Version 5.2

• Fixed bug in recent update to eBird Export. If you used the remembered State it would produce incorrect results. This is fixed. v5.2.60
• The Reconcile Report generated from the Reconcile Sightings window (Features | Advanced | Reconcile Sightings) has been greatly improved for performance, accuracy, and clarity. Database with 100k Sightings and 7.8k Lifers for 2 observers used to take 12-15 minutes on test computer; it now takes 55 seconds to complete! v5.2.60
  
• Clements 2021 (released Sep 7, 2021) had a bug in it for Black-throated Flowerpiercer, in that it was missing an assignment to the Order Passeriformes. An updated taxonomic list for Clements 2021 has been provided. But there is no need to download and import the new version if you have already done that. Simply upgrade to Build 60; it will fix this issue. v5.2.60
• The Trip window has always had an option for sorting by name or date. But when sorting by date, it always put the earliest at the top and the latest at the bottom (where one usually wants to be to see the latest trips). This has now been reversed for sorting by date so that the latest are at the top. v5.2.59
• For those of you that often export your Sightings from Birder’s Diary to eBird, we have optimized the eBird Export window (available for selected sightings in the View/Edit Sightings window). We have automated some settings that can be computed. And there are two new fields at the bottom that allow you to convert names from BD to eBird format (such as ‘Rock Pigeon’ to ‘Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)’) . You can provide a comma-separated list of names here for those that may be causing you issues on import into eBird. v5.2.59
  
• When Export Sightings from BD using the Import/Export Data window (from File | Import/Export…) it would export the Sighting Comments in Rich Text Format. This is now useful when you are attempting to export your sightings for use in other programs. We have added a new feature that will convert the Sighting Comments to plain text for this purpose. v5.2.58
  
• When Export Sightings from BD using the Import/Export Data window (from File | Import/Export…) it always exported Internal Thing Names, which don’t usually show the taxonomic Preferred Common Names. This forced the user to use the View/Edit Sightings window to export sightings in order to get a preferred common name exported properly. Starting in v5.2.58 and later, this feature now exports a PreferredCommonName column when a Taxonomic List is specified. This column can be used when needed to access the proper common name. v5.2.58.
  
• On modern photographic devices (e.g. iPhones, etc) they store image orientation one way (e.g. portrait) but display it differently (e.g. landscape). Different platforms, devices and software choose to use or ignore this change in display orientation. This can result in images in BD not always being imported with the correct orientation or displaying correctly. In addition, when generating the HTML Report from View/Edit, the resultant images can differ from what you see or have set for an orientation in BD, depending on the platform, and browser being used. This has been corrected. Upon import of an image into BD, the display preference, if present, is retrieved and the image is rotated to that preference. Then the display preference is set to none. So that the image will always display as you have it configured in BD and in the HTML Report. v5.2.56
• Added SciName to photo gallery on HTML Report from View/Edit window. v5.2.56
• Keeping old unused Taxonomic Lists in your Birder’s Diary database can affect performance (sometimes greatly) in many areas of Birder’s Diary. While you have always had the ability to remove old unused taxonomic lists from the Taxonomy Viewer (F8), it can be cumbersome to do it one at a time. I have added a new feature that makes this a quick and simple task. You will find this new feature under Features > Advanced > Remove Unused Taxonomic Lists in the main menu. v5.2.55
  Note: Be sure to perform a Backup and keep it for a while before deleting multiple taxonomic lists. Also, be sure that you have reconciled your latest versions of each taxonomic list against any that you are about to delete. There are buttons on this window for Backup and Reconcile for easy access. v5.2.54.
  
• Added a new Column to Sightings and Life List Reports: Sighting Date-Only. With many sightings now being entered that contain a time (e.g. imported from Birder’s Diary Mobile), grouping by or simply showing the date of the sighting without the Time was not possible. If you select the “Sighting Date-Only” column, instead of the “Sighting Date/Time” column to report on, you will only get the DAY of the sighting in the format of “Wed, 11-AUG-2021”. v5.2.54
• A User Defined Field (UDF) update to Birder’s Diary Desktop to support UDFs in Birder’s Diary Mobile for Android.
  If you have defined and use UDF fields in BD Desktop, prior to this release you did not have a way to record data for these fields using BD Mobile and have them auto-imported into BD Desktop. Now you do.
  Simply add the UDF name and value into the Comments for the sighting in BD Mobile using one of the following formats:
  a) [UDF-field-abbrev:value] – for example “[PLUM:alternate]”
  b) [UDF-field-name:value] – for example “[Plumage:basic]”
  c) If you are entering a value for a YesNo field (e.g. Name = “DEAD”), then simply [UDF-field-abbrev] – for example “[DEAD]”. No value after a colon is required. The presence of a YesNo field name in the comments will signify YES.
  v5.2.52.
  
• A new button has been added to the eBird Worldwide Sightings Search window. This button will open your default web browser and display an eBird Abundance Bar Chart for the specified location. This is a quick and easy way to check species abundance and presence for any location Worldwide against eBird’s database. v5.2.52.
  
  
• Fixed bug in Trip Maintenance that in very rare cases it allows you to create a trip that lists itself as its parent. This causes the trip to become inaccessible in Trip maintenance and elsewhere. If you have such a trip defined, this release will correct it. v5.2.51
• Fixed bug when specifying Time values for dates less than the year 1600. This applies to Sightings View Setup and Sightings Report windows. Valid years are from the year 100 to 9999. v5.2.51
• Added new feature to Sightings View/Edit grid Popup Menu. You could always sort on any column by clicking on the header for that column. But there was no way to get back to a Taxonomic Sort. That option is now in the Grid’s popup menu by clicking on the right-most mouse button. It sorts by 1) tax list, 2) sort order in tax list and 3) date entered. v5.2.51
• Updated Photo Viewer/Editor to ignore button clicks on images that don’t select an area greater than 100×100 pixels. Annoying. v5.2.51
• Updated Export to iNaturalist feature to allow user to select either common or scientific name to be exported. v5.2.50
• Fixed bug where the Tab changed unexpectedly on the File Import/Export window. v5.2.49.
• The new First Sighting feature in the Sightings View & Edit window (added in v5.2.26) was checking for first sighting of that Thing for all Observers specified in the filter setup. That is incorrect. It now checks for First Sighting against the Observer of that Sighting. In addition, the First Sighting column now truly marks Lifers for a sighting of a species or subspecies. For SPUHs (e.g. things above species level, like ‘unknown raven’), it will be marked as a Lifer if that sighting comes before any other sightings below that Thing (e.g. all ravens) in the taxonomic tree. v5.2.43
• Made updates to eBird World Search feature. If Notable is selected, then Category (Species, Subspecies, All Forms) is disabled as the eBird API doesn’t allow this specification when Notable is selected. When Lifers are requested, then non-matching names returned from the eBird API are not considered. (e.g. “Northern Flicker (Red-shafted X Yellow-shafted)”) 5.2.42
• In previous versions of Birder’s Diary, importing BD Mobile sightings files required clicking on the Import button and selecting the files from Windows Explorer. Selecting the files in the notification window below had no affect on Import, it only chose which files were deleted when you clicked on Delete Selected. Now, if you pre-select files and click the Import button, you will bypass the Import window and file selection again and proceed directly to the Import process. Also, all files are auto-pre-selected so that all you have to do is to click the Import button to quickly import all sightings from all files. v5.2.41.
  
• When using the Checklist Report, if you asked for Endemics to be counted, in some cases the count would be wrong due to Thing-to-Location assignments in the database being duplicated. This has been corrected and the performance of counting the Endemics has been greatly improved as much as 500%!  v5.2.40
• Lifer Alerts have gotten better, more consistent and dynamically adjustable. Going forward, Keyboard Entry, Checklist Entry and Sightings Imports (from all sources) will display 4 different kinds of Lifer Alerts using the same Alert window that you see below and have been receiving on Keyboard Entry for some time.
  New Features…
  The window now grabs control when a Lifer event is identified and alerts you. All you have to do is to click the Got It! button or simply press ENTER on your keyboard to dismiss it and be taken back to where you were.
  In the past you have had World, Location and Annual Lifer alerts; now you have a configurable First Time Seen in X Weeks feature. This can act as a first sighting of the season alert. You configure it from 1 week to 52 weeks. A typical setting might be 13 weeks (or roughly 3 months). Now when you enter sightings, you can be alerted if it is the first time you have seen this bird in the specified number of weeks.
  In the Alert window, you now have several configuration options that work for the current import or sightings entry session. You can turn off any of the 4 alert types and configure the number of Weeks for the new seasonal alert. Changing these settings during import or sightings entry only affects this import/entry. The default values are set in the View | Options, Petey TAB window in BD.
  Regardless of your previous settings, the first time you use Build 38, all alert types will be enabled and the default First Time Seen value will be set to 13 weeks. Hereafter, you can modify these settings in View | Options, Petey Tab. v5.2.38
  
• After deleting records in the View & Edit Sightings window, sometimes the grid might not reposition to the proper position. Fixed. Build 38.
• Added new option to View Sightings popup menu. You have always been able to click on a column head in the grid to alternately sort from Asc to Desc on that column.
  
  But, you didn’t have a way to sort Taxonomically without going back to the Sightings Setup window and specify the sort there. Now you can alternately sort form Asc to Desc Taxonomic Order from the poup menu on the grid. The first time you choose this option, it will sort in Ascending order, if you choose it again, it will sort in Descending order; and so on. Build 38.
  
• Fixed bug in Sightings Entry, Checklist Mode which incorrectly displayed the Sightings Popup when moving the mouse off of the Grid under some circumstances. Build 37.
• Fixed bug in View Sightings window that was not correctly positioning the Horizontal Scroll Splitter directly after the Name/SciName column (whichever comes first according to how you arrange the columns). It was placing it always after the first column. This has been corrected. Build 36
  
• eBird All Sightings Export changed their export format recently. Updated Birder’s Diary Desktop to use this new format. Build 34.
• Fixed bug that resulted in RTE 6 Overflow when Birder’s Diary had been left open for many hours. Build 31.
• When editing a Sighting(s) and changing the Location, if UDF fields for Lat/Lng exist you were prompted to change the Lat/Lng of the sightings to the new Location’s values for Lat/Lng, even if the new Location did not have Lat/Lng defined. You are only asked now if the new Location has Lat/Lng defined. v5.2.30
• Fixed issue where the new HTML Report did not properly separate Trip Comment lines. v5.2.30
• Fixed issue where importing Sightings from BD Mobile for Android reported the wrong record count during import. v5.2.30
• Fixed issue where the Comments text area on both Keyboard Entry and Sightings Edit did not use the default Font Size setting configured in View | Options. v5.2.30
  
• Fixed bug introduced in recent Build that produced “Error #3314” after clicking Continue on View Sightings Setup. This happened only in rare circumstances. v5.2.28
• Fixed bug in new Quick Search window of main window toolbar that can occur under rare situations. “frmSightingsEdit2.PopulateFields: Error in record count <0>”. v5.2.27
• Added new Columns to View & Edit Sightings – First Sighting. This is a Checkbox column. It will indicate if any sighting is the first sighting of that Thing for the given Observer(s) chosen for this window; e.g. if you have multiple observers selected, then it will have to be the first sighting for this Thing for all Observers. This column, if visible, will be output on the new HTML Report feature also if visible. This indicator works at the Thing level. Therefore it is not technically a Lifer indicator. For example, it will be checked if it is the first time you saw a given subspecies (if the sighting is for a subspecies) even if you have an earlier sighting for that species or a sister subspecies. Likewise, if it is a sighting for a species and the first time you have logged a sighting for the species, it will be checked even if you have a prior sighting for a subspecies of this species. It will be checked if it is the first sighting for a Thing at any level, e.g. SPUH, species or subspecies. v5.2.26
  
• Fixed bug in View & Edit Sightings window if certain columns (e.g. Photos) were hidden. v5.2.26
• Improved the speed by which the new 5.2 HTML Report is uploaded to BirdersDiary.com. This is dependent upon your internet speed, but in testing, files that were taking 61s are now taking 5s! Also, the progress bar represents the actual upload progress with the right side of the bar indicating 100% uploaded. v5.2.24
• Fixed a bug introduced into Editing a Sighting’s UDF field. The user would get RTE 380 when clicking on the first checkbox in the UDF edit area. v5.2.23
• Several new performance enhancements surrounding the View Sightings Window. Faster, more reliable. Editing sightings returns to the same location as before with all selected rows pre-selected again. In addition, sometimes, depending on your taxonomy choices and other filter choices, duplicate Sightings could be shown in the grid. This has been corrected in all cases. v5.2.21
• Added a new feature to the View Sightings Setup window. Users asked for the ability to show ONLY First Seen Things or First Seen Species in the returned list that matches all other filters. Think of it as working the way it always did, but if you check either of these options, then only the FIRST SEEN of the specified option will be shown in the grid. Among other things, this allows you to use the new HTML Report to show case Lifer Lists with photos online. v5.2.21
  
• Providing a Total Count for attachments at the bottom of the Sightings View window takes a very long time when large (> 500) numbers of sightings are returned. Removed this count. v5.2.21
• ALWAYS ONLY functionality added in v4.x was always buggy and a very poor performer, due to database query issues. This functionality has been removed completely. v5.2.21
• Trips imported from BD Mobile inadvertently added time to Trip start and end dates. This causes various issues in BD Desktop. Time is not allowed on Trip start/end dates. v5.2.21
• Fixed bug in startup routine that was meant to remove all temp DB tables from previous session. This code inadvertently skipped every other temp table. Fixed in v5.2.21.
• A new popup menu option in the View Sightings window allows you to immediately Clone (make exact copies) of all selected records. This is useful to add a new sighting that matches an existing one except for one or two details, such as the species, or location. v5.2.19
• In the new (v5.2) HTML Report from the Sightings View window, if there any selected Sightings that have a TRIP attached, the Trip Name and Comments along with any attached Trip photos (Group Pics, etc.) will be added below the Photo Gallery part of the report. v5.2.19
• In order to support updating Lat/Lng for existing sightings and new sightings a new option is available in the Sightings View popup menu. You can select a sighting from the Grid to Copy Lat/Lng to Clipboard. After you have done this, you can then select any number of Sightings in the Grid, right-click for the popup menu and choose Set Lat/Lng for Selected Sightings and have the Lat/Lng for those sightings updated. This is a convenience feature to allow for setting Lat/Lng based on other sightings in your grid. v5.2.18
  
• When editing a Location, if you change/set that Location’s Lat/Lng values and you have UDF fields defined for both Latitude and Longitude, you will be prompted as to whether you want to update the Lat/Lng for every sighting attached to that Location. Sightings attached to descendants or ancestors of that location will not be changed. v5.2.18.
• A bug in the Licensing logic with the new Annual license failed to rebuild the name list for all names in all taxonomic lists in your database. Fixed in v5.2.17.
• A bug in the Licensing logic was causing the new Annual to show that it was expiring in < 30 days. This has been fixed in Build 15 and later. The solution is to upgrade to Build 15 or later and reactivate your Annual license. If you have exceeded your license activations, please send email to support@BirdersDiary.com and request more activations. v5.2.15
• A bug wherein saved report Templates complained about non-existent UDF fields has been fixed. The solution was to click on the Output Columns button for any report in order to rebuild the UDF list. This is no longer necessary and has been fixed. v5.2.15
• In some instances, View Sightings would produce an error and not display the data correctly. This has been fixed. v5.2.11
• Improved performance when producing Life List Counts for World with any taxonomic list. v5.2.9
• When displaying sightings in View Sightings, debug information was being copied to the Copy/Paste buffer. This interfered with normal use of this Windows buffer. This has been removed. v5.2.8
• A new feature was added in the Taxonomy Viewer to support taxonomic lists that had branches duplicated and out of order. Loading a tax list and Clicking on the EDIT button will display a new Resort Taxonomy button. When clicked this will ensure that the taxonomic list does not have duplicate branches. It will resort the Taxonomy alphabetically from Kingdom down through Subspecies. v5.2.7
• Locations with Latitude and Longitude defined for them (use the Location Maintenance window [F5] to edit locations and set lat/lng) will have those values used on Sightings Entry. If you have defined a Latitude and Longitude (type=Text) User-defined Field (UDF, Ctrl+U) in Birder’s Diary, and are entering sightings for a Location where you have defined the Lat/Lng in that location, then that Location’s Lat/Lng values will be auto-entered into your UDFs for Lat/Lng on Sightings Entry; unless you manually specify a value. v5.2 Build 10.
• New Sightings Toolbar SEARCH Feature! Have I ever seen a Roseate Spoonbill? Where? How many times? Sure, you can pull up the View Sightings Setup window and search for this with unlimited filtering capability, but I just want to know – quickly – if I have ever seen something. The new SEARCH dropdown in the main window toolbar is always ready. Ctrl+S to activate and start typing. It knows all names in your database. Common, Scientific, Alias, etc. It’s a SmartSearch field, so just type parts of the name. Once selected, you will get a small grid displayed at the top of the main window under the new SEARCH dropdown showing you the sightings in reverse chronological order.
  The title bar of this grid will display the total number of sighting records along with two buttons.
  The Pencil button (Ctrl+Shft+S) will quickly bring up the Sightings View/Edit window with all of these sightings displayed.
  The X button (Ctrl+Shft+X) will close the grid. As will the “X” button in the Search dropdown at the top.
  Whereever you are at in Birder’s Diary, Ctrl+S will put focus in the SEARCH dropdown so that you can start typing and searching for sightings by name. When here, press the DELETE key to clear the field and hide the sighting grid. (Standard SmartSearch field actions)
  Quickly search for any sighting in your database by any name without the need to bring up the Sightings View Setup and configure the filters! Long overdue feature! v5.2.0
  
  
  
• New HTML Sightings Report!
  Have you started attaching your favorite photos to your Sightings in Birder’s Diary. Now’s a good time to start. Because v5.2 can create a sightings report with photo album of any set of outings/sightings that you wish for sharing with your friends.
  Have you started using BD Mobile for Android yet! Now’s a good time to start. Recording your sightings with BD Mobile has many advantages: 1) never forget a sighting, 2) easily record date/time and lat/lng/alt for each sighting, 3) quickly and easily imports into BD Desktop on your PC, and finally 4) having sightings with lat/lng attached to them automatically generate an interactive Google Map with this new report that pin-points all of your sightings!
  Now sharing your sightings and photos with friends and colleagues is as simple as sharing a short web link; e.g.  https://birdersdiary.com/sr/6055789.html
  Select the sightings that you want to share using the Sightings View Setup (F2) window.
  Once the Sightings View/Edit window displays your sightings, select those (or All) you want included in the report. Show/hide the columns to you want in your report.
  Then click on the new v5.2 Toolbar Button on this window to “Generate Report w/ Pictures and Map for Sharing”.
  Once the report is complete you will be prompted to upload the file to BirdersDiary.com where you will be given a unique URL to use for posting on Social Media, email, etc. This report will exist at BirdersDiary.com for 30 days from the upload date. Then it will be automatically removed. If you want, you can re-add the report again. If you choose NOT to upload the file, you will be prompted to view the report locally on your computer.
  It will display an interactive Google Map with all sightings marked, a list of all sightings selected (including all visible columns in the View/Edit window) followed by a photo gallery with each photo attached to the selected sightings.
  You can also share (email, etc.) the HTML file with your friends, or from your browser you can Print to PDF format and share the PDF file.
  The CSS file that formats this report is available also. So if you want to customize everything about this report, just edit BDSightingsReport.CSS.  v5.2.0
  
  
  
• View Any Set of Sightings in Google Earth Desktop or Web. You can share the generated KML file (via email) with your friends and they can bring up your sightings in Google Earth!
  NOTE: Requires Latitude/Longitude UDF fields to be populated for each sighting. You are in luck! Because BD Mobile for Android gives you this! Auto-imported into your BD Desktop program. What? You aren’t using BD Mobile for Android yet? Why? It is free.  v5.2.0
  
  
• Export Sightings to iNaturalist Import file. If you are an iNaturalist user, now you can export your sightings from Birder’s Diary and import them into iNaturalist. v5.2.0
  
• Ability to drag-n-drop Trips to re-parent them in the Trips window. You can also move any trip to the root level via a right-click on the trip and a popup menu option. v5.2.1
• A new Quiet button on Sightings Import. This Quiet button will not prompt the user to delete import files nor prompt the user to import subsequent files when multiple files are chosen on import. v5.2.1
• New button for changing the Font settings for all columns in current report.  v5.2.0
  
• Some locations have incorrect settings for Country. E.g. “Indonesia (Asia)” and all of its descendants have their Country set to “Indonesia (Asia)” instead of “Indonesia”. Changing each of these descendants can take a long time. Now when you change the setting for Country on a Location, if you check the checkbox to the right, all Descendants will have their Country updated as well. v5.2.0
• Life List report by definition, is just a list of the first recorded sighting of a Species (a sighting recorded as Subspecies counts also). Users asked for a Life List report for the first recorded sighting of Any Thing at any level. E.g Unknown Raven (not a species), first sighting of any subspecies, and the first sighting of that full species.  v5.2.0
  
• When editing, adding, removing locations in your BD location hierarchy, a performance table rebuild needs to occur. In v5.2.0 and later, this time has improved roughly 900%! In testing, on large databases where this used to take 1:10, it now takes 0:07. v5.2.0
• New code has been added to location and correct circular references in your location hierarchy. This has only occurred a few times in 25 years. But nice to have. v5.2.0
• Disable Windows Maximize on Sightings View & Edit, Sightings Checklist Entry and Print Preview windows. This has historically caused problems with other windows for users. Now, when user clicks on the Maximize button for these three windows, the window auto-sizes to fill the available space in the main BD window. v5.2.0
  
• View & Edit Sightings window had problems with horizontal scrolling in v5.1 that sometimes prevented the user from being able to see the final column. This has been corrected. v5.2.0
• The View & Edit Sighting Grid Splitter gadget has returned; and it works correctly now. What is the Splitter gadget? It is a bar that fixes the columns to the left of it from horizontal scrolling. For example, in the picture below, the Splitter gadget/bar is positioned after the “Name” column. So that when you scroll to the right to view columns not in view, the Name column stays visible while scrolling to the right.
  You can position this Splitter bar whereever you like after the grid displays. By default, on each display, it will be positioned just after the Name column if it is visible, else after the SciName column if it is visible; else it will be before the first column with no columns fixed unless you manually move it. This is a highly functional gadget. When you scroll right, you can still see which row is which. v5.2.0.
  
• In the past the View & Edit Sightings window had photos, sighting data and UDFs in their own group, and you could not move these columns out of their group. You can move any column to any location you want. All changes will be remembered for the next time. This has changed. v5.2.0
  
• In View & Edit Sightings, clicking on any column header (except Photos) will alternately sort between Ascending and Descending on that column. The sort indicator would appear to show that the column was sorted and in which direction. However, if scrolling left or right, that scroll indicator would not move also. Fixed in v5.2.0.
  
• When using the TaxonomyViewer feature that allows you to add new Things to any taxonomic list, versions since v4.0.40 could sometimes place the new Things out of taxonomic order. This would produce Duplicate Key warnings when using the Taxonomy Viewer requiring manual adjustments. Now in v5.2, if this issue is detected in the Taxonomy Viewer, it is auto-corrected. v5.2.5
• In Sightings Entry Keyboard Mode, the User-defined Fields (UDFs) area has always been a small area to allow for modifying an unlimited amount of UDFs. Sometimes, you want to see all your user-defined fields instead of having to scroll through the list. A new button has been added to expand/contract this UDF scrolling area. When clicked, the UDFs area will be expanded to Show ALL your UDFs without scrolling. It is possible that this will enlarge the Sightings Entry window off the bottom of the main viewing area. You can use the main viewing area scroll bars on the bottom and right to scroll the whole window into view. A label has also been added to the top of this scroll area.