Update for bookTome Released

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

 

Since the release of the new version of bookTome last weekend, a number of users have reported problems with importing data from Amazon, including crashes and being unable to connect. This new version is a minor update that is intended to fix these problems using a number of methods:

• Small changes to error messages, temporary file handling and other code changes that will fix some of the problems with accessing Amazon,
• A new option that specifies how Amazon is accessed. The default option is via Amazon, which functions the same as previous versions. For users who still have problems, this can be changed to via bookTome, which will retrieve the search results via a script on the bookTome website - this script is able to generate the request for Amazon with far less problems than the version in the program itself, and should fix any remaining problems.

You can download this update on the bookTome website. Unless there are further problems with web services, this will be the last update for some time.

New bookTome Released

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

 

Just a short note that the next version of bookTome, which has mainly been released to ensure that Amazon continues to work, but also has some other new features, is now available to download on the bookTome site. Starting from this version you can download either the regular installed version or a new portable version that can be used to run from USB flash drives.

Software Development

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

 

I've been working on both taskTome and bookTome quite a bit lately and the new releases are shaping up to be quite good.

 

bookTome will be released first, mostly due to the changes to Amazon requiring me to update it before August 15th, so I'm currently planning on June 21st for the next update. This new version has quite a few new features despite the short space between releases, including adding a new Categories side-bar navigation panel, a portable version and stable web services features. You can see an early preview of the Categories feature in the screenshot below:

 

 

I have managed to get the new Amazon API's to work in Delphi, so if anyone else is having trouble with that and needs advice please e-mail me.

 

taskTome is taking a lot longer to develop and probably won't be released until later in the year, but will feature password protection and a new diary module. At the rate I'm going at I also hope to introduce and improve a few partially implemented features from previous versions, such as Reminders and possibly some improved printing functionality.

bookTome Updated

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

 

As mentioned in the last post, I have now released an updated version of bookTome to the website. This new version includes quite a few new features, user interface improvements and fixes for user-reported crashes and problems, so its definitely worth upgrading or trying out.

 

I'm planning on releasing the next version within a month or two. It's expected to be a much more minor update than this one was. The main reason for the short gap until the next release is a week ago Amazon announced a major change to how their API's work - which means the current version of bookTome will be unable to access Amazon after August 15th, so I have to release a new version before this. I'm still to work out how exactly to make the changes - it involves cryptography and generating hashes of the request being sent, and as I am unable to find a third party Delphi component that supports the method Amazon are using, I may have to write my own to do this. So, if anybody knows how to implement the new authentication requirement in Delphi or knows of a component that supports HMAC SHA-256 (and works with strings as the key and data), then please let me know.

Website Updates, Release Dates, Windows 7

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Website Updates

Despite having completed the changes I mentioned in the last post regarding the taskTome and bookTome documentation, I've actually just reversed most of the changes. The documentation has now been removed and is not going to come back, although some of the content has been moved into the readme files.

 

I found that there was just going to be too much content to maintain, especially since I want to move to more frequent but smaller updates to my programs, rather than the current large but infrequent updates. I have kept some of the changes however, such as the combined Bug Reports and Help section and streamlined help pages, as well as making a few more minor changes.

bookTome Release Date

The next version of bookTome will be released on Sunday, May 17th, and will feature quite a few significant improvements and changes. In addition to the ones listed below, there are other changes such as the addition of Amazon as a description source and fixes for some crashes as reported by users.

Windows 7

Since Microsoft has publicly released the Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 a few days ago, I decided I'd finally give the operating system a try. While I'll post more on the things that I like and dislike about it in the future, I have already tested the latest development versions of taskTome and bookTome and both work perfectly with the new operating system. I'm already investigating adding some Windows 7 only features to the programs, such as support for the Jump Lists feature, but I'm not sure how long that will take.

Website Updates, Software Roadmap's

Sunday, April 19th, 2009

With the latest version of taskTome having been released to the website last week, I've now moved my focus to updating all of the websites and improving them a little. The main improvements which have now rolled out to the taskTome website, and will be on the bookTome website within a week or two, are documentation on all of the features (which is listed under the Features section), and the combination of the Bug Reports and Help sections. These changes will neaten up the sites, along with providing additional information and screenshots for new users.

 

Software wise, the next release I am planning will be a new version of bookTome. This will happen in about another months time, and will be a fairly major release, fixing quite a few bugs and adding some new features. Some of the major new features, as seen in the screenshots below, include the ability to assign photos to authors, along with additional variables and pages in the Web Export function.

 

 

 

After that release I will focus on taskTome once again. At the present time I'm expecting it to be a fairly small release, just tweaking a few things, working more on Reminders and Searching and fixing any bugs that have been reported since the last release.

 

Although I have yet to release any code to the web, and am not sure when or even if I will ever release it, I also continue to work on the software behind the saSoftware Bug Tracker site. It is advancing quite a bit now with dynamic user and project management, as seen in the screenshot below.

 

 

I have finally been thinking about starting a new program, similar to bookTome but for movies and television, although this probably won't happen for a while, if I do decide to go ahead with it.

Next taskTome Release

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

I'm planning on releasing the next version of taskTome to the web on Monday, April 13th - so it's quite close now, although I still have some things to do before it will be ready. Overall it's a fairly minor release, although it includes a few features that have been requested, including the ability to make Monday the start of the week, optional Percentage Complete information in Task Details, custom report titles, a new settings area and quite a few bug and crash fixes.

 

It also includes two work in progress features - searching across all notes and reminders. These two features will work in the next release, although they won't be complete until the release after, later in the year. In particular, any feedback on how users would like the reminders feature to work would be appreciated.

New bookTome Release Available

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

As planned I have now made available the latest release of bookTome on the website. In addition to the features I mentioned before, I also completed a large amount of fixes to improve the appearance and function while running under Windows Vista, such as correct animations when minimizing and restoring the window, thumbnails when minimized, correct window focus when dialogs are shown and the correct font throughout the program.

Next bookTome and taskTome Releases

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

I've been starting to look at bookTome and taskTome a bit recently, both working on them and also figuring out what will be in the next version. bookTome is shaping up to be quite a large release, with the final finishing touches on Tags, along with major improvements to Amazon web functionality including keyword searches, importing Title and Authors and improved descriptions. taskTome on the other hand is going to be a much smaller maintenance release, although it does add some (optional) percentage complete information to tasks. Both also include bug and crash fixes from user submitted information, including a crash in bookTome that seemed to affect quite a few users.

 

I have decided to release the next version of bookTome on Saturday, March 7th, as bookTome is closest to being ready for another release. taskTome will probably follow about a month afterwards.

Windows Vista Annoyances

Friday, February 20th, 2009

After dual booting between Windows XP and Windows Vista for quite a while, booting into Vista only when I wanted to play Grand Theft Auto IV, over the past week I've finally switched to Vista full time and gotten rid of Windows XP (except in my virtual machines).

 

Overall it has come quite a long way from when it was finally released, and I like it well enough, although it did take quite a bit of tweaking and customizing to get rid of some of the annoyances. Some of the major ones include forcing all folders to use the all items and details view, disabling the file security warning in Windows Explorer, using Event Ghost instead of HIP, installing network printers, removing the Public folder, using Peer Guardian inside an XP Virtual Machine, and getting network shares to work correctly.

 

I've still got some more that I'm working on, particularly removing the Favourites and Links folders from the User folder, but overall it's come along quite nicely. The good news is that bookTome and taskTome both continue to work well under Vista, despite me only testing it occasionally in the past.

saSoftware Bug Tracker Live

Monday, January 26th, 2009

I have spent the past two months developing a new bug tracking system for my own use on development of taskTome and bookTome, and while the script has been mature enough for me to use it exclusively for a few weeks, it has been hosted on my local computer in a virtual machine until now. I've just finished some more work on it, including some additional security measures, as well as an email notification system, so I've migrated it to my web host, so it is now publicly accessible.

 

Anonymous users can currently view basic details about bugs for taskTome and bookTome, as well as submit new bugs to me. All of the other features require the user to be authenticated, which is restricted to myself. While this new system is now the preferred method of reporting new bugs, you can continue to use the old forms for now. Future versions will include tighter integration into taskTome and bookTome themselves, along with the gradual phasing out of the older forms.

 

Ironically, anonymous users can't currently submit bugs about the Bug Tracker itself online. Although I have defined this project in the system, its currently a private project. I'm not sure if I'll be changing that, but for now if you encounter any problems you can simply email me.

• saSoftware Bug Tracker