The festival is now closed. We’re folding our tents, packing up the cotton candy machine, and stowing the mulled wine. We’ll be back in the summer. Meanwhile, some vendors will continue to accept orders for a few more days. Last call!
Keep in touch with the artisanal software festival: Concise, and timely; we never share your email address.
The new season brings new plans, 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 WinterFest2024.
what the craftspeople use
Rich Siegel Founder & CEO, Bare Bones Software, Inc., emphasizes the importance of fine tools:
Creators know that having quality tools and reference materials make the creative process faster, more productive, and more gratifying, so the investment is well worth it.
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 WinterFest 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. WinterFest is your opportunity to trade up to tools designed for your craft.
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
New in Tinderbox 10: an entirely new Gaudí View for brainstorming and freestyle organizing, offering unparalleled information density. (You can read the paper from the 2024 ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media.)
Scrivener
Scrivener 3 for macOS and Windows 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.
Scapple
25% off on Scapple, an easy-to-use tool for getting ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them.
If you’ve ever scribbled down ideas all over a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts, then you already know what Scapple does.
BBEdit
BBEdit is the leading professional-strength text and code editor for the Mac. Crafted to serve the needs of writers, web authors, software developers, and everyone else who deals with text, this award-winning product provides a vast number of helpful features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text. BBEdit enjoys legendary status for reliable, high-performance text transformation.
what's new
BBEdit 15 introduces AI worksheets, a Minimap palette, Text Merge, expandable Cheat Sheets, and enhancements to the projects and text factories features, as part of a vast array of improvements intended to make working with projects and text documents more efficient and more productive.
BBEdit 15 brings its unique "worksheet" interface to the world of generative AI: the new AI Worksheet feature facilitates interacting with chosen AIs from within BBEdit itself for those with a suitable account and API key (available from OpenAI and other providers).
"We're gratified to see the response to BBEdit 15," said Rich Siegel, founder and CEO of Bare Bones Software, Inc. "Based on the feedback our customers are sending, they're particularly enthusiastic about the ChatGPT worksheets. However, that's just one of the of the many popular changes in BBEdit 15; the consistent note is that everyone's enjoying the productivity improvements. We're delighted to hear how our customers are putting these changes to work."
Yojimbo
Yojimbo empowers Mac users to effortlessly and securely manage the onslaught of information encountered every day, even across multiple computers. Yojimbo stores rich text notes, passwords, bookmarks, serial numbers, PDFs, and images.
Gathering information is easy through familiar Mac interface gestures, Yojimbo's own Quick Input Panel and Save PDF to Yojimbo commands, and it can encrypt stored data. Yojimbo's tagging system empowers simple personal organization, and information retrieval is instantaneous through its built-in search or Spotlight.
what's new:
Yojimbo uses Apple's iCloud service to sync data among multiple Macs, supports high-fidelity capture of web pages to PDF, offers an improved appearance under Dark Mode, and contains many more appearance and usability adjustments.
Yojimbo 4.6 is fully compatible with macOS 15 Sequoia and Apple Silicon-powered Macs.
HoudahSpot
Find files. Fast!
HoudahSpot is a productivity tool. It is the hub where all the files related to your current task come together. You can also take a deep dive to fetch further information from your archives from here.
Find files using multiple criteria (such as name, text content, kind, and a wide assortment of other metadata). Searches are easy to build with a few clicks. HoudahSpot shows search results in a convenient interface that keeps all your essential data within reach.
HoudahSpot uses the existing Spotlight index for ultra-fast file searches. It gives you the tools to get manageable search results from even the most extensive collection of files: an easy-to-use search criteria editor, customizable results displays, search templates, a preview of text matches, and 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:
- Native (and fast!) on Apple Silicon Macs
- 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.
Hookmark
Hookmark is a great complement to your favorite launcher, because Hookmark is the world's first contextual launcher. It also extends or replaces your bookmarking software because it's the world's first contextual bookmarking app. You can copy links to just about anything. Even get deep links to specific locations in PDF files and videos. Hookmark automatically bookmarks your copied links (not just web links). It optionally syncs web bookmarks to Instapaper, GoodLinks and Pinboard. Hookmark’s contextual window shows you two-way links to your notes, PDFs, emails, tasks, and other resources in your favorite software.
Nisus Writer Pro
Nisus Writer Pro is a powerful word processor with all the writing tools you need, thoughtfully packed into a tidy package.
Create, edit, and polish your prose to craft beautiful documents with ease. Our intuitive interface exposes a rich set of features that never get in your way. Taking notes in class, writing your novel, or structuring a complex document— Nisus Writer Pro can handle it all.
Nisus Writer was built from the ground-up exclusively for the Mac with native support for Apple Silicon, Dark Mode, document autosave and versioning, and iCloud. Compatible with macOS 10.11 through Ventura
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.
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, plain text, vCard and fixed column width.
- 67 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 processing or command line 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.
Photos Workbench
Photos Workbench is a companion to Apple Photos. It helps you organize, rate, and compare photos.
- Batch change titles to give photos descriptive names.
- Add location information with minimal effort. Drag-and-drop photos onto a large map. Geocode photos automatically using a GPS track log.
- Use star ratings to classify and find photos by their relative quality or relevance.
- Use keyword palettes and keyboard shortcuts to add keywords quickly while maintaining consistent terminology.
- Compare photos side-by-side to find the best shot in a series of photos or variants of the same image.
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
- Two-way connectivity with Hook.
- Trickster enhances DEVONthink experience by giving instant access to your recently added or edited documents without the need to search through folders in DEVONthink. With this integration, documents from DEVONthink appear in the same list as regular files and can be dragged to Mail, previewed, or opened in DEVONthink right from Trickster's quick-to-use interface.
NEW:
- Handle displaying new Dropbox client's paths and iCloud-based Desktop/Documents
- Add support for Setapp version of Hookmark
- For items originating from DEVONthink:
- Copying URLs will copy a callback URL that opens the item in DEVONthink. Helps with copying DEVONthink items, for example
- Option-Double-Click or Option-Return will open the file using a default app for the type instead of inside DEVONthink.
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: Comprehensive Undo/Redo support, UI improvements, Shortcuts action to apply ImageFramer design on macOS Monterey and massive updates to Image and Text Overlay functionality, including rotation, opacity and shadows.
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.
Take Control Books
Take Control ebooks help you navigate the topics you need to know about, offering expert advice from top authors on the latest Apple-related tech and leading Mac apps. Available in PDF and EPUB formats, Take Control ebooks are easy to use and explore, providing in-depth coverage plus a quick way to find answers to your pressing questions.
Our catalog contains dozens of titles, including:
- iPhone and iPad Basics by Josh Centers is a detailed introduction to the many features and built-in apps on your iPhone or iPad.
- Take Control of Solving Mac Problems by Joe Kissell teaches you how to maintain, troubleshoot, and speed up your Mac.
- Take Control of iPhone Photography by Jeff Carlson shows you how to get professional-quality images and videos from your iPhone’s cameras.
- Take Control of Photos by Jason Snell provides detailed instruction in Apple’s Photos app for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV.
- Take Control of Your Apple Account by Glenn Fleishman helps you solve (or prevent) problems with your Apple Account (formerly “Apple ID”).
Plus you’ll find books about Mac automation, Wi-Fi, Shortcuts, the Mac command line, Apple Mail, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Calendar & Reminders, Pages, and much more. Let our authors save you time and aggravation with their timely, expert advice!
Tinderbox 101: 5Cs PKM
In 5Cs of Knowledge Management and Tinderbox 101 , you’ll learn to unlock the power of the 5Cs of Knowledge Management Framework, Tinderbox, and the suite of languages and syntaxes (HTML, CSS, Markdown, RegEx), frameworks, and applications (e.g., DEVONThink, BBEdit, TextExpander, TextSniper, Snagit, Pandoc, Bookends, Zotero, Obsidian) that work together to unleash and optimize the contributions you make from your knowledge and insights. In this course, you’ll learn to:
- understand and apply the 5Cs of Knowledge Management and the CSA frameworks,
- create and organize your notes,
- embrace the power of metacognition and attribute thinking prototypes attributes, Tinderbox action code authoring,
- write templates and publish (export) your content (notes, posts, articles, books, presentations),
- lwork with a variety of tools and services to unlock your knowledge and insights,
- open up the Tinderbox and other communities to help you on your journey. .
The course will be conducted live (virtual via Zoom) for 6 students and on-demand for up to 10 participants. In total, there will be 9 hours of interactive sessions—Fridays, 06:30-8:00 AM PST, Jan. 11 to Feb. 14. While we have a lot to cover, there will be ample opportunity to tailor the sessions to align with participants’ personal interests and projects. All participants receive:
- Session recordings
- Sample Tinderbox files
- Suggested assignments
- Relevant references
- Email support
Peakto
Peakto is the ultimate Media Manager, helping creatives organize thousands of photos and videos in one AI-powered interface. It unifies assets from folders, drives, Apple Photos, and tools like Lightroom, Premiere, and Final Cut. Enjoy AI-driven search, smart categorization, and automated keywording.
Avalanche
Avalanche allows you to convert catalogs from one software to another while preserving the modifications and annotations you have made to your photos. Avalanche's AI converts data from one software to another to be as faithful as possible to the original catalogs.