DaDaBIK 7.0 is here, a faster and powerful Web applications builder. Security alert issued for previous versions

Posted by Eugenio on 5 Oct 2015

Dear all,

I am very glad to announce the availability of DaDaBIK 7.

To promote the adoption of DaDaBIK 7 Enterprise, for just 10 days (until Oct 15th) IT WILL BE ON SALE AT €95 instead of €160.

Let's briefly explain what's new in this major release. First of all, the engine of DaDaBIK has been optimized: the display of results grids is now much faster if you have select_single or select_multiple fields in your grid, especially if granular permissions are enabled and if your database is big in terms of number of tables/fields. Example: for a DaDaBIK application having 18 tables installed, the display of the results grid is about 43% faster than before for a table having four select_single fields in the grid.

Since many times potential customers wrote me asking about the performances of DaDaBIK when dealing with huge tables, there is now an online demo which shows how DaDaBIK performs with a one-million-records table in join with other two tables (see on-line demo, Invoicing system demo, table "reviews").

All three online demo have also been updated and show the new features available in DaDaBIK 6 and 7. From the invoicing system demo, you can also see an example of custom PHP page (see "Sales report", top right corner), where DaDaBIK and Chart.js have been used together to produce a graphic data report.

Other new features include:

Cascade dropdown lists

A long awaited feature: It is now possible to populate a dropdown menu (select_single) according to what the user selected from another dropdown menu. For example you can have two menu: country and city; when the user selects the country, the system automatically populates the content of the city dropdown with the list of the cities related to the country selected.

Custom required functions

Until now, you could only set a field as "required" or "not required"; it is now possible to specify, for each field, a custom PHP function to use in order to evaluate if the field is required or not; in particular, you can specify the requiredness of a field according to the value of other fields in the form.

Permissions copy

From the admin area is now possible to copy all the permissions from one group to another in one click (DaDaBIK Enterprise only).

DaDaBIK 7 also includes many bug fixes, including an important security fix and another important fix related to a bug which can lead to data loss in case you use the "duplication check" features. You can find the whole list of changes and fixes in the changelog and you are strongly advised to read it.

As usual, if you are in your free upgrade period you can download the upgrade from here. We have also provided the security fix as a free patch (here the instruction to patch your installations).

We don't provide anymore a "Basic" version of DaDaBIK, DaDaBIK Basic was too limited and many times in the past customers who bought DaDaBIK Basic needed an upgrade to Pro / ENTERPRISE. If you purchased DaDaBIK 6.3 Basic within the last two months, reply to this email to get the instructions to download DaDaBIK 7.0 Pro with some limitations enabled.

Enjoy DaDaBIK 7!

Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK founder

DaDaBIK 6.3 is out, security alert, fixes and some new features

Posted by Eugenio on 22 Dec 2014

Dear all,
DaDaBIK 6.3 is mainly a maintenance release, which also adds a few new features.

A couple of bugs which can lead to data loss during edit/update have been discovered and fixed, as well as a bug with templates, which produced wrong data display.

The security has also been improved by:

1) adding an automatic user block after a certain number of wrong password attempts.

2) rewriting the whole file handling process, in order to avoid the possibility to access a file without being logged/authorized in DaDaBIK (using the URL of the file itself)

A couple of words about the new features: as many customers requested, permissions settings is now much faster: for each permission type (read, create, delete, ...) you can set "Yes" or "No" for all the fields of a table in one click. The owner permissions have also been improved, allowing to set the group instead of the user as a owner.

You are strongly advised to read the COMPLETE LIST of fixes and new features in change log. You can download an upgrade to DaDaBIK 6.3 through the upgrade page.

DaDaBIK 6.2 is out, security alert and fixes

Posted by Eugenio on 24 Jun 2014

Dear all,
DaDaBIK 6.2 is out and the main reason of its release is a bug related to Wordpress authentication which represents a security issue. You can find all the details, together with the list of the other bugs fixed and changes, in the change log.

If you want to upgrade to DaDaBIK 6.2 you DON'T have to write to payments at dadabik dot org anymore, there is now a specific upgrade page

DaDaBIK 6.1 is out, security and other bug fixes, some UX improvements

Posted by Eugenio on 2 Jun 2014

Dear all,
the release of DaDaBIK 6 was a success, thanks a lot for your reaction and for your valuable feedback!

In particular I would like to say thank you to user Philipp, who provided very helpful insights.

DaDaBIK provides now a professional set of features, and custom PHP pages, introduced with DaDaBIK 6, allow to adopt and customize a DaDaBIK application to an extremely vast number of use cases.

I am currently using DaDaBIK myself for a quite big and complex project, exploiting it as much as possible to build most of the application without coding and using custom PHP pages whenever I need very specific features. I am realizing every day more that it is time to focus for a while on usability and user experience, especially on the admin side.

This version fix several bugs, including a security bug about quick search listboxes showing values they shouldn't (all the details here).

DaDaBIK 6.1 also introduces some improvements on the UX side, here is a couple of them:

1. Setting permissions is now much faster (you can save the permission settings related to all the fields in a table with one click)



2. You have now a $treat_blank_as_null option which allows to:
   
   
   
   • Treat empty form fields as NULL values during insert and update
   
   
   • View NULL values as empty form fields during edit
   
   
   
   This new approach, according to the feedback we have received, should make the use of a DaDaBIK application much more friendly to non-technical users.
   

DaDaBIK 6 is here with big news

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