Snarl 2.2 is making continuous progress and starting today we are making a first beta version available to the public. Let me start with some general words: Snarl 2.2 is called beta because it actually is a beta. So we know not everything is working 100% as expected out of the knowledge that not everything has been tested as it would have been for an official release. Also please be aware that the configuration format has been changed - so if you wnat to try it please make a backup of you Snarl configuration to be able to go back to 2.1.

But now to what's new - and it's a quite long list... Let's start with the reworked styles engine. Chris has spent quite much work on the styles interface and this brings some great new features to the styles.

• New meter styles available: there are now possibilities to have so called meter styles which display progress which can be measured as percentage in a graphical way as a progress bar or a graph (see screenshots of "Just black" below)
• Do not disturb-mode: when activated notifications are not shown but are stored in a list of missed notifications.
  
  And of course you can have a look at this list of missed notifications when coming back from Do not disturb-mode
  
• Priority notification: the user can define alert classes as being priority ones. This means they are displayed if you are in Do not disturb-mode or not. This also can mean (if the style supports it) that the notification is highlighted (e. g. glowing red)
• Notifications can be defined as being only shown but not being clickable but instead going transparency and click through when hovering with the mouse over them
  
• Styles can be set to have a certain transparency now and a definable drop shadow can be applied (as all the following screenshots will have)

So as an outcome there are some new styles available with Snarl 2.2:

• New default style (heavily inspired by the original default style of Snarl 1.x )
  
• Just Black shows you all the possibilities of the new styles engine - see screenshots including a progress bar and and a graph
  
  
  
• iPhoney brings the look of alerts on the iPhone / iPod touch to Snarl - see second screenshot for a priority notification (but you don't see here that the red is pulsing when displayed...)
  
  
  Also see the mirror effect for the displayed icon.
• Also there are some more styles planned for the 2.2 release including a banner style, a SMTP-style (sends email) and the many times having been wished speak style (all of them already being in internal beta test)

New better extension management will be available too. While the interface in 2.1 has been reworked in many places it now in 2.2 is even better and this has been the reason why the interface never has been documented for 2.1. Some new extensions will be included as a notification for changing sound volume (as you can do right now alread with SnarlOSD here in the apps section) and a completly rewritten SnarlClock+ which finally will bring everything what the settings dialog of the old one teasered (but in Public Beta 1 it's unfinished until now).

These are the most important news about 2.2 - but there are quite some more under the hood. One of those is the "What's new" that you get displayed when starting 2.2 (and there you can read some more... )

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