14 DAY TRIAL // Growl used to sport a feature called GrowlMail, which notified Mac users of incoming e-mails via Apple's own Mail application. With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.2, Apple disabled this feature. But, since it was such a useful feature, the Growl Development Team decided to rewrite the app and put GrowlMail back into place. The update, good even for Mac OS X 10.5.3 users, is available right here.
Growl is best known for its ability to display notifications (although it can also be used in other ways). Notifications are a way for your applications to provide you with new information, without you having to switch from the application you're already in. For example, if you're writing something important, but also archiving something big (using a compression tool that supports Growl), the application will notify you when the process is over by displaying a notification in a corner of the screen (or even in the middle, if you so choose).
Growl is very useful for those who use IM applications on a daily basis (who doesn't?) and, of course, a mail client. What could possibly be better than being notified the instant you got mail, especially if you are already having issues with the Incoming Mail Sound?
So, version 1.1.3 ([4847]) brings the following improvements, according to the Growl Development Team (highlights):
- show notifications on every Space (Leopard) - GrowlMail installer package now allows installing to other startup volumes without restarting - GrowlSafari now works with Safari 3.0 and later - GrowlTunes no longer shows the rating if it's 0
As far as bugs go, the team has fixed a bug that caused Growl to silently not show notifications if you deleted your default display, but also the above-mentioned conflict between GrowlMail and Leopard (the team claims it has made it "much more robust for the future"). Version 1.1.3 also fixes German localization of GrowlTunes.
Updating to Growl 1.1.3 is free.