Base 1.4 released

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: Base import example

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Base testers needed again

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.

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Base 1.3.4 released

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.

Base turns one!

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!

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Support slowdown

Unfortunately, yesterday the graphics card on my mac died (apparently it’s a recognised problem) and so I’ve been unable to do much in the way of coding or support. Thankfully, Apple have been good about this breakage and have agreed to fix it even though the machine in question is out of warranty. The downside is that while I’m trying to find a machine to work on while that mac is being repaired, email support will be quite a bit slower than normal.

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Base 1.3.3 released

Base 1.3.3 has been released today. Among it’s changes are two highly requested features: Inclusion of full-text searching (the FTS3 module) and improved handling of SQLite internal tables (those with a name starting “sqlite_”). You can now enable/disable visibility of internal tables in the app preferences.

FTS3 does come with a minor caveat. It seems that there is not a reliable way to identify tables that are part of an FTS3 index. Because of this, I have disabled the modification of virtual tables from the user interface. You (the user) will be responsible for not modifying or dropping the *_content, *_segdir and *_segments tables generated by the FTS module. I do hope to improve this in the future.

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Base and Snow Leopard

As I don’t have one of those (expensive) subscriptions to Apple’s Dev Centre, today has been the first chance to test Base on Snow Leopard (10.6). So far everything seems to work ok, but if anyone comes across any new oddities since upgrading, please let me know. You can either add a comment below or send an email.

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BatteryInfo updated

A notice for anyone using BatteryInfo on Mac OS 1.5.8 or higher. With the 10.5.8 release, Apple made a change which broke the way this widget gathers data causing it to look empty while actually fully charged: BatteryInfo v1.5/MacOS 10.5.8 bug

You can download a fixed version (v1.5.1) from the BatteryInfo page. It also includes a Japanese translation by Takeshi Sagara.

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Base and non-English characters

Just a quick note regarding Base and using non-English characters in SQL queries. Base defaults to using the font Courier in the custom SQL and log views. This font doesn’t seem to support a very wide range of international glyphs, so text like ‘Αθήνα’ 1 simply doesn’t appear in the text fields!

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