Posted by Eugenio on 25 Mar 2014
Dear all,
it has been a long wait but DaDaBIK 6 is finally here.
It is an important major release so let me say a couple of words about the history of this software and about the direction I want to take.
I conceived the very first DaDaBIK prototype long time ago, it was 1999 or 2000 I can't even remember exactly. The name of the tool was not DaDaBIK but the idea behind was the same; believe it or not, it was written in ASP :)
At that time I remember I had to write more or less the same DB front-end twice, I was frustrated about that so I realized I needed a tool to automate the whole development process. The first attempt was probably a very buggy priece of software :)
A few months later I met the PHP community and I decided to rewrite everything from scratch - this time in PHP - and that's how the real DaDaBIK was born.
Of course I couldn't imagine that it would have become popular and eventually become a real product that after 14 year and tons of improvements is still here.
I often referred to DaDABIK as a DB front-end generator but this definition is now too limiting, especially considering the new DaDaBIK 6. DaDaBIK is now a real Rapid Application Development tool for web app development.
DaDaBIK 6 comes with several new features: some of you will be happy to hear that I have finally kept my promise with the community and I have reintroduced the select multiple field type (both multiple listbox and checkboxes), others will be glad that DaDABIK has now an improved engine that can easily handle millions of records and can be even 70% faster or that, finally, it provides a real modern date picker. But DaDaBIK 6 (Enterprise) also comens with another crucial feature, currently provided as experimental: YOU CAN NOW CREATE CUSTOM PAGES and attach to them COMPLETELY CUSTOM PHP code.
Applications created with DaDaBIK are now limitless: you can use the ready-to-go DaDaBIK features to create some sections of your application without any coding and then for the more specific and complicated features you can use your own custom code.
The good news is that you can still build a simple web app/front-end for your DB in a few minutes, even if you are not a programmer :)
As usual you can find the complete list of the new features here, together with the list of the general and security bugs fixed.
In order to promote the adoption of DaDaBIK 6 Enterprise, for just 10 days (until April 4th) IT WILL BE ON SALE AT €95 instead of €160.
As usual, even if it is a major release, if you are in your free upgrade timeframe you can get your DaDaBIK 6 copy (Basic, Pro or Enterprise) for free writing to payments at dadabik org and attaching your invoice.
Some customers also asked about a maintenance license and it has been introduced for DaDaBIK Enterprise: if you purchased DaDaBIK Enterprise more than one year ago (so you are out of your free upgrade timeframe), you can still get the new DaDaBIK 6 paying a €65 maintenance fee, which will give you an additional year of free upgrades. Of course there's no obligation to keep paying the yearly fee during the following years.
That's all, I hope you will enjoy DaDaBIK 6; your feedback, as usual, is very welcome!
OT: let me also spend a couple of OT words about another project I am involved in: if you love music or even if you are just curios have a look at Mentor.FM. It's a project I have been working since a few years and it's now officially available in 200+ countries in partnership with Deezer. It's a personalized music radio/curator and I will love to have your feedback on it as well :)
Enjoy!
Eugenio
DaDaBIK®