Dejal Simon Changelog

What's new in Dejal Simon 4.2.2

Mar 1, 2017

Updated support for Setapp. (Prefer a subscription to Simon and lots of other apps? Check out Setapp.)
Added an in-app purchase option, so you can purchase a license without leaving the app (direct edition only).
Fixed the Result label when editing a Number filter to correctly display the status icon and result message.
Changed the Script editor to prevent it from using smart quotes and dashes, which can interfere with correct script functioning.
Fixed an exception with the MySQL service.
A number of other minor fixes.
Built for Sierra (but still compatible back to Yosemite).

New in Dejal Simon 4.2.1 (Mar 1, 2017)

New in Dejal Simon 4.2 (Feb 23, 2016)

Added an Exclude Block filter:
Added a new Exclude Block filter that outputs the text outside the block, instead of inside like the normal Block filter.
Enhanced the Block filter feature to support specifying whether to output the text before the Start, the Start text itself, the text between the Start and End, the End text, and/or after the End text, or any combination of those, optionally joined by some separator.
Added difference analysis filters:
Added new Extract List, Extract Changes to List and Rich Text Representation of Changes filters, kindly contributed by Max Cardale. Read the comments for those filters for detailed descriptions of each.
New filter variables:
Added support for {FilterIndex}, {FilterPreviousText} and {FilterInputVariable} filter variables to support referring to prior filters, e.g. the second filter can see the previous text of the first filter via {Filter1PreviousText}.
Added support for reverse-numbered filter variables of the form {FilterPrior1InputText}, where the number counts from the filter before the current one. All of the Filternumber variables are available as FilterPriornumber ones. These are "smart" variables that are not available to notifiers, since they just duplicate values already available. (In case you weren't already aware, you can add a number after Filter for any filter variable, to access variables of prior filters; the numbers count from 1 for the first filter.)
Added a description of the numbers in filter variables to the help book.
Email improvements:
The Preview now supports the Email notifier; it will display the message that is sent, with placeholder values for any variables. (Tip: you can check that an email notifier is configured correctly by showing the Preview or just clicking the Reload toolbar button, or File > Notify Now.)
Added support for STARTTLS connection security and Password (PLAIN) authentication in the Email Transport panel.
If the Port field is clear, or contains a standard port number for a connection security, it is changed to the typical port number when the connection security is changed.
Preview improvements
When the Preview page is displayed for a service, filter or notifier that supports previews (i.e. email and scripts), it displays a message "Reload to Preview", rather than automatically sending an email or running the script (resulting in unexpected placeholder emails or script actions). Click the Reload toolbar button, or the File > Notify Now menu command, to actually preview the item.
Added special case support for Web content encodings specified in the source instead of the header (e.g. or for Chinese).
Several fixes of the reports feature
Fixed an issue with uploading reports to remote FTP servers.
Fixed a crasher when adding a new report with the Preview pane selected.
Fixed a logic error that prevented recent checks, changes, etc from being listed on the detail pages.
Fixed incorrect last report date display when the report hasn't been generated yet.
More convenient upgrade licensing
When adding an upgrade license, now automatically looks up the original license, instead of just telling you it's needed (which can cause confusion, since it's an unusual situation).
Lots more security and stability improvements
Updated the Sparkle updater framework to the latest version.
Added a Via SSL option to the Updates preferences, to use a secure connection to check for and download app updates. This is on by default, but can be turned off if it doesn't work for some reason.
Also updated license refresh etc URLs to use TLS/SSL.
Scripts are now saved as Base64-encoded text, to preserve formatting.
Fixed a common crasher when editing at the Auto Pause pages.
Fixed another crasher when changing pages at the bottom of the window.
Fixed a cosmetic issue where the editor info background could show garbage in some situations.
Fixed a couple of rare crashes with deleting items.
Fixed a crash with using the Convert Domain/IP command with a large text field.
Fixed a rare crash with reports.
Fixed a rare crasher with the Find filter.

New in Dejal Simon 4.2 Beta 2 (Feb 17, 2016)

New in Dejal Simon 4.2 Beta 1 (Feb 17, 2016)

New in Dejal Simon 4.1.1 (Sep 20, 2015)

New in Dejal Simon 4.1 (Aug 12, 2015)

Redesigned Web feature:
The Web (HTTP) editor has been significantly redesigned, to use a list of pages including Parameters, Headers, Cookies and Other. Clicking on one shows the corresponding page.
The Method pop-up menu is now on the Parameters page, since it indicates how the parameters are sent.
The Username and Password fields are now on the Other page; they are only useful if you connect to a server that has an authentication challenge (as displayed in a web browser via a sheet; not the same as a in-page form-based login).
Both the test and notifier editions of the Web feature received these changes.
Updated the web helper to 64-bit.
Web feature support for custom headers:
The new Headers list enables you to add custom headers to send with the request, e.g. Accept, User-Agent, etc.
Note that sending a request via Post will set the Content-Type and Content-Length headers, overriding any you may add.
Also for both tests and notifiers.
Now does Post requests via the more compact application/x-www-form-urlencoded content type, instead of multipart/form-data.
Support for dynamic web content:
Added an option to the Web (HTTP) service to enable capturing the rendered source some interval after the base HTML is loaded, to support including dynamic changes from JavaScript, as is more and more common nowadays.
Various improvements and fixes:
If the When pop-up menu for a test filter is changed to None, the filter plugin controls are now removed, as expected.
Changed the (-) button to set the When pop-up menu to None for the last filter or notifier in the test.
Fixed an issue where the Preview source wouldn't finish loading if the Preview is displayed on launch of the app.
When adding a new test with the Preview displayed, now displays a message saying that there's no location, instead of making the test a failure immediately.
Changed the display of status icons in the Tests list to support the Use simple status icons preference option (that uses just green & red instead of fading colors over time).
Moved the Delete menu item from the File menu to the Edit menu, to match the placement in most other apps.
Fixed enabling and disabling of menu and toolbar items depending on the selected list items.
Fixed a very vexing code signing issue with the Growl framework.
Updated a few pages in the help book.
Added a crash reporter:
Simon now uses the third-party Fabric Crashlytics framework to automatically capture crash reports. Previously it would attempt to ignore crashes, so it might crash a little more than before, but hopefully not. Automatically aggregating crash reports will enable faster fixing any that occur.
If a crash occurs, Simon will now display an assistant window on next launch to ask for information about the crash, which may help trace the cause. There are also optional fields for your name and email address, in case there are any questions.
Updated localizations:
Added Chinese localization, thanks to WeiOSX. Anyone familiar with Chinese, please provide feedback on this work (any issues or improvements).
Removed Japanese localization, as it has not been updated for a while. If anyone experienced with Japanese localization would like to take over this, please get in touch.
Updated the German and French localizations in some of the plugins (where they hadn't been used before).
Integrated a German translation into the help book.

New in Dejal Simon 4.0.3 (Mar 4, 2015)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0.2 (Jan 30, 2015)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0.1 (Jan 5, 2015)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 (Dec 18, 2014)

Please Note:
Simon 4 requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).
Simon 4 is a paid upgrade from Simon 3.
Purchasers since November 1, 2014 are eligible for a free upgrade; contact Dejal for details.
Simon Express, formerly in the Mac App Store, is automatically recognized as a version 3 license.
Unlimited tests for everyone:
Simon 4 has eliminated the license limits on the number of test configurations that can be added.
Everyone can now add an unlimited number of tests.
Great new Simon Monitor window design:
Simon's main window, the Simon Monitor window, has been significantly redesigned. It now uses a single-window approach to display the Tests, Services, Filters, Notifiers and Reports lists in this window, switching between them via mode buttons along the left edge.
Editing tests, services, etc is now done in this window as well, via an optional info pane to the right of the active list.
As in earlier versions, the logs are displayed in a pane at the bottom of the window. This pane can now also display the Preview; see below for more on this.
The lists or logs can be hidden by dragging the pane splitter, or Cmd-clicking on the selected mode button.
Replaced the somewhat crusty toolbar and mode icons with nice elegant ones, and added separate selected editions with a splash of color.
For fun (and usefulness), the selected color of the Tests list mode icon matches the status menu / Dock icon color.
Attractive new list layouts:
The lists of Tests, Services, etc have been redesigned to use a custom layout inspired by Apple Mail and other modern apps.
The lists can be sorted via a menu above the list, or via the View menu.
The choice of displaying absolute dates and times (like "2014-12-25 12:34", using your local date & time format) or relative times (like "5 mins, 25 secs ago") is also available in these menus.
The Tests list shows the unviewed flag, status icon, test name, next due date/time; the uptime, service, location, last check time, and last check duration.
The Tests list can also optionally display information about the most recent change and failure: the last change and when it occurred; the last error, failure & recovery date/time. These can also be toggled via those menus.
Removed the View Options sheet, since it is no longer needed.
Groups:
A major popularly requested feature: added support for groups in all lists.
Groups can be added to help organize the tests, services, etc into logical collections, e.g. by server or kind; whatever makes sense.
In the list, the group displays a summary of its members, e.g. the most significant status and combined uptime, with the info summary showing common values.
The menubar status menu displays groups in sub-menus, with commands that can be applied to all group members.
Redesigned editors:
The editors have been completely redesigned to integrate them into the single-window approach.
Selecting an item in the Tests, etc lists will now display a summary of the item in the handy new Info pane to the right of the list.
An Edit button is included in the top-right of the Info pane. Click that to toggle into edit mode, where the item can be modified. The button changes to Done to switch out of editing mode.
You can also click the headings on the summary to jump right to the related page in edit mode.
You can leave it in editing mode and switch between tests to quickly edit them; it will remain on the same page.
Speaking of which, the page selectors have been redesigned, and a new Name page was added to edit the name and comments.
The test statistics have been moved to the test summary page for easy reference.
When multiple tests or no tests are selected, the summary page shows the values in common, and a combined view of the statistics for those tests.
When editing a test, on the Filters page, the pre-condition popup menu (the first one) now disables the Unchanged and Changed items for the first filter, since they are only appropriate for subsequent filters (the service output can only be a success or failure).
The actions for the test Filters, Notifiers, Reports and Auto Pause can now be reordered, simply by dragging them.
Integrated preview, including filter output:
The Preview function has been completely redesigned to integrate it into the single-window approach, and provide the ability to see the filter output in addition to the service output.
When a test is selected, the Preview feature can be displayed in place of the logs at the bottom of the window for a quick view of the test.
The preview includes a web page on the left (for web-based tests), a selection list in the middle, and the service response, headers or filter output on the right.
The selection list shows the status of the service or filter, and for filters, the sequence number and filter name, e.g. "#1: Block Output" for the output from a Block filter.
The filter output is very useful, to see not only the result of the service, but also the result of each filter. This makes it easier than ever to build up multiple filters, taking the output from previous ones to hone in on the interesting values.
The Preview function is also available when displaying a Script-based service, filter or notifier, to run the script and see what it outputs while writing it, and to preview a report within Simon.
Can now hide Simon in the Dock:
A surprise new feature: a General Preferences option to control whether or not Simon appears in the Dock (it's shown by default).
Note that when it is not shown in the Dock, it also doesn't appear in the Cmd-Tab app switcher, and it no longer has a menu bar.
When turning off the option to show in the Dock, the option to show the status menu is automatically turned on, so you can access the app via that. (You can turn it off again if you wish, in which case you'll only be able to access Simon by opening the app from the Finder.)
When it isn't in the Dock, a new action toolbar button is automatically added, to give access to the preferences and other functions.
Password protect access:
Added an option in General Preferences to specify a password to use to unlock Simon access.
If set, the password is required when launching or switching to Simon.
Enhancements to the Email feature:
The Email feature now also works as a service. Three service modes are supported: Email Send, Email Receive, and Email Cycle.
Email Send is basically the same as the Email notifier: sends a custom message via SMTP. Useful to "check in" or test that a mail server is working. It outputs the message, or an error if unsuccessful.
Email Receive fetches a list of messages from an IMAP server. It outputs the list of messages, or an error.
Email Cycle first sends a special message with a unique identifier to a SMTP server, then checks for that message arriving on an IMAP server. It cleans up after itself, and outputs the message and mailbox listing, or an error.
Renamed the E-mail notifier as Email, finally.
Added a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel. Defaults to the server name, and is displayed in the Transport pop-up menu.
Added an Email Account Options panel, similar to the Email Transport Options one, to enable configuring IMAP account information for the Receive and Cycle services.
Removed the Sendmail custom transport option, as it is no longer supported. If you used this and this makes you sad, please contact Dejal; it may be possible to support it via a script.
Sending email via a custom transport now uses the modern MailCore framework, instead of the old Pantomime framework.
If your email notifiers don't work after upgrading, please check their transport settings.
Added a Context filter:
Added a new Context filter feature, which takes the previous filter's input and the following new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text.
Note that it actually uses the Input specified in the test to determine which filter's input and match variables to use: if you have two previous filters, you can make the Context filter look at the first one by choosing Filter1OutputText instead of the default FilterOutputText (from the proceeding filter).
This includes controls to specify the number of characters before and/or after the match range, and/or a delimiter before and/or after the match range (e.g. you can show up to 50 characters, stopping at a line break).
Added a filter variable for FilterMatchLocation, which is set by some filters (Block and Find currently) to the position of the match in the input text, e.g. the text between the Blocks, or the Find result. Note that the location is zero-based.
Also added a filter variable for FilterMatchLength, which is the length of that match.
And a filter variable for FilterMatchEnd, which is the location plus the length, for convenience.
Finally, a new filter variable for FilterNInputText, where N is the filter index (1-based). This enables any filter (or notifier) to see what was passed to a previous filter.
Web feature enhancements:
The Web (HTTP) feature will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. ). Meta refreshes to reload the same page are ignored.
If for some reason you don't want this behavior, it can be disabled via defaults write com.dejal.simon WebIgnoreMetaRefresh YES in Terminal.
Fixed an incompatibility in the Web (HTTP) feature with a few servers that don't handle sending an empty cookies header when there aren't any to send. It now omits the header in this situation.
More new default tests, services & filters:
Added a new RSS service, which is basically just a Web (HTTP) service with a feed:// protocol, but also has different Preview behavior (see below).
Added a new Singular or Plural filter, which has fields for a singular or plural word, and outputs the appropriate one based on the numeric input (use other filters to provide a number).
Added a new Input filter, which just outputs its input, with change detection. Useful to output the the result of the service or an earlier filter after doing other filtering.
Added a new Get Average Ping Response Time filter, which would typically be used with the Ping service, and outputs the average response time in the filter input text.
Added a new Apple hot news default test (for new users), that uses the RSS service and a bunch of filters to output the latest news from Apple.
Added a new Dejal posts default test as another demo of using filters to combine values. It's the one I use to watch for new forum posts on the Dejal site.
A great new app icon:
A fantastic modern update of the icon by Jordan Langille of {OneToad -> http://onetoad.com}.
Still with the fun "static" on launch, licensing and quit, and blue "on" state behind the status icon.
(If it doesn't show up in your Dock, restart your Mac or use the Terminal command killall Dock.)
Migration from Simon Express and Simon Free:
To assist people coming from Simon Express or Simon Free, Simon now automatically migrates data from those older apps, if any, if there isn't any standard edition data.
Simon Express, formerly in the Mac App Store, is automatically recognized as a version 3 license.
Other changes:
Added a File > Share menu and a share button in the window toolbar to share the selected item(s) with other apps.
No longer truncates the difference text to 400 characters, if it's longer than that.
Removed the Pause All Tests and Resume All Tests functions from the Dock and status menus, since they are dangerous functions if you have lots of manually paused tests. (If anyone is sad about this change, let me know; I could restore it via a preference, if necessary.)
The date columns in the Logs now include the seconds. You may need to resize the columns to fit the entire time, depending on your local date format.
The Calendar feature no longer supports Google Calendar. Again, let me know if you used this.
Removed the Twitter service, since it isn't supported anymore. If you want to watch for Twitter updates, you could use a Web (HTTP) service instead.
Updated the Find, Sound and Speech features to use modern APIs.
The data is now saved in the background, for better performance.
Removed the quit confirmation preference, since it isn't used anymore anyway.
Improved the layout of the General Preferences pane.
Improved the wording of several alerts and confirmation sheets.
Added many exciting new bug opportunities.
Updated the help book for version 4.
Updated the German and French localizations. Japanese hasn't been updated yet, so is disabled in this release (it should be coming in a future update).
Rebuilt for Yosemite using Xcode 6.
Massive refactoring to drag the 12-year-old source code into the modern era.
Simon is now 64-bit and uses modern memory management.
Many changes to improve Yosemite compatibility.
Now requires Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10).

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 8 (Dec 17, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 7 (Dec 15, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 6 (Dec 15, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 4 (Dec 9, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 3 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 2 (Nov 21, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 4.0 Beta 1 (Nov 21, 2014)

Simon 4 requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite).
Simon 4 will be a paid upgrade from Simon 3.
During the beta period, version 3 licenses will work in version 4.
Purchasers since November 1, 2014 are eligible for a free upgrade; contact Dejal for details.
Simon Express, formerly in the Mac App Store, is automatically recognized as a version 3 license.
Unlimited tests for everyone:
Simon 4 has eliminated the license limits on the number of test configurations that can be added.
Everyone can now add an unlimited number of tests.
Great new Simon Monitor window design:
Simon's main window, the Simon Monitor window, has been significantly redesigned. It now uses a single-window approach to display the Tests, Services, Filters, Notifiers and Reports lists in this window, switching between them via mode buttons along the left edge.
Editing tests, services, etc is now done in this window as well, via an optional info pane to the right of the active list.
As in earlier versions, the logs are displayed in a pane at the bottom of the window. This pane can now also display the Preview; see below for more on this.
The lists or logs can be hidden by dragging the pane splitter, or Cmd-clicking on the selected mode button.
Attractive new list layouts:
The lists of Tests, Services, etc have been redesigned to use a custom layout inspired by Apple Mail and other modern apps.
The lists can be sorted via a menu above the list, or via the View menu.
The choice of displaying absolute dates and times (like "2014-12-25 12:34", using your local date & time format) or relative times (like "5 mins, 25 secs ago") is also available in these menus.
The Tests list shows the unviewed flag, status icon, test name, next due date/time; the uptime, service, location, last check time, and last check duration.
The Tests list can also optionally display information about the most recent change and failure: the last change and when it occurred; the last error, failure & recovery date/time. These can also be toggled via those menus.
Removed the View Options sheet, since it is no longer needed.
Groups:
A major popularly requested feature: added support for groups in all lists.
Groups can be added to help organize the tests, services, etc into logical collections, e.g. by server or kind; whatever makes sense.
In the list, the group displays a summary of its members, e.g. the most significant status and combined uptime, with the info summary showing common values.
The menubar status menu displays groups in sub-menus, with commands that can be applied to all group members.
Redesigned editors:
The editors have been completely redesigned to integrate them into the single-window approach.
Selecting an item in the Tests, etc lists will now display a summary of the item in the handy new Info pane to the right of the list.
An Edit button is included in the top-right of the Info pane. Click that to toggle into edit mode, where the item can be modified. The button changes to Done to switch out of editing mode.
You can also click the headings on the summary to jump right to the related page in edit mode.
You can leave it in editing mode and switch between tests to quickly edit them; it will remain on the same page.
Speaking of which, the page selectors have been redesigned, and a new Name page was added to edit the name and comments.
The test statistics have been moved to the test summary page for easy reference.
When multiple tests or no tests are selected, the summary page shows the values in common, and a combined view of the statistics for those tests.
When editing a test, on the Filters page, the pre-condition popup menu (the first one) now disables the Unchanged and Changed items for the first filter, since they are only appropriate for subsequent filters (the service output can only be a success or failure).
The actions for the test Filters, Notifiers, Reports and Auto Pause can now be reordered, simply by dragging them.
Integrated preview, including filter output:
The Preview function has been completely redesigned to integrate it into the single-window approach, and provide the ability to see the filter output in addition to the service output.
When a test is selected, the Preview feature can be displayed in place of the logs at the bottom of the window for a quick view of the test.
The preview includes a web page on the left (for web-based tests), a selection list in the middle, and the service response, headers or filter output on the right.
The selection list shows the status of the service or filter, and for filters, the sequence number and filter name, e.g. "#1: Block Output" for the output from a Block filter.
The filter output is very useful, to see not only the result of the service, but also the result of each filter. This makes it easier than ever to build up multiple filters, taking the output from previous ones to hone in on the interesting values.
The Preview function is also available when displaying a Script-based service, filter or notifier, to run the script and see what it outputs while writing it, and to preview a report within Simon.
Enhancements to the Email feature:
The Email feature now also works as a service. Three service modes are supported: Email Send, Email Receive, and Email Cycle.
Email Send is basically the same as the Email notifier: sends a custom message via SMTP. Useful to "check in" or test that a mail server is working. It outputs the message, or an error if unsuccessful.
Email Receive fetches a list of messages from an IMAP server. It outputs the list of messages, or an error.
Email Cycle first sends a special message with a unique identifier to a SMTP server, then checks for that message arriving on an IMAP server. It cleans up after itself, and outputs the message and mailbox listing, or an error.
Renamed the E-mail notifier as Email, finally.
Added a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel. Defaults to the server name, and is displayed in the Transport pop-up menu.
Added an Email Account Options panel, similar to the Email Transport Options one, to enable configuring IMAP account information for the Receive and Cycle services.
Removed the Sendmail custom transport option, as it is no longer supported. If you used this and this makes you sad, please contact Dejal; it may be possible to support it via a script.
Sending email via a custom transport now uses the modern MailCore framework, instead of the old Pantomime framework.
If your email notifiers don't work after upgrading, please check their transport settings.
Added a Context filter:
Added a new Context filter feature, which takes the previous filter's input and the following new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text.
Note that it actually uses the Input specified in the test to determine which filter's input and match variables to use: if you have two previous filters, you can make the Context filter look at the first one by choosing Filter1OutputText instead of the default FilterOutputText (from the proceeding filter).
This includes controls to specify the number of characters before and/or after the match range, and/or a delimiter before and/or after the match range (e.g. you can show up to 50 characters, stopping at a line break).
Added a filter variable for FilterMatchLocation, which is set by some filters (Block and Find currently) to the position of the match in the input text, e.g. the text between the Blocks, or the Find result. Note that the location is zero-based.
Also added a filter variable for FilterMatchLength, which is the length of that match.
And a filter variable for FilterMatchEnd, which is the location plus the length, for convenience.
Finally, a new filter variable for FilterNInputText, where N is the filter index (1-based). This enables any filter (or notifier) to see what was passed to a previous filter.
Web feature enhancements:
The Web (HTTP) feature will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. ). Meta refreshes to reload the same page are ignored.
If for some reason you don't want this behavior, it can be disabled via defaults write com.dejal.simon WebIgnoreMetaRefresh YES in Terminal.
Fixed an incompatibility in the Web (HTTP) feature with a few servers that don't handle sending an empty cookies header when there aren't any to send. It now omits the header in this situation.
A great new app icon:
A fantastic modern update of the icon by Jordan Langille of {OneToad -> http://onetoad.com}.
Still with the fun "static" on launch, licensing and quit, and blue "on" state behind the status icon.
And now with a "BETA" sash to remind you that this version may have some rough edges.
(If it doesn't show up in your Dock, restart your Mac or use the Terminal command killall Dock.)
Other changes:
Added a File > Share menu and a share button in the window toolbar to share the selected item(s) with other apps.
No longer truncates the difference text to 400 characters, if it's longer than that.
Removed the Pause All Tests and Resume All Tests functions from the Dock and status menus, since they are dangerous functions if you have lots of manually paused tests. (If anyone is sad about this change, let me know; I could restore it via a preference, if necessary.)
The date columns in the Logs now include the seconds. You may need to resize the columns to fit the entire time, depending on your local date format.
Added a Get Average Ping Response Time filter, which would typically be used with the Ping service, and outputs the average response time in the filter input text.
The Calendar feature no longer supports Google Calendar. Again, let me know if you used this.
Updated the Find, Sound and Speech features to use modern APIs.
The data is now saved in the background, for better performance.
Improved the wording of several alerts and confirmation sheets.
Added many exciting new bug opportunities.
Updated the German localization. French and Japanese haven't been updated yet, so are disabled in this release.
Rebuilt for Yosemite using Xcode 6.
Massive refactoring to drag the 12-year-old source code into the modern era.
Simon is now 64-bit and uses modern memory management.
Many changes to improve Yosemite compatibility.
Now requires Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10).

New in Dejal Simon 3.7 Beta 1 (Aug 9, 2014)

Enhancements to the Email plugin:
The Email plugin now also works as a service. Three service modes are supported: Email Send, Email Receive, and Email Cycle.
Email Send is basically the same as the Email notifier: sends a custom message via SMTP. Useful to "check in" or test that a mail server is working. It outputs the message, or an error if unsuccessful.
Email Receive fetches a list of messages from an IMAP server. It outputs the list of messages, or an error. (Note: this is only available on OS X 10.8 and later.)
Email Cycle first sends a special message with a unique identifier to a SMTP server, then checks for that message arriving on an IMAP server. It cleans up after itself, and outputs the message and mailbox listing, or an error. (Note: this is only available on OS X 10.8 and later.)
Renamed the E-mail notifier as Email, finally.
Added a Transport Name field to the Email Transport Options panel. Defaults to the server name, and is displayed in the Transport pop-up menu.
Added an Email Account Options panel, similar to the Email Transport Options one, to enable configuring IMAP account information for the Receive and Cycle services.
On OS X 10.8 and later, sending email via a custom transport uses the modern MailCore framework, instead of the old Pantomime framework. Existing transports don't change until edited, to prevent compatibility issues (so re-check them if you edit them).
Added a Context filter:
Added a new Context filter plugin, which takes the previous filter's input and the following new match variables to output some context around the filter's output text.
Note that it actually uses the Input specified in the test to determine which filter's input and match variables to use: if you have two previous filters, you can make the Context filter look at the first one by choosing Filter1OutputText instead of the default FilterOutputText (from the proceeding filter).
The plugin includes controls to specify the number of characters before and/or after the match range, and/or a delimiter before and/or after the match range (e.g. you can show up to 50 characters, stopping at a line break).
Added a filter variable for FilterMatchLocation, which is set by some filters (Block and Find currently) to the position of the match in the input text, e.g. the text between the Blocks, or the Find result. Note that the location is zero-based.
Also added a filter variable for FilterMatchLength, which is the length of that match.
And a filter variable for FilterMatchEnd, which is the location plus the length, for convenience.
Finally, a new filter variable for FilterNInputText, where N is the filter index (1-based). This enables any filter (or notifier) to see what was passed to a previous filter.
Web plugin enhancements:
The Web (HTTP) plugin will now automatically follow a meta refresh (e.g. ). Meta refreshes to reload the same page are ignored.
If for some reason you don't want this behavior, it can be disabled via defaults write com.dejal.simon WebIgnoreMetaRefresh NO in Terminal.
Fixed an incompatibility in the Web (HTTP) plugin with a few servers that don't handle sending an empty cookies header when there aren't any to send. It now omits the header in this situation.
Other changes:
No longer truncates the difference text to 400 characters, if it's longer than that.
Removed the Pause All Tests and Resume All Tests functions from the Dock and status menus, since they are dangerous functions if you have lots of manually paused tests. (If anyone is sad about this change, let me know; I could restore it via a preference, if necessary.)
The date columns in the Logs now include the seconds. You may need to resize the columns to fit the entire time, depending on your local date format.
In the Edit Test window on the Filters tab, the pre-condition popup menu (the first one) now omits the Unchanged and Changed items for the first filter, since they are only appropriate for subsequent filters (the service output can only be a success or failure).
Added a Get Average Ping Response Time filter, which would typically be used with the Ping service, and outputs the average response time in the filter input text.

New in Dejal Simon 3.6.1 (Jan 27, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 3.6 (Jan 16, 2014)

Added a new Notification Center notifier plug-in, that displays a notification in OS X's Notification Center, with various click action options. (Note, it is only available on OS X 10.8 and later.)
Added a Notification Center default notifier use the new Notification Center plug-in. By default, clicking the notification will select the test in Simon.
Added a new History filter plug-in, that keeps track of the input text that it has seen, and can set a result if the text is or isn't unique in that history.
Added a Change Only If Unique default filter to result in a Change if the input text has never been seen before by this filter, or Unchanged if it has.
Added a History Always Repeats default filter to result in a Failure if the input text hasn't been seen before, or Unchanged if it has. It's easy to add additional variations if you need them.
Rewrote the Twitter notifier plug-in to work with the latest Twitter API. It now uses the Internet Accounts from System Preferences, so you don't need to enter your Twitter credentials in Simon. (Note, it is only available on OS X 10.8 and later.)
Removed the Twitter service plug-in, since it would have taken a lot of work to rewrite, and feedback indicates that pretty much nobody uses it. If you do, please contact me.
Added a Twitter Update default notifier that tweets using the first account alphabetically. It can be edited to specify a different account.
When creating an E-mail notifier, now uses the displayed default Subject text if you don't edit the field (previously had an error if the field was never touched).
Added a MySQL default service that uses the MySQL plug-in, to make it easier to use this existing feature.
Added support for escaping braces (curly brackets) and square brackets in report templates, so they are output in the report instead of being interpreted as Simon variables or blocks.
Added support for custom date/time formats in report templates. For example, could use NextCheck format="yyyy-MM-dd 'at' HH:mm:ss".
Updated the Variable Test report template to include the LastChangeTextWithHTML and LastChangeTextWithoutHTML variables, and mention escaping braces and brackets.
Fixed an issue with the Other... option for the Save Locally report kind.
Now considers the check frequencies for successes and failures when calculating the Up Time percentages, to make them more accurate.
Updated the help book and online help.
Rebuilt for Mavericks using Xcode 5.
Many changes to improve Mavericks compatibility.

New in Dejal Simon 3.6 Beta 4 (Jan 7, 2014)

New in Dejal Simon 3.6 Beta 3 (Dec 19, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.6 Beta 2 (Dec 10, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.6 Beta 1 (Nov 29, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5.1 (Apr 15, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5 (Mar 12, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5 Beta 4 (Mar 8, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5 Beta 3 (Feb 19, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5 Beta 2 (Feb 18, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.5 Beta 1 (Feb 18, 2013)

New in Dejal Simon 3.4 (Mar 21, 2012)

New in Dejal Simon 3.4 Beta 2 (Feb 20, 2012)

New in Dejal Simon 3.4 Beta 1 (Feb 13, 2012)

New in Dejal Simon 3.3.1 (Dec 14, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.3 (Dec 6, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.3 Beta 2 (Nov 28, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.3 Beta 1 (Nov 15, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2.1 (Oct 6, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 (Aug 25, 2011)

Added full screen support on Lion.
Fixes for improved Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) compatibility.
Altered the Web plug-in to eliminate the shared cache of loaded HTML, since it hasn't really been used for several years, and could cause issues.
Now saves the legacy-format frequency values, so if you run Simon 2 it will have the correct values, instead of zeroes (and thus will remain correct when going back to Simon 3).
Fixed a bug with the Number filter plug-in that caused it to always look for changes, instead of supporting resulting in a failure.
Fixed some filter variables, which were incorrectly output with a doubled "Filter" prefix.
Added FilterForUnchanged, FilterForChanged and FilterForSuccess variables.
Fixed the logic for using a filter based on Any/Success/Unchanged/Changed/Failure status.
Fixed Kind labels on the Summary pages of the Edit Notifier and Edit Report windows, plus made them go to the correct pages when clicked.
When creating a new service, filter, notifier or report, the editor window now opens to the Summary page, like New Test does. (Standard edition only)
Significantly increased the maximum width of the log Details columns, and doubled the length of text logged there, so they aren't unnecessarily truncated on modern large displays.
After deleting one or more tests, services, etc, the table selection is removed, rather than just selecting whatever happened to be after the deleted item(s).
Removed the "Remote File Attributes" service from the default ones, since it was an experimental one that wasn't supposed to be there (and didn't work). (Standard edition only)
Altered the "FTP Directory Listing" and "Samba SMB" service scripts to use Username and Password custom variables instead of the TestUsername and TestPassword ones, which aren't available to scripts now. If you use either of these services, you may need to edit your tests accordingly.
Implemented a data upgrade mechanism so existing data will get the above service script changes.
The Script plug-in now omits the TestUsername and TestPassword standard variables from its Insert variable drop-down menu, since it doesn't use them.
Renamed the UserName variable (that outputs the name of the user logged in to the computer) to UserFullName, to avoid a clash with the Username variable (since variables are not case-sensitive).
Fixed an issue that prevented the Escape key from closing some editor windows in some situations.
Dates in the tests table and logs now use your preferred date and time format (as set in System Preferences).
Fixed log dates appearing as GMT/UTC instead of local time on Lion.
Updated the localizations.

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 Beta 5 (Aug 22, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 Beta 4 (Aug 1, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 Beta 3 (Jul 27, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 Beta 2 (Jul 18, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.2 Beta 1 (Jul 16, 2011)

Altered the Web plug-in to eliminate the shared cache of loaded HTML, since it hasn't really been used for several years, and could cause issues.
Now saves the legacy-format frequency values, so if you run Simon 2 it will have the correct values, instead of zeroes (and thus will remain correct when going back to Simon 3).
Fixed a bug with the Number filter plug-in that caused it to always look for changes, instead of supporting resulting in a failure.
Fixed some filter variables, which were incorrectly output with a doubled "Filter" prefix.
Added FilterForUnchanged, FilterForChanged and FilterForSuccess variables.
Fixed the logic for using a filter based on Any/Success/Unchanged/Changed/Failure status.
Fixed Kind labels on the Summary pages of the Edit Notifier and Edit Report windows, plus made them go to the correct pages when clicked.
When creating a new service, filter, notifier or report, the editor window now opens to the Summary page, like New Test does. (Standard edition only)
Significantly increased the maximum width of the log Details columns, and doubled the length of text logged there, so they aren't unnecessarily truncated on modern large displays.
After deleting one or more tests, services, etc, the table selection is removed, rather than just selecting whatever happened to be after the deleted item(s).
Removed the "Remote File Attributes" service from the default ones, since it was an experimental one that wasn't supposed to be there (and didn't work). (Standard edition only)
Altered the "FTP Directory Listing" and "Samba SMB" service scripts to use Username and Password custom variables instead of the TestUsername and TestPassword ones, which aren't available to scripts now. If you use either of these services, you may need to edit your tests accordingly.
Implemented a data upgrade mechanism so existing data will get the above service script changes.
The Script plug-in now omits the TestUsername and TestPassword standard variables from its Insert variable drop-down menu, since it doesn't use them.
Renamed the UserName variable (that outputs the name of the user logged in to the computer) to UserFullName, to avoid a clash with the Username variable (since variables are not case-sensitive).
Fixed an issue that prevented the Escape key from closing some editor windows in some situations.

New in Dejal Simon 3.1.1 (Jun 3, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.1 (Jun 1, 2011)

New in Dejal Simon 3.0.1 (Dec 1, 2010)

New in Dejal Simon 3.0 (Nov 1, 2010)

Monitor window:
Renamed the Notifications log as Activity, and extended it to support logging when tests start checking, and the various steps during the check (starting, stopping, service result, each filter, notifications, etc), plus other actions on tests, e.g. editing, pausing, etc.
Added an optional Location column to the tests table. It can be shown via the View Options sheet. It shows the URL, domain, or other properties of the service, where available.
Added a FileSave Log... command to enable saving the current log information to a tab-delimited text file. It saves just the selected lines if there are at least two selected, otherwise all lines. (You can already copy selected lines, too.)
Sorting on the Status column now sorts so checking is at the top, followed by failure, changes, recovery, and paused at the bottom (with time-sensitive statuses in chronological order).
Editors:
Redesigned the editor windows (New / Edit Test, New / Edit Service, etc) to use separate pages instead of disclosures for each section. The old layout had grown too tall over time, so that it no longer fit on a small screen with all sections disclosed. The new layout is tidier and simpler, without losing any functionality.
The editor windows can now be freely resized and zoomed as desired.
Added a Summary page, that includes the name and a new Comments field, plus an overview of the values from the other pages. Click the prompt before each item to go directly to that item.
The Username and Password fields are now only shown on the Service page when the service wants them.
Rows can now be inserted in the notifiers, auto-pause, etc lists, rather than just adding to the end (and they'll scroll if too long for the window).
Fixed an issue where the services in the pop-up menu in the New / Edit Test window could appear out of alphabetical order.
Clicking the Edit Service..., New Notifier..., etc buttons in the Edit Test window now directly opens the corresponding editor, rather than opening its list window first.
When creating a new test, service, etc, now remembers the last-chosen service in the Edit Test window, and last-chosen service, filter, notifier & report kind in the those editors.
In the Edit Test window, the pop-up menus to choose the service, filter, notifier & report now show the new Comments text as a tooltip for each menu item, and on the chosen item, as a handy way to quickly see a description of each item.
Filters:
Added a new Filters feature, replacing the old Smart Change Detection feature in the Edit Test window. The Block filter performs the same function as that old feature, plus several other filters are supported to do other analysis of test output, and you can write custom scripts to create additional filters.
Added a Filters window listing the available filters, and enabling adding, editing or deleting them.
Added an Edit Filter window to add and edit filters, much the same as the Edit Notifier etc windows. It includes options to configure how the filter is used, plug-in-specific controls, and auto-pause settings.
Added a Block filter plug-in to support the old Smart Change Detection functionality. It extracts a block of text between specified start and end text.
The Block filter also supports new options to search from the start or the end of the input text, and search for a specific occurrence of the text, e.g. start from the 3rd occurrence from the end of the text.
Added a Find filter plug-in. This is as easy or powerful as you want: it supports both simple text matching and regular expression searches.
The Find filter plug-in can find one occurrence, find a specific occurrence (like for the Block plug-in), find all occurrences (outputting them separated by your choice of delimiter), or find & replace those possibilities, outputting something else for the match(es) — especially useful with regular expression searches.
For simple text matching mode, the Find plug-in supports finding Contains, Starts With, Whole Words, and Ends With. For regular expression mode, it has a helpful menu of regular expression operators to help build expressions, including a dynamically-updating list of capture group markers for replacements.
Find-based filters can even result in a failure if the text was or wasn't found, if desired — useful to detect text that mustn't or must be there.
Added a Format filter plug-in. This enables the combination of values from the service and filters, via an insert variable menu, along with your own text. Handy to append the output of multiple filters, wrap something in quote marks, and other uses.
Added a Number filter plug-in. This expects the input text to be a valid number, so is typically used after a Find or Block filter to narrow down the text. It converts the text to a number, optionally ignoring specified characters, and with a customizable decimal separator so you can match the format of the text. Then it compares that number against either a fixed number, or the number from the previous check, plus or minus some delta. It can compare using "is", "is not", "is greater than", "is less than", "is in range" or "is not in range". It then results in either a change or failure, as desired. So you can use this to detect if a disk is getting full, a price has changed by a specified threshold, a file count has changed, or many other uses.
Added an Override filter plug-in. You can use this to alter the status of a test from Unchanged, Changed, Failure, or from a success status (the first two), or any status, into a different status, including automatically detecting if a change occurred. You can also alter the output text or error message, including using variables (similar to the Format plug-in).
Extended the Script plug-in to work as a filter, too. This enables you to create your own custom filters using AppleScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, or unix shell scripts.
Added a checkbox to the Script filter editor to control whether to merge or override the result of the script with the status of the service and any previous filters.
Added a VariablesCSV variable, that outputs a comma-separated list of all other variable names. Potentially useful when debugging your scripts.
Added several default filters as useful examples to get you started with these powerful new features.
Services and Notifiers:
Enhanced the Web (HTTP) service plug-in to include checkboxes in the Cookies table: checked cookies automatically update their values (as before). Cookies with blank values are now also supported; they are not sent. New cookies are recorded automatically. So you can prevent a cookie from being recorded by listing it with an unchecked box, e.g. to send the same value every time. Session cookies are now recorded as unchecked with blank values (so are not sent or updated).
Updated the Twitter service and notifier plug-in to use xAuth (a form of OAuth) to log in to the Twitter server, since they no longer support the old-style "basic" authentication.
Added a FileMaker Server service, which simply checks that it can connect to a FileMaker Server, and gives an error if not.
Added an Internet Access service, which lists applications/processes that are using internet access. You could use this with a Change filter to see when such apps launch or quit, or with a Find filter to confirm that a desired or undesired app is listed.
Reworded the TestStatusPhrase variable to eliminate the word "just", since the event may have occurred a while ago, if it is an ongoing failure.
Script-based services and notifiers now use UTF8 encoding (instead of ASCII) for the script source, to prevent issues with special characters in AppleScripts.
The new VariablesCSV variable is available for services and notifiers, too.
Notifiers have access to the new filter variables, too.
Other:
Updated the report variables to reflect the Activity log change. The old variables will continue to work, but there is now an Activity block, and new Type, Status and Details variables.
Separated the Pause and Resume commands in the menu and toolbars, so it is easier to pause or resume all tests when there is a mixture of paused and active tests.
The Pause interval is now remembered as a default for next time, even across launches of Simon.
Added optional support for Wi-Fi hotspots. When enabled, Simon tries to fetch a known value when it is first launched or after the Mac wakes from sleep, and goes into a "hotspot" mode if it receives something unexpected — probably a hotspot login page. This will avoid having false failures when you have an internet connection but need to log in to the hotspot. This feature is disabled by default, but can be enabled via a new General preference if you have Simon on a laptop.
Removed the Copy to Test function from the Preview and Source windows, since it is incompatible with the new filters features. You can easily copy selected text and paste into whichever field of whichever filter.
Improved handling of sorting all table columns.
Clicking the window zoom boxes will now zoom the windows to ideal sizes.
The Dock icon now displays a "static" animation while the License Assistant is displayed, to help remind that the tests are awaiting a response.
Changed the Dock icon and status menu to show the number of Unviewed marked items, rather than the number of items with the indicated status, and to draw the yellow unviewed badge in the upper-right corner over the status triangle, instead of behind, to fit with normal badging conventions.
The Unviewed marker is now used for failures and recoveries as well as changes.
Fixed an issue with loading test data that could result in losing data if one of the plug-ins has a problem setting itself up.
Added a new license level, and renamed them from "Basic", "Standard" and "Enterprise" to "Bronze", "Silver", "Gold" and "Platinum".
Added a help book, using the standard Apple Help Viewer. It is only available on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and later. The help is also available online.
Added the ability to specify whether to view help in the Apple Help Viewer or your web browser: a simple selection in the Help menu.
Significantly reformatted the help, to fit with the normal help book styles, and updated for the changes in this release.
Many other behind-the-scenes improvements made possible by dropping Tiger support.

New in Dejal Simon 3.0 Beta 2 (Oct 29, 2010)

New in Dejal Simon 3.0 Beta 1 (Oct 26, 2010)

Please Note:
Simon 3 will be a paid upgrade from Simon 2 (after the beta period).
Simon now requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
Monitor window:
Renamed the Notifications log as Activity, and extended it to support logging when tests start checking, and the various steps during the check (starting, stopping, service result, each filter, notifications, etc), plus other actions on tests, e.g. editing, pausing, etc.
Added an optional Location column to the tests table. It can be shown via the View Options sheet. It shows the URL, domain, or other properties of the service, where available.
Added a File->Save Log... command to enable saving the current log information to a tab-delimited text file. It saves just the selected lines if there are at least two selected, otherwise all lines. (You can already copy selected lines, too.)
Sorting on the Status column now sorts so checking is at the top, followed by failure, changes, recovery, and paused at the bottom (with time-sensitive statuses in chronological order).
Editors:
Redesigned the editor windows (New / Edit Test, New / Edit Service, etc) to use separate pages instead of disclosures for each section. The old layout had grown too tall over time, so that it no longer fit on a small screen with all sections disclosed. The new layout is tidier and simpler, without losing any functionality.
The editor windows can now be freely resized and zoomed as desired.
Added a Summary page, that includes the name and a new Comments field, plus an overview of the values from the other pages. Click the prompt before each item to go directly to that item.
The Username and Password fields are now only shown on the Service page when the service wants them.
Rows can now be inserted in the notifiers, auto-pause, etc lists, rather than just adding to the end (and they'll scroll if too long for the window).
Fixed an issue where the services in the pop-up menu in the New / Edit Test window could appear out of alphabetical order.
Clicking the Edit Service..., New Notifier..., etc buttons in the Edit Test window now directly opens the corresponding editor, rather than opening its list window first.
When creating a new test, service, etc, now remembers the last-chosen service in the Edit Test window, and last-chosen service, filter, notifer & report kind in the those editors.
In the Edit Test window, the pop-up menus to choose the service, filter, notifer & report now show the new Comments text as a tooltip for each menu item, and on the chosen item, as a handy way to quickly see a description of each item.
Filters:
Added a new Filters feature, replacing the old Smart Change Detection feature in the Edit Test window. The Block filter performs the same function as that old feature, plus several other filters are supported to do other analysis of test output, and you can write custom scripts to create additional filters.
Added a Filters window listing the available filters, and enabling adding, editing or deleting them.
Added an Edit Filter window to add and edit filters, much the same as the Edit Notifier etc windows. It includes options to configure how the filter is used, plug-in-specific controls, and auto-pause settings.
Added a Block filter plug-in to support the old Smart Change Detection functionality. It extracts a block of text between specified start and end text.
The Block filter also supports new options to search from the start or the end of the input text, and search for a specific occurrence of the text, e.g. start from the 3rd occurrence from the end of the text.
Added a Find filter plug-in. This is as easy or powerful as you want: it supports both simple text matching and regular expression searches.
The Find filter plug-in can find one occurrence, find a specific occurrence (like for the Block plug-in), find all occurrences (outputting them separated by your choice of delimiter), or find & replace those possibilities, outputting something else for the match(es) — especially useful with regular expression searches.
For simple text matching mode, the Find plug-in supports finding Contains, Starts With, Whole Words, and Ends With. For regular expression mode, it has a helpful menu of regular expression operators to help build expressions, including a dynamically-updating list of capture group markers for replacements.
Find-based filters can even result in a failure if the text was or wasn't found, if desired — useful to detect text that mustn't or must be there.
Added a Format filter plug-in. This enables the combination of values from the service and filters, via an insert variable menu, along with your own text. Handy to append the output of multiple filters, wrap something in quote marks, and other uses.
Added a Number filter plug-in. This expects the input text to be a valid number, so is typically used after a Find or Block filter to narrow down the text. It converts the text to a number, optionally ignoring specified characters, and with a customizable decimal separator so you can match the format of the text. Then it compares that number against either a fixed number, or the number from the previous check, plus or minus some delta. It can compare using "is", "is not", "is greater than", "is less than", "is in range" or "is not in range". It then results in either a change or failure, as desired. So you can use this to detect if a disk is getting full, a price has changed by a specified threshold, a file count has changed, or many other uses.
Added an Override filter plug-in. You can use this to alter the status of a test from Unchanged, Changed, Failure, or from a success status (the first two), or any status, into a different status, including automatically detecting if a change occurred. You can also alter the output text or error message, including using variables (similar to the Format plug-in).
Extended the Script plug-in to work as a filter, too. This enables you to create your own custom filters using AppleScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, or unix shell scripts.
Added a checkbox to the Script filter editor to control whether to merge or override the result of the script with the status of the service and any previous filters.
Added a VariablesCSV variable, that outputs a comma-separated list of all other variable names. Potentially useful when debugging your scripts.
Added several default filters as useful examples to get you started with these powerful new features.
Services and Notifiers:
Enhanced the Web (HTTP) service plug-in to include checkboxes in the Cookies table: checked cookies automatically update their values (as before). Cookies with blank values are now also supported; they are not sent. New cookies are recorded automatically. So you can prevent a cookie from being recorded by listing it with an unchecked box, e.g. to send the same value every time. Session cookies are now recorded as unchecked with blank values (so are not sent or updated).
Updated the Twitter service and notifier plug-in to use xAuth (a form of OAuth) to log in to the Twitter server, since they no longer support the old-style "basic" authentication.
Added a FileMaker Server service, which simply checks that it can connect to a FileMaker Server, and gives an error if not.
Added an Internet Access service, which lists applications/processes that are using internet access. You could use this with a Change filter to see when such apps launch or quit, or with a Find filter to confirm that a desired or undesired app is listed.
Reworded the TestStatusPhrase variable to eliminate the word "just", since the event may have occurred a while ago, if it is an ongoing failure.
Script-based services and notifiers now use UTF8 encoding (instead of ASCII) for the script source, to prevent issues with special characters in AppleScripts.
The new VariablesCSV variable is available for services and notifiers, too.
Notifiers have access to the new filter variables, too.
Other:
Updated the report variables to reflect the Activity log change. The old variables will continue to work, but there is now an Activity block, and new Type, Status and Details variables.
Separated the Pause and Resume commands in the menu and toolbars, so it is easier to pause or resume all tests when there is a mixture of paused and active tests.
The Pause interval is now remembered as a default for next time, even across launches of Simon.
Added optional support for Wi-Fi hotspots. When enabled, Simon tries to fetch a known value when it is first launched or after the Mac wakes from sleep, and goes into a "hotspot" mode if it receives something unexpected — probably a hotspot login page. This will avoid having false failures when you have an internet connection but need to log in to the hotspot. This feature is disabled by default, but can be enabled via a new General preference if you have Simon on a laptop.
Removed the Copy to Test function from the Preview and Source windows, since it is incompatible with the new filters features. You can easily copy selected text and paste into whichever field of whichever filter.
Improved handling of sorting all table columns.
Clicking the window zoom boxes will now zoom the windows to ideal sizes.
The Dock icon now displays a "static" animation while the License Assistant is displayed, to help remind that the tests are awaiting a response.
Changed the Dock icon and status menu to show the number of Unviewed marked items, rather than the number of items with the indicated status, and to draw the yellow unviewed badge in the upper-right corner over the status triangle, instead of behind, to fit with normal badging conventions.
The Unviewed marker is now used for failures and recoveries as well as changes.
Fixed an issue with loading test data that could result in losing data if one of the plug-ins has a problem setting itself up.
Added a new license level, and renamed them from "Basic", "Standard" and "Enterprise" to "Bronze", "Silver", "Gold" and "Platinum".
Added a help book, using the standard Apple Help Viewer. The help is also available online.
Significantly reformatted the help, to fit with the normal help book styles, and updated for the changes in this release.
Many other behind-the-scenes improvements made possible by dropping Tiger support.

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.7 (May 3, 2010)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.6 (Mar 9, 2010)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.5 (Nov 25, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.4 (Nov 23, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.3 (Sep 10, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.2 (Jun 17, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5.1 (Feb 20, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5 (Feb 16, 2009)

Services and Notifiers:
Added a SMS notifier plug-in to send Simon notifications as text messages to your phone. It has two modes of operation: via the Clickatell SMS gateway service, or via email to your phone provider. For both methods, this plug-in enables you to easily add multiple phone numbers to send messages to, and you can pick them from your Address Book if desired. Clickatell is a paid service; you need to sign up for an account with them, and they charge for each message. The email mode is free, other than any charges you may incur for receiving text messages. This plug-in was kindly written by Daniel Ellis.
Renamed the Basic plug-in as Web, and extended it to also act as a notifier. So you can now use it to get or post to a web page when a change, failure or recovery occurs, e.g. to run a PHP script to log a failure or perform some other action.
Added a S.M.A.R.T. Status service. This script checks the S.M.A.R.T. status of all mounted disk volumes, ignoring volumes that don't support reporting S.M.A.R.T. status. Results in a failure if a problem is detected.
Added a Drive Status service. A script service to check drive capacity threshold, S.M.A.R.T. status, and RAID health. A more comprehensive check than the S.M.A.R.T. Status service. Results in a failure if a problem is detected. Kindly written by Scott Haneda.
Added a Pulse service. This script simply causes every check to result in a change. This can be useful, for example, to have Simon email you (via a change notifier) at a desired frequency, to reassure you that Simon is on the job.
Added a Post to Simon Wall notifier. This is a demo of the Web plug-in operating as a notifier. It does a Post to the Dejal website, adding a line to the Simon Wall page. You are welcome to use this notifier if you wish, or can duplicate and modify it to post elsewhere.
The E-mail notifier now alerts you if the To or From fields aren't filled in, since that is a common cause of issues.
Changed the E-mail notifier plug-in when using the Automatic method to connect to the sender's SMTP server instead of the recipient's, since that is more correct.
Added Automatically add www. and .com if omitted checkbox to the Web plug-in's Service options. It is on by default, but you can turn it off to disable this automatic formatting if you need to enter a URL without a top-level domain, e.g. for WebDav.
Fixed a bug in the Web plug-in's handling of the parameters and cookies tables, where an exception could prevent adding new ones when editing existing tests.
Fixed a bug with loading new default services and notifiers, where they could vanish after relaunching if no changes were made manually after updating. If you deleted any of these, they may re-appear with this update; just delete them again, and they won't re-appear.
Reports:
Changed the URL display in the Save Locally report plug-in to be an editable URL, like in the Upload to Remote Server one. This enables you to edit the URL if you have a domain name for your local machine, or want to use a different variation of a file:// URL, perhaps to use localhost instead of the machine name. Clear the field to go back to an automatically determined URL.
Changed the Save Locally report plug-in to replace any periods in the machine name with a dash, to avoid an invalid URL.
Added LastChangeTextWithHTML and LastChangeTextWithoutHTML report variables for the Test block, so you can display the full text of the test output (between the Start and End Smart Change Detection blocks, if any).
When a report is deleted, it now immediately stops outputting and removes its timer to avoid reporting again, as you'd expect.
Other:
Added a Convert Domain/IP command to the Edit menu. If a field with a domain name or IP address is active, this command will change the domain name into the corresponding IP address, or vice versa. If there are multiple possible matches, a menu is displayed to enable you to choose the best one. Note that converting a domain to an IP then back to a domain may result in a different domain, if it is on a shared hosting server.
Changed the Add/Remove buttons below tables in the Preferences, Web (HTTP) and Script plug-ins to use small square buttons instead of round ones, to fit with the modern convention.
Fixed a rare issue where some plug-in settings could be unexpectedly modified when canceling an editor.
Fixed an issue with the Preferences window, where edits might not be saved when quitting with the window still open (specifically when an edit is still active).
Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
Updated the French and German localizations.

New in Dejal Simon 2.5 Beta 2 (Jan 26, 2009)

New in Dejal Simon 2.5 Beta 1 (Jan 19, 2009)

Services and Notifiers:
Added a SMS notifier plug-in to send Simon notifications as text messages to your phone. It has two modes of operation: via the Clickatell SMS gateway service, or via email to your phone provider. For both methods, this plug-in enables you to easily add multiple phone numbers to send messages to, and you can pick them from your Address Book if desired. Clickatell is a paid service; you need to sign up for an account with them, and they charge for each message. The email mode is free, other than any charges you may incur for receiving text messages. This plug-in was kindly written by Daniel Ellis.
Renamed the Basic plug-in as Web, and extended it to also act as a notifier. So you can now use it to get or post to a web page when a change, failure or recovery occurs, e.g. to run a PHP script to log a failure or perform some other action.
Added a S.M.A.R.T. Status service. This script checks the S.M.A.R.T. status of all mounted disk volumes, ignoring volumes that don't support reporting S.M.A.R.T. status. Results in a failure if a problem is detected.
Added a Pulse service. This script simply causes every check to result in a change. This can be useful, for example, to have Simon email you (via a change notifier) at a desired frequency, to reassure you that Simon is on the job.
Added a Post to Simon Wall notifier. This is a demo of the Web plug-in operating as a notifier. It does a Post to the Dejal website, adding a line to the Simon Wall page. You are welcome to use this notifier if you wish, or can duplicate and modify it to post elsewhere.
The E-mail notifier now alerts you if the To or From fields aren't filled in, since that is a common cause of issues.
Changed the E-mail notifier plug-in when using the Automatic method to connect to the sender's SMTP server instead of the recipient's, since that is more correct.
Fixed a bug in the Web plug-in's handling of the parameters and cookies tables, where an exception could prevent adding new ones when editing existing tests.
Reports:
Changed the URL display in the Save Locally report plug-in to be an editable URL, like in the Upload to Remote Server one. This enables you to edit the URL if you have a domain name for your local machine, or want to use a different variation of a file:// URL, perhaps to use localhost instead of the machine name. Clear the field to go back to an automatically determined URL.
Changed the Save Locally report plug-in to replace any periods in the machine name with a dash, to avoid an invalid URL.
Added LastChangeTextWithHTML and LastChangeTextWithoutHTML report variables for the Test block, so you can display the full text of the test output (between the Start and End Smart Change Detection blocks, if any).
When a report is deleted, it now immediately stops outputting and removes its timer to avoid reporting again, as you'd expect.
Other:
Added a Convert Domain/IP command to the Edit menu. If a field with a domain name or IP address is active, this command will change the domain name into the corresponding IP address, or vice versa. If there are multiple possible matches, a menu is displayed to enable you to choose the best one. Note that converting a domain to an IP then back to a domain may result in a different domain, if it is on a shared hosting server.
Changed the Add/Remove buttons below tables in the Preferences, Web (HTTP) and Script plug-ins to use small square buttons instead of round ones, to fit with the modern convention.
Fixed a rare issue where some plug-in settings could be unexpectedly modified when canceling an editor.
Fixed an issue with the Preferences window, where edits might not be saved when quitting with the window still open (specifically when an edit is still active).
Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.

New in Dejal Simon 2.4.2 (Sep 3, 2008)

New in Dejal Simon 2.4.1 (Jun 23, 2008)

New in Dejal Simon 2.4 (May 13, 2008)

Changed the test scheduler to better queue the checks. When multiple tests are to be checked at once, they are added to a queue, and checked at the interval specified in the Advanced preferences (one per second by default � set to zero to always check immediately). This helps spread out the load, and provides more accurate results. The Next Check column in the tests table shows "queued manually" when multiple tests are queued via a Check Now command, or "queued" and a time interval if queued automatically when due.
Now records and displays the Check Duration and Failures Time to one decimal place � now it'll show that a check took 0.3 seconds, instead of just rounding down to zero.
Added a preference to use simplified status triangles, by popular request. Normally, Simon displays a green upwards triangle icon when there is a new change, and the green slowly fades to grey as time goes by. Similarly, it shows a red downwards triangle for a failure, which changes to an orange upwards triangle when it recovers, and that fades over time. With this preference, you can choose to have it simply use red for a failure, bright green for a new change, and a lighter green for success (older change or recovery).
Fixed a cosmetic issue with paused tests. If a test was paused for a specified time interval, and it was due to resume while Simon wasn't running, the status icon was being left in the paused state until the test was next checked. It's now set appropriately.
Added a Calendar notifier plug-in, that enables you to add events or tasks to iCal, or events to Google Calendar. Failure and recovery events even cover the actual downtime range. This plug-in is only available when Simon is running under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.
Added a Twitter service plug-in, that enables you to monitor Twitter updates, direct messages, friends, followers, and more for changes and/or failures. For example, have Simon notify you when someone follows or un-follows you, or someone posts an update (even if you don't follow them), among other possibilities.
Added a Twitter notifier plug-in; use it to send updates or direct messages to yourself or others via the popular Twitter service. View Simon notifications anywhere you can see tweets � on the web, in Twitterrific, or on your cellphone.
Added Incoming Mail (POP) via SSL, Outgoing Mail (SMTP) via SSL, Mount Volume, Network Time (NTP), Port Available, SNMP Status, and TCP Port Scanner services.
Added APC Masterswitch and Growl Change notifiers.
Now new services, notifiers and report templates that are bundled with a Simon update are automatically added to the available ones � previously existing users would have to create them manually. It only adds them if they are new, so if you don't want any, you can delete them and they won't unexpectedly come back at the next update.
Extended the Port service plug-in to operate as a notifier plug-in too. It is the same as for services, but includes fields for the domain, username and password.
Fixed a long-standing issue with the Port plug-in's helper, where it could get impatient while receiving text from a slow server. It now waits for a little while if it doesn't receive what it wants, in case the desired text is on its way.
The Ping service plug-in now supports the Smart Change Detection and Preview features. So you can now look for changes in parts of the ping output, if desired, and preview the ping session to see what is received.
The Application service plug-in also now supports the Preview function.
Fixed a bug with the Post method of the Web (HTTP) service, where the final form boundary was missing, which upset some finicky web servers.
Fixed a bug with the Speech notifier plug-in, where the volume slider was only accepting zero and full volumes.
Fixed a minor bug in the Script service plug-in, where adding a second "Success" custom result would cause it to not be deletable; now only one "Success" is allowed.
Added iPhone and Variable Test report templates, kindly created by Joe Savelberg. The iPhone template is a simple iPhone web app to allow browsing the Simon monitoring from your iPhone or iPod touch. The Variable Test template shows all of the report variables and what they output, to assist in creating or customizing templates.
Added the ability for plug-ins to specify a minimum required OS version, so they can leverage new technologies.
Added general service and notifier variables: AppDataPath, AppLanguage, AppName, AppRelease, AppURL, and AppVersion. These output information about Simon, for use in scripts, etc.
Also added UserComputer and UserName as general service and notifier variables, to output your computer's name and your name, in case these are useful for scripts, speech, or elsewhere.
Added test-specific service and notifier variables: TestChangeCount, TestFailureCount, and TestRecoveryCount, that output the number of changes, errors, or recoveries that have occurred for the test. Useful for example to determine in a script if this is the first failure or just an ongoing failure, if the option to only notify for the first one is off.
Changed the TestStatusType variable to output tidier values: Failure, Recovery, Change, Unchanged, etc.
The Preview window for non-web services now displays the source text while performing the check, instead of waiting till done, so you can see what it's doing.
Fixed a cosmetic bug with the Check for Updates feature when using a general release and waiting only general releases, and a beta release is available.
Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
Updated the French and German localizations.
Added Spanish localization
Switched the distribution method to ZIP archives instead of disk images, as it's simpler for everyone. Feedback

New in Dejal Simon 2.4 Beta 3 (May 5, 2008)

New in Dejal Simon 2.4 Beta 2 (Apr 30, 2008)

New in Dejal Simon 2.4 Beta 1 (Apr 23, 2008)

Monitor window: Changed the test scheduler to better queue the checks. When multiple tests are to be checked at once, they are added to a queue, and checked at the interval specified in the Advanced preferences (one per second by default � set to zero to always check immediately). This helps spread out the load, and provides more accurate results. The Next Check column in the tests table shows "queued manually" when multiple tests are queued via a Check Now command, or "queued" and a time interval if queued automatically when due.
Monitor window: Now records and displays the Check Duration and Failures Time to one decimal place � now it'll show that a check took 0.3 seconds, instead of just rounding down to zero.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added a Calendar notifier plug-in, that enables you to add events or tasks to iCal, or events to Google Calendar. Failure and recovery events even cover the actual downtime range. This plug-in is only available when Simon is running under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added a Twitter service plug-in, that enables you to monitor Twitter updates, direct messages, friends, followers, and more for changes and/or failures. For example, have Simon notify you when someone follows or un-follows you, or someone posts an update (even if you don't follow them), among other possibilities.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added a Twitter notifier plug-in; use it to send updates or direct messages to yourself or others via the popular Twitter service. View Simon notifications anywhere you can see tweets � on the web, in Twitterrific, or on your cellphone.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added Incoming Mail (POP) via SSL, Outgoing Mail (SMTP) via SSL, Mount Volume, Network Time (NTP), Port Available, SNMP Status, and TCP Port Scanner services.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added APC Masterswitch and Growl Change notifiers.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Now new services, notifiers and report templates that are bundled with a Simon update are automatically added to the available ones � previously existing users would have to create them manually. It only adds them if they are new, so if you don't want any, you can delete them and they won't unexpectedly come back at the next update.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Fixed a minor bug in the Script service plug-in, where adding a second "Success" custom result would cause it to not be deletable; now only one "Success" is allowed.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added iPhone and Variable Test report templates, kindly created by Joe Savelberg. The iPhone template is a simple iPhone web app to allow browsing the Simon monitoring from your iPhone or iPod touch. The Variable Test template shows all of the report variables and what they output, to assist in creating or customizing templates.
Services, Notifiers and Reports: Added the ability for plug-ins to specify a minimum required OS version, so they can leverage new technologies.
Variables: Added general service and notifier variables: AppDataPath, AppLanguage, AppName, AppRelease, AppURL, and AppVersion. These output information about Simon, for use in scripts, etc.
Variables: Also added UserComputer and UserName as general service and notifier variables, to output your computer's name and your name, in case these are useful for scripts, speech, or elsewhere.
Variables: Added test-specific service and notifier variables: TestChangeCount, TestFailureCount, and TestRecoveryCount, that output the number of changes, errors, or recoveries that have occurred for the test. Useful for example to determine in a script if this is the first failure or just an ongoing failure, if the option to only notify for the first one is off.
Variables: Changed the TestStatusType variable to output tidier values: Failure, Recovery, Change, Unchanged, etc.
Fixed a bug with the Post method of the Web (HTTP) service, where the final form boundary was missing, which upset some finicky web servers.
Updated the built-in Kagi purchasing tool to the latest version, which fixes some issues with Leopard.
Switched the distribution method to ZIP archives instead of disk images, as it's simpler for everyone.

New in Dejal Simon 2.3.5 (Jan 24, 2008)

New in Dejal Simon 2.3.4 (Oct 18, 2007)

New in Dejal Simon 2.3.3 (Oct 16, 2007)