone year for Coherence Labs, and it’s with great excitement and anticipation that we look forward to the year to come.

    The first release of TypeMetal, in June, marked the culmination of a year and a half of tireless development — striving to produce an intuitive, professional-grade HTML editing experience unlike anything else on the Mac. To do that, we started from scratch, and built an entirely new editing engine that lives and breathes modern, standards-compliant HTML as its native representation. With its keyboard-navigable UI, fully styled content-focused view, and extensibility via snippet sets to support your own semantic markup conventions, TypeMetal provides a revolutionary and more productive way to write for the Web. In a time when many have retreated to plain text and shorthand markup languages, we felt certain that there had to be a better way — one that makes it easy to tap the full expressiveness and extensibility of modern HTML, while working directly with fully CSS-styled pages. TypeMetal achieves that — embracing HTML as its native document model, while escaping the need for a separate “preview” by making rendered pages fully editable.

    We set out to build a writing app that meets exacting standards of HTML craftsmanship, and have been delighted to see meticulous, demanding content developers start to adopt TypeMetal as part of their workflow. We’re proud to say that TypeMetal’s first release has achieved many of our goals — garnering enthusiastic reviews, while defying expectations and redefining what’s possible for WYSIWYG HTML editing. But we’re just getting started.

    We’ve been working nonstop on a major TypeMetal update. The new version — which will be a free upgrade — adds functionality that’s been part of TypeMetal’s long-term design from the beginning. We can’t say more just yet, but this release is the beginning of expanding TypeMetal’s usefulness to a broader audience, while maintaining and enhancing its existing capabilities for those who work with standalone HTML files. The new version is nearly feature complete, and we can’t wait to take the wraps off and release it to the world. Watch for news to appear in February.

    More than anything, we look back on 2013 with tremendous gratitude for you: TypeMetal’s pioneering first users. Your support, enthusiasm, and feedback have made the realization of longtime dreams possible, and are fueling the ongoing development of still greater advances to come. Thank you, and stay tuned via our News and Twitter feeds. We look forward to giving you even more reasons to enjoy crafting your content using TypeMetal.

    Happy New Year!