Critical bug-fixing for leopard compatibility has been completed. You can grab the final version of 1.0.2 and read the release notes here.

No Changes were made between beta 2 and this final release but changes since 1.0 include:

Stability

• On the Mac Pro, if the video card is a NVIDIA 7300 and there is more than 2GB of memory, Pixie Dust is disabled. This avoids a bug in Mac OS X where the entire machine will crash. We will enable this again when Apple fixes this problem.
• Fixed a crash in OmniDazzle when using Focal Point on Photoshop.

Localizations

• Made several interface strings localizable
• Added a French localization

General

• Added workaround for bug in the Accessibility support in Mac OS X that would cause crashes when Focal Point queried menus or popups in other applications in some cases.
• Help pages now have individual titles for improved searching.
• Pressing the escape key with the Zoom plug-in with the selection indicator still active now also marks the screen ‘clear’ so you no longer have to manually do this to use the plug-in again.
• Added correction to the software update query to avoid reporting incorrect data.

Changes in beta 2:

Stability

• On the Mac Pro, if the video card is a NVIDIA 7300 and there is more than 2GB of memory, Pixie Dust is disabled. This avoids a bug in Mac OS X where the entire machine will crash. We will enable this again when Apple fixes this problem.
• Fixed a crash in OmniDazzle when using Focal Point on Photoshop

Localizations

• Made several interface strings localizable
• Added a French localization

You can download here

Yesterday we released a new beta of OmniDazzle 1.0.1, and today we released new betas of OmniPlan 1.0, OmniOutliner 3.6.1, and OmniWeb 5.5. So if you’re a user of any of these products, you might want to check out the latest versions! There are links to all of these at www.omnigroup.com, or you can go directly to the beta of your choice using one of these links:

• OmniDazzle 1.0.1 beta 1
• OmniPlan 1.0 beta 6
• OmniOutliner 3.6.1 beta 3
• OmniWeb 5.5 beta 4

Enjoy!

This is a small maintenance release to address some stability and usability issues found in OmniDazzle 1.0. A new feature release is still in planning.

• Added workaround for bug in the Accessibility support in Mac OS X that would cause crashes when Focal Point queried menus or popups in other applications in some cases.
• Help pages now have individual titles for improved searching.
• Pressing the escape key with the Zoom plug-in with the selection indicator still active now also marks the screen ‘clear’ so you no longer have to manually do this to use the plug-in again.
• Added correction to the software update query to avoid reporting incorrect data.

Download OmniDazzle 1.0.1 Beta 1

Hey, did you know that OmniDazzle is based on the unique capabilities provided by Apple’s Core Image framework and showcases the power of the OpenGL based windowing system in Mac OS X?

(I have no idea what those words mean. I just copied an engineer’s email. Ha! Am v. smart and technical-sounding now.)

The final release is up now: OmniDazzle One-Point-Ohhh Yeah. From beta to final release in 14 days – boy, I’m pretty sure this is a first for us at The Omni Group. I know every single caffeinated beverage has been plundered from the snack room and there’s more than one person walking around in that I-haven’t-slept-in-days fog (look, I’m not pointing fingers, but guys? The tag on your shirt goes on the inside), so believe me when I say it hasn’t been easy.

If you’re just joining us, welcome! Pardon the cat hair. OmniDazzle is a set of fun and useful enhancements that help you highlight certain areas of your screen, create special effects, and track the location of your mouse pointer. It is most certainly not just a cursor locator, as has been explained to me repeatedly and maybe with some spirited hand gestures.

OmniDazzle helps you incorporate graphical cues as a presentation tool, capture great screenshots, point out information on your desktop, and make your computer an object of envy by producing impressive onscreen effects.

Or, as some people here are referring to OmniDazzle, it’s utilitainment.

(Can I just, uh, make it clear that your trusty Marketing Weasel is NOT one of those people? Okay then.)

We’ve received some positive feedback from some of you on the Focal Point plug-in, which functions by bordering the active UI element on the screen and dimming the background. As Bill mentioned here a couple posts back, it’s great for staying focused on a particular task when you’re working by yourself – or, if you’re doing a presentation, directing attention to specific elements. People also like the Zoom plug-in, which works nicely for magnifying interesting sections of your screen (like for instance this fantastic squirrel’s sweater).

You should also check out the Scribble plug-in, especially if you do slideshow presentations. Being able to draw all over your screen is handy, you can circle things and draw arrows and write notes and so on. I particularly recommend doodling a little robot on top of your Keynote slide while you’re talking about something that has nothing at all to do with robots.

Seriously, it’s awesome. Try it. Give your robot some fancy eyelashes and maybe a pair of roller skates if you really want to freak everyone out. Then deny, deny, deny! (”What robot? I’m not sure what you mean, Bob, and frankly I think we’re getting off track here.”)

If by some bizarre chance you don’t find the plug-ins themselves to be fun or useful, just looking at the app while it’s active is pretty cool in my opinion. You’ve got the smoooooth animations, anti-aliased rendering awesomeness, and slick reflections in the plug-in previews. It’s eye candy, but not the empty calorie kind, the sports–energy kind with an inexplicable protein source!

Jeez. I mean, it’s utilitainment. And it’s available for a very reasonable $14.95.

Please note that while we’re working to resolve any remaining hardware incompatibility issues, you’ll need a fairly modern video card to run OmniDazzle. Check here for more information on that.

Okay, this post has definitely exceeded the Unwritten Yet Generally Agreed-Upon Blog Word Count Limit, so…the end! Go play with OmniDazzle now! And thank you, as always, for coming by.

Since I just committed my last OmniDazzle fix (at least until QA tracks me down…), I thought I’d share a fun graph.

Omni has been using source control systems like CVS and Subversion since forever. A while back, we converted to Subversion and imported most of our CVS repository (none of our old consulting projects, just our apps). Here is a graph of the number of commits in our repository over the last 13 years.

Some people have expressed… concern over OmniDazzle’s price, saying that $14.95 is too much to ask for a cursor locator. Well, I want them to know…

Here you see the Scribble plug-in at work. I use Cutout to highlight stuff for screenshots, Zoom to check fine details on interface elements, and Focal Point to avoid distractions while I’m writing in OmniOutliner.

In fact, I think Focal Point is my favorite part of OmniDazzle. Here’s how I have it set up while I’m working in OmniOutliner:

No border, and a low-transparency dark background color. This way I don’t see 16 applications across 30 inches of Cinema Display, shining in my face, while I’m trying to concentrate on writing.

Of course, if you’ve lost your cursor, there are free ways to find it. There are also free web browsers, free outliners, and free graphics applications. But price isn’t the only variable involved; we believe in the idea, yeah, we thrive on the idea that it’s worth paying money for something really, really cool.

Well, I told you it was coming soon, and for once I wasn’t proven a snake-oil-shilling-LIAR. Yay! The OmniProduct is now available as a public beta, and we can all stop calling it “OmniProduct” and start calling it “OmniDazzle”.

No, really. That’s the name. Shut up, we like it.

So, OmniDazzle. What is it? Why, you may as well ask what it isn’t. I mean, it isn’t…well, it isn’t a meatball maker, I can tell you THAT much.

Basically, it’s a set of plug-ins designed to highlight certain areas of your screen and your mouse pointer. Clear as mud? When OmniDazzle is open, various plug-ins can be activated to professionally emphasize a section of your screen, or turn your mouse movement into an area of focus that trails visual effects across your desktop.

Visual effects range from pixie dust to spotlights to dog footprints. What can I say, the engineers are completely nuts creative.

I believe OmniDazzle began as a fun project several months ago when all of Omni started using 30″ Cinema Displays. People were occasionally losing their cursors in the giant eyeball-straining expanse of screen, which is truly a bizarre phenomenon and one you can’t really complain about without sounding obnoxious (”Oh dear, my massive diamond ring makes my hand too heavy!”).

OmniDazzle first only offered silly ways to locate your cursor, and then we started adding some effects that are actually really useful for doing demos, or taking screenshots, or calling attention to specific parts of your screen.

Now? It’s, as our own Joel says, “a playfully practical pixel–pointer program offering mesmerizing mouse movements”.

Please take a look! We’re hoping to only have it in beta for a couple weeks. The beta will be unlicensed, but you can grab an expiring license here; the final release will have a demo mode (an hour, I believe, before you have to buy a license or restart the app) and will cost $14.95.

All right. Go forth and enjoy!