Posted by Eugenio on 9 Mar 2020
Hello everybody,
I am glad to announce the availability of DaDaBIK 10.1 Manarola. It is mainly a maintenance release, but it also contains some improvements.
The most important improvement is related to PDF templates: now your PDF templates can contain not just HTML code but also PHP code.
If you think this is a litte improvement, you are probably wrong. Adding PHP code to your templates opens to MANY new possibilities: just to mention an example, part of your template can now change according to some conditions (e.g. according to the user currently logged in). For a very simple example of PHP code embedded into a PDF template, check this
If you had some *.php template files, the files must be now renamed to *_settings.php (see the documentation).
Other good news:
- Nested master/details views (the items table of a master/details view is also a master/details view) are now fully supported (with unlimited levels of nesting).
- Primary keys composed by multiple columns are now partially supported: when DaDaBIK detects a table having a composite primary key, it automatically adds a unique, auto-increment, additional field to the table and uses it as "unique field". This feature at the moment is only available on MySQL and you have to enable it from config.php (add_additional_dadabik_id_field parameter)
- DaDaBIK now shows, for uploaded pictures, the picture itself in the edit form (you can disable this feature from config.php)
For the complete lists of bugs fixed and changes, see the change log. It is very important to check fixed bugs especially if you use PostgreSQL or lookup fields with default values.
You can buy your license here.
As usual, if you already have a license, get your v. 10.1 copy from the upgrade page.
But there is more.
During all these years I've experimented several methods to track and include your feedback and ideas in the development of DaDaBIK:
- the feature requests forum, available since 2002, with more than 300 features requested since then
- the "Desiderata" document, shared with some of the users for planning which features should be finally implemented in each major release
- the skype calls I make since a few years ago with the beta testers, typically one month before publishing a major release
I think that most of the new features implemented in DaDaBIK have been chosen according to the comments and ideas emerged using those tools.
During the last beta test for v. 10 Manarola, one of the beta tester suggested me to try some modern tools for feedback collection. I decided to accept the advice and I've tried a few of them and I've finally decided to adopt canny.io.
While it is not perfect, I think it is what we need to easily track our preferences and suggestions. Have a look here:
https://dadabik.canny.io/feature-requests
You can upvote existing features or propose new ones. At the moment there are about 30 features and they are the result of an accurate analysis I've done considering the forum, the old desiderata documents, the skype calls and the features I think would be useful.
If you want to upvote or propose a new feature, you have to sign up for canny (signup link, top right corner). Please note that you need a valid DaDaBIK forum account to sign up and you have to use the same email you used on the forum; all the users registered without a correspondant DaDaBIK active forum account are periodically deleted.
Let me know if you have any suggestion about this new tool and please add your contribution. My suggestion is to upvote MAX 7-8 features: if everbody upvotes every feature we won't get any insight.
Best,
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK founder
