With v5.0.51, while in the Photo Viewer (Sightings Documents) the Down and Up Arrow keys will now actually select and display the next/previous photo. Where the PgDn and PgUp keys will only scroll through the photos; pressing the Space Bar will actually display the photo currently selected.
Added the option to import BirdBase sightings by Common Name (default) or Scientific Name. Previously, only Common Name was used for name matching. v5.0.51
Fixed bug in UDF queries when searching for uninitialized UDF fields. To search for UDF fields where no value has been set, not even the empty string (”), use “=” and “Null”. v5.0.50
A bug when importing some BirdBase files has been fixed. This bug involved BirdBase exports creating continuation CSV lines with empty strings (“”). v5.0.49
The “Select Thing From Ambiguous Entry” window now has a new button to remove the ambiguity for the given name so that you will no longer be prompted in the future. For example, the name “Blue Jay” has always been an alias name for the Indian Roller in addition to the actual North American Blue Jay. If you select the Blue Jay and then click the newRemove Ambiguity button, it will remove “Blue Jay” as an alias from all other birds that don’t use Blue Jay only as an alias name so that you won’t be prompted again in the future. v5.0.49.
When selecting theSeasonal checkbox on the ‘View Sightings Setup’ window, the begin and end dates will be loaded with default values of “01 Jan 1500” and “31 Dec 2100” respectively. This is a user-requested feature that will often save time for setup on one or the other field. v5.0.49
Added new feature to Single Species Abundance Chart wherein the chart will show Maximum count for the day instead of Summing the counts of all sightings. v5.0.48
Fixed bug in Checklist Report where Location is not remembered when setting “For Which Location”. v5.0.48
Added a new feature to View/Edit Setup window. This new feature will combine with other filter settings to ONLY show those sightings out of the list that have been sighted outside of their range, as defined by Birder’s Diary Checklist data in your database. This option can take several seconds to minutes to complete the query when used, but can be very valuable in finding those errant sightings. v5.0.47
Updated Taxonomic Filter window to make it more intuitive to use. v5.0.47
Fixed bug when navigating to Cornell’s Clements site to search for a species from the Web Search window. It was improperly stripping double-quotes in Windows 7 and beyond. v5.0.46
Fixed bug in Location Maintenance Window (F5) where Edit or Delete fail if you don’t first select a location in the treeview. v5.0.46
Ability to add aCountField, instead of a check box, to a Checklist report. v5.0.46
Built Desktop Sharing for customer support into the Birder’s Diary program. v5.0.43 Once you have an appointment with Support, you can start your desktop sharing session in one of three ways:
If Birder’s Diary is working:
From the main menu – Help | Internet: Invite Support Onto your System
Click on the “?” Help button in the main Toolbar.
If Birder’s Diary is not working:
Open Windows File Explorer (e.g. My Computer) and navigate toC:\Birder’s Diary\. Locate the file BD-DesktopSharing.exe and run it. Wait for the 2nd popup with the ALLOW button. Click on that Allow button when it shows up.
Fixed bug in Multiple Species Abundance report Export feature. It could sometimes produce invalid values. v5.0.43
Updated Multiple Species Abundance report. Removed the “Include Subsp” checkbox. The report will always rolls up subspecies sightings to the parent species. Subspecies rows will no longer show. v5.0.43
Fixed bug where a number observed value greater than 64,000 produced an overflow error. v5.0.42
Fixed bug when expanding a node in the Locations Maintenance window. v5.0.40
Fixed bug when using the Locations Maintenance window from the “Sightings Entry – Keyboard” window and running into “Unable to update Remote Location” error. v5.0.39
Installations on the latest versions of Windows 10 was causing an issue with Administrator Privilege, forcing the user to run the installer manually with Admin Privs. This message has been updated to give the user better instructions. v5.0.38
Large numbers of locations (> 2,000) defined in your location hierarchy and a complex hierarchy (multiple parenting and descendancy) can cause slowdowns in the Location Maintenance window. This has been corrected. v5.0.38
Export Location performance has been improved 10X. v5.0.38
When importing sightings, any UDF text field in the import file that contained data longer than 255 characters produced and error and that data would not be imported for the sighting. Although the sighting itself was imported. Now any text UDF field is truncated to 250 characters before being written to the database. No error is produced. v5.0.38
On Sightings Import, the Locations performance table was being rebuilt after every import. Now, it only rebuilds, if needed, when you close the Import window. v5.0.36
Added Latitude and Longitude properties to each Location in Birder’s Diary. You can edit these values by editing the Location itself. Each field is a free-form text field with a maximum length of 64 characters. These values can be output on either Sightings or Trip reports. v5.0.36
Corrected a label in the Options window, General TAB. It used to say ‘Enable…’, now it correctly says “Disable…’. If checked, the feature is disabled.
You can now set the Font and the Font Size in “View | Options” on the General TAB, for the following 4 grids in Birder’s Diary. v5.0.16
Main Screen – Latest Outings/Checklists grid
Main Screen – Latest Sightings grid
Checklist Entry – main entry grid and review grid
View/Edit Sightings – the view grid
The Sightings Popup on the checklist entry form appears when you scroll over the common name in the checklist grid and that thing has sightings. In the past, the popup was immediate and somewhat annoying to many. It now has a 1.5 second delay, which means you can scroll over the name field without constant popups. v5.0.15
Lifers Per Year Chart/Graph was ignoring a Location specification. Fixed in v5.0.9.
Importing of CSV file from BirdWatcher’s Diary (not related) did not correctly show common name in latest sightings grid. Corrected in v5.0.9.
In Sightings Report, specifying a name of a species did NOT show sightings for subspecies of that species in the report. It now does. v5.0.8.
Keeping past taxonomic lists in your database has the potential to slow down functionality of Birder’s Diary. This has been found to be true if you keep more than 1 older versions of each taxonomic list in your database. For optimum performance, you should remove taxonomic lists that you no longer use or that you don’t have a license for from your database. You can do this by using the Taxonomy Viewer (F8). You choose the taxonomic list you want to remove from the dropdown, and then press the Delete button to the right (not the button in the toolbar). New database clean code will remove unused data associated with these deleted taxonomic lists; such as names, etc. No sightings areeverremoved however. v5.0.8.
Bug with Checklist Reports fixed. Common Name didn’t show. v5.0.7.
Imported Sightings didn’t show a common name in the latest sightings grid. This has been fixed. v5.0.6.
A bug with exported sightings for eBird incorrectly showed the time as midnight after importing those sightings into eBird. Fixed. v5.0.5.
New V5 Main Window…The Information you want, when you want it, at your fingertips!
The main window of Birder’s Diary has been surrounded with 4 slide-able and hide-able panes. Each of which shows the most relevant information that birders and Birder’s Diary Users have been wanting and asking for.
Need more space on the main window area for various task windows, then hide one or more of these panes by completely hiding it (Ctrl-Key combinations exist for each of these panes to make them show or hide) or grab the inner edge of any of them and slide them in or out!
The two data grids on the left and right can be configured. You can swap columns or resize them so that you have the information you want to see in the visible portion. Each grid contains the number of photos/attachments for each sighting/outing. You can even swap sides for these two grids if you prefer one or the other on another side. You can choose your own colors for the odd and even rows of these two grids in theView | Options window.
New items have been added to theView main menu for showing/hiding these new panes. There is also new items on the main window popup menu that you access by right-clicking on the main BD window.
Unlimited user-defined graphs. Great flexibility in design and filtering. Very fast. You have 4 different graph report-types; 17 different chart types; and lots of configurations. You can scrunch the bottom pane down and see the graphs shrink to just the bare minimum details. The View button on each chart allows you to open and size a large window with the graph. If it is a 3D chart type, then you can rotate and spin the chart. Tootip popups will show you actual values on each of your charts.
List of MOST RECENT PHOTOS. You can see the most recent photos you have added quickly. And with the click of a button, view ALL photos in reverse chronological order. Holding your mouse over any image in the list will display a tooltip of the sighting it is attached to. Double-clicking on an image will open the Photo Viewer to all photos from that same sighting.
List of all your OUTINGS (think of this as en ‘eBird Checklists’ analogy) in reverse chronological order. Double-click on an outing/checklist and you can quickly and easily view the sightings for it.Here’s a picture of the whole screen with all new features!
Updated Last Sightings Entry Grid, that appears on the right of your main Birder’s Diary window.
Only on right side of main window. You used to have the option for bottom and left.
Added Attachments count to the grid.
No more configuration of this grid. It shows all sightings from latest to earliest; configurable by either Date Entered or Date of Sighting.
You can now correctly size and position your columns in the grid. If you want one to change the order or size of the columns, you can, and it is remembered.
You can slide the grid almost out of view on the right to maximize space in your main window; but it is always there to pull back out when you want it. And you can pull it completely out to view all columns.
You can also completely disable and hide this grid from the View menu.
Fixed bug when Adding a new Thing to your Taxonomy from the Taxonomy Viewer. Whenpasting a value into the common name field, it did not recognize that is was not already in use.
On Sightings, Checklist and LifeList reports, you can now add theAttachments column to your report. This field will list the count of attachments to that Sighting or species (for Checklist reports). You can now output a checklist report to see which species you need photos of.
On the Report Designer, the Output Column sizer now how a ruler under it to help you size column widths, and if you mouse-over the column names, you get the actual percentage of the width of that column.
The photo editor has a new Settings button that allows you to view photos by date or by species. Also a setting for determining how many photos to load at a time.
Ability to scroll through photos using your up/down arrow keys in the new photo editor. Select the photo to load by pressing SpaceBar or Enter key on your keyboard.
New ability to Overwrite or Save New when editing photos in the new photo editor.
Improved the performance of the Sightings Import feature for Common Names by 15-30X. This mostly affects AviSys and BirdBase conversions.
The older Taxonomy Editor and Thing Editor have been removed. This functionality has been replaced, where used, by newer, more user-friendly windows already present since v4.0 and v4.1.
There is a new Photos button on the main window Toolbar. This will open the Photo Viewer window and by default display the most recent photos.
There is a newOptions button on the Photo Viewer toolbar. This will allow you to display all photos in reverse chronological order, or all photos for a particular Thing, by name. The latter feature is to be used as a quick access to your species photos on a per species basis. For more flexibility, you should still use the View/Edit feature to view the sightings and photos you are interested in.
SmartSearch is enhanced with Auto-DropDown feature! I am perhaps most excited about this new feature of the version 5 release. It has become a common feature in modern phone apps as well as desktop applications of late. Birder’s Diary was the first to ever offer SmartSearch typing in desktop applications; now everyone does it. In addition, modern phone apps supply an auto-dropdown list as you type that contains a list of all the matching names for you to choose from. This has become a defacto standard now where you type in enough characters to narrow your search to a short list of possible matches. And you can then select from that short list to choose the name you want by simply using your Up or Down-arrow (or PageUp/PageDown) keys on your keyboard to navigate the list during character input. In addition, the dropdown list will show you how many matches are in the list. (See the green highlighted part of the screenshot below.) Overall, this makes text input (when matching against a list of names such as species, locations, etc.) in Birder’s Diary more efficient and much more intuitive than before. The performance of each SmartSearch field is improved as well! AND… for you really efficient speed-demon keyboard typists, Birder’s Diary SmartSearch now also supports the eBird 4 letter code entry matching on common name species input. For example, no spaces required for wildcards; simply type “yrwa” and it will match on “Yellow-rumped Warbler”. Type YCNH and it will match on “Yellow-crowned Night-heron”. STJA will match on Steller’s Jay. And so on. See eBird’s comments on this here.
Added “Review Clements Changes…” button (also found on Reconcile Sightings and Web Search windows) to the ‘Unrecognized Name on Import’ window. This button will search Cornell/Clements history on the designated species (birds only of course) for changes (e.g. name changes, splits, lumps, etc.). Very helpful when attempting to reassign species on Import.
The Photo Viewer now displays more information at the bottom of the viewer window.
The Photo Viewer will now load 7 photos at a time, with a Load More option to load 7 more at a time. Or you can configure this on the Photo Viewer from 2 to 20 photos at a time.
The Photo Viewer now has the ability to Crop, Rotate and Resize photos! Hold down the Ctrl key while dragging to select your crop area to constrain to the current aspect ratio of the photo.
During Sightings Entry, if you use the same settings for Taxonomies and Location, (and Name Matching in Keyboard Mode) Birder’s Diary will not rebuild your SmartSearch table if these settings are the same as the last time you performed Sightings Entry. This can save a lot of time when starting a new Sightings Entry session if your settings are the same as the last time you entered sightings. This works in both Keyboard and Checklist Entry Modes.
Sightings Import feature now remembers the settings from your last use.
Improved performance of Taxonomic list imports. It is now 5-7 times faster!
Improved performance of Checklist data imports. It is now 20 times faster! What used to take 3 hours is now done in 9 minutes! Your mileage may vary depending on your processing power and memory.
Improved Lifer Alerts on sightings entry. Finer control over the kind of alerts you want to receive. Also updated where the alert shows in Checklist Entry so that it doesn’t cover other functions on the window nor steal input focus.
Picture gallery viewer performance much improved.
When using Keyboard Entry and Bandcodes to enter sightings, the bandcode will be replaced with the full common name of the species in the Review window.
After importing sightings, LiferBars and counts are updated as long as this feature is enabled in View | Options.
The Splash window now reports the proper version of your database when using the /DB= command line switch to open a non-default database.
You can now run multiple copies of BD simultaneously as long as you are opening a different database using the /DB= command line switch.
eBird Map Range feature on the Birder’s Diary Web Search window.
Fixed bug in Sightings import for Yes/No UDF fields. If the field was numeric, it was always added as True.
AliasLanguageRegion editor updated…!!! This is now a very useful tool for saving language sets for different languages. You can apply them to any taxonomic list. You can import any list of names off the web as long as the list contains the English equivalent in CSV format.
Version 5.0
