What is a Release Candidate? A release candidate is a software build that could stand as the official release of the product, unless major problems are found.

What does this mean for you? It means that we're getting pretty close to shipping 2.5! If you're willing to help kick the tires, so to speak, you can help us ensure that Sandvox 2.5 is really ready to go.

How do you get started? First, understand that if you do get started, you could uncover bugs that we don't know about. In fact, that's sort of the whole point! Be prepared to deal with bugs in stride and please, please, please report them.

If that all makes sense to you, here's what you can do. Grab the release candidate using Check for Updates. If nothing comes through, be sure to set Check for Software Updates to Include Beta Versions in Preferences.

If you're a Mac App Store customer, automatic updates to beta or release candidate software is not available. But you can still download from our servers directly. Just keep in mind that it won't replace the version of Sandvox you have in your Applications folder. You should be able to run either side-by-side, though we don't recommend doing so at the same time! (Mac App Store customers with software downloaded directly from Karelia may report as unlicensed, restricting your ability to publish. So please do keep your Mac App Store copy handy for publishing. We're looking to resolve this in a future update.)

Sandvox 2.5 is going to be a big update, particularly for OS X Lion customers.

Here is a the list of changes since we announced the first beta last week:

Bug Fixes

• Corrects position of RSS badge icon in some configurations

• Improves layout of Contact Form labels

• Resolves an issue with Raw HTML object placeholders

• The Inspector sometimes crept down the screen between launches

• Slide Show index improvements

• Better handling of locked documents

• Corrects navigation in Sandvox for sites not yet setup for publishing

• Autosave controls are hidden on Lion since they no longer apply

• Improves thumbnail images of External Link pages

• Some third party plug-ins weren't displaying all their content once published

• Fixes a crash trying to choose a file to insert

• Improved Slide Show animations and layout

• Cancelling the Design Chooser sometimes caused Sandvox to crash

You can also read our initial announcement for the big list of improvements.

Again, please keep in mind this is not yet a released version and should be treated similarly to a beta. Please send any feedback to Karelia Support. You can also use the Feedback Reporter built-in to Sandvox. (Sandvox->Send Feedback...)

We really appreciate your help and look forward to a great, new release!