Some user interface ideas

I'm always tinkering with ideas for user interfaces.

And I'm not satisfied with the current look of the donor manager. As I've started working with FoxPro 9, and plan to take the DM into that some time early in 2005, I've started playing with what the interface will look like.

I ran across an interesting blog entry about the evolution of the Windows interface.

http://www.bloglines.com/preview?siteid=53396&itemid=330

If you have ANY interest in software interface design, you have to read this entry. Be sure to click on the screen shots! And, be sure to read the comments as well. They are as insightful as the main entry.

I've always been a fan of the interface of Microsoft Money, and, in fact, that was the model I was trying to emulate (to a certain degree) with the Donor Manager. It will be interesting to see where it all goes.

I played around with some interface ideas for the DM last night. One thing is for sure, the next version will take advantage of the greatly improved screen anchoring and resizing capabilities that have been introduced in Visual Studio.NET and Visual FoxPro 9.0 to use more smartly the screen real-estate available.

The Donor Manager got a nice mention the other day on Brigada Today. It resulted in a real surge in the website traffic, and a lot of new downloads, which is always nice.

Here is a picture of the website stats that shows the jump caused by Brigada. You can tell the day that the mention came out:



I was impressed! And grateful for the positive press.

I noticed that on the Yahoo Group for ICCM (International Conference on Computing in Missions) the editor of the Oscar UK site was asking for reviews on the current missionary partner tracking programs. It will be interesting to see the reviews when the come out.

Oops. I forgot to comment about the release of 5.30

After reviewing my post about the gift thanking routine, I realized that I hadn't even made a post about the release of 5.30.

This has to be the most trouble free release I've ever done, no doubt due to the great help of the beta testers.

One small bug (easily fixed) had crept in at the last minute relating to KMAi and WBT gift processing, but that was fixed in about 30 seconds.

The feedback on this release has been very positive, which is always nice.  Since I've been living with this release for the past few months, I forgot all the new stuff that had really been added!   Now the challenge is updating the documentation to give some help on all of the new goodies.

A new feature to track thank yous

I've built into version 5.31 a new feature that I really like:  the program now tracks whether or not you have said "thank you" for a gift.

I've had this in the back of my mind for some time and some emails from some users asking for something like this (and telling how they thought it might work) gave me a few new ideas to try.

This past week we've been on the road quite a bit, and since my wife Beth doesn't mind driving, she was the pilot while I did some programming.

After a few prototypes, I had the thank you module written.  It ties in very nicely to the "gift review" routine... simply adding a checkbox to each line where you indicate whether or not a gift has been thanked.

You can easily filter on the "un-thanked" gifts, and you can send an email or address an envelop right from there.  In addition, you can optionally make a "touch" entry when you send the thank you.  Pretty easy.

When reviewing a gift history on the partner detail screen, you can see which gifts are thanked, and which ones are not.  You can also mark all gifts as "thanked", either donor by donor, month by month, or for the all time.

I like it, and the few folks that I have showed it to like it as well.  I haven't announced it publicly yet, although it is available by live update.  I have another routine I've added in this release that still needs a little testing, then we'll be ready to go!

The next version is all but ready to go

I've wrapped up version 5.25, although I've decided to call if version 5.30 since it has some many new features in it. It'a already available for the beta testers to download, and will go out to the public tomorrow.

I still need to regenerate the installation package for those doing a new, initial installation.

Then, I need to revise the user's guide with information on all of the new features that have been added.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this update.

But, I've got some great ideas for the next round, too!

We're just about ready for the public release of 5.25, 'er, 5.26

I've just about decided to number the next release as 5.26 instead of 5.25. I've been using the 5.25 beta xx notation, and it just make sense to skip a number for the public release (lest someone think that 5.25 beta 10 is better than 5.25).

It also helps with the "live update" routine. So, maybe I'll adopt that pattern. Use one number for the beta series. Another number for the public release.

The new update of FoxFire looks great

For several years, I've included FoxFire with each copy of the Donor Manager.

FoxFire is an ad-hoc reporting tool that allows end users to design their own custom reports, and for many users, it's been a great thing. There is a bit of a learning curve, but the program's wizards have helped minimize that a bit.

But, I haven't really kept the data dictionary of FoxFire updated with the changes in the DM program (I just gotta do that real soon now.) Plus, I put just a few sample reports in that were not really very good, so the casual user might be justified in thinking that "there is nothing in here for me."

I took a look today at the new update to FoxFire (currently in public beta) and it looks great. I'm really impressed, and it will be a great addition to the program when it is finally released.

Here's a link to the beta page with lots of news about this new update.

The create and customization of new reports is simply beautiful and very, very easy. Yet, all of the power that FoxFire has always had will still be available.

One problem: I don't think it will run in Fox 6 (which the current Donor Manager is running in). So, it may need to wait until I release the Fox 8 or Fox 9 version of the Donor Manager some time in the Fall. Either way, folks are really going to like it! I already do.

I just got a GMail invitation

Perhaps you've been following the discussion about GMail, the new web based email service being offered by Google.

It has caused quite a stir, not because it is offering 1 - 2 gigabytes (yes, gigabytes) of online storage space, but because Google will have its computers read your message to that the ads that they present on the service will relate to the topics in your email message.

Privacy advocates are concerned, and I guess they should be. For me, all that online storage space plus the smart sorting and finding (not yet totally worked out in this beta) is a real enticement.

I think I blogged earlier about the advantage of using these new, large online email accounts for backups (eg: hotmail, yahoo, gmail). Google upped the ante with their offer of large accounts. Hotmail and Yahoo have responded well!

And all are a great deal.

We'll see how the GMail goes. I have high expectations.

Tweaking the backup routines

I did a total rewrite of the backup routine last night. You gotta do something while watching Law and Order, right?

Anyway, this new routine is much more robust, and far more flexible internally. In the past, when I made added a new data table, I had to go in and update the backup routine code manually. With this new routine, it updates itself.

There is no change in the interface experience for the user at this point, so I will eventually put a few more options in (like backup with compression, etc.).

The next version is all but complete. Just a few small things to fix, and then it will be posted for public download.

First Impressions of the Mozilla Browser

I decided to download the Mozilla browser to see what the buzz was all about.

If you were not aware, the Mozilla browser is a new / old / opensource challenge to Internet Explorer. The name "Mozilla" traces itself back to Netscape Navigator, and the Mozilla browser has a lot of very nice features in it. I particularly like the "tabs" feature, and if IE doesn't get that soon, well, shame on them.

Here's how it works. Let's say you are reading a page and you see a link you want to eventually read. Click on it while holding the control key, and that page loads in the background on a separate tab. Then, when you are ready to read it, just click on the tab and the page has already loaded in the background.

Very nice, especially for people on slow connections.

I think I recall reading that there are some tab "add-ins" for Internet Explorer. If I stay with IE, I may have to investigate those.

So far, I'm impressed. I'm not sure I'll dump IE, though. I do keep my security patches up to day, religously, with a little paranoia built thrown in for good measure.

I notice that it doesn't render some pages correctly, though. For example, the javascript code on the donormanager screen shots page do not render properly. Hey, it's a beta!

All in all, worth investigating: http://www.mozilla.org

5.25 is very close to release

I gotta quit doing this stuff.

Just when I say, "OK. No new features in this next release", I get an idea or some really great suggestion comes in from a user, and, BAM, I'm under the hood coding again.

I just need to write it down on my "things for the NEXT release" list so I can finish this one up.

There are a lot of very nice new features in 5.25 that I think folks will really like.

The new filtering routines are really great. There is some incredible coding under the hood there ... and I didn't do any of it! Thanks goes to Doug Thomson.

The Pack and Go has been really handy as well. It makes it super easy to transfer data from one computer to another via disk, email, USB flash drive, whatever.

Another favorite is the new "smart" search - add a * in front of your search string and it REALLY searches everywhere.

Plus, the new "more info" tab opens up a lot of possibilities for users to customize their version of the program. Basically, you can generate unlimited custom fields now, and that is really great.

I just added a new screen the other day to quickly show the contributions for a given month. I've already used it a zillion times and have tons of ideas of things to put on there, but I guess I should exercise some discipline and restrain myself!

Now the challenge is to write a decent "what's new" document to help introduce these new features.

Some great new options for online backup ...

For a long time, I've been paranoid about protecting my data. I'm one of those guys who really does backup pretty faithfully.

I guess it goes back to some significant and painful data losses. We learn the hard way.

Computers used to be expensive and unreliable. That's all changed. Now they are inexpensive and unreliable.

But, I love the idea of online backups.

Anyway, for some time I've been using my hotmail account as an online storage vault. I even paid the extra $$ for extra storage space. I send emails to myself with all kinds of info... a copy of my passport, my eyeglass prescription, etc. If I ever loose any of that stuff, all I need is access to a computer and I'm back in business.

I've also used the Yahoo Briefcase for lots of backups.

I noticed now that Hotmail and Yahoo are significantly increasing the free storage capacity of their services in response to the new GMail system, and this is a great deal. I think I now have a new favorite way to backup my data. Just do a "Pack and Go" in the Donor Manager, and email the file to my Hotmail account or my Yahoo account.

Boom. Backup done, and safe and secure.

So, if you don't have a Hotmail or Yahoo account, surf right over and get one. It's a great solution to a real problem.

And, did I mention that it's free?