I’m working on TopStyle (and you can be, too!)

Published on by Nick Bradbury

I’m finally working on TopStyle again after waaayyy too much time away from it. 

I really am sorry that we’ve been so quiet about TopStyle.  As NewsGator CTO Greg Reinacker explains in this forum post, we’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to find a new home for TopStyle, and we couldn’t say much while conversations with potential buyers were going on.  Sill, I know we could’ve done a lot better communicating with TopStyle customers during this time, and I personally regret how we handled this situation.

Anyway, in the end we’ve decided to keep TopStyle as a NewsGator product, and our immediate goal is to release TopStyle 3.5 as soon as possible.  Version 3.5 will primarily be a bug fix and Vista-compatibility release, but I hope to sneak a few new features in, too :)

Once TopStyle 3.5 goes out, we’d like to begin work on TopStyle 4.0.  And this is where you come in: given all the activity around FeedDemon, it’s unlikely that I’d have enough time to create a major release of TopStyle, so we’re actively searching for a skilled Delphi developer to eventually take it over.  If you’re interested, or you know someone who might be interested, please check out the job description for details on the position.

21 thoughts on “I’m working on TopStyle (and you can be, too!)”

  1. I did use TopStyle for many years while I was a WIndows users, now that I have moved to Mac, CSSEdit is the best editor. The Preview feature is very usefull as you can select and element and jump right to the style rule assoctiatied with it. This save a lot of time scaning long css fiels looking for the rules you need to changes or add to. One of the features I would like to see in a editor is a color tool that gives you a nice overview of all the colors being used and ability to recolor in a sweep. I keep finding my self switching back to PS to get my color values, even if they are somewhere in the CSS document. The resault is often that I have 4 diffrent reds when there should just be one.

  3. I was wondering when you’d start working on it again. I am using a Mac now – any chance of a version for OSX?

  4. Hi Nick,
    Fantastic news! I’m still using Topstyle on a regular basis – not daily anymore as I got a promotion to the ranks of non-development. :(
    Looking forward to 3.5 and certainly 4.0.
    If you still do closed Alpha and Beta’s I’d very much appreciate the opportunity to contribute and help out where needed.
    Good to see TopStyle is still loved. :)
    Hope you and your family are keeping well.

  5. So sad I don’t have a Computer Science degree. :( I know Delphi since v3 though ;)

  6. I was getting sure this product was dead… so sure that I didn’t even reinstall it on my last reformat. I’m happy to see it will still be developed.

  7. Great! Glad to hear you’re back on TopStyle again.
    Somewhat off-topic: Nick, I was checking out your old post showing your Delphi IDE for FeedDemon and TopStyle, and I was wondering if you could tell me what the controls on the form with the “dxp” prefix were?

  8. I would love to alpha/beta test as well. Browser preview of Safari would be great along with the latest definitions (in the style inspector) for Opera 9, Safari 3, Firefox etc. And possibly the ability to sort/search/filter classes, ids, and elements.
    Again glad to hear the great news!

  9. Yay! Glad to hear this news.
    In the interim I have gone to Mac and hence to CSSEdit so my inevitable question, already asked here, is will there be a Mac version.
    My read between the lines is a no, but is my guess correct..?

  10. I know many have been asking for the ‘Mac’ version of TopStyle, but what’s wrong with running parallels? I know you need an intel mac and invest a few hundred on the software and XP, but it is a great solution.
    There are several Windows programs I use that I can’t live without/haven’t found a good Mac replacement.

  11. Sorry, folks – we’re not planning a Mac version of TopStyle. But as Matt points out, you can always run it over Parallels.
    Aaron, the ‘dxp’ components are from Developer Express.

  16. Good to see your going to be joing the Delphi Hour this week! I look forward to hearing from you.

  17. Wow. This is amazing news. I’ve switched to OS X as well, but TextMate + CSSEdit are *so* not a replacement for TopStyle Pro (not for me, in any case). I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on TS development and am armed with VMWare/Parallels + XP in anticipation of its release.

  18. Just a little note from a long-time TopStyle user and fan. I had nearly, but not quite, given up hope, and am so GRATEFUL that there will be a future for this, the best CSS authoring tool in the WORLD!!!

  20. Hey, Nick –
    If the goal as of mid-June is to release TSP 3.5 “ASAP”, could you provide a guesstimate of how soon that might be? Hopefully 3.5 **will** include recently discussed features like BoxSpy and Extended Search & Replace.

  21. @Cliff: I don’t have a solid timeframe for TS3.5, but my hope is to release it next month. All of the features mentioned in my blog will be in it.

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