So far, the most frequent feature request for Automatic 2 has been the ability to customize the TV Show subscriptions in some way (alternate feeds, download folders, etc). The presets have been so popular that many previous users of Automatic used them to replace their own subscriptions, but then realized they wanted to tweak them.

In all honesty, a lazy solution was easy: the flip of a switch in the code could allow any TV subscription to be edited in the Custom interface. But that solution didn’t really address the question: “Why did users so strongly prefer the presets, even over their own, already configured Custom subscriptions?”.

Apparently, the answer lies in the TV data. Every preset has information attached about the show, such as the banner and episode list, and is presented in various areas. So in 2.1, it will be possible to attach show data to Custom subscriptions as well. Not only for shows that Automatic already knows about, but for any show. Also, episode data will be presented in the Subscription pane as well: you’ll be able to toggle between the subscription history or the episode list.

In light of the improvements to presenting show data with Custom subscriptions, converting a TV Show subscription to a Custom one now makes sense. Presenting a special interface for customizing TV Show subscriptions would be a bad idea, considering there is already a very powerful and robust rule creation interface in place. So in 2.1 you will have the ability to convert a TV Show subscription and tweak it to your heart’s content. The only difference between a TV Show subscription and a Custom one with show data attached will be the section they appear in (TV Shows vs. Custom).

This solution covers all the bases: it leaves the TV Show interface intact, allows users to customize TV Show subscriptions without losing the show data, and even enables subscriptions with show data that was not previously available in Automatic.

Posted on Thursday, August 19th, 03:30. Filed under: Automatic, Features, Mac OS X

In Automatic 1.x, there was an option called “Download every episode once”. If enabled, it would make sure that each episode in a series of episodic content would be downloaded only once, regardless of how many times it (re)appeared in the feed.

There was a catch, however: it only worked if the subscription was set up to match a single series. If the subscription was matching multiple series, and the episode numbers overlapped, there were false negatives. This was a one of the most common issues users had with subscriptions.

With 2.0, this feature can still be found for Custom subscriptions under the name “Try to download every episode once”. But it’s been upgraded to be a little smarter: it can now differentiate between episode numbers that belong to different series. So if a Custom subscription is grabbing multiple series, this option can now safely be enabled.

As an aside, the “Unless tagged as ‘proper’ or ‘repack’” option has been removed, and these tags are now universally respected for all subscriptions.

Posted on Saturday, April 17th, 23:57. Filed under: Automatic, Features, Mac OS X

For those that use Spotlight as an app launcher, Automatic 2.0 is hinted for indexing. What does that mean? You can type things like ‘rss’ or ‘tv’ in Spotlight or the System Preferences search field and Automatic will be recommended:

Rejoice!

Posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 03:10. Filed under: Automatic, Features, Mac OS X

I spent the 3-day Easter weekend off the grid with my family, and although I didn’t get any work done, I did manage to draft some posts about Automatic 2.0 (bonus: I missed the worst of the iPad-craze storm). They’re mostly low-key improvements that don’t warrant any trumpeting, but long-time users will probably appreciate them.

One of the things that always annoyed me in 1.x was the refresh schedule. While most users probably didn’t notice it, there was a flaw in the way Automatic launched in the background: essentially, any computer downtime would also “pause” the refresh timer.

As shown by the pretty graph (thanks, OmniGraffle!) computer sleep would mess up the timer, so that the refreshes would no longer happen at the expected time.

In 2.0, the behavior is much more consistent: any missed refreshes during downtime will be coalesced into a single refresh right after the computer wakes, and then they will continue as expected. Another pretty graph to illustrate:

So you get a single refresh to make up for any missed ones, but otherwise the schedule remains unaffected. Sanity ensues.

Posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 01:44. Filed under: Automatic, Features, Mac OS X