Chris J. Karr, May 24th, 2010

Shion 3.0α1 is now available.

Please read the following release notes carefully.

This is the initial alpha release for Shion 3. This software is still very much under construction and has some very rough edges. In no particular order, some of the current major issues:

1. The AppleScript, RemoteBuddy, XMPP dialog, and other non-GUI interfaces remain unimplemented.

2. The DVR, Bluetooth, GPS, and camera devices have not yet been implemented.

3. The menu items leading to Shion web pages remain incomplete, pending the completion of the new Shion website.

4. Networked controller support (SmartLinc, EZServe) is not present in this release.

5. There are a variety of minor UI bugs in the device display and in general when running on 10.4 Tiger.

6. Sprinkler support is currently missing.

7. Changes in the device configuration from the preferences panel (modem & controllers) require an application restart to take effect.

8. You will need to reenter your devices, as the migration code is not yet complete.

That said, this release introduces the following improvements:

1. New, streamlined GUI.

2. Improved Shion Framework for hardware device communication.

3. Support for the PowerLinc 2412 USB & serial controllers. (USB users, please install the FTDI VCP 232R drivers before configuring in Shion.)

4. Support for the new Shion Online service.

This alpha release is not intended for production use and is mainly intended to solicit feedback on the direction of the product. This release has been tested with the PowerLinc 2414U, PowerLinc 2412U/S, CM11A, and CM15A controllers.

Please submit any feedback in the comments below. Two weeks from now, I am aiming to release the second alpha, which will address the issues present in this release.

Chris J. Karr, May 24th, 2010

Several months ago, I began working on the Shion iPhone client for Shion 2. The original plan was to create an iPhone client using the XMPP infrastructure that I had been building and release it early this summer. During this process, I ran into a number of challenges that prompted me to return to the desktop Shion codebase and begin renovating the core application. What began as a simple minor update to the app quickly ballooned into a massive reworking of the core application. In retrospect, this was exactly the right move.

While I will describe the iPhone app in a future post, this post discusses the major changes from Shion 2 to Shion 3. Read more for the full details.

Chris J. Karr, March 21st, 2010

Given some of the oddness that I’ve seen in Sourceforge as of late, I’ve gone ahead and packaged up the full source code to Books 3. It’s not the cleanest or most well-organized code, but there should be enough there for folks wanting to take the Books 3 code and run with it.

Enjoy!

Chris J. Karr, March 20th, 2010

I wanted to post a quick note about the state of Codex development. With the announcement of the iPad, I’ve put the development of the cataloging tool on hold as I waited and saw what Apple releases with the new version of iTunes. In short, it appears that iTunes is being tweaked to handle book content as well as music and videos. Since it’s conceivable that the cataloging interface will be a lot like the rest of the application, I wanted to wait and see what that looked like before putting together functionality that Apple would simply replicate. Since everything’s ePub in this brave new world, Apple may end up doing much of the hard work that I originally planned.

I’m still moving forward with using ePub as a record medium for physical books. To encourage myself to move a bit quicker on this front, I’ve stopped using Books 3 as a means for cataloging my weekly comic book runs and the growing pile of issues will serve as a good motivator for getting the ePub creation tools out sooner rather than later.

Thank you for your continued patience and I look forward to discussing more about where Codex fits in an ePub-enabled iTunes future.

Chris J. Karr, March 20th, 2010

Effective immediately, the Shion Mac desktop client is now free and may be downloaded and used with as many devices as you desire for no cost. It’ll take me some time to release an update with the license checking disabled, so please e-mail shion@audacious-software.com for your free license to use until I get around to releasing a non-license-checking update.

The reason that the desktop client is going free is because I have a few new additions to the larger Shion platform that I’ll be releasing in the coming months and the business model for Shion as a whole doesn’t work well if there’s any friction for users getting started. I’ll be happy to post more details when they’re ready, but in the meantime, please enjoy using Shion on our dime.

For those of you who purchased a Shion license in the past year, I’m prepared to give you a full refund for your purchase, so please send me an e-mail if you’d like me to get that process started.

I’m very excited about the next phase in the evolution of this software, so stay tuned to this weblog for further details.