I've been working on bookTome 2 a little this weekend and am now about halfway through implementing the printing and reporting functions. Although the default reports that are included within bookTome 2 will be pretty much the same as bookTome 1, I've now included a Report Designer within the program. Selecting this will launch an editor that lets users create, edit and save custom reports, so you can use your own layout or template for the Book Details or Book List report to be printed. The screenshot below shows the Report Designer (and an in-progress template).

 

 

I've also fixed a few minor crashes and added some additional columns that were missing from the Details view. I'm not sure when I'll update the preview on the site, but that will probably be in the next couple of weeks.

Just to show everybody that I'm not dead and am still (slowly) working on bookTome 2, I have updated the preview release, which you can download here. This is more or less a silent update and you can update from the previous version without any issues, despite the warnings in the last post.

 

The following major changes have been made in this update:

• Backup Creation - Progress bar works and is a little more accurate.
• Browse Books - Browsing by series now includes the book number in the title as per bookTome 1.
• Browse Books - Major changes to sorting and thumbnail generation. Sort settings under Tools now lists "Remember Sort Direction" which is turned on and off, and then you choose a default column to always sort by. Generating a view by series will always sort by book number. Generating any other view will sort by the default column. The thumbnails view now always obeys the sort settings that are used in the details view, allowing it to be sorted on the fly. Please test this functionality as it may have introduced various bugs.
• Database Statistics - Added the general database statistics page.
• Startup Tasks (Backups / Updates) - Smaller delay from opening bookTome to the startup tasks running.
• Amazon Importing - Now correctly handles Unicode characters sent from Amazon.
• Amazon Importing - Hitting the enter key when in the items field now begins a search.
• Amazon Importing - Now handles Unicode characters sent via the Description providers better (there are still issues but there are now less). You can now also change the description source while the checkbox is unchecked.
• Amazon Importing - Fixed some rare crashes with ISBNdb when no data was being returned.

I continue to be particularly interested in any Unicode issues which are hard for me to find myself. I'm also interested in feedback regarding the sorting changes that have been made in this version, and any additional statistics people would like in the Database Statistics section (keeping in mind I'm yet to do the chart page as seen in bookTome 1).

You can now download the first public preview of bookTome 2 here.

 

Please note that as the first preview it is recommended for people who are already familiar with bookTome. You should continue to use bookTome 1 as your main program, as the database format will change between each preview release and it will be incompatible with future previews. There is also no installer (it operates as a portable version), and there are still quite a few features missing. It's reached the point however that I need feedback on bugs, missing features and limitations so that I can continue working on it.

 

Some of the main things that I'd be interested in hearing about are importing from bookTome 1, Unicode support and general usage.

 

Please note that this release won't be posted on the bookTome site as it is not yet ready for widespread use.

I've nearly finished the search functionality in bookTome 2, and am taking a break from it before doing some more testing. I've also just finished the Check for Updates functionality, which has received a small but quite substantial update.

 

When you first go into Check for Updates, it will automatically check for updates and report its progress, as seen below:

 

 

If you click on More Information, a dialog box will be shown that shows you the version, date and changes that have been made:

 

 

The main improvement in bookTome 2 is that you can download and launch the installer directly from within bookTome. If you are using the portable version, it will download the portable version from the website to a folder you specify. If you are using the normal version, it will download the normal version from the website, and then offer to run the setup file, closing bookTome in the process.

 

 

It also supports proxy servers, using the same settings as the Amazon part uses. I'm open to any additional suggestions on this functionality as well, so feel free to email me (and excuse the fact that I'm very slow at replying to emails...)

In the past week I've been working on the searching functionality within bookTome 2. Quite a few improvements for this area are planned, including searching by numbers and dates as well as just plain text. Matching partial and whole words has also been implemented as seen in the screenshot below. A lot of work left on this area but it's coming along nicely. After searching is done I expect to tackle the Check for Updates functionality.

 

I have also now released bookTome 1.72 on the bookTome website, a minor update that fixes some crashes and errors people have been experiencing with the past release. Apologies for the downtime in Amazon searching in bookTome this morning as well - my host was down for a few hours, but all has been fixed now.

 

 

Although work has slowed down lately on bookTome 2, I am continuing to work on it and am thinking of releasing the first preview release soon. My current plans are that this initial preview will just be available on this blog site, not on the bookTome site, to limit its release. As development continues and after the initial feedback comes through, I'll release a second updated build on the bookTome site as well.

 

The screenshots below show some of the progress I've made on the Wish List, which has been my focus lately:

 

 

 

The main things that now need to be done are Searching, CSV Importing and some Tools stuff like Backup Manager, Statistics and various other bits and pieces. I'll start working on these soon and see what gets done before this first release.

 

I'm also continuing to work on a minor release of bookTome 1.x, which should be available within a month or so as well, fixing some bugs and crashes that have been reported. No news on taskTome yet.