The Individual
Whoever you are, lone PowerPC user, I salute you.
Update 2011-03-30: And a few days later, the Mysterious Individual has gone. Update stats say that Base now has an Intel-only userbase.
Whoever you are, lone PowerPC user, I salute you.
Update 2011-03-30: And a few days later, the Mysterious Individual has gone. Update stats say that Base now has an Intel-only userbase.
Base 2.0.1 is now available to download, for both web and App Store users. It addresses several bugs related to the display of schemas and some other minor issues. You can read the full list of fixes and improvements from the changelog.
Base 2.0.1 can be downloaded from the product page.
As always, if you’ve found a bug or have a question, please do get in touch.
I’m delighted to announce that Base 2.0 is now available.
Version 2 of Base is the first major upgrade since the original application was released in November 2008. Almost every part of the app has been tweaked and improved, with several areas getting almost completely re–written. The result is an application which is just as quick and easy to use as the original, with a lot more power.
Major highlight of this version include:
Remember, those are just highlights. There are more new things, a lot of improvements to existing features and some longstanding bugs have been fixed.
An overview of the application with screenshots is available on the product page and you can read the entire release notes over here.
Base 2 is priced at £19.99 for new users, £9.99 for existing users, and free for those who bought Base on or after 6th January 2011. You can buy it through this website or through the Mac App Store.
Now that some of the fuss around the launch of the Mac App Store (MAS) has died down, I thought it would be a good time to explain what my plans are for the future of Base.
Features and pricing:
The current version of Base is being submitted to the MAS. It will have the same features and the same price (actually one penny different – £9.99 / US$16.99 / €13.63). I hope it will be available when the Store opens, but we don’t yet know when that is.
Trial/demo versions:
The MAS probably won’t allow for trial versions, so if you want to try out Base, you’ll need to download it from this website.
Also, the MAS version of Base will drop support for Leopard systems. This won’t be a problem as the Store won’t be available for Leopard anyway. Base will run fine on Leopard if bought directly from this website.
Minor updates:
For any future 1.x updates to Base, I will make certain that both the current and the App Store versions keep feature and price parity. This far it should not matter to you which source you buy from.
The future of Base
I am still working of v2.0 of Base. It’s happening slowly but surely. I’d rather not give too much information now, as I don’t want to promise something that can’t be delivered. Particularly when it comes to release dates.
Something that I can announce is that Base 2.0 will only support Snow Leopard (and hence only Intel) systems. There are very few people using Base on 32-bit systems, so Base may go 64-bit only.
Pricing, upgrade pricing and whether or not it’ll go on the MAS all depend on how things turn out over the coming months. We’ll just have to wait and see.
The most common support request for Statistics for WordPress is from people struggling to find the details for their site.
To this end, I have written a very small WordPress plugin which displays the API key and URL used by the WordPress.com stats plugin.
Download and install the stats helper plugin (link below) and you will find a new item in the ‘Tools’ menu:
Click this and your details will be displayed. These should be entered into the iPhone app exactly as you see them on-screen. Now the app is ready to go!
Base 1.4 is now available for download.
The major changes in this release are CSV importing and overhauled SQL importing.
The CSV importer can either create a new table from your data or you can import directly into an existing table. For an example of CSV importing, see the following screenshot:
There’s also a whole load of minor changes to Base. Highlights include:
Base also now collects anonymous system data when checking for updates. If you’d rather not participate in this, you can opt-out in the app preferences.
You can download Base 1.4 from it’s product page or view a full list of changes.
Yep, it’s that time again. I could do with a handful of people to try out the latest version of Base. The main changes in this version are large updates to SQL and CSV importing, so I’m looking for people who can put these areas though their paces.
Anyone who wants to try it should mail me (info@menial.co.uk) and I’ll be in touch with directions for downloading the app.
Base 1.3.4 has been released today. It only has one change over 1.3.3 which fixes a bug causing the app to crash on quit (very annoying!).
As usual you can download the update from it’s product page or by checking for updates within the app.
A year ago today, Base was introduced to the world as a shiny new 1.0.
Well, perhaps not that shiny.
A bit of a rookie error meant that anyone buying the app couldn’t actually use the license file they’d just bought until 1.0.1 a few hours later. Version 1.0.2 followed the next day after someone found noticed another bug. Both of these were things that should have been found during testing, and served to show how thoroughly you should test an app before releasing it. That mad scramble had a chastening effect and all releases since have been much more comprehensively tested!
Since then there have been 3 feature releases, each introducing quite large changes – from syntax highlighting to a custom table editor – and the user base has continued to grow at a steady pace each month. The emails of suggestions, encouragement and complaint sent by both existing and potential users have helped shape the apps development and show it’s future direction.
There is still a lot of work to be done on Base, and a long list of features to add. The trick will be adding them without adding clutter. I use Base in my other development projects and want it to be an app that you can use without thinking too much. Something that you can dive in and out of without distracting you from the greater task at hand.
So, after this minor reminiscence I’d like to say thank you to all the users of Base. It’s been fun making it, and you enable me to keep at it. Please continue to get in touch with your comments, requests and complaints. They all help to make Base a better app.
I’m very pleased to annouce the release of Statistics for WordPress, our latest app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Statistics for WordPress lets you track visitor numbers across your WordPress-powered sites using a clean and easy to use interface with multi-touch graphs.
For more information (including requirements and screenshots) you can check out it’s product page or see it on the iTunes Store.
stats-helper.zip