After the best part of 3 weeks we’ve got the next release of FoCal for Mac available for you!
This is the result of a huge amount of work, quite a lot “behind the scenes” in improving the test operation, the image handling on OS X, memory management improvement and general reliability work. But we’ve also added a whole host of improvements that you will notice – I wrote a post a few days ago which had the details of these improvements here. The following list summarises the improvements:
- Camera detection improvements for both Canon and Nikon on OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8
- Improved operation on Snow Leopard
- AF Microadjustment gauge markers
- Full Validated test data (new for Manual Mode and AF Consistency test) and Ignorable Points in several tests
- Improved report saving (user notes, hide serial number, short summary reports)
- Camera HotKey to make MSC mode easier to use
- Improvements to the MultiPoint Focus Test
- Improvements to Manual Mode
- Improvements to Target Setup
- Addition of a new File Camera which allows tethered/Eye-Fi and Precaptured File mode
You can read all about the details of these features in the post here.
Support Status
The following table shows what should be working for this version of FoCal (1.7.0.233)
| Operating System | Camera Manufacturer | Status |
|---|---|---|
| OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) | Canon & Nikon | Fully functional |
| OS X 10.7 (Lion) | Canon & Nikon | Fully functional |
| OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) | Canon & Nikon | Fully functional |
It’s still a beta?
Yes, although we hope to take the beta label off very soon. Each new beta for FoCal 1.7 has added or fixed significant functionality, so each one is a big change from the last version and as such we don’t want to remove the beta label until things have settled. We hope that this version – with improved Nikon support and Canon support with the very latest interface files will be stable and fully functional across all cameras and operating systems, leaving a few minor user interface issues to fix before final release.
Please remember though that as a beta version there may be functionality that doesn’t work on some systems, and indeed in some cases the software may not run at all. Please let us know if this happens and we will investigate the problems. As is hopefully apparent, we do provide regular and comprehensive updates to FoCal to fix issues and add new functionality.
How do I get it?
This version is available to all license holders (FoCal Standard, FoCal Plus and FoCal Pro).
You can download it from the License Management System – you’ll see the link to the download near the bottom of the page once you log in.
The software is available as a disk image (DMG) file for OS X, containing the software itself, the target images and documentation in separate directories.
Installing on OS X (IMPORTANT!)
Please read the installation section of the manual if you don’t already have FoCal installed! FoCal uses the Mono framework, and this must be installed before you use FoCal. You only have to do this the very first time you install FoCal, so if you’re already using FoCal on your Mac then installation is just a case of copying FoCal to the Applications folder and running it.
Some versions of OS X give you a message and take you to the Mono download page, but most don’t give you much help – either a bouncing FoCal icon that quickly disappears, or an obscure “OS Error”. If you get either of these issues, you can resolve them with the steps in Section 2 (Installation) of the FoCal Manual which is in the Documents folder when you mount the DMG image.
There’s a new brief QuickStart guide available here which helps you get started.
What can I do to help?
Please download the software and give it a go. Let us know how you get on:
- If you spot any errors, please let us know
- If you can make the software misbehave, let us know what steps you take to make it happen
- If it works perfectly we’d love to hear too (good news it always nice!!)
You can contact us through the contact form (please use the Mac Beta option). There’s likely to be quite a high volume of emails, so we can’t reply to everyone but every bit of information we receive will be read and used to make FoCal better, so please let us know how you get on.