Mac OS X | iPod / iTunes | iPod Utilities | Synergy Advance

Synergy Advance - 0.4b

iTunes accessory, hot keys, iChat integration

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All Time:	(1.6)
Version 0.4b:	(1.0)
Selected Version:	0.4b
Release Date:	2006-03-29
License:	Beta
Downloads (version 0.4b):	266
Downloads (all versions):	10,096
Price:	10ﾀ

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Product Description:

Synergy Advance is a powerful iTunes accessory written from scratch to take advantage of the technologies behind Apple's new Tiger operating system (although it also runs on Panther). The core module provides a powerful hot key engine, Global Menu, and Growl integration, and works seamlessly alongside Synergy Classic. Future preview releases will provide some of the functionality already available in Synergy Classic as well as new features enabled by the new architecture.

What's new in this version:

[Feature] New "About..." menu item in the Global Menu, visible when the Option key is pressed (added because the About window is not otherwise accessible when running Synergy Advance without a Dock icon).
[Feature] Half-star ratings, if enabled, now shown in Growl notifications.
[Feature] New setting in "Advanced" tab of preferences window, "Apple Event timeout", allows users to control how many seconds Synergy Advance should wait for iTunes to reply to Apple Events before giving up. This leads to a more responsive user interface; previous versions would appear to temporarily hang whenever iTunes stopped responding to Apple Events; such hangs would last for approximately 60 seconds (the default Apple Event timeout).
[Enhancement] Speed up all transitions in the Preferences window when switching between panes; an especially notable speed difference applies when switching away from the "Show All" view.
[Enhancement] Optimizations to enumeration code (approximately 50% faster) which will especially benefit people with large numbers of tracks in their iTunes libraries.
[Enhancement] Synergy Advance now performs all communication with iTunes from a separate thread which means that it will remain responsive at all times when communicating with iTunes via Apple Events, even when iTunes is totally unresponsive (for example, when the iTunes Preferences window is being displayed iTunes becomes entirely unresponsive to Apple Events; this is a limitation of iTunes itself). Previously Synergy Advance would wait up to the default timeout limit (approximately one minute) before giving up waiting for the reply to the Apple Event.
[Enhancement] Thread-safety enhancements (use of memory barriers) and speed optimizations made to WOSingleton class.
[Enhancement] Now ships with the WOTest unit testing framework, allowing users to perform on-site low-level testing.
[Enhancement] WOTest framework now links against the Foundation framework only rather than the entire Cocoa framework, resulting in a smaller memory footprint.
[Enhancement] Finer-grained locking in iTunes music library wrapper class for better performance.
[Enhancement] Significant optimizations to reduce memory and CPU usage while animating the Dock icon.
[Bugfix] Worked around bug in Mac OS X Tiger where stale entries in the Launch Services database would cause Mac OS X to ignore the visibility settings of the Synergy Advance icon in the Dock (bug #279).
[Bugfix] Fixed potential crash while switching from the "Advanced" preference pane to the "Hot Keys" preference pane (bug #280).
[Bugfix] Work around visual artefacts in the area of the Synergy Advance semi-transparent notification bezel while scrolling in BBEdit and other applications (bug #276).
[Bugfix] "Show all" in preferences now correctly capitalized as "Show All".
[Bugfix] The status text shown when a duplicate hot key combination is defined is no longer persisent but disappears after the following editing operation (bug #277).
[Bugfix] Removed useless text from the Instant Messaging preference pane (sometimes visible when switching between panes).
[Bugfix] Fixed failure to launch when run from an HFS case-sensitive filesystem (bug #281).
[Bugfix] Fixed console noise when iChat status line scrolling is active (see bug #306).
[Bugfix] Correct issue where other preference settings could inappropriately override the "Update iChat status based on current track" setting (see bug #318).
[Bugfix] Fixed memory leak of Unicode text strings retrieved via Apple Events.
[Bugfix] Fixed two minor memory leaks in the NSArray category of the WOBase framework.
[Bugfix] Fixed partly ineffective "Disable Synergy Advance hot keys when iTunes is not running" preference.
[Note] Improvements to the build process mean that the build number now appears in the Finder's "Get Info" window along with the version number.
[Note] Updated the embedded Growl framework from version 0.7 to 0.7.2.
[Note] Qualified for use with iTunes version 6.0.2, 6.0.3 and 6.0.4. Upgrading to at least version 6.0.2 is recommended for all iTunes users because it allows the display of half-star ratings (which you can set using Synergy Advance).

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
Mac OS X 10.3.9
Mac OS X 10.3

Additional Requirements:

Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
Universal Binary

Feedback Summary:

Version 0.4b:
Overall Rating:	(1.0)	Features:	(1.0)	Support:	(1.0)
Ease of Use:	(1.0)	Quality / Stability:	(1.0)	Price:	(1.0)

Key to Types of Feedback:

Reviews Reviews Troubleshooting Usage Tips Developer Notes Commentary Featured Reviews

Nice app, but ... - Version: 0.4b3, 4/4/2006 12:07PM PST

(8 of 9 users found this comment useful)

drunkenb

Whaddya know. It seems that Wincent has managed to launch the app without crashing now. But really, what is the point. The market is flooded with free iTunes controllers, some of them excellent. The time when anyone could charge for an itunes controller, no matter how good, is simply over.

Synergy was a nice idea at the time, and for $5 me and many others bought it. But it's 2006 and there is simply no need for a new iTunes controller, least of all one costing over 12 US dollars! The final nail in the coffin is that Wincent has not even said what this new version will offer over and above the still very usable Synergy. No new features, more than double the price, a huge range of good, free, alternatives - can someone tell me what is the point? Rumor has it that the only reason for the new product is to strengthen product licensing. And we have to PAY for that do we?

So sorry Wincent, we all loved synergy but there is no point to this software. You know how to write great apps, small and efficient and well-designed that everyone loves. But the world does NOT need another itunes controller and for this price you can forget it, honestly. Go think of a new idea and apply your skills to that and that's when you'll be getting my money.

Summary: Pointless, too expensive, many good free alternatives, and simply far, far too late

Console Error on Startup - Version: 0.4b2, 4/2/2006 05:28AM PST

(0 of 1 users found this comment useful)

PreciousGem

Error from the console on startup:

Synergy Advance[1890] **** 8: NO, YES
Synergy Advance[1890] Error -100: please inform the developer

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Console Error on Startup

Has anyone got this to work? - Version: 0.4b, 3/31/2006 09:52PM PST

(0 of 1 users found this comment useful)

sgtmajcem

Wouldn't work, crashed right away! Would rate this a zero if I Could. Has anyone got this to work out in the real world? How can you release something that can't be used and want money for it. Heads should role on this one.

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Has anyone got this to work?

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