Readerware Mobile Export was not encoding the file correctly which caused the import to fail on newer versions of iOS.
The Bulk Editor image delete was not working.
Completely rewrote Readerware Mobile Sync to comply with new app store policies. As a result Readerware Mobile 4.31 will only sync with Readerware 4.31. It is no longer possible to sync Readerware Mobile with Readerware 3.
Readerware Mobile now works with Android 11 and better. There were problems running Readerware Mobile on Android 11 because of Google changes to the Android file system and security.
Readerware Mobile now supports new device densities and image sizes.
Readerware Mobile would not scan 979 ISBNs.
The Readerware Search button could be disabled in some cases. This has been fixed.
Added a Readerware Value search.
When clicking on the Browser toolbar button in the main window or want list, Readerware will display the selected item at your default website or the site the item was cataloged from. This is based on a preference setting. This could sometimes crash.
Readerware now formats 979 ISBNs.
Readerware 4 (Music) was not extracting Work information from Discogs.
The Readerware help window would sometimes fail to open.
You can now print lists from the List Editor.
There could be an exception when updating an item using the tree view. We were able to avoid the exception.
There could be an issue with the menu shortcut keys when using the notarized Mac builds. We changed the way the shortcut keys were set.
Fixed a problem with Discogs drag & drop support.
Expanded the size of the list columns drop down list on the detail view, Edit tab.
Improved auto-catalog logging. Added back the View Log button to the final page of the wizard. If there were site overloaded problems during the auto-catalog session, we now identify the site.
We now document the site overloaded error on the auto-catalog and drag & drop help pages. The error is explained and suggestions are provided.
Drag & drop from a file now has better site recognition. There was an issue if a user was signed on to Amazon.
Font preferences now let you change the menu font.
Added file encoding support to the Bookzangle export.
Fixed a problem setting read only access to a local database. On restart Readerware gave all users full access. We now set the correct mode.
Readerware would use the wrong file encoding when a specific encoding was selected in the export wizard.
When trying to restore an invalid zip file, i.e. one that would not unzip, Readerware displayed an empty error message. It now displays an appropriate error.
There was an exception trying to change the search list if one or more of the standard columns were renamed and included a semicolon in the new name. Exception fixed, but you should still not use a semicolon in a column name.
In Readerware 4.26 we fixed a problem on Linux systems when dragging a local image file to an image placeholder and the path contained a space. The fix worked on Linux but broke things on other operating systems. You couldn't drag a local image file or select a local image file, if the path contained a space. This is now fixed on all systems.
We had no idea so many people were using this functionality and apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Added a new way to catalog items. You can now save a page to an HTML file using your browser. Then drag & drop the file onto Readerware and the item will be cataloged. Designed to be used when Readerware is unable to connect to a site because of a site overloaded event.
Fixed a problem cataloging from Discogs, Readerware was not extracting the UPC on a drag & drop operation.
You can now search your database by a release date or copyright date. Using the Advanced Search window you can do a range search on either date. By default these new searches are disabled. Select the Preferences menu item, then Search List to enable these searches.
Fixed a problem when adding an image using drag & drop. When dragging an image to an image placeholder, the drop would fail if the file path contained a space.
Fixed a problem searching for dates when the date format was changed to year only or month and year. When doing the search you were still required to enter a full date. Now you can enter the date based on the format, i.e. just enter a year when the format is year only.
The detail view template could only access the first 2 images, you can now access all 4 thumbnail images and all 4 large images.
Updated the drag & drop help page, it was out of date and did not include accurate browser images.
Changed the way the Readerware Server is setup on macOS Catalina and Big Sur. The server is now run under the logged in user.
Fixed a problem cataloging from Discogs, when cataloging an album with multiple artists we only got the first artist.
When copy/pasting items we were not resetting the date added database column.
You can now import images with a CSV or TAB delimited file. We added 8 new columns where you can specify the full path of an image file. Readerware will read the file and add the image to the database. Images will be scaled if necessary.
The Readerware Linux distribution was missing icons.
We added auto-catalog and drag & drop support for the Internet Archive which now has a collection of over two million books.
When displaying an album in the browser we require a UPC. When accessing Discogs if the item does not have a UPC we now use the Discogs ID. This means that you can easily display older items at Discogs that predate the UPC or barcode.
The Amazon US site abruptly removed our access to the Amazon API, this means that we can no longer use the Amazon API to catalog from the Amazon website.
We resolved an issue with Windows Defender on Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser. They could block Readerware downloads despite the fact that all our downloads are signed.
Reworked Discogs drag & drop to process the returned JSON data stream. Discogs drag & drop and auto-catalog should now give identical results.
Reworked Discogs auto-catalog to process the returned JSON data stream. This should lead to more data extracted and more consistent data.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. Sometimes Amazon can return multiple EANs for one item. We were only looking at the first EAN.
A full text search for the wildcard character was not working. Fixed.
Full text search results were inconsistent. When we search by composer we search at both the album and the track level. On the full text search we only searched at the album level. So a full text search could miss some albums. Fixed.
The MySQL series 8 drivers are very buggy and don't work well with Readerware. We recommend you use the series 5 drivers. When we detect a series 8 driver, we now display an error.
Sorting accented characters was not working correctly. Fixed.
Readerware was not correctly remembering the Window state which could cause problems when the application was restarted. Fixed.
The Readerware server would not run on macOS Catalina or Big Sur. Fixed. In earlier versions of Readerware we told you to store the "com.readerware.rwserver.plist" file in your "/Library/LaunchDaemons" folder. This was the wrong location, please delete the file from LaunchDaemons and copy the new version included in this distribution to your "/Library/LaunchAgents" folder.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. By default it only returns available items. So if a book, album or video was currently unavailable, it was not found.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. There was a problem cataloging some Kindle editions.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. Amazon no longer returns the DVD/Blu-ray region code. Readerware was picking up erroneous data. We no longer return the region code.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. If a book did not have an author there was an exception that resulted in other columns like the ASIN not being extracted.
Fixed an issue with the new Amazon API. Sometimes Amazon can return multiple EANs for one item. We were only looking at the first EAN.
When you enter a media URL for a book, album or video, we make the title on the detail view Summary tab a link. The user can then click on the link to display the contents of that URL. That was not working for local links only for web pages. Fixed.
Fixed a problem entering birth or death dates for a new Contributor, i.e. a Contributor who was not already in the database.
There have been a lot of problems trying to access a Microsoft Access database in Readerware 4. We have had to reluctantly drop support for Access databases due to driver problems.
There was a problem editing loans in the Readerware Loan Client, it could return a no loan found error. Fixed.
In Readerware 4 (Music), we added drag & drop support for MusicBrainz. This replaces freedb support which has discontinued operations.
Fixed a problem refining a search by clicking on an Orchestra link in the table view. Readerware always returned a No albums found error.
Readerware could go into a loop auto-cataloging from Discogs. This was due to a bad Unicode escape sequence on the web page, so it was rare. Fixed.
Fixed a problem with UIEE exports. If a book had an Edition value it was always output as a first edition. We now export the value selected.
Fixed a problem dragging a local image file to one of the Image tab placeholders on Linux.
Sometimes Readerware could not open the database on macOS Catalina. We consider this a bug in the new Apple notarization process. macOS Catalina is supposed to remember that a user has granted a program access to the Documents folder, it sometime forgot. This was very difficult to debug as it only happened sporadically and only when the program had been submitted to Apple for notarization and downloaded from a website. It would never happen when we built Readerware locally. We made some changes to Readerware to workaround this issue and we can always access a database after a new install and the error has not returned for several weeks. This could also be due to changes Apple made to their notarization process and in Catalina updates. We recommend that you upgrade to macOS Catalina 10.15.4 or better before installing the Catalina build of Readerware 4.22.
Amazon have announced a new version of their API and will be turning off the old version on March 9th. Readerware now uses the new Amazon API. This is a required upgrade.
When Apple released macOS Catalina (10.15), they temporarily relaxed the notarization requirements to enable a smoother transition to Catalina for both developers and users. Apple now requires full notarization. To get to a point where Readerware could be fully notarized involved switching from Java 8 to Java 11. This was a major change and we did not release this version until Apple required it. We are rolling this out slowly because of the major changes involved. The current Java 8 stable version is still available on all platforms, including the Mac. We now have a special download page where Catalina users can download the new notarized Java 11 builds. Eventually we will use the new Java 11 builds on all platforms.
Amazon has started returning multiple items on an ISBN/UPC search and Readerware was not always getting the correct item. We now loop through all items returned looking for a match on the ISBN/UPC to ensure we get the correct item.
Added hotkey functions to search by ID, (Book ID etc.).
Fixed an issue using the Amazon API. When displaying an item using the Browser button, if the item was not found, nothing happened. We now display an error message.
Added a new option to use the database Source column when displaying an item using the Browser button. This is on by default but can be turned off in preferences. This means that the item will be displayed at the site it was cataloged from. Improves international support, french items will be displayed at a french site for example.
When the server connection was lost and you had unsaved changes in the detail view, you could get stuck in an unsaved changes loop. This has been fixed.
Fixed a startup exception in the Readerware Loan Client. This only happened on a new install.
Readerware 4.17 is a rebuild of 4.16. We had switched to an updated Java runtime which caused all macOS installs to fail and caused display problems on a few Windows machines. We have switched back to the runtime used in Readerware 4.14.
We apologize for the inconvenience. We have added additional steps to our release procedure to ensure we won't have such a problematic release again.
You can now select a view for each database. When you open the database it will be displayed in the selected view. Select the Preferences menu item, then Database, then Settings.
In some instances Readerware was picking up empty images which could not easily be deleted This has been fixed.
A new loan count search has been added to Readerware and the Readerware loan client.
You can now export the loan count and the last loan date columns by selecting them from the export wizard column list. The mapping has also been corrected in the exported file to include the correct column name.
There was a problem pasting the string representation of a chapter, track or episode into Readerware. This has been fixed.
On a computer with multiple monitors, the help window always opened on the main screen. It is now screen aware and opens on the same screen as the Readerware window.
RWServer Config was not checking for unsaved changes at exit. Unsaved changes were lost.
Readerware Client/Server Edition can now recover from server disconnects. This support is considered experimental so is off by default. To enable it select the Preferences menu item, then Database, then Access. Check the option to Automatically reconnect to server when connection is dropped.
The ISBN/UPC is now a required column when syncing to Readerware Mobile. It is used when searching your mobile database by scanning a barcode.
Fixed an issue with a user defined Yes/No column. The advanced search was returning no matches.
When cataloging from Amazon, Readerware was sometimes returning the wrong format, i.e. Kindle instead of Hardcover.
Readerware Mac downloads have been notarized by Apple. This means that they are compatible with macOS Catalina, 10.15.
Due to a change in the underlying runtime system, Readerware lost the ability to display images with a CMYK color space. Most users were not affected as this type of image is rare on the web. The symptom of this problem was some images not displaying. It might appear that the image was lost, but the data is still there in the database, it was a display only issue. This problem has now been fixed and all your images will display again.
When sorting by call number, Readerware now handles invalid call numbers better. If some call numbers were invalid, there could be an exception while sorting. The sort will now complete even if the call number is bad, but the sequence might not be as expected.
Readerware Mobile now supports multiple condition searches and negative searches.
Readerware Mobile now supports Format, Location and Status searches.
Want list searches in Readerware Mobile now include Want items and Ordered items, just like the full version
You can now recall and rerun searches in Readerware Mobile.
Some navigation controls were missing in Readerware Mobile. They are now available making navigation within the app easier.
You can now sync the ASIN and the purchase fields to Readerware Mobile.
The bulk editor Title editor now includes an option to reverse titles beginning with An.
Added Loans search to the Readerware Loan Client.
The File->Properties menu item could crash if not all databases were set in the Readerware Loan Client.
If the Readerware Loan Client mode was set to return, the outstanding loans were not displayed when a borrower was selected.
Worked on the loan client item section help page. It was still book focused. The Readerware 4 loan client can handle all media types.
You can now select the rows you want to process with the report writer. You can choose to print the current search results or the selected items.
You can now choose the rows you want to export. You can choose to export the entire database, the current search results or the selected items.
Fixed a problem with the Database Chooser dialog. If the database is in use, the Connect to a Readerware Server option was missing from the Database Chooser.
Fixed an issue that could display a drag & drop error when the Amazon API was not available. Readerware will now automatically fall back to standard extraction if the Amazon API is not available.
Amazon can now return multiple items on an ISBN search. Readerware will now do a better job of selecting the intended item but may still get it wrong at times.
Added new tips at startup and improved on existing tips.
The report writer template list was not sorted correctly on the Linux and Mac platforms.
Added new report writer tags that let you include an item count and the total value of items printed. [[$ITEM_COUNT]] and [[$ITEM_VALUE_TOTAL]]. These tags must appear outside of the BEGIN/END tags. They can appear multiple times at the top or bottom of the report.
Added new report writer templates to all products that includes these new tags. BasicTableWithTotals.html.
Fixed an issue with syncing user defined columns to Readerware Mobile. Bad data could be transferred that would cause Readerware Mobile to crash displaying items in the detail view. If you have been including user defined columns in Readerware Mobile it is recommended that you delete the database from your mobile device and sync again.
Fixed an issue handling unsaved changes in the detail view. If you clicked on the Back or Forward buttons with unsaved changes, Readerware did not advance to the next item.
Fixed an issue exporting image URLs to TAB delimited and CSV files. Readerware was not handling the large images correctly.
Added a new option for displaying images in the detail view. You can now select the last image.
Fixed an issue adding a series number with a decimal. On systems where the decimal separator is a comma, you could not enter a series number with a decimal, i.e. 3,5
Dewey Decimal Numbers were not sorting correctly if you selected the Alpha Numeric sort option in preferences. This option is now ignored when sorting Dewey Decimal Numbers.
Fixed an issue in the video version auto-catalog. When cataloging from Amazon Readerware could return the Prime Video version because Amazon seems to be pushing Prime Video now. Changed the way we search at Amazon to always return the correct item.
Fixed a restore problem, images could be scaled unnecessarily.
Improved multi monitor support.
Added Dewey Decimal Number and Call Number columns to the loan client table view.
Loan client item table view was not always sorting items correctly.
Fixed some positioning issues printing to Dymo labels.
Fixed a problem printing Borrower ID barcodes to A4 stock. Readerware could loop while printing.
Added new Update & Next and Update & Previous buttons to the detail view. You can now update and move to the next/previous item in one click.
The Drag & Drop Update function was not updating actors.
If Readerware is unable to connect to the Readerware server, the error dialog now includes more information and a Retry button.
When you enter registration information, your registration is now saved immediately. It used to be saved at exit and if Readerware was not closed cleanly, the registration could be lost.
Fixed a problem in the Readerware Loan Client. If the default item search was set to Product Key, the search for field was not displayed and the item search could hang.
Fixed a problem cataloging when Readerware did not have the latest site list. This could happen the first time a user tried to catalog in Readerware 4 after upgrading from Readerware 3.
The Want List Browser button was not always selecting the correct site.
The Help toolbar button was not right aligned on Linux.
You can now drag & drop to the want list window. The item will be added to the database and the status set to Want.
You can now select a site to be used when displaying an item in your browser. Readerware used to use the first auto-catalog site. You can now select your preferred site separately from auto-catalog sites. The new option is on the Site preferences page.
Since Readerware 4.03, the Windows installer has been saving the install location in the Windows registry. Beginning with this release the Windows upgrade installer now uses this location for the upgrade. So if you have Readerware 4.03 or later installed, the upgrade installer will now copy the upgrade to your preferred location. If you are running an earlier version of Readerware 4, use the full install from the website. You will be able to use the upgrade installer beginning with the next release.
If you select the option to add a dummy item to the database when auto-catalog returns not found, any auto-catalog defaults you specify will now be included in the dummy item. For example the copies count can be set to 1.
Fixed a problem with the tree view. When displaying an item in your browser by selecting the item in the tree view, Readerware may have displayed the wrong item.
Fixed a problem with the tree view. Using drag & drop to update an item or fetch a new image could update the wrong item.
Fixed a problem searching a user defined Y/N column. Readerware was not searching for all possible values so some items might have been missed.
Fixed a problem with the make portable function. The database was not reopened correctly which could cause exceptions when accessing the database.
New Readerware book auto-catalog and drag & drop sites added, Google Books and Book Depository.
Fixed an auto-catalog problem that could cause auto-catalog to finish before all items were processed.
Added support for accessing Amazon websites using their API. This is available at the Amazon US and UK websites. More to follow.
Amazon API access is now the default but can be changed using auto-catalog preferences.
Added a new toolbar button to display the selected item at your default website. This can now appear on the main toolbar and the want list toolbar.
Fixed a restore issue. When setting the new database name from the backup file name, it was not handling an automatic backup file which has a date and a timestamp.
Fixed a restore issue. After a restore we were not loading database preferences which could cause column names and user column definitions to be lost.
Refreshed summary page templates and added some new templates.
Added new unlimited automatic backup option.
Added an option to reset database changed flag after manual backup.
Copy/Paste items between databases was not working on Linux.
The Make Portable function was not working on Linux.
Fixed a problem with the thumbnail view popups.
Readerware was not always displaying the site overloaded error and was displaying not found instead.
The preferences settings to turn off ISBN validation was not working in some cases, you would still get an error.
When editing track artists the entry could sometimes be duplicated. This could occur when the Contributor setting was set to Use sort name only.
Made website compression an external option
New automatic backup, Readerware can now automatically backup your database and maintain the desired number of backup files.
Added new update check to the Readerware help menu.
Readerware now accepts compressed data from websites.
The Make Portable function was not working in Readerware 4. It was still trying to copy Readerware 3 files. It now creates a Readerware 4 portable installation.
The report writer was missing keywords for Borrower e-mail and Borrower Phone. These have been added.
Readerware was not finding the default media player on Linux.
The Windows installer now saves the install location in the Windows registry. This will be used with the new 1 click upgrade installer.
The Windows installer was always adding start menu shortcuts for all programs even if you only installed some of the programs.
Due to changes in the way Amazon delivers their pages, Readerware was having problems accessing the site.
In Readerware Music the contributor use counts were unreliable in the list editor.
In the Readerware Loan Client, the stock list for printing borrower barcodes was incorrect. If an unsupported stock was selected, Readerware could go into a printing loop.
On Linux the loan client shortcuts were incorrect.
Windows users can use the new one click upgrade installer with this upgrade. You can select the Download Now button when notified of new upgrades. To upgrade now select the Preferences menu item, then Update and click on the Check Now button.
Fixed an exception converting an SQL Server database to Readerware 4 format.
Type ahead in the contributor lists was not working correctly for accented characters. This was a side effect of a change made in Readerware 4.00. When using type ahead it will now match accented characters, i.e. typing in "Sine" might match "Sinéad O'Connor". In case this feature causes other problems there is now a contributor preference to turn it off.
A search for multiple authors, i.e. Author is author 1 or author 2 was looping.
Storing a Readerware database on a cloud drive can corrupt the database if the cloud service tries to sync different versions of the database. Readerware now checks when you create or open a database to see if it is on any of the well known cloud services. A warning is issued if the database is stored on a cloud drive.
Help was not working in RWServer Config.
There could be problems if you were running different Readerware programs at the same time both converting a Readerware 3 database to Readerware 4 format. i.e. books and music. This has now been fixed.
The Language search was returning incorrect results.
Changing some preferences would not stick when running Readerware in client/server mode. They would be reset when Readerware was restarted.
The Readerware Windows installer is now more anti-virus friendly. You should not see file in use errors as Readerware is installed.
We added a new easy upgrade path for Windows users which will kick in when the next update is available.
New advanced search capabilities. Search on multiple fields and conditions. You can perform negative searches, search for date ranges, empty fields etc. You can save searches and run them at any time.
You can copy/paste complete items in the same database and between databases. You can now merge multiple databases using copy/paste.
Standard columns can now be renamed. Each database can have customized column names.
You can now include up to eight images for each item. Four thumbnail and four large images.
Auto-Catalog can now be hidden. It will continue in the background letting you use other programs while auto-catalog is running.
A Readerware database can now include a description to help you keep track of multiple databases.
Improved support for accented characters when searching.
Network information detection is improved.
Readerware 4 (Books) now handles a series number with a decimal place, i.e. 3.1
Readerware 4 (Music) now includes support for multiple artists.
Readerware 4 (Music) can auto-catalog from Discogs.
The Readerware Loan Client now handles all media types. The loan client automatically connects to all databases provided by the server and lets you checkout any item from the one program.
Numerous other enhancements and updates