Jelle Druyts

It's taken way too long to remind myself to release a new version of E = m c² - so finally, here goes: v2.1 is out the door! It even comes with source code again! What a perfect Christmas present for 3.4 gazillion E = m c² users*! Actually, there are quite a lot of extra features so if I would've released a bit more sensibly over the last months then it probably would've been v2.4 or so already. Anyway...

E = m c² is a free utility that can check various sources for messages, then filter and redistribute them.

A typical example is checking your mailbox and showing you a popup window if there are new messages, but it goes far beyond that since it's fully extensible using plugins. For example, you can check RSS files for new blog posts, monitor when a server comes online or goes offline, play a soundfile when new messages arrive, send a summary email, run a program, write to an RSS file, ...

Basically, you can make E = m c² do all you can think of! And it can do your laundry too (Pro version only**)!

What's new in this version?

• I'm also releasing the source code from now on (built on .NET 2.0 with Visual Studio 2005).
• Added support for trigger plugins to provide a list of messages of their own when they trigger. This allows non-pull scenarios to be supported as well (i.e. not only receiving messages by "pulling" Source plugins, but "pushing" to deliver messages from within a trigger immediately).
• Added support for "hosted" plugins, which don't actively participate in the message cycle but are just running in the context of E = m c². This means they don't handle messages but they can still have their own settings and commands. This can be convenient to host small pieces of functionality with settings that would otherwise require a standalone application.
• Duplicated the "Change Background" as a separate "hosted" plugin so you can also use it as is, outside of the message cycle.
• The "Change Background" plugins now support other background styles than just "stretch". The new StretchedWithAspectRatio option retains the aspect ratio of the original image while stretching it to fit the screen.
• Added "Yahoo! Mail" plugin that retrieves messages from Yahoo! Mail (but you need to make sure that your account is still using the "classic" user interface for this to work).
• Added "Network Changed" trigger, which triggers when the network changes (e.g. when you plug in or out of a network).
• Added "Debug" publisher, which writes messages to the Windows debug stream.
• The "Viewer" can now have message styles to color rows depending on certain message properties, e.g. the source of a message or its subject.
• The "Viewer" can now be configured to have an initial window state, e.g. to make it start as maximized.
• The template processor can now also use reflected properties, so not just the built-in tokens as before - e.g. $(Sender) - but also tokens that are taken from the value of a property on the (optionally subclassed) message at runtime. This provides better templating support for messages that are subclassed from the base EmcMessage class.
• The "RSS Source" plugin now attempts to remember the read items between sessions of the application.
• The "RSS Publisher" plugin now also writes the message recipients to the RSS feed so that a client also has access to the original message recipients.

You can find all information, screenshots, downloads, and even tutorials on writing plugins at the dedicated website: http://jelle.druyts.net/emc/.

Now I can continue working on the next version, which should turn out to be quite interesting. I already have a number of features lined up and semi-implemented that will take it to a next level. So I think that'll make it v3.0 and non-arguably the most interesting download of 2008 galaxywide***.

I'm even thinking of changing the name to something more meaningful and search-engine-friendly. I don't want to keep steeling Google Love™ from my good friend Albert, you know... So any suggestions would be welcome, and if yours makes it then you'll get a Pro version for free**!

* Usage information obtained by bribing a guy with a moustache who works at a local internet provider and promised me the number of downloads was legit.
** Ha ha! There isn't really a Pro version!
*** I might be a bit biased.