Stone Design has added Italian and French to the Spanish, German and English languages built into Stone Studio for Mac OS X. Stone Studio consists of seven applications designed from the ground up to take advantage of Mac OS X. All versions are available at the Stone Web site or on Apple’s iDisk.
According to Stone Design CEO Andrew Stone, this version of Stone Studio has been optimized for Mac OS X 10.1. Plus, PhotoToWeb, which manages digital photographs and produces Web sites from albums of images, is now fully AppleScriptable.
“What this means is that you can plug in your digital camera, click one button and build a full-featured Web site from your photos,” Stone said. “Another new feature in PhotoToWeb 1.3.35 is picture frames of any width and color.”
And what of the other applications in the suite? Create for Mac OS X is a draw and layout application built on the idea that everything is an object. Patterns, blends, effects, art and pages can be dragged and dropped to create multipage documents. Features include Web page authoring, instant graphic conversion, autotracing, animation, multiple document master pages, patterns, neon and special graphics and text effects. Version 10.3.52 features “Smart Quotes” and Contextual Menu support.
SliceAndDice, now up to version 2.4.2, lets you create navigation bars, JavaScript rollovers, image maps and mosaic tilings from any image. It features full control over image production. By dragging SliceAndDice files into Create, the user can create Web pages with image maps and rollovers.
PStill 1.8.3 converts EPS/PS and other conforming PostScript to the Portable Document Format (PDF). Its EPS filter allows viewing EPS directly on Mac OS X in any application as antialiased PDF.
PackUpAndGo 2.1.4 creates compressed archive files (.tar.gz) from dragged in files and folders and automatically uncompresses dragged in archive files. With a variety of user preferences, this application puts a graphical user interface on Unix archiving and compression commands, making it easy for the user to create compressed backups or prepare folders for mailing.
TimeEqualsMoney 1.3.91 tracks time spent for clients, and produces invoices and reports automatically. GIFfun 3.1.1 creates Web animations using drag and drop technology. The source code to GIFfun is also available online.
What’s more, Stone Design announced the availability of full strength demo licenses on request. You can get a fully functional, time-limited license by e-mailing the company. Stone said that the company has been busy fixing and polishing since the release of Mac OS X.
“Because we’re small and responsive, we work with users to provide the best possible software,” he added. “And because we’re a Mac OS X only shop, we are working to take maximum advantage of Mac OS X and Aqua features to provide the best possible user experience.”
Stone Studio is available online and is available for US$299 through Oct. 31. Also, each of the seven application components can be purchased individually.