Bluebird 1.0 Beta 2 Release Notes

Released 6/14/2009

Bluebird 1.0 Beta 2 is a beta release. It is for use by people not afraid of software that may have a few bugs in it. The download link for non-Sparkle users is at the end of this document.

Features Added

• UI redesigned to create better workflow. This includes a new fully contextual divider, an activity indicator, and a redesigned toolbar.
• The Bluebird Inspector: choosing to open a user's profile will now open it within an Inspector, allowing you to browse through a user's mini-bio, all of their tweets currently loaded in Bluebird, and the @reply conversation between you and that user.
• A handful of hotkeys now accompany Bluebird so you can get your work done without wasting time clicking.
• Initiating a direct message is now considerably more streamlined (opens a new thread in the direct messages view).
• New URLs: bluebird://new-tweet/(tweet text) will begin a new tweet containing the provided (URL-encoded) text. This allows for bookmarklets, and other cool little features; bluebird://append/(text), bluebird://prepend/(text), appends or prepends the provided (URL-encoded) text to the tweet field; bluebird://profile/(username) will open a user's profile in Bluebird's build-in Inspector; bluebird://favorite/(tweet ID), bluebird://unfavorite/(tweet ID), will allow you to favorite and unfavorite tweets.
• A bookmarklet is now available and ready for use: Share with Bluebird (or drag from the bookmarklet site).
• [Themes] New user properties: location, following.
• Added preferences to (independently) disable smilies and/or Emoji.
• Added an option to have Bluebird open external links in the background — no jarring app switch to Safari anymore.
• Added an option to automatically hide the Bluebird window when Bluebird isn't the active application.
• Bluebird now recognizes hashtags and links them to their search results. #coolfeature
• Clicking Growl notifications now opens the Bluebird window.
• It is now possible to use either the "RT username message" or "message (via username)" retweet formats; to switch to the "via" format, run the following Terminal command:

  defaults write com.13bold.Bluebird useViaRetweetFormat -bool YES

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed the bug caused by the Twitpocalypse.
• Switching filter criteria no longer screws with scroll position: tweets are automatically scrolled to the bottom whenever the filter criteria changes.
• bluebird: and twitter: URLs now work for all tweets and people, not just those that Bluebird has already loaded in its cache (eg, you can now construct a reply link to any tweet, not just one that has already shown up in a user's feed). First reference to an unknown user/tweet uses one API request; subsequent references don't use any.
• The WebView "Reload" contextual menu is no longer displayed on right-click.
• Bluebird's interaction with Spaces has been modified: once a window is opened, it will stick to the current space; after closing it, however, reopening the window will cause it to open on whatever space you are at the moment (and then stick there). This is the most natural feeling behavior; you can disable this, however, and force Bluebird to obey only the Spaces preference pane by running this command, then restarting Bluebird:

  defaults write com.13bold.Bluebird disableSpacesSugar -bool YES

• Bluebird was including your own posts and direct messages in the API request limit count. As it turns out, those requests are free (thanks, Twitter!), so those are no longer included in the running count.
• When the length of the tweet document changes after the initial load (for instance, it takes an extra second or two to load images, etc.), Bluebird does not keep the window scrolled to the bottom. This is combatted by automatically scrolling to bottom 1.5 seconds after the page load, which accounts for most delayed image loads. To avoid the issue in your themes, make sure you define fixed heights for all image elements, and also use things like window.scrollTo() to scroll the page down after modifying its length.
• Removed your own DMs from the new DM count.
• Bluebird no longer posts Growl notifications of your own tweets and direct messages.

Caveats and Known Issues

• IMPORTANT! This build of Bluebird REQUIRES that all themes be updated to use the new theme format. The three included themes have already been updated, but most third-party themes will not have been. It is recommended that you not install this build until your favorite themes have been updated per the conversion guide.
• There is a bug where the badge of unread DMs (in DM view) is sometimes displayed under the corner of the author's avatar instead of on top of it. We're working on this one, never fear!
• Tweets and content displayed in the Inspector display HTML entities in expanded form (ie, & instead of &).
• Switching to the status list after initiating a new direct message thread takes a long time. Still no known cause.

Download Bluebird 1.0 Beta 2

... or update using Sparkle.