Readerware Newsletter - October 2018
Welcome to the Readerware® Newsletter
Readerware 4 released
Readerware 4 Released!
Readerware is proud to announce the official release of Readerware 4. In this newsletter a recap of the new features in Readerware 4 and Readerware Mobile.
Thank you to all the Readerware 4 beta testers for your feedback and problem reports.
Readerware 4 is a major upgrade to Readerware, you should read the upgrade section of this newsletter before installing Readerware 4.
A full list of the changes included in Readerware 4 is included in the what's new section of this newsletter.
Help with installing and upgrading to Readerware 4 is included in the installation section of this newsletter.
If you ordered the Readerware 4 upgrade on CD during the beta period, your CD will ship this week.
Installing Readerware 4
If you are upgrading from a Readerware 4 beta release you just need to install the official release. There are no additional steps you need to take.
If you are upgrading from Readerware 3 to Readerware 4, you do need to convert your existing Readerware 3 databases.
Your existing databases need to be converted to the new Readerware 4 format. This will happen automatically when you start the program or open a Readerware 3 database. Readerware will recognize that the database is in Readerware 3 format and offer to convert it. The conversion is a copy process, Readerware will backup your Readerware 3 database and restore it to Readerware 4 format. Your existing Readerware 3 database is not touched.
Readerware 4 will be installed in a separate folder so it can exist on the same system as Readerware 3. Because both the program and databases are separate you can continue to run Readerware 3 alongside Readerware 4 during the conversion.
Readerware 4 can restore a Readerware 3 backup file to create a new Readerware 4 database. So if you would like to install Readerware 4 on a different machine, install it on the new machine and then restore your latest Readerware 3 backup file. You will have Readerware 4 and all your data on the new machine.
There are installers available for all platforms, Windows, macOS and Linux.
There is a knowledge base article with help on upgrading to Readerware 4.
Upgrading to Readerware 4
The upgrade to Readerware 4 is free for all users who purchased Readerware 3 or upgraded to Readerware 3 on or after January 1st 2017. This is a lot longer than our official upgrade grace period and is for Readerware 4 only. If you are eligible for the free upgrade send your upgrade request to upgrades@readerware.com Please include sufficient information so that we can locate your original order and send you new registration codes.
If you purchased Readerware 3 before January 1st 2017, upgrade options and pricing follow.
| Upgrade | Price |
|---|---|
| Readerware 4 Single Product Upgrade. Upgrade your current single product Readerware 3 license to the Readerware 4 equivalent. |
$24.95 |
| Readerware 4 Bundle Upgrade. Upgrade your current Readerware 3 bundle license to the Readerware 4 equivalent. |
$44.95 |
| Readerware 4 Single Product to Bundle Upgrade. Upgrade your current single product Readerware 3 license to the equivalent Readerware 4 bundle. |
$59.95 |
We upgrade you at your current level. This means for example that if you currently have Readerware 3 Mobile Edition, we will upgrade you to Readerware 4 Mobile Edition automatically.
What's New in Readerware 4?
Here are the highlights for Readerware 4.
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.
A Readerware database can now include a description to help you keep track of multiple databases.
Improved support for accented characters when searching.
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
Readerware Mobile
There is a new version of Readerware Mobile also available. This new version will work with Readerware 4 and Readerware 3 so it is appropriate for all Readerware Mobile users.
We have refreshed all the graphics in Readerware Mobile. Newer phones with higher screen resolutions had problems with the old graphics.
Readerware Mobile 4 includes all new icons at all supported resolutions. So now menus and buttons will look the same on all devices.
Readerware Mobile 4 is available for Android phones and tablets, the iPhone and iPad and Windows 10 mobile devices.
Both Google and Apple are dropping support for older devices. When we submit a new release of Readerware Mobile to the app stores, it must be targeted at currently supported devices only. The stores will not let us target older devices. So some of you may find that you cannot update to Readerware 4 Mobile. As a result Readerware 4 will sync with mobile devices running both Readerware Mobile 4.00 and Readerware Mobile 3.55. So Readerware 4 users will not lose mobile support whatever version of Readerware Mobile you are running.
Readerware Mobile 4 has been submitted to the app stores and will be available once approved.
Managing your home network
A Readerware Mobile user was having trouble connecting their mobile device to Readerware recently. We were running various tests to see what the issue was when the user decided to reboot their router. Right away Readerware was able to sync again.
This is not that unusual an issue. We tend to leave routers running and in a lot of cases there is no side affect. Others start to notice all sort of network issues after the router has been running for a while. You can always reboot your router if you notice problems, you could unplug it and plug it back in again. If you router has a web interface you can normally reboot it from there.
This episode reminded me that I was having some router issues a while ago and went looking for a way to reboot my router automatically on a regular basis.
I found an article at the How-To Geek site that provided a good solution. They used a timer switch to reboot their router. They describe the kind of timer you need and provide a couple of recommendations. One of the recommended timers is no longer available but the Century 7-day Heavy Duty Digital Timer is still available and priced at $12.99. That is the one I ended up with and have been using it for about a year now. It has two outlets and I connected my modem to one and my router to the other. I set the timer to power off at 4am and back on 2 minutes later. So my modem and router are both rebooted every day in the early hours of the morning. My home network has been running great ever since.
So if you sometimes have network issues that are fixed by restarting your router you might want to take a look at this useful article.
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