Posted on

Google Chrome integration and more in Surfulater V3.40.0.0

Google Chrome Context Menu

Another new release of Surfulater is now available, Version 3.40.0.0. The big news in this release is full support for the Google Chrome Web Browser, enabling you to capture content from any page using Chrome, along with complete web pages etc.

Google Chrome Context Menu
Google Chrome Context Menu

This works in the same way as our other Surfulater Extensions for Firefox and Internet Explorer, by adding Surfulater to the Chrome right click context menu. For some background on the Chrome Extension see my previous post.

The next important new feature in this release is the ability to remove HTML markup from article content. There are times when captured web page content includes styles and formatting etc. which simply add clutter and we don’t want. Remove HTML Markup comes in handy here and lets you choose various types of markup to remove, including all HTML markup.

The menu shown below is available whenever content is being edited.

Editing context menu showing Remove HTML Markup.
Editing context menu showing: Remove HTML Markup.

I suggest you try each of the menu options to see the result. You can always press Escape to Cancel the changes and keep the original content.

A perennial problem that a very small number of people have is the inability to add new articles from their Web Browser and see images in existing articles. This is typically caused by either Firewall or Anti Virus software blocking access to Surfulater’s built-in Web Server. I’ve written about this issue before here and here. Well it happened again recently to a new user and this time I decided it was time to write some code to check access was working and notify the user if not, preempting some frustration on their part and support requests on ours. I’ve also added a new Troubleshooting section to the Surfulater Help which provides assistance with this issue.

A nasty bug which was introduced in the last release has also been fixed. It was related to the new capability added in that release to enable articles to be dragged from the content window to the knowledge tree. The result was a random, very difficult to reproduce crash. An big thanks to the various folks that sent in the crash reports.

A variety of other issues have been addressed including some Unicode issues with Knowledge Tree Filters. They are all outlined in the V3 Release Notes in the Help.

As always we trust you benefit from the work we’ve done in this release and look forward to your feedback and suggestions. The Surfulater Download page is where it’s been for a while now.

-Neville

Posted on

A Google Chrome Extension for Surfulater arises

Requests have been coming in for a while now for a Google Chrome Extension that would enable integration with Surfulater, as we do for Firefox and Internet Explorer. We didn’t want to rush into this as we had no idea whether Chrome would gain traction and because there were capabilities missing from Chrome Extensions that we needed for Surfulater.

Time has passed and Chrome’s popularity continues to rise (I can now see why). For us software developers the good news is the Google team behind Chrome keep working on its Extension programming interface, recently adding the missing features we need for the Surfulater Extension.

What all of this means, is that I am pleased to report, we now have a Surfulater Chrome Extension that is 86% complete and in testing so far, is working very well indeed.

In fact I’d have to say this would be the best extension we’ve developed so far, largely due to the great job the folks at Google have done in designing Chrome’s Extension interface and the way Chrome extensions work.  Also Chrome’s debugging capabilities seem smoother than other browsers. Overall it has been a pleasure developing the Surfulater Chrome Extension and Plugin, which isn’t something I can say for the other Web Browsers.

Google Chrome is a very interesting product, which along with important new functionality in HTML5 and future developments that Google is working on, opens the doors to new and interesting ways for folks like us to create and develop products. I understand the folks at Mozilla are making fairly major changes to Extensions in Firefox V4, however I’ve not yet had time to look into this. There is no doubt in my mind that they have quite some catching up to do, compared with Google Chrome. It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off.

Neville

Posted on

Ticking all of the right boxes

When evaluating a product there are various key factors we need to assess such as:

  • Does it solve my particular problem.
  • Is it easy to use.
  • Does it have the set of features and capabilities that I need.
  • Will it continue to meet my needs as I become more adept.
  • Does it include good documentation.
  • Will it save me time (will I be more productive).
  • Is it worth the cost (both financial and time to learn & use).
  • Is it robust and well supported.
  • Also see: Before purchasing software

Continue reading “Ticking all of the right boxes”

Posted on

Surfulater V3.31.0.0 now available

It is always good to see another new release move out the door, this time even more so. The last few months have been devoted to designing and implementing the new Surfulater web site, updating the Blog to match and moving to our new Support Center. This has meant our usual release cycle has missed a beat or two. The good news is that is all behind us and we can now get back to something resembling normal, whatever that is!

Continue reading “Surfulater V3.31.0.0 now available”

Posted on

We should never expect much from free

When I did the big update to the Surfulater Blog last month I included a social sharing widget SexyBookmarks by Shareaholic. These widgets let visitors share details of our posts on Facebook, Twitter etc. and E-mail friends about them.

I did a quick evaluation of the most popular WordPress Social Bookmarking services and widgets and SexyBookmarks rated highly and looked pretty. Unlike most other programs of its type, it didn’t use any 3rd party service/web site for its operation, which was another big plus. Continue reading “We should never expect much from free”

Posted on

Surfulater Blog – Major update now live

Following on from launching the new Surfulater Web site and Support Center we have now completed a major update to the Blog. I realized today that the blog has been up and running for over 5 years now. In that time we’ve written 121 Posts,  which have attracted 439 comments.  This is not a lot of posts compared to many blogs out there, but unlike many other blogs, we keep on writing new and hopefully interesting content on a reasonably regular basis.

Continue reading “Surfulater Blog – Major update now live”

Posted on

Out with the old and in with the new- new Surfulater site is live

I am pleased and excited to announce the release of the all new Surfulater Web site. The new design is a much simpler, less cluttered and more to the point. But most importantly it is more approachable and does a far better job of conveying what Surfulater does, why you need it and what you can use it for. I’d be the first to admit the original site failed in most all of these respects and the need to replace it has existed for too long. Continue reading “Out with the old and in with the new- new Surfulater site is live”

Posted on

A quick glimpse at the new Surfulater Web site

Time to follow up on my last post about the new Surfulater Web site. The Web design company did a fantastic job, I really couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve performed a quick peer review and the feedback clearly indicates that the new site is a big and very worthwhile improvement. The design though is just one part of creating the new site. In essence it forms the template upon which the new site is built.

Continue reading “A quick glimpse at the new Surfulater Web site”

Posted on

We have good news and good news

Following up from my last post I am very pleased to say we found a fantastic web design company for the redesign of our Surfulater.com web site. We actually finished up with a short list of a two companies, either of which I am confident would have done a good job. We have been working with the winning designer for a few weeks now and have gone through several iterations. About a dozen people have seen the initial design and the comments we’ve received have been overwhelmingly positive. I have no doubt that the new site will work much better for us than the current site.

Continue reading “We have good news and good news”