LIDA NEWS
Working the Import Feature on LIDA
Probably the biggest and most involved feature yet to be added to pre-release LIDA is the ability - and the instructions on how - to import an existing music library data file. Of course, we want to automate this import process as much as possible, but because of the...
Status of LIDA Tutorials
Many people on our excellent active Beta Testers Team have agreed that one of the most important things we can do to make LIDA more usable to more people is to provide a complete set of tutorials. And I agree. LIDA is an amazingly powerful piece of software, but as...
Events Manager Status
Building the Events Management Feature in LIDA has been one of the most involved sub-projects in this entire LIDA construction effort. The reason for this is the amount of foundation work that had to be done before we could get to the pieces the LIDA user will...
Major Upgrades Come in Pieces
When an upgrade to any project is big enough, the only way to bring it to completion is in pieces. Such is the nature of the current upgrade being implemented in LIDA here in the middle of February, 2020 - the Events Manager feature. It has taken more than a week of...
Don’t Confuse the WHAT with the HOW
One of the most frustrating situations to encounter is when you have a complex task to accomplish, and before you can figure out exactly WHAT it is that's involved with the task, other people begin worrying about "Well HOW can we do that?" A great illustration of this...
Future Upgrades Looming in LIDA Beta
The future of LIDA is rife with possibilities. In today's post, I'd like to share with you several of the MAJOR upgrades we have looming in the future of LIDA, and I hope you will all be as excited by these possibilities as I am.Concert Planning, Tracking, and...
Beta Version 0.13 Now Available!
Whew!. It has been more than a week since the last beta upgrade was posted, and I am very happy to be able to post this latest update to the program. As you have been hearing (if you've been reading emails or these posts), there are TWO major upgrades in this version,...
New Features – Vol 2.
Whoo-ee! The previous News posting was about some great new upgrades in devlopment for LIDA, and this posting is even more new stuff on the way! Well, actually one new stuff. (Can "stuff" be singular? You can have "oodles" of something, but can you have just one...
New Features In Development
Sometimes, we undertake upgrades so grand, it takes several days to build them, debug them, test them. test all the various cascading consequences, and finally deploy them. Such is the case right now, since issuing the v0.11.004 version of LIDA on January 19, three...
Quick-Access Data Files
Capitalizing on a seemingly inconsequential comment from one of our beta testers, with today's update to version 0.11.004 LIDA now gives you the capability to STORE any data file you connect to, for future quick access. HOW IT WORKS: First, you just connect to a data...
“Chunk” Programming
LIDA, despite the fact that it is built using Microsoft Access for an engine, is truly the product of a computer programmer. And, as you may have learned, most computer programmers aren't "normal folks." Alan Cooper, in his book, "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum,"...
Installer Package Builders
One of the biggest challenges, okay, obstacles to overcome when developing a program like LIDA to be distributed to a wide number of users is How do you PACKAGE the distribution so it's easy for the users to install? I've had to dig into researching this issue ever...
Computer Challenges
Just like everyone else in the world who uses computers, I also occasionally run into challenges with my own computer. Yesterday was one of those days when my computer started giving me fits. It started when I was answering an email from one of our Beta Test Team, and...
Who’d’a Thunk – Install Hassles?
When we rolled LIDA out to the Beta Test Team about a week ago, I was expecting several of the testers to find a number of bugs I overlooked as I was rushing to get LIDA ready for beta test. And indeed, they did find some, but not nearly as many as I was afraid they...
Multiple Libraries! Woo-Hoo!
As of today, with LIDA Beta Release version 0.9.003, LIDA users now have the capability to ... (a drum roll, please) ... ...Manage Multiple Music Libraries in LIDA! In this posting, I will share with you how it works, and how to take advantage of this outstanding and...
Exploring and Testing LIDA
The only people we have using LIDA as of today are the Beta Test Team. I am tremendously grateful for every one of them, but I am most grateful for those who are actively getting into LIDA and giving it a good workout. There are really two phases of working with LIDA...
AVAST! … and LIDA
One of the most popular anti-virus programs is AVAST, a free program that has a very good reputation for helping keep your computer free of infections. There is no question there will be some users of LIDA in the future who will have this program installed on their...
And On the Third Day…
Okay, here we are in the third day of the LIDA Beta Test phase, and we are already discovering a number of issues we never anticipated before this. Most of these issues are Microsoft's Fault! (Innocent look.) Seriously, every single one of the issues we are running...
Multiple-User Access to LIDA
Several beta testers and some potential purchasers have already asked, "Can more than one person use LIDA at the same time?" The short answer is YES. But it comes with a couple of yellow flags, and some considerations. The first thing to consider is "WHO is going to...
Managing Multiple Libraries In LIDA
One of the questions that has been in my mind since before I started building LIDA is "How do we handle organizations that need to manage more than one music library?" An example of this might be a community band that has a Concert Band, a Swing Band, an Oompah Band,...