Software4Nonprofits Blog

Hello DONATION beta testers.  I have just uploaded version 3.32 Beta1 to the usual page, http://www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm, for your testing pleasure.

The changes for this version include only a few tiny new features, and are mostly bug fixes

However, one of those bug fixes involved changing the database layout a bit, so when you first start the new version, there will be a quick invisible conversion step. As a result, (a) I would recommend that you make a database backup before trying this version, and  (b) it’s really quite imporant that a few people at least test it before I release it to all users. (That’s because if there was a problem with that conversion, which I seriously doubt, but is of course possible, I wouldn’t want to spring it on everyone at once!) And of course, if any of you do encounter a problem, I will be available to fix it ASAP. No worries!

The following is a list of all of the changes in this version.

• Added a menu option, Help -> Move DONATION to Another Computer, which takes you to the help topic Move the Program from One Computer to Another. (This is the most common technical support question I receive!)
• If you have multiple databases (created with the Database -> Switch Databases menu option), after you create any backup it will remind you that you need to back up your other database(s) independently, by switching to them and backing them up. (A backup only backups up the database you are currently in.)
• In the Help page on Using a Logo and Signature Bitmap on your Receipts, added a section on how to get inexpensive help editing your logo and signature bitmaps, if you are not able to do so yourself.
• Fixed a bug in the Database -> Import Donors menu option, where if the file to be imported contains quoted fields that are the maximum field length (e.g. 30-character First or Last Name fields), the names would be truncated because the quotes were being counted as part of the length.
• Fixed issues in both the Database -> Import Donors menu option and the Database -> Import Donations menu option, where if you had saved the file to be imported from Excel, and Excel was still open, those windows could fail to open the import file.
• Fixed a bug where if the First or Last Name fields were filled in to their maximum length (30), and contained accented characters, the Donor List would stop loading correctly on subsequent runs of DONATION, with an error message.
• Fixed something more fully, that was supposed to be fixed in version 3.31 but only sometimes worked: In some versions of Windows, some PDF printing of reports and built-in receipts may not work unless you run DONATION as an Administrator. If a PDF print fails, you may be given a message to exit DONATION and re-run it as an Administrator, to resolve this problem.
• Fixed a bug when using the Email/Print button in receipts, where it could give you an erroneous error message that it couldn’t create the Report.pdf file, even though it actually created the Receipt.pdf file it was supposed to create successfully. (It still sent the email with the correct Receipt.pdf file attached successfully, despite the error message.)

As usual, please let me know of any testing results, whether positive or negative, either by email or by adding a Comment to this blog post. Thank you.

By the way, for those of you who responded to my last blog post about selecting a new Software4Nonprofits logo, and haven’t seen the new one  yet, it’s on the site now. It was a hard choice, because there was no strong winner among people’s votes, but I picked the one that did have the most votes, and which I personally liked quite a lot as well. Thanks to those of you who gave me your thoughts on that.

Hello again DONATION beta testers. Well, the new PDF printer in version 3.31 Beta3 that I informed you of recently worked for many people, but not for everyone. Some users, particularly those with Windows 7 and/or 64-bit computers (I think!) still had problems.

It turns out that the issue is that for some of those users, the Save PDF button on reports and built-in receipts (but not mail-merge letters and receipts) fails if the program is not run as a Windows Administrator. And I changed the program to stop running as an Administrator in version 3.30, to better follow Microsoft guidelines, and to stop those annoying User Account Control “Is it OK for this program to modify your computer?” prompts for users with Windows Vista or Windows 7.

The solution I ended up with (which I am not completely happy with, but can’t see how to improve on at this point) is that if you run DONATION normally (not as an Administrator), try Save PDF, and it fails, you get a message to re-run DONATION as an Administrator, re-do the action you just did, and do Save PDF from there.

Another option that does work, oddly, is instead of using Save PDF on those reports or built-in receipts, use the normal Print button, and in the printer dialog box that comes up, switch to the PDF printer, “novaPDF Pro v7 for DONATION”. N.B. for receipts, there is no printer dialog box, so you have to pre-select that printer using the Print Setup button before clicking Print. When you do this, you get novaPDF’s dialog box prompting for the filename to save the PDF file to, without the default paths and filenames that Save PDF prompts you with (in my dialog box), but it does work, even without running as Administrator.

If this all seems a bit mysterious to you (why some things work and some don’t). it is mysterious to me as well! That’s because it’s about how the novaPDF software (that I bought) works, which is out of my control. I have worked with their tech support folks on this, but haven’t received any better solution.

Anyways, if you could try this out (at http://www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm as usual) prior to my releasing it to the main web site, that would be great. As usual, please let me know any testing results (positive or negative!) via  a Reply to this blog posting.

I don’t plan to email all users about the release of version 3.31 after I release it, because it just isn’t major enough to warrant that. Rather, I will inform any users about it who write to me about having problems with PDF printing. And of course, all new users will get this version.

Thank you.

Hello DONATION beta testers. I have a new version for you to take a look at, if you have a few minutes. As usual, you can get it from www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm.

Here is what is included in version 3.31 so far, in rough order of importance:

• Changed the saving to PDF files so that it doesn’t encrypt/protect the PDF file from modification unless it is a receipt or is a statement being emailed to donors. (Previously all PDF files created by DONATION were encrypted.) This may solve a problem that a few users are having where PDF printing doesn’t work.
• The program now uses a new version of the novaPDF PDF-printing software (version 7.1 instead of version 5.5), which may solve a problem that a few users are having where PDF printing doesn’t work.
• Fixed a bug, where if you logged in to DONATION using the Limited User Password, and you backed up the database, you received an error message after that, and the program exited. (You could start it again after that, and the backup was successful.)
• Now if you are using the Limited User Password, you can no longer use the Database -> Switch Databases menu option. (It could cause complicated problems, that would have been hard to fix, and seems very unlikely to be required by limited users.)
• Fixed a bug where you use Maintenance -> Change Year -> Previous Year, and the default date for new donations stays as the last date used in the year you just switched from, allowing you to save donations with a date in the wrong year. (If you used that menu option several times in a row, you could even end up saving donations with a date several years forward.)
• Made a small fix that may prevent a crash during mail merges that one user was experiencing, with the message “Null object reference at line 3 in function of_focus of object u_web_browser”.

The change to the new novaPDF printer version is the most drastic change in this version, and the one I am most concerned about being tested. (To test it, after installation, just run any report, then use Save PDF and make sure the PDF file gets created and displayed to you.)

As usual, please let me know any testing results, postive or negative, preferably by adding a Comment to this posting.

I’d also like your advice about whether I should inform all users of this new version, or save it up for inclusion with the next version that has more significant feature changes. Of course, I would upload it to the normal web site once I’m sure it is OK, and I would inform any users who are having problems with the PDF printing that they should upgrade to this new version. But I did inform all users of version 3.30 just last month, and I don’t want to overwhelm everyone with too many upgrades. What do you think?

Thank you!

I have just released version 3.30 Beta4 to the www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm page. It has one improvement, that people have been asking for, for a while:

• You can now edit the list of Paid By values for the Cheque # / Paid By field’s drop-down list for the Donations, by using a new Maintenance -> Donation Paid By Values menu option.

I’m thinking that the full version 3.30 will be released, initially to paid-up users, either this Thursday or next Tuesday, depending on a few issues.

As always, any comments will be appreciated.

I have released a further beta version of the new version 3.30, with the following two changes:

• All “statement” reports and mail merges can now be sent by email to donors who have email addresses, just like the receipts. This includes Reports -> Donation -> Details, One Page per Donor and Category Totals, One Page per Donor, and Total Donations information mail merges. See the Help topics Statements and Receipts and Emailing Receipts and Statements for details.
• This change was actually in Beta1, but I forgot to mention it!) The program is now much more flexible about the names and locations of logo and signature bitmap files for your receipts and letters, allowing you to select them on a window you reach from the Maintenance -> Receipt Options window, and allowing them to have any name and standard bitmap filename extension (e.g. BMP, GIF or JPG). Also, you can specify different logo and signature bitmaps for different organizations/databases, if you have multiple databases on the same computer.

As usual, you can download the beta version from http://www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm.

If you try version a beta of version 3.30 at all, please let me know, even if all you do is confirm that it installs correctly. And of course, if you do have any testing comments, please add them as a Reply to the blog post.

Thank you.

Hello again DONATION beta testers. I finally have at least an initial pretest of the next release (3.30) available. Because in some ways this is a fairly major release, I have bumped up the version number from 3.23j to 3.30, instead of just going to 3.24.

This version consists mostly of the changes discussed in my two previous blog postings, Running DONATION as a Non-Administrator, and Per-Database, Per-User and Overall Settings.

This is an odd release in a way, because on the one hand, I had to make a huge number of changes to the program internally, and to the installation program, in order to achieve the changes discussed in those blog postings (and in the detailed list below). But on the other hand, the perceived value for users is fairly slight (mostly Windows Vista and Windows 7 users not having to click a button to allow the program to run as an Administrator). Fortunately, there are also some additional small improvements, bug fixes etc.

For testing this, I need at least some of you to install it as an upgrade to (i.e. on top of) your current installation, because some of what has changed is the location of many files, and thus the installation program has to move these files. If I got something wrong, which my own testing didn’t show up, this could cause problems. I will of course make myself as available as I can to solve any such problems that come up, ASAP, either by immediately fixing them on your computer for you (via a remote control session if necessary) or with a quick new release of the beta version that fixes it.

Having said that, testing the new version as a new install on a different computer would also be helpful.

Here is the complete list of the changes in this version:

• Made a lot of small changes to allow the program to not require being run with Windows Administrator privileges on Windows Vista, Windows 7 or other versions of Windows with Microsoft’s User Account Control feature in them. This saves on having to click on a User Account Control “Allow” button to allow it to run, every time you start it, and better conforms to Microsoft guidelines for applications. (It also no longer requires being run as an Administrator on Windows XP.)
• Among other changes required for the point above, moved a lot of data files from various places under the standard installation folder (usually C:\Program Files\Donation) to a new data directory that is not under C:\Program Files (where non-Administrator programs may not modify files).
• Also among those changes, the program now stores it settings in various different places. Many settings, such as those in Maintenance -> Main Window Options, are now stored in the database, which means they go with it when the database is backed up from one computer and restored on another. It also means that if you have two databases for two organizations, they can have independent settings on that window.
• In the windows for Letters -> One Letter and Letters -> Mass Mailing, removed the final sections for specifying whether or not to use a standard save pathname for the merged file, and for specifying an alternate save pathname if you aren’t using the standard one, and for editing a previously saved merged file. Those sections were just confusing and not particularly useful. Now the standard save pathname (the letter file name with “_save” added before the “.htm” extension) is always used.
• Also in the mail merge windows, added a new OutstandingAmount field to the Donor Information and Total Donations Information merge options, which is filled in with the donor’s annual Pledge amount (or 0, if there is no pledge) minus the Total Amount donated.
• Created a new Tools menu, with new options Explore Data Directory (which opens a Windows Explorer window in the new data directory) and View Saved Settings (which displays all settings saved by the program, and where they are stored).
• Moved the Help -> Register by Email menu option to the new Tools menu.
• Made a number of small improvements to the installation program. In particular, if the program has been copied to a new computer (instead of installed there properly, as explained in the Help topic Move the Program from One Computer to Another), it now offers an option to delete and recreate the license file if the current license key is out of date, which previously would have prevented the install from completing.
• Fixed a small typo in the French and bilingual receipts: “d’enterprise” was corrected to be “d’entreprise”.
• Renamed Help -> DONATION on the Web to Help -> Software4Nonprofits Web Site, for clarity.
• Changed the installation program to always write a log file C:\Windows\DONATIONSetupLog.txt, which can be used to diagnose any problems that come up during an installation.
• Fixed a bug in Reports -> Custom Report, where if you picked Sum(Total Amount) or Sum(Eligible Amount), or both, and also at least one of the Receipt fields, it generated incorrect SQL that gave an error message when you tried to run it.
• Added a new Help topic, Pledges in DONATION, to explain various aspects and limitations of using pledges in the program.
• Fixed a bug in Reports -> Donation -> Details, One Page per Donor, where donations that had longish Descriptions could have part of those descriptions cut off at the right.

As usual, you get the beta test version from the page http://www.software4nonprofits.com/pretest.htm. You will see that versions of all of the installation programs are available there. For most of you, all you will need is to use the first option on that page, the update installer donupdtBeta.exe.  It will upgrade anything except for a Lite version to be version 3.30 Beta1. But if you want to try any of the other installers (the Lite version update, full Lite version, full Standalone installer, full Network Server or full Network Client) that would be great too. You can easily switch between the various versions (Standalone, Lite, and the two Network versions) by just running the appropriate installer.

Thank you so much in advance for any testing you can do on this, which will help prevent me from releasing any bugs to the thousands of other users. Of course, as well as reporting any bugs, I would very much appreciate any comments you have about the changes, once you have played with them. As usual, the best way to comment on anything you note is to Reply to this blog posting. But emails are fine too!