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, as well as a boatload of less-evident upgrades and fixes.

In a nutshell, the two major upgrades are (1) you can now create a new, blank database right from the Program Settings screen in LIDA; and (2) you can now limit the number of entries shown in your Instrumentations list and your Styles/Genres list.

The first element of the list-limiting function is that we now can put all the entries on these lists into any of a number of categories. You do this on the List editing screen for each list. Also on that screen, you can filter the view by ALL or by any of the categories, so you can more easily make sure you have each category designated properly.

The second element of the list-limiting function is a new pair of buttons on the Program Settings screen, where you choose which categories you wish to show up in the dropdown lists for the current data file. This means that if you have more than one data file (see previous upgrades for this feature), you can set different Instrumentations settings and Styles Settings for each data file, and those settings stay with that file.

So why did it take so long to come out with these upgrades? Those of you who have been following LIDA since the beginning know I usually come out with upgrades much more quickly.

 On the day I issued the previous upgrade, my wife and I took our grandson on a birthday trip to a town about 3 hours away, and that took care of about 3 days of the delay.

When I returned home, I decided it was time to migrate my entire operation to a new computer that had been sitting in its shipping box for about 3 weeks.

Needless to day, that took about another 4 days, and it’s STILL not complete. The biggest problem I’ve had is with Microsoft Outlook, which the geniuses at Microsoft have “improved” to the point it is nearly unusable. I am still wrestling with that.

But in between all that other goings-on, I did manage to complete these two major upgrades to LIDA, and many lesser ones.

I have tested them as much as I can, but there’s no question there will be things I have missed, especially considering all else that’s been going on. That’s where our wonderful Beta Test Team comes in – they will doubtless FIND all these oopses and let me know, so I can put bandages on them and make it work better.

Once again, my profound THANK YOUs to all the Beta Test Team who have given LIDA a good workout and have reported to me their findings, any errors, and their great ideas.

Both of the major upgrades in this version are a result of inputs by these wonderful folks.

Now it’s time to finish the wrestling match with Outlook, go finish up writing more music (first rehearsal of it on Monday!), and do all the other things I’ve been brushing to the side.