There are lots of minor improvements and fixes here, and one big new feature: “Cover Sets.” Cover Sets allow you to define different “covers” for your Desktop. Switching between them is then just a quick trip to the menu bar. It’s great when you need one backdrop for screenshots, one for presentations, or one for everyday use. Or, just go crazy and let your mood choose your background.

I’ve also used this version as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for some great features in the pipeline. While you won’t see the changes in this version, they’ll speed things along for the next version.

If you’re not already the proud owner of a copy of Desktopple, we’re offering a Macworld Special: buy before the end of Macworld 2008, and get 30% off!

And for those of you waiting for a Leopard-compatible version of Server Siren, that’s tops on my list. Expect news on that front very soon.

There is nothing worse than a presenter who hooks up to a projector only to show the audience his cluttered desktop.

Thanks, JunkieBlog!

For those of you who wanted a great reason to upgrade from the Basic to the Pro version, this is it!

Just pop over to the MacUpdate Promo website for details on how to purchase Desktopple Pro at the discounted price.

Enjoy!

And there’s more news about Desktopple coming later in the week. It’s not a new release (yet!), and I’m not allowed to say much about it at all. I can say that if you stop by on Thursday, your patience will be rewarded…

See you then!

So today, I’m releasing the Desktopple Pro Widget. A quick trip to the Dashboard lets you launch and quit Desktopple Pro as well as hide and show the Desktop. This is really handy, especially if you run Desktopple Pro without the menu bar item.

Enjoy!

Version 1.2 adds an Exclusion List to the Window Cleaning feature, so you can choose apps which don’t have their windows automatically hidden. I’ve also added some quick-access items to the menu bar, so you don’t have to make a trip to the Preferences just to turn Menu Dimming, for example, on and off.

I’ve also added a new menu bar Icon Theme, “Light Switch,” courtesy of madman and Mac Mercenary Rick Yeager. More on Icon Themes in an upcoming post…

There are some other fixes and enhancements, and I recommend you get it now!

I had just done a build, tried to load the Desktopple Pro preference pane to test it, and, for some strange reason, it wouldn’t load. A quick check of the Console log revealed this rather terse error message:

Can't cache image

I tried a fresh build, and I got the same error. Puzzled, I then turned to Google. A search revealed a lot of hits for that phrase, but no real answers on the cause or the solution.

Worse, the bugs I had been working on were in the Desktopple app, not the preference pane, so the problem wasn’t a result of a code change, but something that was already there!

Fortunately, after a few hours of pulling out my hair, I finally figured it out. And since Google didn’t help, and there really weren’t any solutions out there, I’m posting mine. Hopefully, it will save others the frustration of trying to figure out this unhelpful error message.

Turns out that if you -lockFocus on an NSImage with either a zero width or a zero height, you’ll get the “Can’t cache image” error (other issues may cause it as well).

The solution is easy: before locking focus on the image, make sure the image has non-zero height and width.

Look for this fix (as well as a couple others in Desktopple Pro) in a day or so.

Desktopple Pro 1.1 has been released and it brings a lot to the table. In fact, so much has changed that I seriously considered calling it Desktopple Pro 2.0.

One of the feature requests that I kept getting over and over was that Desktopple Pro should be a Preference Pane instead of a Menu Bar item. So many people asked for this that I simply couldn’t ignore it. So Desktopple 1.1 is officially a Preference Pane. All of the settings are conveniently located in the System Preferences. This also means that if you don’t want the menu bar icon there, you can get rid of it to save precious space.

I’ve also improved some things and added a brand new feature: Window Cleaning. With Window Cleaning, Desktopple Pro watches you work, and if you haven’t used an application in a while, it hides the app and all its windows. This is a really great way to reduce onscreen clutter. (Tip of the hat goes to SpiritedAway, an app that had this feature but is sadly no longer available.)

You can check out the new release here: Desktopple Pro 1.1

Of course, it’s a free upgrade.

I’ve also switched Desktopple Pro to eSellerate for its licensing (the reasons why I’ll cover in another post). Those who have already purchased Desktopple Pro will have to update their license (instructions are provided in-app), but this is, as I said, free.

I also want to give a sincere thanks to the beta testers who pointed out bugs, found flaws, and argued with me when they thought things should work differently. It’s really hard to find good testers, and this group was fantastic. So, big thanks to Jamie Fehr, Dave McCollum, Bob McCune, Rick Yeager, and Ray Slakinski!

And that nasty memory bug? Yeah, that’s gone too.

As promised, I’ve been working to solve this, and it seems that the problem lies within the Desktopple Preferences. Basically, if you lauch Desktopple Pro and don’t open Upon further digging, the source of the memory usage is in Apple’s bindings technology. To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s an Apple bug or a me bug, but it’s definitely a bug.

In any case, the solution I came up with was bigger than I intended. One of my biggest feature requests since Desktopple Pro was released was to make it a Preference Pane app instead of a menu bar app. This has the advantage of still letting Desktopple Pro do its magic while removing the icon from the menu bar. You’ll be able to choose whether you want to see the menu bar icon, so those with small screens will really appreciate the regained real estate, while those with larger screens will still be able to show the icon in the menu bar.

The upshot is that I’m still working on it. I’ve got another day or two worth of work, then a few days for testing, so I hope to have a release early next week.

Thing is, I wrote it fast, and just for me. It was never really intended to be released publicly.

But several friends of mine convinced me otherwise. That’s the reason that the original Desktopple was released as donationware: it wasn’t “good code” and I didn’t feel right charging for it.

When I started work on “Desktopple Pro,” I decided to throw out all the old, quickly written code, and started over. Which means that Desktopple Pro truly is a “1.0″ version. That also means that, as with all 1.0 releases, there are some bugs that didn’t get caught by pre-release testing.

One of those bugs is memory usage. Depending on your system, Desktopple pro can consume far more that its fair share of memory. In fact, in some cases, it can use several hundred megabytes of memory which, to be honest, is just plain silly.

The reason I mention this here is that it is a known issue and we are working on it. In the next few days we’ll be releasing an update that will bring this memory useage back down to something that is reasonable.