Awasu Personal Edition v1.0.1 (beta)

UPDATE: This beta has expired. Please check the releases page for information about the latest releases.

IMPORTANT: This is a beta release. Some features may not be complete and the software may be unstable. Install at your own risk! You may need to do some basic computer maintenance tasks to get this release to run.

Installation instructions:

  • You must have Awasu 1.0 already installed.
  • Backup your installation before proceeding e.g. C:\Program Files\Awasu.
  • Make sure that Awasu is not running. It may take a while for it to finish even after the main window has closed so use Task Manager to determine when it has really exited.
  • Unpack the following zip to the installation directory: awasu-1.0.1.zip
  • Restart Awasu.
  • If you cannot see any of the new menu options or keyboard accelerators, open the Customization dialog and reset all of the menus, toolbars and accelerators. If all else fails, run REGEDIT and delete the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Awasu.

New features

  • Implemented the Workpad and Read-me list. The Workpad is an area that will contain a number of tools for managing workflow. Currently, it contains the Read-me list, a scratchpad where you can save URL's for later reading. To add a feed item to the Read-me list, right-click on the item in the item pane and choose "Add to read-me list." The default keyboard accelerators are:
    • F3: show/hide the Workpad.
    • CTRL-R: add an item to the Workpad.
    • CTRL-SHIFT-R: add a URL from the clipboard to the Workpad.

The Workpad can be docked or floating and has a context menu (right-click). There are also settings in the Program Options to automatically show the Workpad when an item is added and hide it when an item is read.

  • There is a new menu called Favorites where you can add your favorite channels for quick access. You can also define hotkeys for even quicker access. To define a hotkey, open the Organize favorites dialog, select the channel and click in the Hotkey box in the top-right-hand corner of the dialog. Press the key combination you want e.g. Ctrl-Shift-X and then click on the button to the right to assign it to the channel. The keyboard interface for the channel list is:

    • Num +: add a channel.
    • Delete: remove a channel.
    • CTRL-Up: move a channel up.
    • CTRL-Down: move a channel down.
    • SPACE: Open channel properties.

  • Implemented blackout times. These are times that you can define where Awasu will not update any channels. This allows you to leave Awasu running at the office, for example, and stop it from wasting bandwidth by updating channels at 2am when you are, hopefully, nowhere near your desk. This feature is available from the Program Options. A message will be added to Activity Log every 15 minutes to remind you that updates are blacked out.

  • Notification balloons for new feed items now have a context-menu (right-click). Balloons will be held on-screen for as long as the menu is up.

  • Added the ability to mark items as read or unread. This can be done by right-clicking in a channel's item pane.

  • Added the ability to mark channels as having new content or not. This can be done by right-clicking in the My Channels window.

  • Browser windows now have a navbar containing the current URL and back/forward buttons. You can configure in the Program Options whether these should be on or off by default or if it should be determined automatically (the default).

  • Added an option to email the URL for an item. Right-click on the item in the item pane and choose "Email URL." The email template is configurable: exit Awasu, open your CONFIG.INI and modify the following entries to look something like this:

    EmailUrlSubjectLine=This is a really cool link!
    EmailUrlBodyTemplate=Check this out: {%25URL%25}

  • Added a master switch in the Program Options for disabling notification balloons.

  • Added a debug switch to help you determine when Awasu has actually exited. Create a DEBUG.INI file in your users directory e.g. C:\Program Files\Awasu\Users\YOUR-NAME:

    [Debug]
    ShowShuttingDownWindow=1

Bug fixes and minor changes

  • Honor the default channel settings when importing channels from an OPML file.
  • Allow for "file://" when the Channel Wizard checks the clipboard to see if it contains something that looks like a feed URL.
  • Updated the help to explain how to include a link on a web page to start Awasu's Channel Wizard for an RSS feed.
  • Automatically insert a leading period to file extensions read from GLOBAL.INI if necessary.
  • Create the ChannelPlugins directory during installation. It is not actually needed for anything but is a logical place to put channel plugins.
  • Fixed the user agent (thanks Klaus). It is now "Awasu/1.0.1PE".
  • Ported to version 6.1 of BCGSoft's GUI toolkit.
  • Failure to load the BlackBox DLL no longer prevents Awasu from starting.
  • The Display section of the Program Options has been re-organized slightly.
  • Fixed minor potential bug with temp files that could have the effect of windows sometimes showing content that belonged to another window.
  • The Channel Wizard now uses the channel URL instead of the channel's generated config file name to detect if a channel has already been defined.
  • Added buttons to the channel properties dialog and Program Options to allow sounds to be reset back to their defaults.
  • Channel item descriptions no longer have CRLF's stripped.
  • Made the auto-subscription switches more user-friendly in the Advanced section of the Program Options (thanks Earl).
  • Added a link to the forums in the About box.
  • When a channel is flagged as having or not having new content, this fact is saved to disk immediately instead of waiting until Awasu exits. This was only a problem if Awasu crashed and didn't get a chance to save this information but that, of course, never happens unless your name is Earl.
  • Changed the layout of the hint dialog.