Background Lifer Bars

You can optionally have Background Lifer Bars (as shown above) drawn and displayed on your main Birder’s Diary window background.

This is configured from the Options dialog, Background TAB.

 You cannot select both the Background Report and the Lifer Bars. Only one of them or none.

To turn on Lifer Bars, check the Enable Background Lifer Bars checkbox and click on the Configure button to add/remove/sort your lifer bars.

What does each Lifer Bar mean?

Each lifer bar has the following components:

  • A gray bar that is capped at the left by black and on the right by red. This bar indicates the number of species specified for this location in the Checklist table; e.g. 487 for Colorado. If the checklist table has no data for a given location, for example Home (unless you have added them), then the gray bar will equal your life count (green bar) for this location. See the Colorado bar above for Birds. The gray bar has a size of 487, the total number of species currently recognized for Colorado at this writing.
  • A green bar that indicates your lifetime life count for this location.
  • A blue bar that indicates your annual life count for this location. For example, how many species you have seen this year (starting January 1) at this location. Use it to see your yearly or annual progress for a given location.
  • Numbers, when space allows, are written on the bar to indicate the value for a given bar. When there is not enough space for a number, it will be omitted.
  • A text description for each bar is written above it. It indicates the observer, taxonomy and location for each bar. It will also repeat the numbers for green, blue and gray numbers.

General Information on Lifer Bars

The bars will recalculate at the end of sightings entry or modification. You can disable this feature in the Options window, on the General TAB, by checking the following checkbox.

You can force instant recalculation of the lifer bars at any time in one of two ways:

  1. Right-click anywhere on the main Birder’s Diary window background in order to get a popup menu. Choose Refresh Lifer Bars.
  2. Open the Options window, go to the Background TAB, click on the Configure button, and click on the Recalculate All button.