CMD 2012.2 New Features

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CMD 2012.2 New Features

 

Fixes & New Features in CMD 2012.2a

The new feature in CMD 2012.2a is making the main CMD program wait until 10 minutes of inactivity before it disconnects from a remote connection. I will be refining this feature for future updates, but right now, if you leave CMD connected for more than 10 minutes with inactivity, it will cut off your connection and you'll need to use the Task Manager to shut down CMD. It does this to protect against long-standing open internet connections. When I have more time to address this, I will try to put in place the same features already in place in Lookup and Front Desk which allow you to set a time (up to 15 minutes) to stay connected, and then you are logged out. This is much better behavior, but both Front Desk and Lookup are pretty much single-form programs. I have to devise the proper way to allow CMD to log out under such conditions without creating problems for whatever form you are currently in. Stay tuned...

 

There were 3 bugs that were fixed in this update:

 

In some circumstances, all e-mails would be included in a list instead of just the ones for the specific field selections you requested. Many, if not most, selections did not have the problem, but one line of code was missing which caused the problem when some menus were part of the selection.

The Names List that appeared on the Attendance Entry dialog actually used First Name rather than Goes By, which was listed.

eDirectory did not work correctly when building an eDirectory file was done using a Remote CMD data file.

New Features in CMD 2012.2

Enhanced and Expanded Family Name Field functionality

A new feature for the Family Name field edit box on the Enter/Modify/Delete Names dialogs was introduced in 2011, but has received significant upgrades in CMD 2012.2:

Optimized for 25-30% faster generation of the history list built into the Family Name field, which is built each time you enter the Enter/Modify/Delete Names dialog. This is especially noticeable if you are accessing your CMD data remotely.

The functionality has been modified and improved by enabling the drop-down box on the Family Name field only when you are adding a new family to your CMD data file. If you are not in the process of entering a new family, any clicks on the drop-down icon are ignored.

This change was made because some users thought that the drop-down list was a "lookup" list. Thinking it was a lookup list, some users might have "selected" another family name from the drop-down list thinking that in doing so CMD would display the family they "selected." However, since this feature is not a lookup list, the end result was often that the family name that was "selected" would be saved in the Family Name field of the original family, thereby creating what appears to be a mix up in the Family Name field information for a family.

By allowing the list to drop down only when a new family is being added, this potential error is completely eliminated. If you need to lookup a family in CMD, click the Find Family button near the upper right corner of the dialog. For more information, read over the full help topic on this item under Family Name field.

Print Names

Three improvements/additions:

Added the Family Name field and Parish field to the list of fields you can export in the ASCII Export output form.

Added Status Markers to the half-page (5.5 x 8.5) Church Directory form. Also adjusted the column width for the section that prints the individuals names and birth dates to accommodate longer names. Finally, the header line where the family name appears has been adjusted to show both last names in those families where husband and wife have different last names.

Added support for Avery 3381-format postcards. You can either use the Avery card, or you can use plain card stock and simply use your paper cutter to cut the cards down to correct size once they have been printed.

Iterative Reports are now working again, and Parish was added to the list of fields for which iterative reports can be printed.

Front Desk, Lookup, and eDirectory

These modules, present in past versions of CMD, have been added to CMD 2012.

Fixes

A number of smaller bug issues have been fixed with version 2012.1 - 2012.1g. Many of the bugs fixed in these versions were related to the change in the data engine (the new one did a number of things differently than our prior data engine did, and some of the differences did not show up until CMD 2012.1 received wide use). Most of them were related to data querying, and these were corrected when reported during the span of the 2012.1 version.

A few more bugs have been cleared up for 2012.2. Among them:

The Get Macro function on the Print Names Selection page has been fixed.

Pictures did not backup/restore properly but do now.

Fixed the Error #401 on tbUser1 that occasionally popped up. That was due to an incorrect Index name for the field, which has been corrected.

Fixed a couple of minor login issues that related to forcing a login if you restore a data file with a different set of user names and passwords.

Fixed a minor bug that didn't properly register a user as having logged out in some rare circumstances.

Various Contributions functions had some minor issues relating to the differences between our old and new data engine that were cleared up.