Changelog

What’s changed in Collie, newest first.

17 October 2026

When something is seriously failing – a start failed, it’s still failing after a few tries, or it needs your admin password – the menu bar dog sits on an orange pill, like the Mac’s microphone-in-use light. In the menu, that item’s icon is greyed out with a small orange warning badge.
When the menu is open, the menu bar icon now shows the standard macOS highlight instead of Collie’s own translucent rounded box.

16 October 2026

The checkout folders are now ~/Dropbox/Collie/Repos/collie and collie-site. The app no longer opens the old sheepdog:// links — use collie://.
The menus no longer have horizontal dividing lines, and the spacing around Add/remove items is more even.
The app and repo lists in Add/remove items are only as tall as they need to be, and scroll when they get long.

15 October 2026

Sheepdog is now called Collie. Your apps, repos and settings move across automatically.
Apps and repos that are running fine just show their name – status only appears when something needs attention or is starting.
Click any app or repo in the menu to launch it, or relaunch it if it’s already running.
Items start as soon as you add them – no waiting for the next check.
Checks are now driven by what happens: when an app quits or a repo’s process exits, Collie notices straight away and restarts it immediately, rather than waiting up to five minutes.
Collie learns how long each item usually takes to start, and only backs off if a start runs slower than that.
App startup times are recorded in a startup-times log, so you can see how long things take.
When you switch off an app that’s still running, a Quit row appears so you can close it too.
If you launch a second copy of an app Collie is watching, it warns you, shows which copies are running and offers to quit each one.
The menu now opens straight away with the last known status, then refreshes in the background.
The panel no longer has a little triangle pointing at the menu bar icon.
When you clone a new repo, Collie asks if you’d like to run it.
Collie can start many more kinds of repo, including Rails, Django, Jekyll, Hugo, Deno, Go and Docker Compose projects, and serves plain static sites locally. If it can’t start a repo, it tells you why.
The list of repos to add is tidier: clean names, most recent first, with the rest under More.
The Pause/Resume option has been removed – use each item’s switch instead.
“Configure apps and repos” is now Add/remove items.
The “Off” label after switched-off items has gone.

13 October 2026

The menu now looks and behaves like a native Mac menu, with one alphabetical list of apps and repos.
Click an app’s name to open it, or a repo’s name to open its site.
“Services” are now called Repos.
Health checks retry a few times before calling something down, so brief hiccups don’t cause false alarms.
Collie learns how long each repo usually takes to start and won’t flag it while it’s still starting.
Adding apps and repos is quicker: the + buttons list running apps and repos found on your Mac.
New About box and Send Feedback item in the menu.
A simpler blank slate when you haven’t added anything yet.
Optional anonymous usage stats, with an opt-out.
A slightly smaller menu bar dog.

12 October 2026

Watchdog is now Collie. Your apps, settings and logs move across automatically.
New running-dog menu bar icon and border collie app icon.
Clicking the menu bar icon opens a compact panel; right-click still gives the full menu.
The icon only turns red when something is taking longer than expected to start; other problems show orange.

11 October 2026

First release (as Watchdog).
Repos are found automatically anywhere on your Mac and kept up to date.
Repos never give up: Collie keeps retrying with gradually longer gaps.
App icons are shown at the right size and shape.
Send Feedback, with an option to ask for a reply.