We're releasing a Public Beta for our users to test and provide feedback on Daylite 3.8. We've made several fixes and added new features, and would appreciate feedback on these; the complete list of fixes and new features is listed below.

PLEASE NOTE: this release is a beta release, and may be further updated based on feedback from users; as such, it should not be considered as a 'final' release. We are confident that the fixes and features it brings are stable, but be warned that you use this release at your own risk. Please be sure to make appropriate backups of your database(s) - both online and offline. It is recommended you try this beta on a seperate copy of your database for testing (for information on making a copy of a database, please see this knowledge base article).

The purpose of this public beta is to allow our users to test and provide feedback on this release; to that end, we've created this thread in the Marketcircle forums for such feedback.

Please note that:

• support on this release will be provided only through this forum thread, or you may also provide feedback through the Daylite Beta mailing list (if you are already registered on the mailing list)
  
  
• Marketcircle Support & Sales will not provide direct support on this public beta release
  
  
• this thread is to concentrate on the fixes and features of this release only (as listed below); if you wish to discuss other issues or features not part of this release (or that of other releases), please do so under the Using Daylite or Troubleshooting forums as a separate thread, as appropriate.
  

IMPORTANT: this release makes changes to task statuses and task priorities - please review the information contained in the README FIRST file (found in the Daylite Documentation folder of the downloads) carefully before upgrading as these changes may affect your workflow.

Additional information about new task features (Inbox and Someday options) can be found in Daylite Apple Help under the topic 'Creating a new task' or in this knowledge base article.


The release notes for Daylite 3.8 are:

Updates

• Reminder changes: Reminders have been completely reworked, allowing for unlimited reminders for any user on any appointment and task. This also resolves sync problems associated with multiple reminders on an appointment or task that were encountered by some users. Reminders on repeat appointments are also properly supported now.
  [LIST]
  
• Resolves syncing issues with iCal alarms.
  
• Allows unlimited reminders for appointments and tasks to be created by any user.
  
• Allows automatic creation of default reminders when accepting appointments and when appointment/task is delegated or assigned.
  
• Reminders now work properly for repeating appointments/events.
  
• Improved import and export of appointments/events containing reminders to/from iCal.
  

Task changes: Some options for tasks have been reworked to simplify and enhance the management of tasks.

• Users can now set a "Someday" flag on tasks, use the corresponding smart list to manage those tasks.
  
• There is now an "Inbox" source list in the Task pane. You can drag to the inbox, or check/uncheck "Inbox" in the task card. There is also a default value that can cause all new tasks to be added to the Inbox, if the user chooses.
  
• There are changes to task priorities and task statuses (see Readme file for details).
  

Preferences changes: Update to the Notifications preference pane have been made to support the new reminders, allowing to create default reminders for both appointments and tasks, and the option for automatic creation of these when accepting appointments or when an appointment or task is assigned or delegated. Additional flexibility has been added to the Default Values pane. Locations can now be administered in the new Locations pane. Additionally, all preferences for database users are now stored in the database instead of the local system.

• Default reminder settings can be created separately for appointments and tasks.
  
• Significantly improved User Defaults preference pane. Now includes the ability for the administrator to set global user defaults which apply to everyone, or individual users can override global defaults with their own preference. Administrators can also copy all user defaults from one user to another.
  
• Added a Locations preference pane, where users now have the ability to automatically manage the list of locations that will be available in the task window.
  
• All user defaults are now stored in the database.
  

Other changes: Added recruiting and custom software development database templates.
[/LIST]


Fixes

• Sync fixes: There have been fixes to bugs in the sync mechanism, both for Address Book syncing as well as calendar syncing.
  [LIST]
  
• Fixed bug where Daylite's sync services support would fail after adding an Address Book contact to the Address Book Daylite group.
  
• Fixed issue with syncing reminders with email addresses associated to them.
  
• Re-worked reminder syncing to fix bugs with duplicates.
  

No longer brings down duplicate organization sheet in contact create card multiple times for the same organization.

Refresh now also refreshes the Notifications window.

Fixed fuzzy drawing issue with task priority image in the task results pane.

Added "No Priority" option in the task priority picker in the results pane.

Fixed potential crashes that can occur while archiving attachments.

Fixed issue that could cause synchronization to get turned off if using an offline database.

Fixed issue where the user's default category could get renamed when adding a contact through DMI.

Improved offline sync connection to online database. Daylite now stores up to the last 3 connections to the online database to use when going online or synchronizing with the online database.
This should avoid forcing the user to first go online then go back offline in order to sync when the last sync was performed on a different network.

Improved the description of the appointment when sent as an email reminder.

Added location information to task and appointment print summary.

Added command in Create menu to convert an existing task into a project (moves old task to the trash after).

Improved performance in delimited importer for large imports.

Fixed calendar refresh issue after an appointment was edited.
[/LIST]


There are currently no plans for additional features to the final 3.8 release beyond those listed here.


There is no OpenBase version change in Daylite 3.8. There is a database schema change in this release - all offline databases will need to be re-created after the upgrade. All computers running Daylite to access a Daylite database will need to be updated. Please see the ReadMe in the Daylite Documentation folder or the installer for more details.

Download Link:

Daylite 3.8 Public Beta (build 1628)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sebastien,

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Need help in Daylite or Billings? Check the Help menu for Apple Help documentation.

So it may be a can of worms - the Inbox, that is.

In most GTD apps I've played with, (I have OmniFocus but Things and others are similar), a task starts it's life in the Inbox, but as soon as it's given a Focus or Context, or assigned to a project, it is automatically removed from the InBox and then goes on it's merry way through the GTD system. If you have an Inbox in Daylite, you've only added the tip of the iceberg. I don't see the workflow that you can spawn from it yet - and it seems tedious to think that you'd have to manually manage that checkbox for each task one at a time. What to do?

Perhaps it could be in the Inbox only until it's assigned either a due date, priority, or a category? If any of these get assigned it's automatically removed - signaling that you've "processed" it. So it would be the place for a quick dump of tasks that is easy to find and that you go back to and assign more specific criteria to. In other words, items in the Inbox only have a Name, and perhaps some text in the Details. Once you've decided any of the other criteria it wouldn't belong in the Inbox anymore, since you've "revisited" it and gave it context in some way.

Additionally, it would really help to have new shortcuts to create Inbox tasks by which the task default prefs would be ignored, i.e. category = none, priority = none, due date = unassigned. These would include: DMI task to Inbox (Create New Inbox Task), system wide Service (Make New Inbox Task With Text), system wide keyboard shortcut (i.e. cmd-opt-ctl-t).

That way it would make more sense (to me).

A small update was done to fix a crashing issue - if you happened to snooze a reminder in Daylite of an appointment that gets synced to iCal, a crash would occur.

A new build (1628) containing this fix has been uploaded (the link in the original post above has been updated).

Is there a way to create a drop-down "Remind Me" menu in the New Appointment window, like there was in the 3.7 version?

Not really sure what you mean by creating a 'drop-down' - do you mean the sheet that drops down when you click 'More...'?

You can edit/create reminders by clicking the Reminder Me checkbox (which creates reminders according to your notifications preferences, if any), and add new ones if needed by clicking the 'Edit Reminders' button.

And don't forget - you can setup a *series* of reminders as your "default" in the preferences.

With that, whenever you check-off the reminder box in a task or appointment, that setup is automatically copied. A great time-saver.

quote:

Originally posted by Sebastien:
Not really sure what you mean by creating a 'drop-down' - do you mean the sheet that drops down when you click 'More...'?

It's the button just to the right of the "Remind me" field. It was there in the 3.7 version. It looked like this:

It allowed one to easily select a variety of notification times very quickly. I may be missing something with the new version, but it seems to take much more time now to set up different notification times. I think with 3.8, there's only the default that is accessed easily.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ScottO,

As mentioned above, you can define your own default reminders that get created automatically when you check off the 'Reminder Me' checkbox. Separate sets can be defined for Appointments and Tasks.

With the new ability to have multiple reminders in 3.8, it wasn't practical to have these controls in the edit window anymore, which is why they were moved to the reminder sheet.

I'll be curious to see the feedback on this change of this part of DL. For me, it's much more unwieldy. If I'm setting up say 5 appointments quickly, and each one needs a different reminder notification time, it takes quite a bit more time to set each one up.

Got a problem with 3.8 When making a new contact linked to a organization, the new contact has the fax number from the linked organization as a default??

Sebastien,

I know you said above that you won't add other features, but could you consider a small fix:

In New York City we have an 8.375% sales tax. I don't know why there need to be three decimal points, but there are. As a result our estimates are a bit out of whack since DL only allows 2 digits. Would it be possible to allow 3 digits without the round up?

Thanks

Christian O

My form fields no longer merge...

The contact file merges fine...

This is using Word 2008

Hello,

Any news in this release about merge keys for page numbers (count and total) and the subject text in the letter template?

Thanks
Aldo

Installed the beta. All is fine until I sync. I've been syncing fine previously but DID NOT sync contacts, only calendar. I decided to do a new, slow sync and add contacts, its taking forever (like an hour). Is this normal?

Update. Decided to do a full resync of both contacts and calendar. Its been "working" for hours. I'm going to let it run all night but I suspect we've got a nasty bug here. There's no reason why with less than 1000 contacts (but a few years of data on the calendar), this should take so long. Meanwhile, as the Sync dialog is "up" and I can't access Daylite, I do see that newer emails from DMI are being accessed into the application. Appears like the sync is just suck in a big loop. I'm not going to cancel, I'll let it run over night. Of course, the database has been updated for 3.8 so going back isn't much of an option. If anyone has some suggestions, I'm all ears. Previous to this "test" I at least was able to sync calendars. Now I'm probably going to have to do a force quit, meaning until this is resolved, I can't sync anything.