Bauble News

1.0.10

2011-10-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've released Bauble 1.0.10. Wait!? What? What happened to 1.0.2 through 1.0.9 you ask? Well this version has some pretty significant changes so I decided to make this more apparent by giving the version number a wee bump. Here's the major changes:

Bauble nows uses SQLAlchemy 0.6 (or 0.7). This should make it a tad faster and SA 0.6 is also the default version for most modern Linux desktops.
Fixed lots of little quirks including LP# 856241, 857963, 857968, 858027, 872008, 857882

I especially want to thank Shane Litherland for all his work reporting bugs and detailed documentation which made fixing these a cinch.

As always, you can download it here or use our PPA for Ubuntu/Debian packages.

The Big 1.0

2011-03-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

After a long development cycle, hiatus, child and other such life changes Bauble 1.0 has been released. So much has changed in this release that I couldn't mention everything. It's faster, more stable and just plain does more stuff. Also:

Most of the editors have been reorganized to, hopefully, be easier to use and more intuitive.
There's now a Query Builder which should help remove some of the voodoo for creating some of the more advanced queries.
Bauble can now manage your propagation records via the Plant Editor
Accessions can be associated with herbarium vouchers. T
The side bar now how quick links that allow you to quickly go to web pages relative to the currently selected item.

And that's only a taste. I would like to thank the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research for funding most of the new developments. Thanks guys.

Start your downloading.

0.9.7 Released

2009-12-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

This release fixes a bug that broke the species editor and some other annoyances.

Download it here.

0.9.6

2009-11-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

I've just released 0.9.6. This version fixes a bug that I introduced in 0.9.5. It was causing problems when setting some combo boxes to None and when creating the species names which could cause the infobox to not show.

I also changed some things in the way the editors save their changes to the database. Now it Bauble should better recover when you get an error saving your changes and allow you to pick up where you left off without too much trouble.

And of course there's some other minor bug fixes and also a good amount of translation updates. Thanks to all the translators.

Download and Enjoy!

0.9.5

2009-10-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

I've release Bauble 0.9.5.

This release fixes a few bugs, adds a nice speed up when a search returns a lot of results and updates some translations. In particular there was a bug that when setting the source of an accession it was possible that you could lose the source data completely. Its rare but it could happen. I recommend that anyone using a previous 0.9 release upgrade.

Get it at the usual place.

0.9.3

2009-08-01T13:32:00.001-07:00

I've just released Bauble 0.9.3 and this is a pretty important release. It includes the following fixes and improvements:

Bauble no longer hemorrhages memory. Now once the application is started the memory usage stays pretty constant whereas before it would continue to grow until it filled up the entire universe.
In previous versions you would get strange delays when doing things that required communication with a remote databases. Before it kept making new connections to do small tasks but now we reuse the same database connection throughout the application which gives pretty much everything a snappier feel.
The CSV importer is now a little smarter about tables that have columns that reference the same table and when importing boolean columns.
Every table in the database has a _last_updated column to record when a row in the table was last updated. Unfortunately it wasn't updating. Oops.
Fixed some more obscure search queries.
On MS Windows Bauble should now be pretty again.

Download and enjoy.

0.9.1

2009-06-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

Bauble 0.9.1 has been released to the world and is the new stable version of Bauble.

Alot of work has gone into the 0.9 series and alot has changed since 0.8. Without getting into too many of the details this are some of the things you can expect from the release:

All database operations should be faster.
Improved stability.
Better documentation.
New Mako based report plugin and Picasa Web plugin for viewing images.
Better everything. Nearly everything under the hood has changed in one way or another.

Download and Enjoy.

0.9.0b5

2009-05-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

The fifth beta of the Bauble 0.9 series has been released. This will most likely be the last beta release for 0.9.0. The next release will be a candidate for 0.9.0.

0.9.0b5 fixes all the known bugs and is a fully functional release. It should also be significantly faster than previous releases.

There is one major change with this beta that makes it incompatible with previous 0.9.0 betas. The tag table has a new column. If you need to transfer a Bauble database from a previous 0.9.0 beta release then exporting to CVS and reimporting should fix everything. And don't worry, there won't be any more incompatible changes to the database in future 0.9 releases.

One thing I forgot to do in this release is to update the translations. The translations will be up to date before 0.9.0.

0.9.0b3

2009-03-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Just released 0.9.0b3.

This beta version is finally usable for most things. There were a few bug kicking around in the last couple of beta versions that made them mostly unusable but this one has seen a little more action and seems to work alright.

There are still a few rough edges and some performance issues but all in all its not so bad for a beta release.

Get it at here.

0.9.0b2

2009-03-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

Bauble 0.9.0b2 has been released.

This version fixes some issues with 0.9.0b1, particularly with creating new databases and some issues with locking up when using PostgreSQL.

I've also included some translations in this release and the Spanish translation is nearly 100%. As always, thanks to the translators for their work.

Get it here.

0.9.0b1

2009-02-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

The first beta release of the 0.9 series has been released. This release packs in alot of goodness and although it hasn't been exercised as much as the 0.8 releases it seem to be fairly stable. One reason is that this new release includes tests in the code for all sorts of things that 0.8 didn't which in general should mean more stability and less regressions between releases.

This release brings alot of new feature and bug fixes. For starters:

Alot of Bauble have been reviewed and rewritten. For example searches should be more robust and give more useful errors when something goes wrong. They should also return the results faster. Some of the editors have been reorganized. The plugins system has been reorganized a bit. In general most of Bauble has been gone over with a fine tooth comb to make sure everything runs as smooth possible.

A new Mako templates based report formatter has been added which means that writing reports is more like creating a web page.
This release also includes an experimental Picasa Web based image viewer. If you have a Picasa Web account then Bauble will search for and show any photos tagged with the current species name in the infobox.
Better documentation. Most of the documentation has been rewrittent for this release. Its not 100% complete but you can view what been done so fat at http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/docs/0.9/
We now automatically build Ubuntu/Debian packages for each release.

The downside is that this release hasn't caught up on translations so it might be awhile before its available in your language. If you would like to help translate Bauble 0.9 then visit https://translations.launchpad.net/bauble/0.9/+pots/bauble

As usual, you can download it here

0.8.6 part deux

2008-12-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

The Bauble 0.8.6 source packages (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .zip) have a small bug in the installer script that causes it not to install properly. The main application will install but none of the translations, menu item and icons install properly.

I'll release an 0.8.6-1 shortly to fix this.

The Windows installer and OpenSuse are not affected.

0.8.6

2008-12-19T12:16:00.000-08:00

I've rolled out an 0.8.6 release of Bauble. This release contains a few small bug fixes but the main new feature is the translations. This is the first release of Bauble available (at least partly) in languages other than English.

Translations for Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian Bokmal, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish have been started. The Italian translation is the only one that is mostly complete. You can see the status of the translations and help out at http://translations.launchpad.net/bauble/0.8/+pots/bauble

So a big thanks to all the translators for their hard work.

I would also like to thank Toni Graffy for his help with this release and for creating some nice RPM package for OpenSuse. You can get them from http://packman.links2linux.de/package/bauble

Otherwise you can download the Bauble 0.8.6 from http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/#download

Next up Bauble 0.9 ....

The calm before the translations.

2008-09-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Some work has been done to make translations work properly so that Bauble can be more useful to the non-English speaking crowd. If anyone out there is interested in helping to translate the Bauble user interface into other languages then please contact me at (brett at belizebotanic dot org) or download the translation template from https://translations.launchpad.net/bauble/0.8/+export

I'll release a new version once the translations start rolling in by the dozens which I'm sure they will any day now.

Till then....

0.8.5

2008-06-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

Bauble 0.8.5 has been released.

This version includes:

A Help menu with links to the website, the bug reporting page, the online docs and an about dialog.
The search results are now grouped and sorted by type.
InfoBox improvements. Everything that you enter in an editor should now show up in the InfoBox on the side when you select it in the search results. Also the InfoBox is now more interactive in more places, e.g. clicking on synonyms will now show and select the synonym in the search results.
Somehow the GPS datum entry on the accession editor was never connected properly. This should work now and show completions for all known GPS datums.
The lat/long entries on the accession editor are now more picky about what you can enter. Also, some of the error checking on Windows was disabled so this has been fixed.
As usual, other small code and gui tweaks.

Get it here.

0.8.4

2008-06-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Bauble 0.8.4 is now ready for download.

This version comes with a few small fixes and cleanups including:

Bauble should now let you know if you are opening an SQLite database that you don't have permission to read or write instead of just crashing
The installer is now a bit more robust and should now add icons and menu entries in Linux systems that support the freedesktop.org standards.
The date entries in the Accession editor now how a small button next to it that will automatically enter today's date.
Updated some of the bundled files in the Windows installer to fix a couple of annoying issues.
....and a couple of other minor issues.

Thanks to Mauro Cavalcanti for his bug reports and figuring out the menu and icons issues on Linux.

0.8.3

2008-05-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

I released version 0.8.3 today.

This version fixes a couple of annoying bugs with the editors but nothing critical. Also, now you can't make a Family, Genus or Species a synonym of itself.

Doc updates

2008-04-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

I was just looking over the web site and specifically the installation docs and I didn't realize how ridiculously there were out of date. I mean REALLY out of date. Like caveman out of date.

Well they've been brought up to the 21st century now. If you were having problems installing Bauble before using the documentation on the website then please try again. Sorry 'bout that.

0.8.2

2008-04-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Bauble 0.8.2 has left the nest. This is a bugfix release for the 0.8 series. The main changes are slightly better Unicode handling and fixes for converting geographic coordinates.

The unfortunate thing is that prior to this version Bauble wasn't handling geographic coordinates (lat/long) properly in the the Accession editor. Most likely if you used Bauble to store coordinates for your collection records then they were saved incorrectly and you should enter them again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

0.8.1

2008-03-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

We released the 0.8.1 version of Bauble yesterday. This is a bug fix release for the 0.8 series. Though not critical, I recommend any one using Bauble 0.8 or previous versions to update to the newest version.

0.8.0

2008-03-03T12:22:00.001-08:00

Bauble 0.8.0 has been released.

Get it at the usual place.

0.8.0rc1

2008-02-29T14:57:00.000-08:00

We've released the first release candidate of the 0.8.0 stable series. I'll let this one settle in for a week or two before releasing either another release candidate or the final release.

Also, this release isn't entirely feature complete. All the infrastructure is there but I think at this points its best to get this version out into the wild. We can then improve on it incrementally with smaller point releases. Either way, its still a vast improvement over previous releases.

beta 3 and beta 4

2008-02-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

Beta 4 is now out and will probably be the last of the beta series. We will start releasing release candidates soon so stay tuned. This beta is mostly just fixes and cleanups. In particular the Windows installer wasn't working as expected so if Bauble didn't work for you on Window please try again. That's what beta releases are for I guess.

Beta 4 and future versions of Bauble now require SQLAlchemy 0.4.3 and Python 2.5.

0.8.0b2

2008-02-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've released 0.8.0b2, the second beta release in the 0.8 series. This version includes some interface cleanups that I've been meaning to do for a long time. For example the collection editor has been redesigned and the interface should now let you know what's happening when retrieving big search results instead of just appearing dead. Also fixed some more of the obscure errors that were lurking in the darkness.

This version also now includes support for the datum field in the accession editor. We've also added a private field for accessions which allows you to designate if the data represents information that is sensitive or that you might not want to share. Unfortunately, adding the private field also means that you will probably have problems if you are trying to connect to a Bauble database that was created with previous versions.

As usual there's lots of other fixes and improvements dotted around so go and download it at the usual place and let us know what you think.

0.8.0b1

2008-01-28T08:56:00.000-08:00

The first beta version of the 0.8 series has been released. This shiny new 2008 model sports more tests and better error handling, a (slightly) better report generator, improved ABCD export, editor tooltips. Bauble 0.8 also uses the new improved SQLAlchemy 0.4 which gives a lot of nice under-the-hood improvements and speed ups plus the usual round of tweaks and fixes.

Download it and try it - but keep it away from children.

Warning: This version has a new field for specifying the GPS datum in the collection records. This will cause errors if you edit a Bauble database created with earlier versions though it shouldn't harm your data.

The future

2007-12-25T16:16:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the next iteration of Bauble, version 0.8, trying to bring more polish and performance improvements with some need reorganization to the code. One big change has been moving all the database code to use SQLAlchemy 0.4. As it stands everything is pretty rock solid and I'll probably start releasing some beta versions sooner than later.

0.7.0

2007-11-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well that's it, 0.7.0 is out. It's been a long time coming.

Download it at the usual place -- http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/#download

0.7.0rc2

2007-10-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just release 0.7.0rc2. This rc2 includes quite a few fixes and even a couple new features. Since we're getting closer to a full on 0.7.0 release I figure we should do a run down of what's new. I could just say "everything" and that would cover it but here's some of the highlights of changes since 0.6.5

More simplified, mature and stable code
Fully translatable into other languages, volunteer translators needed
New plugin style and plugin manager
Most long running operations now run inside a task so they don't block the interface
Faster, more powerful search queries
More information provided about search results in side bar
Easy way to search online for scientific names and collection records at Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), International Plant Names Index (IPNI), Botanic Gardens Conservation International(BGCI) and last but not least Google.
Lost of interface tweaks to make things more consistent
Remember search queries
When need Bauble will now ask you for and remember information about your institution
Better documentation

...and lots more other technical stuff you probably don't care about. In short, we're pretty proud of this one. A full 0.7.0 should be here shortly once we're convinced all major bugs have been squashed.

0.7.0rc1

2007-10-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

The first release candidate for the 0.7.0 release is out. We're getting ever closer to 0.7.0...can't you feel it?

0.7.0b3

2007-09-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

0.7.0b3 is hot off the presses in all its newness. Just a little bit more spit and polish until a full fledged 0.7 release. This beta is still pretty good so don't be afraid to go out and try it. Get it at http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/#download.

0.7.0b2

2007-04-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

I released 0.7.0b2. This is a pretty solid release and 0.7.0 is coming together nicely and hopefully will be out shortly.

Also, I pulled the 0.6.5 release from the website. Even though 0.7.0b2 is marked as a development release in reality it's superior to the 0.6 series across the board. And since noone else that I know of uses it anyways then I don't reckon it matters much.

I'll try and put together a list of all the new features in the 0.7.0 release once its finished. For now just content yourself that everything has improved in every way.

slow down old world

2007-04-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

In an effort to try and improve the release quality of Bauble I'm going to try a new staged release process. First I'll peak your interest with a couple of betas, get you all excited with a release candidate or two and finally when you can't stand it any longer I'll cut a proper release when the time is right. I hope in this way each release will be it's best or at least better than the previous one.

To get started I've weened 0.7.0b1 from the nest. This will be the first release in the new 0.7 series of releases. This is a BETA release so don't expect wonders just yet. We've been using this code for a while now at Belize Botanic Gardens but your mileage may vary. The 0.7 series brings a lot of slick new feature and stability improvements. I won't get into all the details just yet. Try and it out and tell us what you think.

The latest goings on

2007-03-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post an update to let the world know that Bauble is still moving forward.

Alot of work has gone into the upcoming 0.7 release. Many of the changes have been technical behind the scene type changes though there are some nice visual goodies as well. 0.7 will include support for international characters, translations, many performance improvements, GUI tweaks and better support for long running tasks and more testing to make sure everything works as expected.

This time around we'll release a couple of pre-release/release candidates/beta versions just to make sure we don't have any funny issues before naming a stable release. I want 0.7 to come as rock solid and stable as possible.

0.6.5

2007-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is mostly just a bug fix release and really the only thing that has changed is the formatter plugin. I didn't realize that the formatter was pretty much broken in previous versions due to some bad packaging. There were also some cases if non-ASCII characters were included in the data you were trying to format then you would get an error and Bauble would seem to freeze up. Everything should work now. I've also added extra checks and error message to let you know what the problem is when something fails.

Also drastically improved the speed of getting values from the database when formatting large reports.

Download it.

0.6.4

2006-12-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

- The Windows installer is now "batteries-included". GTK+ now comes bundled with the installer so there's no extra prerequisites for installing Bauble. (We don't count the XSL->PDF renderer for the formatter plugin.)
- The formatter can now format search results in a Tag.
- A couple cosmetic change on the editors for Win32

0.6.3

2006-12-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

Bauble 0.6.3 has been released. This is just a bug fix release and for one particulary nasty bug in particular that could cause you to lose an accession's collection or donation data.

Bugs fixed:
- not allowing an empty value for the accession date
- a species identification qualifier (e.g. aff., Incorrect, etc) is now included in the species name string
- remove the infraspecific epithet from a species name if the infraspecific rank or hybrid flags aren't set
- changed "Ok and Add..." accelerator to Ctrl-K from Ctrl-A to allow the standard Select All that's usually assigned to Ctrl-A
- focus issues on various editors
- fixed a cascading issue with accessions that would automatically delete the collection or donation information if the data was edited after the initial entry
- fixed changing the collector's ID in the accession editor
- hopefully those pesky messages when you close the Windows version of Bauble are all gone

I recommend to anyone using Bauble to upgrade their current version of 0.6.3. I reccommend to anyone not using Bauble to start using it immediately.

(what about 0.6.2 you ask....???....that shall forever remain a mystery clouded in secrecy wrapped in an enigma topped with ketchup otherwise know as catsup)

0.6.1

2006-11-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

0.6.1 is out the door. This release is just to fix the bug to include the default formatter plugin.

I knew it.

2006-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

It had to happen. Shortly after releasing 0.6.0 I found a bug where the formatter plugin wouldn't work when using py2exe. This only affects Bauble when installing from the Windows installer. All the other installers should work fine. It should be a pretty easy fix. For now I've removed the Windows installer from the Downloads section. Hopefully I'll have 0.6.1 out in a day or two to fix this problem.

0.6.0

2006-11-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Well, 0.6.0 has been released. This includes...

Editors that are a pleasure to use. The old table/spreadsheet style editors have been ripped out and flogged. The fancy new editors bring joy and pleasure.

The formatter plugin has been reworked so you can now create you're own formatters. The default formatter that comes with Bauble is still the same old XSL-PDF renderer that you've come to love.

We now use SQLAlchemy instead of SQLObject. Though this is more of a technical improvement than one a user might notice it does improve the overall experience when using Bauble and helps save the author(me) a lot of headache.

The information boxes that show up when you select an item in the search results have been improved and now show statistics on the number of plants and accessions when selecting family, genera or species types.

The search results now give more visual clues about the types they are showing like displaying the family of a genus or the vernacular names for a species. Also plants in the database that are marked 'Dead' are shown in a lighter shade of gray.

There have been tons and tons of improvement and bugfixes. A huge percentage of Bauble has been completely rewritten. Don't ask what percentage, just take my word for it.

If you've been waiting for the right time to use Bauble then now would be it.

Screenshots

2006-11-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

See screenshots of the soon-to-be-released version 0.6.0 at http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/screenshots.html

Don't look now

2006-10-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

To the untrained eye it may appear that not much has happened in Bauble world for quite some time. And that's where you'd be wrong.

For months now we've been working away at the next iteration of Bauble. Version 0.6. This new version has massive changes and a majority of the code has been re-written. The major changes include:
- Use SQLAlchemy instead of SQLObject to access the database.
- All the editors now have a rich interface, i.e. we've nixed the table style editing. This means that it's easier to edit related data and more difficult to enter bad data.
- The database tables have been reviewed and alot of changes were made to improve performance, accomodate for future features and other general sanity checks.
- In general, Bauble is now more stable, reliable, consistent and intuitive.
- (lot's of other things I can't remember right now)

Then where is it you ask? Well, it's pretty much done. There's a couple of bugs here and there but nothing critical. In fact at Belize Botanic Gardens we're already using it to manage our plant records. There still some testing to do, especially on Windows, but I would expect a release within the next few weeks.

0.5.3

2006-07-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

0.5.3 is out. The change are small but they make using Bauble a little nicer.

I know it's only been a week since the last release, but I just couldn't help myself. I have a bad case of release-itis.

New features:
- Families and Genera now have infoboxes.
- Improved all the infoboxes and tweaked the way they display. The now give more statistics about the type you are viewing.
- The search results update themselves more intuitively when a user action causes something to change in the results.
- Changed the way the context menus are created for types in the search results.
- Changed the way types are displayed in the search results to open the way for fancier result lists.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed an error message if trying to update in infobox with a bad value.
- Fixed a problem with trying to commit donations from the accession editor.

That about sums it up. Enjoy.

0.5.2

2006-06-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Released 0.5.2

The main new feature is the new species editor. It is along the lines of the new accession editor with a rich interface and continues the move away from spreadsheet like data entry. The species editor also includes the species synonyms and vernacular names editing in the same editor as the species so everything is in one convenient place.

This release also includes a lot of documentation updates, especially for developers. It should now be alot easier if anyone is interested in writing new plugins for Bauble or customizing the code to suit their organization.

The species infobox should now be more complete and relative to everything Bauble knows about the species.

Made the interface more responsive in a lot of places and added progress bars for long operations like importing.

Changed the header format for CVS import/export.

And as usual there are lots of small changes that I can't remember and the usual bug fixes.

NOTE
I changed the family field in the Family table to not be an alternateID so that we can have duplicates for family names. To ensure uniqueness for families I added an index so that the family name combined with the species qualifier has to be unique.
In botanical terms this means that we can now have both Malvaceae (s. lat) and Malvaceae (s. str). Normally for a change to the model I would bump the minor version number but I didn't this time. If this affects anyone then dump the database, create a new database and reimport the data and everything should be fine. If anyone get's stung by this then let me know.

0.5.1

2006-05-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't resist. I released 0.5.1 after noticing a couple of bugs in 0.5.0. Nothing critical just annoyances. And of course I couldn't do a new release without adding a couple extra niceties.

Changes:
- Accession notes wouldn't show up in the editor when editing an exisiting accession.
- The way that the accession editor would indicate whether a value in a text field was invalid was a bad idea. This was redone in a different way.
- Fixed a bug with the way lat/lon coordinates were converted from D/M/S to decimal degrees.
- The accuracy field for coordinates and elevation in the accession editor are now only sensitive and committed to the database if the relevant fields have valid values.
- Fix the labels next to Latitude/Longitude in the accession editor so show the D/M/S value of whatever is currently in the relevant text fields.
- Removed annoying pause after selected a species in the accession editor.
- Some win32 interface tweaks.

I think that's it.

0.5.0

2006-05-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. 0.5.0 is out. This introduces a new stable line of Bauble releases with a huge number of improvements and bug fixes. It also paves the way for more improvement to come. The main new visible feature is the snazzy Accession Editor. This is an example of the direction Bauble is going so we eventually want to convert the rest of the editors over to this sort of format and away from the table/spreadsheet editor style. I hope to get some new screenshots up soon to show it off. Maybe even a screencast, ooooh, aaaah....

This version also introduces changes in the database schema so any users of 0.4.x version or below will need to upgrade to the new model. If anyone is interested I have a script to automatically upgrade a dumped database so contact me if you need help.

As always you can download the latest version at http://bauble.belizebotanic.org/#download

0.4.6

2006-04-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Released 0.4.6 shortly after 0.4.5 to fix a small bug that could keep Bauble from running on a new installation.

Enjoy.

0.4.5

2006-04-09T07:13:00.001-07:00

Released 0.4.5

What's new you ask?

New features:

Bauble nows comes with an installer for Windows so no more tedious archive unzipping.
We now check for constraints in our forms before the values are committed which should help catch more errors. There's still room for improvement but it's a good first pass.
Improved query language. You can now do more sophisticated queries using a sort of subset of SQL and you can search any field in any table. We hope to improve this a lot so you can get exactly the results you want. Unfortunately this isn't very well documented right now but we can do queries like "acc where plants.acc_status = Dead".
Not really a feature but we now have a spiffy new logo which is also used as the icon on Linux. Sorry, right now Windows uses the same old generic icon.

Bug fixes:

Stop loading Bauble if one of the plugins fails.
Fixed problems with creating vernacular names.
Save the editors state even if the dialog is canceled.
fixed problem when opening a database fails the wrong value was being return from open_database()
fixed problem with storing the string 'NoneType' instead of the value None in the accession.source_type column
finally made the ok button on the message_details_dialog the default focus
made quoting of value in search expression more portable with _LikeQuotedx
fixed problem where bauble wouldn't run if it couldn't open the log file (thanks to Helder Perez)

....and as always there's probably more I can't remember.

0.4.4

2006-02-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Changes in 0.4.4

- some changes in the connection manager to make it behave as it should
- fixed bug so you can now remove values from a row in the editor
- fixes for using latest pygtk and pycairo on win32
- minor fix to improve checking for sqlite databases
- window title now includes name of current connection
- improved logging, almost completely removed the annoying popup when closing the Buable main window in windows
- opening the generated labels on windows should work better now
- include example .xsl files in distribution
- search view is reset now when opening a new connection
- popup dialog to tell the user if they don't have any connections in the connection list

0.4.3

2006-01-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

0.4.3 has been released into the wild.

Changes include:
- fixes when all values in an editor wouldn't commit and then trying to commit the same values again
- improved the default sort order of alot of the search results
- the infobox in the search view that give information about the currently selected item in the search results should now be cleared when nothing is selected
- the ConnectionManager should not start up centered on the screen
- fixed problems with editing existing donations
- fixed message dialogs if they open before the gui is started
- fixed problems if the tag table couldn't be loaded and would make bauble useless (or was this in 0.4.2)
- other internal changes

In short things just keep getting better.

0.4.2

2006-01-10T06:15:00.001-08:00

0.4.2 is out.

Changes:
- packaged everything properly so it should work out of the box on all platforms
- fixed random crasher that had been plaguing me for ages (this one's for you Chad)
- fixed bug so there can only be one SpeciesMeta per Species
- some 'correctness' fixes in the gui, like giving dialogs parents if applicable
- removed some dusty old code

In short this release should be stable, usable and shiny. Use it.

wrap it up

2006-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Man am I bad at packaging up an application. The 0.4.x releases work fine for me on my machine but sorry for anyone else. 0.4.2 should be out soon to fix these issues. Good thing no one but me uses Bauble. Does that mean I'm talking to myself?

Day Late and a Dollar Short

2006-01-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

Released 0.4.1

Changes:
- included some of the files I left out of the 0.4.0 release causing it to not work out-of-the-box
- the formatter plugin should work now.
- got rid of that annoying message about checking the log file everytime you ran Bauble on Windows.

Got My Head Around

2006-01-02T12:39:00.001-08:00

0.4.0 is out.

This is a major upgrade from previous versions of Bauble. Databases created using earlier Bauble versions are no longer compatible with Bauble 0.4.0. I do have a script to update older versions so let me know if you are interested.

New features for this version include (but probably aren't limited to):
- Tagging: you can a now tag anything returned in the search results with arbitrary labels and retrieve them later with the 'tag' search keyword
- New and improved connection manager dialog.
- Lots of love to the interface
- Full transaction support in editors.
- CSV export speed now approaches the speed of light.
- Species can have a list of vernacular names with one designated the default.
- Family, Genus and Species data can have lists of synonyms associated with each.
- Billions and billions of bug fixes.

I have to be honest. There's still some rough edges, especially using Bauble in Windows but this release marks a significant improvement over previous releases. It only get's better from here on out.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

0.4.0 NOT Coming Soon

2005-12-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well, due to not enough time and too much work other work to do, 0.4.0 won't be coming out soon. I can't quite get some things the way I want them so I'm just going to wait until I can. Hopefully in a fortnight or two I'll have it sorted and make a release then.

I know I'm speaking to a vacuum but if anyone is willing to help out then let me know.

0.4.0 Coming Soon

2005-12-10T15:29:00.001-08:00

That's right, 0.4.0 is coming soon and is going to be a major new release.

Alot of bugs and annoyances have been fixed. The interface has received a bit of love. And we've even been able to add a feature or two.

The most important feature added, is tagging. With Bauble you can now tag your data with any label you choose. Say you wanted to tag some of the plants in your database as 'Dying' or 'Poisonous to Shellfish'. Now you can!

More information and (hopefully) a release coming this next week.

Best Release Ever

2005-12-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

Bauble 0.3.1 has been released. We hope that this is our best release ever. A problem that caused alot of crashes has been fixed along with several other bugs and quirks.

Things seem to be stabilizing nicely now since we have been testing Bauble and using it for our own database at Belize Botanic Gardens

To see the specific changes see the CHANGES file.

We've also added a Using Bauble page to the website. It's not entirely complete or comprehensive but it should help anyone trying to figure how to use Bauble.

0.2.2 Release

2005-11-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

Alright, 0.2.2 is out. I think I finally got it right this time. There are still some crashes from time to time that I need to address.

If you created tables from the 0.1.x series then you will have to dump your data and reimport it. Since I don't think anyone else uses Bauble at the moment then I won't go into any more detail but if you need help then write me.

0.1.1 Release

2005-11-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

A few small changes and fixes since 0.1.0

0.1.0 Release

2005-11-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

Bauble 0.1.0 has been released. This is the first proper release of Bauble. Although it is mostly stable, Bauble is still under development and should be considered beta software.

Please try it out and let us know what you think about it, how it could be better, or how terrible it is. We're interested in your feedback either way.

I would like to thank Kew Gardens for allowing me to use their list of plant Family and Generic names from their 1992 list. Without these your fingers would fall off from typing just to get started using Bauble.

Go download it.

Half a month till Halloween

2005-10-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got around to releasing a version of Bauble. It's by no means a completely stable production ready biodiversity collection manager but you can get a taste of what to expect. We're using at Belize Botanic Gardens. You could be too. See the main page for the download.

Never happened

2005-08-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

The .1 release never happened. I got a little carried away reorganizing the project and adding new features. Bauble is still being actively developed so don't give up on us yet. I still hope to do the .1 this month with a much more stable platform and with loads more features than had I done a first release 2 months ago.

Almost a .1

2005-06-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

In between everything else I've been doing alot of work making sure everything works on Windows as a standalone application. This means that the only prerequisite to install Bauble will be the GTK runtime. There should be a .1 coming real soon now. Stay tuned.

First post

2005-06-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

We've setup a news page for all the happening and updates on Bauble, everyone's favority biodiversity collection manager.

If anyone else besides Belize Botanic Gardens actually uses Bauble then send me a note at [brett at belizebotanic dot org]