With PADEdit 1.8 it is now possible to print tables. Then there were some minor adjustments necessary in order to support the GDPR, and of course, as always, this release includes some bug fixes.
First trip with the motorhome
After having spent our holidays in a quite classic way during the last years – arrival by airplane and staying in a hotel afterwards - this year we have something more unusual coming up. A one-week road trip with the motorhome, presumably through Germany. The word „unusual“ is probably not entirely appropriate, because apparently travelling with the motorhome has been coming back in fashion for a few years now.
We’ll start in May with a rented Eura Mobil. This thing is 7 meters long, has a small bathroom, kitchen, the usual sitting area ("half dinette") with a table and a double bed in the rear. Our destination is the Baltic Sea, but depending on your mood we may change our route spontaneously. Also, a week isn't much time if you want to take a few stopovers with you.
The plan is to have no plan. So we’ll just drive off, equipped with a pitch guide, navigation system and of course food supplies and other necessary stuff. But we have deliberately not made any campground reservations and only want to stay overnight on pitches or standing free. We’ll see if this works. The first challenge will be to find a parking place near our home in Stuttgart to load our stuff into the car. Stuttgart is not exactly known for its plenty of parking spaces.
So it will definitely be a thrill, and that's what makes it so appealing. I think with such a holiday you definitely have enough other things in your head to forget about work and everyday life.
When the time comes, I will report back.
Java Land 2018
I'm not that much into conferences, but the Java Land 2018 in Phantasialand near Brühl tempted me after all. Since my employer, diconium digital solutions, gave me the opportunity to participate for one day, I packed my backpack last Monday and took the train to Cologne. The actual program started on Tuesday - but already at 8:30 in the morning. Therefore it was obvious to stay overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the hotel, in order to attend the first lecture about TDD with Java EE. Unfortunately the plan didn't work out because I couldn't find the shuttle bus from Cologne-Bonn-Airport to Phantasialand. In addition, the bus journey from the airport took a good hour. So I didn't arrive at Java Land before about 10 o'clock. So to see it is a good idea to book a hotel in the vicinity of Phantasialand.
Of course there were many other interesting presentations, for example about "Continuous Documentation", the "Java 9 Module System beyond the basics" or a discussion about Java on the client (regarding the future of AWT, Swing and JavaFX). In between I could have a look at the "Java Pinball Machines" of JUG Goldstadt.
The overall supply of food and beverages was good. Since there were several food stands one didn't have to wait in line for too long anywhere.
In the evening, visitors of the conference can also enjoy a variety of rides in the park. But I was already on my way back to Stuttgart. I hope that next year I'll be able to participate in both days of the conference.
PADEdit 1.7
The first PADEdit update after a long time! Besides the support of macOS 10.13 and Windows 10, some minor improvements were added. Rows can now be duplicated and the number of rows per record is displayed.
And then, of course, it contains some obligatory bug fixes.
Task Till Dawn 2.11
This time another bugfix release which is especially important for macOS users. In some cases, Task Till Dawn has been switched to App Nap mode by the system. This could cause tasks to be delayed or not executed at all.
An error in the task scheduler could also cause some tasks to be started several times within one second.
All other bug fixes and minor improvements can be found in the version history included with the application.
Task Till Dawn 2.1
With this version, some cool new features come into play. Task Till Dawn can now be started in portable mode. Which means that all settings, tasks and logs are then stored in the same directory like the application itself. This makes it possible to start Task Till Dawn from USB sticks or other portable storage media.
Furthermore, notifications can now be deactivated per task. The tray menu on Windows and the menu item on the Mac can now be configured so that the tasks are displayed directly again without corresponding groups in the menu.
Of course, there are also some new actions, including the certainly very useful action for renaming files and folders.
All changes and bug fixes in detail can be found in the version history that accompanies the application.
Mounting a network share on macOS
Unfortunately, macOS still doesn't offer an option to automatically mount network drives, for example after restarting the system or when the Mac awakes from sleep. Of course there are some workarounds, like adding the mounted network drives to the startup items or running some shell scripts. But if you already happen to have Task Till Dawn installed on your system, you can just leverage this simple task. In addition, it's even possible to check whether the drive has already been mounted before so that mounting the drive again can be skipped.
Opening applications, files or folders
This small tutorial shows how to open other applications, files or folders with Task Till Dawn. This is an often needed and powerful task. For example, use it to open some applications required for work once the computer has started. Or run shell scripts, open folders with documents and so on.
To quickly create such a task, you can simply drop files or folders onto the task list. Task Till Dawn will then create a new task and automatically set up the required actions for you.