It’s been a tough time. Here we are. The sun is out, the weather is fine. We have work to do.
Now is the time for new plans and fresh projects and great new ideas. Whether you’re mapping out your next novel, finishing your dissertation, planning a product, or writing memories for your grandkids, these great tools will help. As is our custom in this season, we’re hosting a gathering of software artisans who are working to transform research and writing for a new era. We’ve all finished our latest updates, we’re working together to save you lots of money. Get the tools you need at a terrific price, for a very limited time.
artisanal
Your inspiration doesn’t come from a factory. Neither does artisanal software. For a limited time, we’re all offering you a great price on great software, right at the workshop door. No ridiculous bundles, no silly gimmicks. Great software, great support, great (but sustainable) prices.
better together
Artisanal software doesn’t come from fly-by-night marketers. We work hard to make sure our tools work together, because that makes everything better. We work hard to support great new technologies and great new ideas, while avoiding buzzspeak-compliant management trends.
fine tools
These are terrific tools for thinking, writing, organizing, and delivering your ideas. Sure, you can manage with less – but why would you want to? Each of these tools is carefully crafted and maintained by a small, dedicated team with vision and determination. Each is constantly honed and improved – since Tinderbox 1.0, we’ve had well over a hundred full releases for Tinderbox alone.
take it easy
We don’t make you jump through hoops. No need to dig up your serial numbers or clip boxtops. These are all full versions with complete support and upgrade privileges. No contests or hullabaloo, no discounts too good to be true. Just great prices for great software, right at the vineyard gate. Use the coupon code SUMMERFEST2021.
Tinderbox designer Mark Bernstein finds his colleagues a constant source of inspiration:
You don’t discover inspired design in focus groups. Artisanal software is filled with ideas, ambition, and a passion to make things right. Using all these tools together lets our team build better software while engaging the rest of the research community.
Eric Böhnisch-Volkmann from DEVONtechnologies likes to create, and his customers do, too:
“Information technology is taking over more and more aspects of our lives and software has become the central element. But with the expansion of the software business came also concentration on fewer and much larger players. But you don’t set up individual workflows, do fine-tuned research, or solve non-standard problems with some standard software. The SummerFest apps are all from small, independent software makers that understand how you work and what your challenges are. They have a clear focus on what writers, researchers, and knowledge workers need and it shows in their products.”
Pierre Bernard from Houdah Software reflects on the limited but crucial role of software tools:
The tool does not make the craftsman, but choosing the right tool is part of the craft. We are all blessed with an operating system that comes with the tools you needed to get started, but there comes a point where we'd rather use a chisel than keep chipping away with a pocket knife. SummerFest is your opportunity to trade up to tools designed for your craft.
Jacob Gorban from, Apparent Software emphasizes that each release brings new collaborations.
“I strongly believe that indie software on the Mac is what makes them so much more useful for daily work. And when applications tightly work together, this power multiplies. The recent integration between DEVONthink and Trickster is but one such example of a fruitful collaboration.”
Tinderbox
The tool for notes.
Tinderbox stores and organizes your notes, plans, and ideas. A professional tool that helps you analyze and understand your information as it grows and changes, Tinderbox is a powerful but personal content assistant that helps you share your notes through the cloud and on the Web.
- New: Take notes on your iPhone or iPad, route them directly to the pertinent Tinderbox project
- Maps help you discover emergent structure and unexpected relationships
- Agents and rules let your work keep itself organized
- Treemaps, word clouds, dashboards and [[ziplinks]] connect and visualize your ideas
Scrivener
Scrivener 3 for macOS is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft.
Aeon Timeline
Aeon Timeline helps you plan your projects.
For writers in the opening stages of planning, the final stages of editing, or anywhere in between, Aeon Timeline helps you build your plot, avoid inconsistencies, understand your characters, and visualise your story in new ways. For project and case management, Aeon Timeline offers a flexible way to plan, analyze and track your projects, employees, milestones and more.
Buy now and receive a free upgrade to Aeon Timeline 3 next month: packed with new views, improved workflows, and even more flexibility.
HoudahSpot
HoudahSpot helps you find what you need when you need it. Use HoudahSpot to keep frequently used files at your fingertips or to hunt down that elusive missing file. For example:
- Mails about a "CV" or "resume" received this year
- Word processing files containing "invoice" or "estimate"
- Image files named "logo" more than 512 pixels wide
- Files created, modified, or opened in the last 7 days
- Search by name, text, file type, sender, etc.
- Combine search criteria. Hone in on relevant results
- Sort by date, file size, image dimensions, etc.
- Preview files and text matches
The Tinderbox Way
“Unlike most corporate software today, Tinderbox was designed and implemented by a person, not by a committee, a corporation, or a focus group. That person is me: Mark Bernstein. I designed Tinderbox, and wrote just about every line of the tens of thousands of lines that make Tinderbox run.”
“Tinderbox is the product of an individual vision. It wasn’t written to meet requirements or specs or to adhere to business rules. Along the way, there have been thousands of decisions engineering decisions, artistic decisions, operational decisions. In the end, I made the choices.”
How artisanal software is designed and built: a manifesto and a guide to better living with computers.
Learn more…Panorama X
Panorama X combines the best elements of database and spreadsheet technology into a single package, making it an unparalleled tool for working with and analyzing any kind of information. Like a spreadsheet, Panorama X is RAM based for speed and flexibility, but with all of the data processing power of a full-blown database application and more. Panorama provides incredible performance when sorting, searching, performing analysis, and even when doing complete data restructuring. Even if a database already contains tens of thousand of records, Panorama X can quickly conquer tasks like shifting misaligned data, splitting or merging fields, correcting mis-formatted or improperly capitalized data, search and replace, phonetic searches or even searching with a formula or regular expression. It's like a Swiss Army knife for your data!
Key features:
- 64-Bit RAM-Based Relational Database Engine
- Flexible Searching and Sorting
- Interactive Data Analysis & Summaries
- Universal Multi-Level Undo
- Graphical Layout, Custom Reports & Labels
- Fully Programmable and Recordable
- Regular Expressions
- Flexible Import & Export
DEVONthink 3
DEVONthink is your paperless office. It stores all your documents, helps you keep them organized, and presents you with what you need to get the job done.
Focus on your work and let DEVONthink remember all the details. Collect, organize, edit and annotate documents of any kind. Have them automatically analyzed, connected, and filed. Sync them between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
- Keeps your data together
- Scans your paper
- Archives your email
- Assists you with A.I.
- Syncs your data securely
- Automates repeating tasks
- Lets you share your data
Sophisticated organization tools, AI-based techniques that handle even the largest collections, and numerous integration options make DEVONthink the work environment of choice for researchers, lawyers, and educators. Smart rules, flexible reminders, and deep AppleScript support allow automating even complex repeating tasks. And with its fast, reliable, and secure synchronization you keep your data available on all your Macs. DEVONthink To Go for iPad and iPhone completes the DEVONthink ecosystem.
DEVONthink comes in three editions from more basic (DEVONthink is never really basic) to Pro and the team-oriented Server edition.
The coupon code is also valid for upgrades from DEVONthink 2. It cannot be combined with other discounts.
DEVONagent Pro
DEVONagent Pro helps you search more efficiently on the web. It searches multiple sources, frees you from hunting for the really relevant results, and gives you power tools for your research.
- Get results pre-filtered for you
- View results the way you want
- Create reports in many formats
- Save searches so you can continue later
Search the web like never before: DEVONagent Pro queries all major and minor search engines, weeds out all the junk, and presents the really good stuff nicely ranked the way you want.
Web search the way it should be: DEVONagent Pro’s menulet puts web search where it belongs: right next to Spotlight in the menu bar. Or use its keyboard shortcut, instead of reaching for the mouse. You still have to type your query yourself, though.
It's not about search: it's about productivity. You are already busy writing, creating, researching. Let DEVONagent Pro assist you by providing you with the data you need and the best tools on the Mac for working with it.
SmallCubed Mail Suite
Mail Act-On
Mail Act-On allows you to process your incoming and outgoing email efficiently. Mail Act-On extends Mail's rule system to provide outbox and on-demand (keystroke) rules. With outbox rules, you can schedule message delivery, check for attachments, verify your delivery account, customize your signature, and so much more.
MailTags
MailTags creates a sophisticated email organizational system by giving users the power to "tag" (add extra information to) messages. MailTags' additional information can be more than just labels or keywords and includes projects, priority information, review (reminder) dates, and full notes. MailTags works with most email servers and allows you to sync your tag data if you work on more than one computer.
Mail Perspectives
Mail Perspectives helps users monitor their mail ecosystem more effectively. By creating compact perspective windows, the contents of critical mailboxes are always visible so that important messages are not lost after they leave the inbox. Mail Perspective also allows you to set Badges on significant mailboxes, providing a discrete visual notification when new messages arrive.
SigPro
SigPro rounds out the collection, giving users the ability to create easily customized signatures. Built-in scripts can further customize signatures by including random quotes or the iTunes song currently playing. On top of that, users can add customized scripts to include their last blog post, Instagram image, or FaceBook comment in their signature. The possibilities are endless.
TextExpander
Take your time back with the power of TextExpander. Repetitive typing, little mistakes, searching for answers—they’re all taking precious time away from you and your team. With TextExpander, you can take it back.
TextExpander is here to help you focus your time on more important things. You can:
- ⏩ Work faster and smarter by using TextExpander’s powerful shortcuts and abbreviations to streamline and speed up everything you type
- ⌨️ Get your message right every time with “snippets” of content that correct your spelling and keep your language consistent with just a few keystrokes
- ✉️ Speed through emails by expanding forms with fill-in-the-blank fields using a quick abbreviation
If you’re looking to be more productive, we have your back with 25% off 1 year of a TextExpander Life Hacker plan.
iTaskX
iTaskX is a full-featured, MS Project-compatible project-management tool for macOS. It gives you all the tools that sharpens the big picture or rich details about your project without heavy overload or complexity. Effortlessly capture dates and costs, assign, import, or evaluate resources, vary calendars, anticipate slack time or personalize its look, feel, and functionality. iTaskX is the perfect tool for project managers, architects, business analysts and project contributors from any industry. And work effortlessly with people who use Microsoft Project. Exchange data through standard file formats like XML, MPP, CVS or ICS, or saving any view as a PDF, JPG, EPS, PNG or TIF - iTaskX provides unmatched compatibility with Microsoft Project, Excel, Word, Numbers, Pages, Calendar....
iTaskX supports over 300 functions. And it's built with sophisticated tools that make using them way simpler than you'd think. With a few clicks, iTaskX helps you answer questions like:
- What is to be done?
- Who will complete the task?
- When must it be done?
- How much will it cost?
- What happens if work isn't completed on time?
Nisus Writer Pro
Nisus Writer Pro is a powerful word processor with an impressive set of features to help you create beautiful documents.
Nisus Writer Pro offers an intuitive interface, superior multilingual text support, unmatched compatibility, and an abundance of tools that allow you to create, edit, and polish your prose. Taking notes in class, creating your thesis, or writing your book, Nisus Writer Pro can handle it all.
Nisus Writer Pro is ready for the new M1 Macs and is Big Sur compatible.
Bookends
Reference management entails the collection, annotation, curation, and citation of published information. This is exactly what Bookends does, and it does it like no other software.
Bookends performs Internet searches to retrieve references and associated pdfs or web pages, and can immediately find and import references for which you already have the pdf. Versatile groups (static, smart, hierarchical, and virtual), Term Lists (keywords, authors, etc.), reference cross-linking, notecards, PDF file tags, PDF annotations that can be viewed/edited in notecards, on-the-fly creation of reference data tag clouds, and instantaneous live searches help organize and find information in your personal collection.
PDFpen
Fall in love with work again. Power through PDFs with the Mac community's favorite PDF editor.
Show PDFs who’s boss: Edit any PDF with the click of a button, fix typos and add text as easily as you would in Word.
Breathe new life into paper documents: With the magic of OCR, turn images of handwritten and printed text into content you can search, copy, and edit.
Protect your content: Ensure your documents are safe to share through password protection, metadata removal, and true redaction.
Look like a pro: Impress your boss, your colleagues, and your clients with efficient, secure, and 100% digital workflows, and fill out, sign, and copy-edit like it’s 2022.
Get PDFpen or PDFpenPro at 25% off. PDFpen is a standalone product, not a subscription.
Easy Data Transform
Easy Data Transform is your data multi-tool, allowing you to quickly and easily transform your data into the form you need it. Construct simple or complex data flows step-by-step using drag and drop. See the results of each transform immediately. Everything is visual and there is no syntax to remember. It is ideal for cleaning dirty data, transforming from one data format into another, deduping mailing lists, creating reports or any number of other data tasks.
Key features:
- Handles a wide range of data formats, including: CSV, Excel, JSON, XML and fixed column width.
- 52 different transforms, including: Join, Stack, Filter, Dedupe, Date Format and Sort.
- Handles a wide range of text encodings.
- Optional regular expressions and Javascript transforms for more power.
- Super fast processing.
- Handles millions of rows.
- Use batch format to convert thousands of data files in one operation.
- Save your transformation flows to reuse again.
- Confidential data never has to leave your desktop.
- Comprehensive help documentation and an online forum if you get stuck.
- One time purchase (not a subscription), which covers both Mac and Windows (up to 3 computers).
- Free trial and 60 day money-back guarantee.
HoudahGeo
HoudahGeo adds location information to your photos. Geotagging adds GPS location information to metadata embedded within the actual image files. Cataloging tools can thus organize and find photos by location. Want to see all the pictures of Eiffel Tower you ever took? Can't remember when you visited Paris? No problem.
Your photos are part of a story. Location information helps you tell the rest of that story. Show where you have been, how you got there and tell what is not in the picture. Be it to recount your travels, to present real estate, document infrastructure or environmental damage, etc.
Trickster
Trickster keeps track of recent files and applications you’ve been using on your Mac and gives you easy and fast access to them. Stop searching. Start finding.
- Send email attachments faster
- Drag downloaded files directly into apps without opening Finder
- Don’t worry about where applications save their files, they’re all in the same place now
- Works with cloud services that integrate with the file system such as Dropbox, or iCloud
NEW:
- Track recent DEVONthink documents and open them back in DEVONthink right from Trickster
- Rename recent files in Trickster, saving you a trip to Finder (very handy for new screenshots)
ImageFramer Pro
ImageFramer Pro is the most versatile solution for adding borders to your photos on the Mac, from artistic borders to photorealistic frames. Quickly frame photographs, digital art, Etsy shop listings, family snapshots—any image you can get onto your Mac. Choose from thousands of photorealistic or artistic frames and mats, layered in endless combinations. Add text and image overlays, including watermarks to digitally sign your original artwork. You can even batch process multiple photos or use it with Adobe Lightroom Classic or Apple Photos.
Who uses ImageFramer? Professional artists, photographers, bloggers, scrapbookers, craft enthusiasts, and anyone who just wants better looking family photos.
Showcase your art with lifelike frames for a professional look, find the perfect frame by comparing multiple designs, or just have fun with your image library.
NEW: ImageFramer has an optional Card Creator Pack that has over 120 professional designs that work together to provide fun and quick way to create greeting cards, like for Father’s Day.
HyperPlan
Hyper Plan combines the simplicity of sticking colored notes to the wall with the flexibility of software. Arrange your tasks in an easy to understand form. See at a glance what needs doing next. Typical uses include: agile project planning, production planning, sales pipeline tracking, storyboarding and resource scheduling. If you have ever planned something by sticking notes to a wall, then you pretty much know how to use it already.
Key features:
- Add unlimited properties to your plan, such as: priority, status, person and duration.
- Automatically layout, color-code and filter cards by their properties.
- Switch between stored 'views' with a mouse click. E.g. switch from column=priority, row=person, color=status to column=person, row=status, color=priority.
- Show row, column and grand totals for any numerical properties - much easier than a pivot table.
- View and edit card data in a compact tabular form.
- Display bar charts with a mouse click.
- Customize colors, fonts etc to your own preferences.
- Handles thousands of cards.
- Use connections between cards to show dependencies.
- No need to entrust your data to a third party or rely on their servers.
- One time purchase (not a subscription), which covers both Mac and Windows (up to 5 computers).
- Free trial and 60 day money-back guarantee.
Mellel
Mellel is the leading word processor for Mac. Powerful, flexible and reliable, it will help you write your book, academic paper or doctoral thesis — from outlining your ideas to a finished manuscript. Mellel’s superb Outline feature allows you to organize your work. You can navigate your document, reorganize the order of chapters, edit headings, and add tags and description to headings. Mellel was written from the ground-up to support multiple languages and script systems within the same document. It was the first, and still is the best (by far) word processor for right-to-left writing systems.
Mellel's features include:
- Powerful, fast and reliable.
- Unique Auto-title feature helps you organize your document and keep it tidy.
- Multiple footnote and endnote streams.
- Best of breed bibliography integration with Bookends.
- Insanely configurable index tool, Quick Index panel to scan and index your document.
- Export to ePUB, docx, PDF and more.
- Tables, Style Sets, Story, Cross-reference and much more.
A Mellel license allows you to install Mellel on up to 5 computers and comes with two years of free updates. The SummerFest coupon applies to all licenses including upgrades, education and the Mellel+Bookends combo.