Sidebar

The Sidebar (also sometimes known as the Source List) controls which pane will be active in the document window.

Library

Your library contains the Users source and when selected will allow you to view all the currently imported users from MySpace.

Network

Activity shows you all the current actions you're running or have queued up. The bottom pane shows all the current connections.

Accounts

Any account you've used with Spyder will now be present under Accounts, and each account has its own set of sidebar items unique to that account. Before any data can be shown, you must first synchronize your account. Press the inline refresh button to the right of your account e-mail address to start synchronizing, or choose from the main menu, Action › Synchronize › your account.

Each account has several sidebar items that can be shown by clicking the disclosure button left of the account e-mail address. Account specific sidebar items allow you to interact with different data associated with the account such as: friends, friends requests received and sent, comments sent, bulletins posted or that are scheduled to be posted, events and whether you've sent any event invites, and messages received and sent.

Folders

All user created folders, smart folders, and special folders are stored under the Folders group.

Users in the Black List won't be sent friends requests, and primarily consists of users that you've sent friend requests to or have received friend requests from, or are already friends with. Users are automatically added to the Black List when you send them a friend request. Users can also be added or removed to the Black List manually.

The Strangers folder is the inverse of the Black List, that is you can always send friend requests to users that are in the Strangers folder.

Smart Folders are used to filter users based on certain criteria you choose. For instance you might want to create a Smart Folder to keep track of everyone that lives in a certain city. Several commonly used Smart Folders are already created for you when you first start using Spyder. To create a Smart Folder press the + button in the bottom bar.

Folders are created automatically to help track certain events, such as who your new friends are since last time you synchronized. To create a new folder either drag users from the User Pane to the Sidebar or control-click click on users in the User Pane and choose to make a new folder consisting of the selected users.

Toolbar

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The toolbar contains buttons for searching for users, posting bulletins, uploading pictures, and keeping track of which account you are currently logged in as.

Search Button

Pressing the Search button will expose the Search sheet where you can choose from several different search methods for finding and importing new users. You may need to try different search methods to get the results you desire.

Add User Button

Use the Add User Button to import a user. Before you can import the user you must know either their friendID or their profile URL that contains their friendID.

Post Bulletin Button

Not only does the Post Bulletin Button allow you to post bulletins, you can also schedule bulletins to post at a later time or even repeat.

Upload Photo Button

You can either take a picture with your attached iSight camera, or upload an existing photo of your choosing. Once you have a photo loaded you can crop or adjust the quality before you upload. An uploaded photo is placed in your default album.

Friend Requests Sent Counter

Keeps track of how many friend requests you have sent. The counter will automatically reset after 24 hours, or you may press the button to manually reset the counter.

Comments Sent Counter

Keeps track of how many comments you have sent. The counter will automatically reset after 24 hours, or you may press the button to manually reset the counter.

Messages Sent Counter

Keeps track of how many messages you have sent. The counter will automatically reset after 24 hours, or you may press the button to manually reset the counter.

Selected Account or Login Button

If you have an account selected (from the Account menu) then this button will show you what that account is. If you then press the button the account will be logged out and the button title will change to Login. When the button displays Login and you press it you will be presented with a dialog to login to MySpace. If the login is successful the account will automatically be synchronized.

You can use the Login button or Login… option in the Account menu to add accounts to Spyder.

Bottom Bar

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The Bottom Bar contains a button to add new Smart Folders, and displays the current count of items for whichever sidebar item is selected.

User Pane

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The User Pane displays users per your sidebar selection.

User Pane Toolbar

Back/Forward Button

Use the Back/Forward Button to move through the friends history. Double-clicking on a user will show you their imported friends. If they have no friends it means you haven't imported them yet.

Refresh Button

Use the Refresh button to re-import a user's details, if more than one user is selected all users will be re-imported.

Import Friends Button

Use this button to import the friends of another user.

Send Friend Requests Button

You can only send friend requests to users that aren't in the Black List. Remember you can always send friend requests to users that are in the Strangers folder.

Send Comments Button

You can only send comments to users that are friends with the currently selected account. Try selected Friends under the account that is also the title of the Selected Account Button.

Friend Requests Pane

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The Friend Requests Pane displays users that have sent you friend requests. You can choose to accept or deny these requests.

Friend Requests Toolbar

Deny

Press the deny button to reject friends requests sent to you. You must have some of the users selected before you can deny their requests.

Approve

Press the approve button to become friends with the users you have selected. Once accepted the users are added to your friends and placed in the Black List.

Sent Comments Pane

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The Sent Comments Pane shows you all the comments you have sent. You can delete sent comments by selecting them and pressing the delete key.

My Events Pane

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The My Events Pane shows you the events you have imported and the users you've sent event invites to. You must import your events before you can send event invites. Importing events can be accomplished by clicking the button right of the My Events sidebar item, or choosing Get Events for Account from the Action menu.

Messages Pane

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The Messages Pane displays your incoming or sent messages, depending on which sidebar item you have selected.

Messages Toolbar

Reply

Press the reply button to reply to a message someone sent you. You can only reply to one message at a time, and you cannot reply to messages you have sent.

Delete

The delete button will delete messages from your user library and from MySpace. However, if you have the option key pressed when clicking the Delete button the messages will only be deleted from the user library and will be re-downloaded next time you synchronize.

Sending Friend Requests

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1. Select the account you want to send friend requests from.

Choose which account you want to send friend requests with from the Accounts menu located in the main menu at the top of the screen.

2. Import users that you want to send friend requests.

1. If you want to find users matching certain criteria then press the Search Button¹. You will be presented with different options for searching, choose the one that best suits your needs. When you are finished making your choices the users will be imported if any results were found. When this is completed you may move on to step 2.
   

   Figure 1. Search Button

   Located on the Toolbar, the search button is used to import users matching certain specific criteria you specify.

2. If you want to target another user's friends, select that user in the User Pane². Once that user is selected press the Import Friends Button³.
   

   Figure 2. Selecting a user in the User Pane.

   You must select a user in the User Pane before you can import their friends.

   

   Figure 3. Import Friends Button

   Located on the User Pane Toolbar, the Import Friends Button is used to import the friends of another user.

3. In the user pane select the friends you want to send friend requests to.

Either follow the steps below or you may select Strangers⁴ in the sidebar. The Strangers sidebar smart folder always contains users you can send friend requests to. The Black List smart folder contains users you are already friends with or have already sent friend requests to.

1. If you imported users from a search select the corresponding folder in the sidebar that contains the results of that search. If no folder is created after your search completes then no results were found and you should go back to step 1 and modify your search criteria until you find users. You may have trouble importing users if your search criteria is too restrictive.

   Select the users you want to send friend requests to in the User Pane.
2. If you imported another user's friends you can double-click that user in the User Pane to view their friends. Now you can select which of their users you would like to send friend requests to in the User Pane.

4. Press the Friend Requests Button⁵ or choose Send Friend Requests from the Action menu.

You cannot send friend requests to users that are already your friend or are in the Black List smart folder. If your entire selection consists of users you cannot send friend requests to then Spyder will show a warning notifying you of this condition. If only some of your selection contains users you cannot send friend requests to then those users are skipped and the remaining users are sent friend requests.

Sometimes users will require you know their last name or e-mail address in order to send them a friend request. You can set your preferences to alert or ignore you when this happens, the default is to ignore friend requests that require you know someone's last name or e-mail address.

Many users require you enter a CAPTCHA to satisfy your friend request. It is normal behavior to receive many CAPTCHA requests.

Sending Comments

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1. Select the account you want to send comments from.

Choose which account you want to send comments with from the Accounts menu located in the main menu at the top of the screen.

2. Select the corresponding Friends sidebar item for whichever account you have selected.

For example, if you have example@spyderx.com selected, select the Friends sidebar item underneath the example@spyderx.com sidebar item (you may need to expand the example@spyderx.com sidebar item by clicking the expand button (triangular shaped button) left of the example@spyderx.com text, it should be pointing downward)¹. You are only allowed to send comments to people you are friends with. If Spyder doesn't know that you are friends with someone because you haven't completely synchronized your account you won't be allowed to send that user a comment.

It isn't necessary to have the Friends sidebar item selected. You can select your friends in the user pane even when other sidebar items are selected and still be allowed to send them comments.

3. Press the Send Comments Button² or choose Send Comments from the Action menu.

Sending Messages

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1. Select the account you want to send messages from.

Choose which account you want to send messages with from the Accounts menu located in the main menu at the top of the screen.

2. In the user pane select the users you want to send messages¹.

3. Press the Send Messages Button² or choose Send Messages from the Action menu.

Sending Event Invites

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1. Import your events.

Create any events in a web browser on MySpace before you import them into Spyder. Then under the Action menu choose Import Events for Account¹, and then choose the account you want to import event invites from.

2. In the user pane select the users you want to send event invites².

3. Choose Send Event Invites under the Action menu. Then choose which account and event you are going to send event invites for.

Posting Bulletins

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1. Choose which account you want to post a bulletin from by selecting that account in the Account menu.

2. Press the Post Bulletin button¹ on the toolbar.

3. Enter your bulletin subject and content and whether you want it to repeat.

You will be prompted to enter your bulletin text and whether you want it to repeat and for how long.² When you press the Send button your bulletin will be sent.

4. Edit your bulletin after you have posted it.

After you have created a bulletin you can edit or see it's progress by selecting the Sent Bulletins sidebar item under the appropriate account the bulletin was or is being sent from. Select the bulletin you would like to edit and press the Edit Bulletin button³.

Using the Song Play Increaser

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1. Select one music account in the user pane¹.

You are only allowed to open a Song Play Increaser Window for one music account at a time.

2. Choose Open Song Play Increaser Window under the Action menu.

3. Select the songs you want to increase plays for in the Song Play Increaser Window².

Make changes for any other options, such as delay or maximum number of hits. If you have 2 songs selected and max hits is set to 100 then each song will receive 50 additional plays. If the Increase profile views options is also checked then your profile views will increase by 100.

4. Press the Start button in the Song Play Increaser Window.

After your press the Start button a progress bar will be displayed in the lower left corner. You may cancel by pressing the Stop button.

Smart Folders

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Smart folders are special folders that automatically include (or exclude) users according to a filter predicate you specify.

Creating and editing smart folders.

You create smart folders by clicking the + button near the button left of a document window. See Bottom Bar for more information. Editing smart folders can be accomplished by left-clicking (or hold the control-key and right-click) on an existing smart folder. This will display a contextual menu from which you can choose the Edit Smart Folder option.

By holding the option key and pressing the ... button to add a compound predicate you can construct complex predicates.

You can make Smart Folders filter on other users friends, see the following image¹ on how this can be accomplished.

Messages

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Deleting messsages without deleting them from the MySpace server.

Holding the option key while pressing the delete key will delete any selected messages from your user library but not from the MySpace server. This is useful if you need to reload a message.

Variable Substitution

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How to use variable substitution in messages, comments, and friend requests.

When you send a message to someone you can include the ${NAME} token to substitute their name in the message.

CAPTCHA Bypass

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There are now a few different ways to avoid entering CAPTCHAs. You can use a service such as CAPTCHA Assist to enter them for you, or use MySpace's "No More CAPTCHAs" feature.

1. Using CAPTCHA Assist

When you make your first purchase of CAPTCHA Assist credits you will be sent your CAPTCHA Assist Key which you then enter into the CAPTCHA Assist Key text field in the Advanced Preferences of Spyder. After you have entered the CAPTCHA Assist Key you are ready to start sending friend requets, comments, and messages without having to worry about entering CAPTCHAs. When you have used up all your CAPTCHA Assist credits you can purchase more by pressing the Refill button in the CAPTCHA Assist window or from the Advanced Preferences of Spyder.

2. Using "No More CAPTCHAs".

Before you can start using "No More CAPTCHAs" you must first enable this feature in your MySpace account settings which must be done from a web browser. Next you must enable support for "No More CAPTCHAs" in the Advanced Preferences of Spyder.

"No More CAPTCHAs" doesn't mean you will never encounter a CAPTCHA again, there are some circumstances that may still require you to enter a CAPTCHA. You can read about it further in Tom's blog on MySpace.

Technical Support

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Technical support issues can be e-mailed to help@spyderx.com. Please be descriptive with your problem and include the following information:

• What version of Spyder you are using.
• Any error messages you see.
• Any connection error messages (from the Activity pane).
• What you've already tried in attempting to solve your problem.
• Crash reports (~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/) and system configuration if the problem is a crash or a sample if the problem is a hang.
• Your system.log file which can be found by opening the Console application.
• Screen-shots of what you are describing. How do I take a screen-shot?

A HANG is when the mouse cursor becomes the spinning multi-color pinwheel of death cursor. A hang is not when your network connections are waiting for data.

Submitting Bug Reports

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If you are submitting a bug report for a crash you must submit the crash report and system configuration (available when the crash occurs). Use copy/paste to include the text in an e-mail to help@spyderx.com. Also include as descriptively as possible what you were doing when the crash occurred. Include screen shots if relevant or for clarity. You can make screen shots by holding the command-shift-3 keys, or by using the Grab application in your Utilities folder.

If you are submitting a bug report for a hang (when you see the multi-color pinwheel instead of a regular mouse cursor) you must include a sample. A sample can be taken by opening Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder, select the Spyder process and then press the Sample button on the toolbar.

Lost Activation Code

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If you've lost the original e-mail with your activation code sent to you when you purchased Spyder you can have it resent to you at the Activation Code Lookup page. If your e-mail is no longer active you must purchase a new license.

How do I deactivate a license?

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If you need to move your license to a different computer you will first have to deactivate it on the computer you are currently using it on and then activate it on your new computer. You can deactivate a license on your current computer by opening the Spyder Licensor under the Spyder menu.

If you no longer have your old computer you can deactivate your license at the Activation Code Reset page.

How to Download and Install Spyder

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To download Spyder follow the link below. You will be downloading a compressed Zip file containing the Spyder application.

Download Spyder Now

When the download is completed you can double-click the Spyder.zip file to extract the Spyder application (if it wasn't automatically done for you already). Once the Spyder application has been extracted you may move the application to any location on your filesystem to complete installation, or you may leave it where it is. It is recommended you move Spyder to the Applications folder.

When you have completed installing Spyder you are ready to start using it. Double-click the Spyder application icon to launch Spyder and begin using it. If you haven't yet purchased a license Spyder will run in evaluation mode. You are allowed to try Spyder indefinitely before purchasing.

Spyder for Windows

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Spyder isn't available for Windows. If you want to use Spyder you will need to purchase a Mac.

If you're looking for a Windows Friend Adder you should try Easy Adder.