I integrated ChatGPT in DaDaBIK and the results are amazing (create SQL reports using natural language)

Posted by Eugenio on 13 Jan 2023

Dear users,
I have spent most of the last few days experimenting with the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and I am really impressed.

Honestly, it's the first time in many years that I am so impressed with a new IT product, improvement or technology.

I decided to try to integrate ChatGPT into DaDaBIK using the OpenAI API and after just a few hours of work, I have got remarkable results.

I want to share my progress with you, so I posted a video on YouTube where you can see what DaDaBIK, powered by the OpenAI API, can do: your end users can create reports and extract knowledge from your database using natural language instead of SQL.

You can find the complete video on YouTube, here is a preview:



I know this technology is not mature yet and I also see the dangers of it but again, from my first tests, its accuracy is outstanding; I am really excited about it and I am trying to imagine how the future will be. Please comment the video if you have any idea / suggestion (or tests you would like me to do).

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

Can I move from a Lifetime to a Monthly subscription (and vice versa)? Yes you can, first month is FREE.

Posted by Eugenio on 5 Jan 2023

Dear users,
this short message is to clarify something related to the new subscription model.

You can upgrade to the latest Enterprise edition for $15/month (first month is FREE, cancel anytime) regardless of what license you currently have.

You may have an old Free, Pro or Enterprise edition that you have used to create one or more applications. In all these cases you can upgrade these applications to the latest Enterprise edition starting a monthly subscription.

The classic lifetime licenses are still available (and they are the only ones available if you need DaDaBIK Platinum) and you can also switch from a monthly subscription to a lifetime license, the one you think best suits your needs.

If you have any questions, contact us.

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

Operational Hooks, bug fixed. Installation problems on ionCube 12, solved.

Posted by Eugenio on 23 Dec 2022

Dear users,
a few things to discuss today.

Before INSERT and UPDATE hooks, bug fixed

As explained in this forum post I have recently found a bug related to before insert and before update operational hooks. I have fixed the bug and silently updated the current V 11.8.

If this bug impacts on your applications, you can download again V 11.8 and just replace the file /front_logic.php with the new one (you don't need to go through the upgrade process).

To get the new file, you can just click again on your download link and you will download the updated version.
Since the MD5 hash of the files have changed, if you want to check it, here are the new ones.

dadabik_11.8-Elba_enterprise.zip = f163b63fa6a2a5dca44ced8ffc518229
dadabik_11.8-Elba_enterprise_monthly.zip = 4ab3612246f52fb429855f2844c4183f
dadabik_11.8-Elba_platinum.zip = 72b67d48f6f8476631d65c79bd813117
dadabik_11.8-Elba_pro.zip = db9d4f26cc6bc854b67aac51bdb09fd4

Installation problems (typically on Windows + ioncube 12.x)

Some customers had issues installing DaDaBIK on Windows + PHP 8.1 + ionCube 12 (install.php and/or install2.php crashed). The latest ionCube loaders and some changes in this V 11.8 should fix all those issues. In this case, multiple files have been changed.

Last video of the year: how to backup and upgrade DaDaBIK

Finally, on Thursday I will publish on our YouTube channel the last video of the year: how to (properly) backup and upgrade DaDaBIK. I will show you, step-by-step, how to do it after having installed DaDaBIK on a common shared hosting service.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and best wishes for a fantastic 2023!

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

New monthly payment model + V. 11.8 is out: change layout from the Admin GUI, login/registration hooks & more

Posted by Eugenio on 5 Dec 2022

Dear users,

I am glad to announce a new DaDaBIK release and a completely new subscription-based license.

THE NEW 11.8 ELBA

We have a lot of new features, probably more than a typical minor release. I show you the most significant in this video. Starting from this V 11.8, in fact, we have a new series, "DaDa Release": I will publish a short, informal video to show you the main new features for each minor release.

I'll summarize also here some of them:

• new layout tab: you can change from the admin panel the layout-related parameters (e.g. logo) and add your custom CSS without editing any file


• login and registration form are now more customizable: you can add up to 3 checkboxes (e.g. "accept privacy terms"), you have a login form layout hook and (operational) after login and after user self registration hooks (e.g. if you need to do something in your system when a new user registers)


• custom menu item names: you can now set the name of each item in the menu according to the group the currently logged user belongs to

As usual, you can see the complete list of changes and fixes in the change log. In fact, also some very important fixes have been released.

THE NEW SUBSCRIPTION-BASED LICENSED

There is other big news: for the first time I have introduced a monthly, subscription-based license for DaDaBIK.

The classic "pay once, use forever" license is still available, but now you have an additional option: only for DaDaBIK Enterprise (no Pro, no Platinum) you can pay a monthly subscription to use DaDaBIK.

You can cancel your subscription anytime, DaDaBIK will still work for a few days to allow you to fix possible payment issues and then it will stop working. If your subscription is active, not only you can use DaDaBIK but you can download for free any new version (minor or major) released.

For the first month, the price is $9 only. Starting from the second month, $15 /month.

You can see all the options in the pricing page.

As usual, for both standard and subscription-based licenses, you can buy your new license here.

You can upgrade your existing DaDaBIK (for free, if you are in your free upgrade period) here.

Have fun!

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder

PHP 8.1 is now supported + Users can join multiple groups + Custom Code API - V. 11.7 is out

Posted by Eugenio on 18 Aug 2022

Dear users,

it took more than expected but DaDaBIK finally supports PHP 8.

The ionCube loaders for PHP 8.1 are now available so you can run this new DaDaBIK 11.7 Elba on PHP 8.1, the latest stable version of PHP.

PHP 8.0 at the moment is not supported, maybe it will be in the future. PHP 7 is still supported.

There is more:

1) Users can now join multiple groups

This new version comes with a huge improvement, sponsored by one of our customer, related to permissions management: a user can now join multiple groups.

This means each user belongs to a (main) group plus one or more (optional, additional) groups.

How do permissions work now?

The permissions for a user will be computed considering all the groups the user belongs to (main group + additional groups), using a most permissive strategy. You can check the resulting permissions for each user in the new Permissions -> Show user Permissions page. All the details in the documentation, chapter "Permissions based on multiple groups"

By default this feature is enabled, you can disable it by setting $enable_multiple_groups_permissions to 0.

2) Custom Code API
A set of API functions will be released to make your custom code leaner, more readable and secure. In V 11.7, the first function, get_record_details(), has been released. In one code line you can get the field values of a record belonging to any of the tables you have in your database, without directly executing SQL queries. For example here I am getting all the info (name, address, ... ) of the customer having id 10:

$customer_info = get_record_details('customers', 'id', 10);

Finally a small but time-saving improvement: If the database $db_name you specify in your config_custom file doesn't exist, DaDaBIK tries to create it. This allows to create an application with DaDaBIK without using any external tool, not even for the creation of an empty database (experimental feature currently available for MySQL only).


There are also other changes and several bugs fixed so as usual I suggest to have a look at the change log.

You can buy your new license here.

You can upgrade your existing license (for free, if you are in your free upgrade period) here.

Best,

--
Eugenio Tacchini
DaDaBIK Founder