I’m happy to have released two updates for Porthole this month, version 1.3.0 and 1.3.1. Why don’t I walk you through some of the things that were updated and improved.

Retina Graphics

For version 1.3.0 I focussed on cleaning up a lot of the interface. I never got around to adding Retina-compatible graphics to Porthole and this update takes care of about 90% of that. New in-app icons, setup wizard imagery etc. The AirPlay speaker icons were actually updated again in version 1.3.1 after I was told that graying out the music note when the speaker isn’t connected seemed to suggest the option was unavailable, instead of just inactive.

Porthole v1.2.2

Porthole v1.3.0, notice the much sharper menu bar icon

Porthole v1.3.1, the speaker icon changes when it’s connected

Setup Wizard

The setup wizard was next to receive a little overhaul. Instead of going with the named progress indicator along the top of the wizard I wanted to do something that is a little easier to maintain and localize. I ended up using BFPageControl, which is actually a page control, but doubles easily as a low key progress indicator.

It’s also a little shorter and the image on the first step has a more obvious indicator of what Porthole looks like, in the menu bar.

Porthole v1.2.2

Porthole v1.3.1

Embedded Store

Next thing on the list is the option to purchase a license for Porthole from within the app. It’s entirely optional, but it provides a nice flow that takes out the license-key-copy-pasting that’s normally involved. The store window opens a secure WebView connection to FastSpring, with a theme that works well within an app.

It’s actually a component that’s provided and maintained by FastSpring themselves. You can get it here, on GitHub.

Soundflower’s Volume

Porthole uses Soundflower to capture all the System Audio and transfer it to AirPlay speakers. I noticed that quite a few people encountered a bug where the output volume would be so low, the sound was practically inaudible. Upon further inspection I noticed that while Soundflower’s master volume was working fine, the left and right channel volume would be turned all the way down. Porthole only manipulates the mast volume and thus would not be able to fix it on its own.

My previous way of handling this issue was to instruct people to manually turn up the volume using Audio MIDI Setup.app. Which works, but is cumbersome and only works for people who look up the solution in the FAQ or email me for help. I finally decided to add an automatic fix in version 1.3.0, but not without the option to turn it off for people who require the left and right volume to be set to separate values.

Password Protected AirPlay Speakers

This has been on my list for quite a while. It wasn’t a feature that was often requested, but it would enable everyone in more public spaces to password protect their speakers and still enjoy Porthole. Using passwords in OS X is tightly connected to Keychain, which stores passwords for all apps and even allows you to share passwords between them. I want Porthole to be able to use AirPlay passwords stored by iTunes, for example. The API for implementing this changed quite a bit between OS X 10.6 and 10.7+, but by wrapping MCSMKeychainItem and sskeychain this wasn’t too much of a problem.

You can now easily connect to all password protected speakers, use passwords stored in Keychain, or add new passwords straight from Porthole. Awesome!

Other Minor Fixes

That’s about it for the manjor changes, fixes and updates. Apart from those I also made sure windows that are open (Preferences, License Window, Embedded Store) are pulled to the front when the menu bar icon is clicked, making it easier to see where they are.

The text on the buttons and menu items is more consistent, and the ellipsis make more sense now.

Stay tuned to see what’s up for the next update, follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

You can read more about Porthole on http://getporthole.com.

If you work on web projects in a team, you’re probably familiar with the situation where you want to quickly show your design or progress to a colleague, or test it on another computer. Usually this involves calling the person over or writing down/copying/emailing your IP address of the day.

Or you can use coucou + Safari and be done in a few seconds.

Safari has a special feature called “Bonjour bookmarks” that allows you to list all local web services your bookmarks bar, given that they are broadcasted using Bonjour. Coucou can help you with that last part. The broadcast menu in coucou lets you fire up custom services, like your Rails/MAMP/whatever project.

Start your web project

Start your web project

Like I said above, this will work with any type of local web server. Replace Rails with MAMP, Django or whatever you like, just remember to alter the port accordingly in the following step.

Broadcast your local web server

Launch coucou, enable the Broadcast option in the preferences and create a new service.

Choose the correct preset, or enter “_http._tcp.” and the port manually

Enable Bonjour bookmarks

Launch Safari and enable Bonjour bookmarks; they’re disabled per default.

You can enable Bonjour bookmarks on the Bookmarks tab

Don’t forget to display the bookmarks bar

Select your service from the menu

And that’s it. Click the menu item and it’ll load your website without copy-pasting, emailing or writing down your IP address!

Your web service should show up in the list

Video

Curious about what else coucou can do? Check out this post about using coucou to discover network services.

A little tool that helps us do our jobs more easily. No need to remember/copy-paste ip addresses, just use coucou to connect to your network services.

Are you a web developer? Check out this post about using coucou to streamline local web development.

If you’re a web developer you probably recognize that moment where you’re running a local development evironment with MAMP/XAMPP, Rails or Node.js and need to see your site on another computer, or show someone else what you’re working on. Maybe to do a cross-browser check, maybe just to show how awesome this latest design looks.

This usually involves copy-pasting of ip addresses, emailing and other such nonsense. With coucou this can be done in just a few simple clicks. Let me walk you through it.

First we need to enable broadcasting in the preferences pane.

Enable broadcasting

Now follow these steps:

• click the menu bar icon;
• select Broadcast and click New Service…;
• select one of the presets in the window that pops-up or create a service manually;
• click publish and you’re set!

Add a new service

Your service is now visible for anyone using coucou, or any other Bonjour compatible app

You can unpublish the service by clicking the corresponding entry in the Broadcast menu.

Network devices can broadcast various services, so other devices can find them. You’ve probably used this feature before without knowing about it. When you start a Screen Sharing session or browse some files on a network your computer picked up on what other computers in your network were broadcasting.

While its already pretty easy to find these services in Finder, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could do this from your menu bar? Or connect to web servers, SSH, printers, see who’s in and even create your own services? That’s when you need coucou!

Coucou is out of your way but easy to reach

See who’s online and easily start Screen Sharing of File Sharing

Browse printers and open the web management page

Are you a web developer? Check out this post about using coucou to streamline local web development.