For a change, let’s talk about technologies…
Have you heard about Java? No? Well, even if you don’t know it, you are probably using Java everyday: On your computer, your mobile phone, your TV and more. Action(s) is made with Java, and it is the reason why you can run it indifferently on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.

Apple made recently two big announcements regarding Java:

• The creation of a Mac App Store where Java applications will not be accepted
• The end of Apple’s support of Java on Mac OS X
  

The Convert to JPEG action is for you. It converts any picture into a JPEG file with the quality rate indicated. Download it right now from the More Actions webpage or by clicking on "Get more actions..." in the "Help" menu of Action(s).

Action(s) 1.0.1 release content:

• "Copy file" action: Now prevent from coping a folder into itself or one of its sub-folders. Prior to this release, Action(s) was generating an infinite number of sub-folders within the destination folder.
• "Get URL" action: Selected lines backgrounds were white instead of using the system colors.
• "Show notification in tray bar" action: Mac OS X - The notification windows is now using the system colors.
• Variable selection combo box: Selected lines backgrounds were white instead of using the system colors.
• Some actions were displaying an incorrect version number (1.1 instead of 1.0.1)
• "Split files" additional actions: An error message was displayed when adding one of the actions in the workflow. Users of the "Split files" additional actions can download the latest version at http://app.jbbres.com/actions/more
• Action(s) plug-in folder now support jar file as well as actc files
• New version of the Action(s) API (v1.0.1) available. Users of the API can download the latest version at http://app.jbbres.com/developers/libraries/actions/

Action(s) has been selected freewaregenuis pick by the famous freewaregenuis.com blog. As we are reading this website since a long time at app.jbbres.com, and loving what these guys are doing, you can imagine that this has been a great surprise for all of us.

A few selected lines:
« The range of options that Actions supports, I will say, is truly impressive »
« What can this program do for you? Most anything you can think of. »
« Very user friendly and goes a long way towards making this application accessible and easy to learn »
« There’s no syntax to learn and no libraries or functions to deal with; the experience is closer to building a Lego than writing code. »
And my personal favorite : « I’ve been playing with this software for a couple of days and I just love it. The developers have done an astounding job making this software both powerful and accessible. »

Read the full article at http://www.freewaregenius.com/2010/10/13/actions-automate-all-kinds-of-tasks-via-drag-and-drop-without-writing-a-line-of-code.

If you were already using the beta or release candidate version of Action(s), the update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:

Yep, you can now search the library of actions. That’s a very useful function, so we hope you will like it.

Plus, this version is tagged RC. This means that, except for major issue, this will be the last version before the final 1.0. We are very excited about that!

So, as always, the update will download automatically next time you will start Action(s) from your desktop or by clicking on this the launch button below:

• Presentation: 350 over 400 possible points
• Function: 300 over 300 possible points
• Originality: 300 over 300 possible points

• The first collection gives you control over the mouse and keyboard of the computer: the 9 actions included into this pack allows you to move the mouse over the screen, click a mouse button, press a combination of keys etc.
• The second one is a little action that might be a great help for HTML developers: it converts the received text into the ISO 8859-1 charset for HTML: with this action, no more problem of accents and special characters in your web pages!

Action(s) provides a lot of built-in actions to work with files, images, Internet... but depending on what you want to do, this might not be enough. Fortunatly, Action(s) is also made to support additional actions, which means that anybody with some knowledge in computer programing can create new actions and add them into Action(s).
In order to help you find new actions, we have create a dedicated webpage where all extentions for Action(s) are available. You can access it by clicking on the "Get more actions..." menu in Action(s) or simply by following this link.
One on the webpage, simply download the new actions you are interrested in, open the actc file and and the new actions will be instantly available within Action(s). Et voila.

But wait, that’s not all: today we are providing the very first extention for Action(s). We named it Split Files because it’s a set of actions to split big files in smaller files. It is very usefull if you want to sent files via the Internet but have a size limitation. We’re sure you gonna love it! It is available in the Get more actions webpage.

If you are a developper and you want to know how to create your own actions, remember that everything you need - API, documentation, tutorial and much more - are available in the Resources for developpers webpage.

Among all the new functionalities and bug corrections of this new beta version, there is one that we are very proud and that we would like to present you: in Action(s), you might have noticed that a lot of the actions need to receive input to work properly. For example, if you add an “Add Border to Image” action into your workflow, it requires to receive image files to work on, otherwise the action will have no effect.
Well now, if you add such an action at the beginning of your workflow, Action(s) knows that it will have no effect and suggests you to add a matching action in front of it.

Creating your workflow and automation has never been easier.
And more than ever, continue to send us your comments and feedbacks!

• Easy-to-use interface: Action(s) comes with a library of dozens of actions that users can browse or search to find exactly what they need. Actions are dragged and dropped from the library to create workflows.
• Complete control: the pre-installed actions allow manipulation of files and folders, image cropping, scaling, conversion, and adjustment, command line execution, variable storage and access and much more.
• Extendable architecture: Developers can easily create and share their own actions.
• Re-usable: Display controls allow action parameters to be customized each time a workflow is executed; encapsulated flow design enables workflows to be used within other workflows.
• Portable: Java and XML format used by Action(s) ensure that workflows can be shared with others, whatever their operating system is.
  

Simply click on the launch button. Action(s) will download and start.