PHP Monitor 5.3 now available

I’ve just released PHP Monitor 5.3. With this release, you can now easily manage your Valet proxies. Using a proxy can be very helpful and help you associate a specific IP address and port with any given domain. But that’s not all, there’s more!

Managing proxies is pretty cool, I think. If you’re unfamiliar with Valet proxies: here’s a use case where I set up the mailhog.test domain, which means I do not need to remember the IP address or port to access the web UI, for example. If you have various domains set up, this can have all kinds of uses!

This release also adds automatic update notifications: whenever there’s a newer version of PHP Monitor available, you’ll be notified. You can also check for updates manually if you want to. (You can disable the automatic check in Preferences.)

New Features

Proxies

The domains list now shows more than just linked and parked sites - that’s right, from now on, proxies will also be displayed in this list. A proxied domain in the list does display a limited amount of information compared to other domains.

If you’d like to set up a new proxy, you can press the + button and select what you’d like to create, a link or a proxy. The option to create a proxy is, obviously, new in this release.

The pop-up that lets you choose between link or proxy is hopefully obvious enough to tell you what the use case is for either option.

Once you’re setting up the new proxy, you can also select to immediately secure said proxy. (You can also change if the proxy is secured by right-clicking on the proxy in the domain list and choosing the option to toggle the secured status.)

Update Notifications

Every time you launch PHP Monitor, the app will check if a newer version is available. If that happens to be the case, you will now be notified about what update is available.

You can also check manually by going to PHP Monitor’s menu bar icon, clicking on it, and selecting the Check for Updates… menu item.

The automatic check is an optional feature that is enabled by default. You can disable it in Preferences if you prefer the app doesn’t check every time.

Please note that the check merely attempts to check the Caskfile on GitHub for the formula (either phpmon.rb or phpmon-dev.rb, depending on which build is installed), and is not used for tracking or analytics purposes. That’s why it is enabled by default.

One thing to note: the app is not capable of updating itself: you will still need to run brew upgrade phpmon (or download manually). The alert does have a button that directs you to the release notes on GitHub, where you can find additional upgrade instructions for every release.

I hope this makes it easier for users who are not following me on Twitter or running brew upgrade frequently to get alerted when a newer version of PHP Monitor is available, as quickly as possible.

Upgrade instructions

The simplest way to ensure all of your Homebrew taps are up-to-date, and to upgrade PHP Monitor, run:

brew update-reset && brew upgrade phpmon

Please note: running brew update-reset is technically only needed if you are having issues, but it shouldn’t cause any issues if you run it anyway.

Bottom Line

PHP Monitor 5.3 comes with a variety of improvements and bug fixes, performance fixes and solves a few issues with hangs. You can find the complete changelog on GitHub. I hope you this release ends up being useful.

As usual, if you do encounter any issues with this new update, please let me know: you can file an issue via GitHub.

My Thanks

My thanks goes out to those who tested the pre-release build, I think there’s a solid implementation of proxy management in the app now. I’ve been able to squash a few minor bugs due to feedback and bug reports, so that’s great news.

Additionally, my thanks also goes to those who have sponsored me or are sponsoring me right now. You are the best!

Your support keeps me motivated to keep building cool new features, and helps keep the app free for everyone. I have big plans for version 6.0, so consider sending me a lil’ something to keep me motivated 😉.