Archive for January, 2009

Should I inform users about version 3.13d?

Friday, January 30th, 2009

I just uploaded version 3.13d to the web site,which fixes what I hope will be the last significant bug with this version. (And I hope that’s not “famous last words”!)

The bug fixed by version 3.13d was, if you selected “Create Receipts via mail merge rather than normal report method” in Maintenance -> Receipt Options, the options on the Receipt menu gave error messages like “Error retrieving receipt(s)” and didn’t work.

Version 3.13c, released yesterday, fixed a number of bugs for users whose default web browser was Mozilla Firefox rather than the much more common Microsoft Internet Explorer, the worst of which was that the new Help -> Check for Updates option didn’t work.

I’m not clear on whether I should send yet another email to the users that I have informed about versions 3.13 and 3.13b (who are the up-to-date paid and free license users), about these new updates. I hate sending too many emails to users, and these changes affect only a rather small minority of users. Hopefully, if users encountered those bugs, they would let me know and I could just tell them to upgrade. (Which is much easier now than it used to be, now that Help -> Check for Updates is available!)

Do any of you have opinions about whether another email to everyone would be appropriate? If so, just add it as a comment to this post, or of course you can email me directly as always! Thanks.

Posted in Beta Testing, Business Advice Requests | 6 Comments »

Adventurous day of releases!

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

I have had a somewhat adventurous and stressful time releasing version 3.13 of DONATION today.

I actually uploaded 3.13 to the web site yesterday, then informed all up-to-date paid users of it in an email this morning.

Early in the day, I heard from a user who had actually upgraded to it yesterday, after first installing version 2.70b in order to convert a database from a old version of DONATION. After that all went in apparently successfully, she was getting error messages when she tried to create her receipts, and since it’s almost the end of January when the receipts must be sent out by in the USA, she was understandably concerned.

Well, we worked together for a couple of hours off and on, with me trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong, and I finally figured it out. (Thanks for your patience, Cindy!) It was a bad bug in version 3.13, but that bug only showed up if you were converting from an old-style database (DONATION3.DB), or switching to a new 2nd database with Database -> Switch Database.

So, I put in a fix for that, and uploaded it as version 3.13b. It fixed the first user’s problem. But then, about 1/2 hour later, I heard from someone else who was upgrading a more recent version of DONATION, and when they installed version 3.13b and ran the program, they got an error message and it quit! That required another hour or so of scurrying. It turned out that my bug fix for 3.13b fixed the first user’s problem, but broke the program for everyone else! So, I quickly fixed the fix, and since it was so fast, just uploaded it as another version of 3.13b – no new name. About 4 more reports came in of version 3.13b being broken, but I was able to inform them all of the further fix, and they are OK now.

Then, I sent out an email informing the same paid users that I had informed this morning of version 3.13, that if they had gone ahead and upgraded to 3.13, they needed to upgrade further to 3.13b, to avoid that original bad bug. That seemed fine until someone wrote to say that they were using the new Database -> Check for Updates menu option to upgrade from 3.13 to 3.13b, and it just brought up their web browser but didn’t download the file for the update.

So, I talked to him, and discovered that his default web browser was Mozilla Firefox, rather than the more common Microsoft Internet Explorer. After some testing, I discovered that everywhere in the program where it tries to link to a web page, or a file on a web page, was broken for Firefox. (For instance, several options on the Help menu, like Help -> Donation on the Web.) Firefox came up, but no web page was displayed or file downloaded.

A quick Google  search found the problem and an easy fix. That will be released tomorrow morning as version 3.13c. I’m not going to follow that up with another email to everyone, because it just isn’t significant enough to bother people again about. Since that problem with Firefox has been there for ages, and nobody has reported it before, I’m guessing that very few of my users use Firefox as their default web browser.

Fun day, eh?

Posted in Beta Testing, Development Advice Requests, General | 3 Comments »

Last chance to beta test version 3.13

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

I emailed those of you who are beta testers last week, giving you the details of the upcoming version 3.13 and inviting you to test it. So far, I’ve had just a few responses, with no real problems found so far, I’m glad to say.

I’m hoping to release version 3.13 on Tuesday of this week, sending emails about it to all users over the next week or so. (Of course, if any major bugs are found before then, that may delay the release!)

If anyone would like to still test it, or even just to read the list of changes in it from version 3.12b, and comment on them to me, you can find a link to download it and the list of changes at:

http://www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm

Thanks.

Posted in Beta Testing, Development Advice Requests | No Comments »

Introducing the Software4Nonprofits blog

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

OK, I’m jumping in to the 21st century here with a blog (web log).

The main purpose is to communicate with anyone who is interested in either beta testing (pre-testing) new versions of DONATION, before they are released to all users, or giving me advice about the DONATION program. This blog will (among other things) replace the emails I used to send to beta testers and advisors, asking them for help with testing or for advice.

However, I may also post other thoughts here from time to time.

If this interests you, you have several ways that you can be notified of new blog posts:

  • If you are very familiar with blogs, and use RSS, you can subscribe to a blog feed for new posts and/or new comments, via the links in the Administration area on the right-hand sidebar of the blog’s home page.
  • If you just want to be notified of all new posts by email, and are satisfied with plain-text notification of those posts, you can use the subscription form at the top of the right-hand sidebar of the blog’s home page, or use the following subscription form. (N.B. if you are already subscribed, there won’t be a form, just a sentence saying how to manage your subscription options.)


     

  • If you would like to pick and choose which categories of blog posting you receive, and/or want an option for HTML emails to be used to notify you of those posts, you can use the Register link under Administration on the right-hand sidebar. That will allow you to register and log in to the site, and then set various preferences of the blog’s home page.

Categories that I have set up to categorize my posts under currently include:

  • Beta Testing
  • Business Advice Requests
  • Development Advice Requests
  • General

If you have any thoughts about this development (adding a blog), or how it can and should be used, please do let me know. The easiest (and most blog-ish) way is by adding a Comment to this post.

Thank you.

Posted in Beta Testing, Business Advice Requests, Development Advice Requests | 7 Comments »