VectorLabel v1.11.0 (open alpha)

Install: download VectorLabel-Installer-1.11.0.pkg below and open it — or use Check for Updates… in the running app. The apps and installer are Developer ID-signed and notarized by Apple.

What changed in 1.11.0

Added

• Launch the Engine at login. A new toggle in Preferences ▸ Advanced ▸ App Behaviour
  starts the VectorLabel Engine automatically when you log in, so the menu-bar status and
  printing are ready without opening an app. macOS may ask you to approve it under System
  Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items.
• Each tab remembers its printer, and the right printer is picked for you. In the Custom
  Designer and the Print window, every tab keeps its own printer selection. Opening a label
  file (or picking a template in the Print window) automatically selects a printer whose
  loaded supply matches — falling back to the printer you used most recently. A manual pick
  always wins and is never overridden.

Fixed

• M611: the printable area no longer flashes to 0 × 0. A momentary partial status read
  from the printer could blank the supply readout and printable-area overlay for up to half
  a minute (often noticed right after changing printer settings). The Engine now keeps the
  last-known label geometry through such reads, so the printable area stays put.
• M611: full-job prints start right away. In full-job mode the printer waits for an
  end-of-job signal before feeding, and the Engine previously didn't send one until its
  status wait finished — so the physical print started roughly one estimated-print-time
  late. The end-of-job signal is now sent immediately after the job data (network and USB),
  and labels start feeding at once — verified on hardware.
• Reprint from the Custom Designer now restores the full print setup. Pressing Reprint
  on a Custom Designer print reopens the label with everything as it was when you printed:
  the print-range choice (All / Current / Selected / Range) and its bounds, which rows were
  ticked, the record shown in the preview, the database filter, sort, and search, and the
  printer — while still loading the current version of the label file (so later edits are
  kept). Previously the window reopened but snapped back to "All". Relatedly, an auto-sync
  refresh of the data file no longer resets your print selection mid-session.
• M610: raised-panel labels no longer print rotated 90° off the panel. The M610 now
  auto-orients each label to fit the loaded supply, the way the M611 already did — it checks
  the cassette's reported printable zone and rotates the design so it lands on the label the
  right way. This fixes square-bodied raised-panel supplies like M6-171-593, whose panel runs
  across the feed while the design canvas is authored the other way — verified on hardware.
  Hardware-verified wire wraps and continuous tape are untouched (the correction only applies
  where the loaded cassette's geometry can actually be disambiguated).
• Brother P-touch text prints less bold, matching the on-screen preview. The step that
  reduces the high-resolution render down to the printer's 180 dpi was biased toward keeping
  ink (to protect hairlines), which fattened every stroke edge so P-touch labels came out
  noticeably bolder than the preview. The Brother path now uses a neutral (true-stroke-width)
  ink threshold, so the printed weight tracks the preview — verified on hardware. (Brady
  M610/M611 are unchanged.)
• Auto-scale now works together with word wrap. Previously, turning on both "Wrap text"
  and "Auto-scale to fit" left the text at its full size — so wrapped text that needed more
  room than the box had was cut off. Now, when both are on, the text wraps and shrinks to
  the largest size at which every wrapped line fits inside the box, so nothing is clipped.
  Applies to text objects and table cells, in the designer preview, the print preview, and
  the printed label alike.

Changed

• The Engine shows "unknown" instead of guessing print progress. When an M611 network
  printer stops reporting — or is paused on the device with labels sitting queued but not
  printing — the menu-bar job status (and the Custom Designer's print header) now shows a
  plain "unknown" rather than a made-up advancing count. A stalled job shows "unknown"
  for about its estimated print time, then is marked as printed. Progress is never faked.
• Cancel appears only for jobs that can actually be cancelled. A one-label-at-a-time
  print still shows a Cancel button. A full-job batch — a multi-label print sent in one shot
  because the printer is set to "full job" — can't be interrupted, so it no longer shows a
  Cancel button in the Engine menu or the Custom Designer.

Known limitations

• A physically paused M611 still can't be told apart from a slow one — the printer
  reports the job as merely "queued", which we now surface honestly as "unknown". Detecting
  and labelling an actual pause is on the to-do list (needs the printer on hand to verify).

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Open alpha: the Brady M611 is hardware-validated; the Brady M610 cut behavior and the Brother P-touch drivers are not yet hardware-confirmed. User Guide · FAQ