Clippings 6 released!

The new WebExtension version of Clippings is now available for download from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

What's New

• Compatible with Firefox 57 (Firefox Quantum)
• The limitation on creating and pasting clippings in web pages with HTML frames has been eliminated with this release
• Improved clippings and folders search in Clippings Manager

Things You Should Know About

This release has most of the features from version 5.x, although there are a few which are not available; most notably:

• Adding or editing color labels on clippings
• No prompts for placeholder values are displayed when pasting a clipping containing placeholders. Does not affect built-in placeholders (e.g. for the date)

Other things to note about the upgrade from previous versions of Clippings:

• Due to WebExtensions being restricted from using any keyboard shortcuts that start with CTRL + ALT, the keyboard paste key has now changed - it is now ALT+SHIFT+Y (Cmd+Shift+Y on macOS).
• If there were labels on clippings in the imported data source, they will be brought over to Clippings 6 with the import; the color labels will appear on the Clippings context menu.  However, labels cannot be edited for existing clippings, or added to new clippings. This will be fixed in a future release.

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations Help and Support forums, hosted on Google Groups.

Panic Button 4 released!

The new WebExtension version of Panic Button is now available for download from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

If you already have Panic Button installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Panic Button in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

What's New

• Compatible with Firefox 57

Things You Should Know About

This release has most of the features from version 3, but with the following differences:

• The Hide All Windows action is not available
• The Close All Windows action doesn't actually quit the browser, unless there are no other open windows (e.g. bookmark manager)
• The option to set a password on the Hide and Replace action is not available
• The shortcut key for invoking the Panic Button action cannot be changed to a different key; the F9 key for the Panic Button action can only be enabled or disabled

Also note that any customizations (e.g. toolbar button icon, custom toolbar icon image) from previous versions of Panic Button will not carry over to this new version.

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Panic Button should be directed to the AE Creations Help and Support forums, hosted on Google Groups.

Panic Button 4.0 beta 2 released!

This is the second beta release of the WebExtension version of Panic Button. It is being made available for testing, and although it is in a fairly stable beta-quality state, expect to encounter the inevitable bugs.  If that scares you, then stick to the latest stable release.

Because this is a beta release, no automatic upgrades to this release will be available to current Panic Button users.

Most features from Panic Button 3 have been ported over; however, there are some limitations:

• The "Hide all Windows" action is no longer available
• The shortcut key for invoking the Panic Button action cannot be changed to something else; the default is F9
• The option to set a password for restoring the browser session (for the "Hide and Replace" action) is missing

What's New in 4.0 beta 2

• You can now upload an image file to use as the toolbar button icon
• Support for reverse contrast toolbar button icons - useful if a dark Firefox theme is in use
• Extension preferences now appears in its own browser tab  

How to Get It

Note that the layout of the Mozilla Add-ons website has recently changed.  To obtain the 4.0 beta 2 release, head over to the Panic Button page on the Mozilla Add-ons website, then under the heading "More information", click "See all beta versions", then locate the entry for Version 4.0b2 and then click Add to Firefox.
 
Help and Support

Send your questions and comments to the AE Creations forums.  If you wish to report a bug, you may do so in GitHub; you will need a GitHub account if you don't have one already.

Clippings 6.0 beta 1 released!

After many late nights and weekends, the first beta release of Clippings 6 for Firefox is now available from the beta channel on the Mozilla Add-ons website.

This release is being made available for testing, and although it is in a fairly stable beta-quality state, expect to encounter the inevitable bugs.  If that scares you, then stick to the latest stable release.

Clippings 6 is a WebExtension release that is compatible with Firefox 57 and newer (and will work with Firefox 56).  It has most of the features from the legacy versions of Clippings, although there are a few which are not available; most notably:

• Adding or editing color labels on clippings
• No prompts for placeholder values are displayed when pasting a clipping containing placeholders; a search-and-replace on placeholders needs to be done after pasting. Does not affect built-in placeholders (e.g. for the date)
• Cannot export to an HTML document

Clippings 5.x Users

• Remember to back up your clippings data before upgrading to Clippings 6! After installing/upgrading to Clippings 6, you will be prompted to import your backup file.
• If there were labels on clippings in the imported data source, they will be brought over to Clippings 6 with the import; the color labels will appear on the Clippings context menu.  However, labels cannot be edited for existing clippings, or added to new clippings. This will be fixed in a future release.

Things You Should Know About

• Due to WebExtensions being restricted from using any keyboard shortcuts that start with CTRL + ALT, the keyboard paste key has now changed - it is now ALT+SHIFT+Y (Cmd+Shift+Y on macOS).
• Clippings Manager can import the legacy Clippings RDF/XML datasource file format (*.rdf files) as well as the new Clippings 6 format; however, it can only export to Clippings 6 format. To exchange clippings from Clippings 6 with other users, they need to have Clippings 5.5 or newer installed.

How to Get It

Note that the layout of the Mozilla Add-ons website has now changed.  To obtain the beta 1 release, search for Clippings, then under the heading "More information", click "See all beta versions", then locate the entry for Version 6.0b1 and then click Add to Firefox.

Help and Support

Send your questions and comments to the AE Creations forums.  If you wish to report a bug, you may do so in GitHub; you will need a GitHub account if you don't have one already.

Clippings 5.5 released!

Clippings 5.5 is now available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

This release is intended to prepare Firefox users for the upcoming WebExtension version of Clippings, which will be released in November 2017, at around the same time as Firefox 57. Learn more about how to prepare for the upgrade here.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Updates.

What's New

• For Firefox users - information on how to prepare for the upcoming upgrade to Clippings 6, available from the Clippings context menu or in Clippings Manager
• Added ability to export to Clippings 6 and CSV files from Clippings Manager
• Support for the new Clippings 6 file format when importing from Clippings Manager
• The Clippings backup folder name is changed to "clippings-backup" so that it is not hidden on macOS and Linux
• New "Show Backup Location" button is added to the extension preferences dialog, Data Source panel
• Redesigned status bar icon for Thunderbird

Things You Should Know About

Clippings 5.5 requires Firefox 52 or newer, and Thunderbird 52 or newer.  It is not compatible with Firefox 57 beta.

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations Help and Support forums, hosted on Google Groups.

Panic Button/wx 4.0 beta 1 released!

This is the first beta release of the WebExtension version of Panic Button/wx, which is named as such to differentiate it from older versions of Panic Button.  It has been created in anticipation of Firefox 57, which is scheduled for release in November 2017; at that time, it is expected that older versions of Panic Button will no longer work.

Because this is a beta release, no automatic upgrades to this release will be available to current Panic Button users.

Most features that exist in Panic Button 3 are present in Panic Button/wx; however, there are some that are missing:

• The "Hide all Windows" action is no longer available
• Cannot upload a image file to use as a custom Panic Button icon
• The shortcut key for invoking the Panic Button action cannot be changed to something else; the default is F9
• Setting a password for restoring the browser session (for the "Hide and Replace" action)

How to Get It

Head over to the Panic Button page on the Mozilla Add-ons website.  Scroll down the page and expand  Development Channel.  Click on the yellow "Add to Firefox" button to install.

Help and Support

Send your questions and comments to the AE Creations forums.  If you wish to report a bug, you may do so in GitHub; you will need a GitHub account if you don't have one already.

Compatibility with Firefox 57

Many users have been wondering about plans to make the AE Creations extensions compatible with Firefox 57, which is scheduled for release in November 2017, and is expected to remove all support for legacy extensions.  Clippings, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs are all legacy extensions, and would need to be completely rewritten as WebExtensions to be compatible with Firefox 57 and future releases of Firefox afterwards.

After spending the last few months studying developer documentation, developing prototypes and understanding the capabilities and limitations of WebExtensions, I have enough information to announce plans for compatibility with Firefox 57.

Clippings

Clippings will be completely rewritten as a WebExtension.  The legacy extension will continue to be supported for Thunderbird, which is not switching over to WebExtensions at this time.

Clippings will be subjected to the limitations of WebExtensions, in that many existing features will no longer be available.  Examples are color-coded labels on clippings, ability to choose data source location, backing up and restoring the data source, and exporting clippings to HTML.

For current users of Clippings, there will be a migration step that everyone will have to perform when upgrading to the WebExtension-compatible version of Clippings.  A final legacy version of Clippings will be released in advance of Firefox 57 to make it possible to perform this migration; more information on this is coming soon.


Panic Button

Panic Button will be completely rewritten as a WebExtension.  Like Clippings, it will be subjected to the limitations of WebExtensions; as a result, some features in Panic Button 3.x will no longer be available in the WebExtension-compatible version of Panic Button. Examples include the "Hide All Windows" action, custom toolbar button icons (but the 20 predefined toolbar button icons will still be available to choose from), and changing the shortcut key for invoking the Panic Button action.


Send Tab URLs

Send Tab URLs is the least-used extension from AE Creations, with 5,786 average daily users between July 2016 and July 2017, compared to 8,354 for Panic Button and 35,962 for Clippings.  I've decided to discontinue development of Send Tab URLs, and focus on Clippings and Panic Button.