Stemverter 3.1 released

3rd July 2024

Stemverter 3 has been updated with improved macOS Sonoma support, including some new refinements, bug fixes — and a plan for what comes next.

A user interface showing settings with sliders for spacing, options for scrobbling from music services, mission control settings, and integration with Last.fm. An app icon with arrows is also visible.

While we’re mostly fixing some things in this release to ensure full compatibility with macOS Sonoma and Apple Music, we’ve also taken the opportunity to refine a few things across Sleeve, and add some small quality of life improvements that we often get requests for.

 

New window and positioning settings

 

Updated interface

You’ll notice the new Sonoma theme throughout the app if you’re running Apple’s latest OS, but we’ve also taken the opportunity to move some things around a little. Everything to do with the behavior of the album widget can be found in the new ‘Window’ settings, and ‘Position’ now only contains the positioning settings.

Screenshot of a settings page showing window behavior options for a display. The interface includes customization settings like themes, layout, appearance, track info, and position.

Mission Control settings

In the new ‘Window’ settings you can now choose whether Sleeve should display on all desktops or just your current one, and you can also disable the new ‘Ignore Mission Control’ toggle if you’d rather the album widget hide when you ‘Show Desktop’, and be displayed when you ‘Show All Windows’.

Independent horizontal and vertical spacing

By default you can adjust the spacing for the album widget on all edges, but in 2.2 there is now an additional option to set the horizontal and vertical spacing separately, so you can now move Sleeve horizontally without it also moving vertically. This setting remains in the ‘Position’ settings.

A desktop settings interface displays customization options for screen position, spacing, and display type. The right side shows a preview of the desktop with app icons and a colorful background.

Other improvements

Sync ‘likes’ to Last.fm

When you like a track in your music app (or using Sleeve!), if you’re scrobbling your music to Last.fm using Sleeve, we’ll also mark the track as ‘Loved’ in your Last.fm library. This setting is on by default and can be found in Sleeve’s ‘Last.fm’ settings.

Double-clicking behavior

Not everyone knows this, but double-clicking the album widget brings whichever music app you’re using to the front. In Sleeve’s new ‘Window’ settings you can now choose whether this double-click should take you directly to the track instead.

Bug fixes and minor improvements

As mentioned, there’s a few bugs we’ve seen in Sleeve that are now fixed in this release and other small improvements.

  • Apple Music — liking tracks in Apple Music on Sonoma now works correctly
  • Doppler — fixed a race condition that could cause Sleeve to lock up when rapidly skipping between tracks in Doppler
  • Hidden behavior bug — the widget now ignores mouse clicks correctly when hidden
  • Settings toolbar — fixed a bug where the toolbar would render incorrectly under Sonoma when collapsing the preview pane
  • Compact mode — when the preview pane is collapsed Sleeve will now open in that state correctly when relaunched
  • Volume increments — adjusting the volume using hotkeys is now done in 5% steps instead of 10%
  • Stacked layout bug — fixed an issue when using the ‘Stacked’ layout and showing track info on hover
  • Improved themes list — new animations when adding and deleting themes, and a simplified design for the active theme

     

Widgets on macOS Sonoma

 

Something we’ve been asked before is why Sleeve isn’t available as a native macOS widget so that it can work in the Notification Centre. If you’ve updated to macOS Sonoma you’ll probably know you can also now have those native widgets appear on the Desktop, similar to how Sleeve does.

Our take with Sleeve has always been to allow for maximum customization. We’re evaluating options for supporting the native widget system in the future, but for now Sleeve continues do be it’s own thing that sits alongside Apple’s widgets system. We have some new options in 2.2 that give you some more control over positioning which we hope will make it easier to use Sleeve and Apple’s widgets on your desktop at the same time.

 

Update now available

 

If you’ve purchased from us directly, and haven’t already been prompted, you can manually check for updates in the ‘System’ tab of Sleeve to install the update. For App Store users, you should see the update available in your ‘Updates’ tab in the Mac App Store.

No subscriptions. No in-app purchases. Requires macOS 11 Big Sur or later.

We’re still incredibly grateful for how much love Sleeve receives every day and we’ve got plenty more plans for the future, as well as lots of ideas from our community. If you’ve purchased Sleeve, recommended it to others, or given us feedback at any point during the last couple of years — thank you!

Al & Hector