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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: REVISION HISTORY AND BUGS / FEATURES > Revision History 2015 to 2018 |
See Also: Revision History - Latest Version, Revision History 2011 to 2014, Revision History 2007 to 2010, Revision History - Earlier Versions
•Fixed a bug where Amount values being imported by the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option can be erroneously imported as $0, if they were being imported from Excel, in a column formatted as Currency or Accounting. In that case, the program tells the user to instead format that column as Number and try again.
•Fixed a bug where if you clicked on various places in the data of Reports ⇒ One Date Donation ⇒ Summary (and perhaps areas of some other reports that don't show as blue hyperlinks) it would crash after a techie error message.
•Fixed a bug for the Web Network Version: The menu option Upload/Download ⇒ Download Web Database to Local was failing with an error message. (That menu option was normally only needed if you decided to switch back from the Web Network Version to another version such as Standalone.)
•Fixed a bug for the Web Network Version: If it was an Evaluation version, or your payment had expired, it could prompt you to retrieve a license key from our server, even though that version does not need and cannot use license keys.
•Fixed an obscure and unlikely bug. (This note is mostly for ourselves, as the bug is very unlikely to occur to users!) If you are running the Web Network Version and download your remote database to local, then switch to a local version (likely Standalone), then re-restore the backup file that was stored as part of that download process, the program will halt with an error about not being able to execute sp_validate_connection. You subsequently cannot open the program, because it keeps getting that same error.
•When a new user with a so-far empty database was trying to start by restoring an Internet Backup from a previous user in their organization, the window that came up to prompt them for the Unique ID for Internet Backups didn't allow typing or directly pasting into the entry field for that value. (You had to use a Paste ID from Clipboard button.) Now you can directly type or paste into that field, to avoid confusion.
•Limited users are now allowed to change their own passwords. For users of the Web Network Version, that is done with the Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Edit Your Login menu option. For all other versions (other than the Lite version, which doesn't allow the use of a Limited User Passwords) it is done with the Maintenance ⇒ Change Password ⇒ Limited User Password menu option.
•Fixed a bug introduced in release 4.11b: restoring backups, and the Database ⇒ Validate menu option, would fail with a technical error message if you upgraded from a previous version to 4.11b by using the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option. Now Tools ⇒ Check for Updates is fine.
•Fixed a bug introduced in release 4.10. It occurs when you are saving receipts to PDF, or emailing them, but only if in the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window you are using the built-in receipts, and have selected to not include the Details Table, or not include the Summary Table, or both. The bug was that the excluded table(s) would correctly be omitted when displaying the receipt on the screen or printing it, but would still appear (overlaid on top of the other table!) when saved to PDF or emailed.
•Fixed a bug that gave an error message and prevented the creation of receipts, when you have specified in the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window that they are for Quebec (French-only, or bilingual) and that you should Skip Lines between sections of the receipt, when you are receipting donations with Advantage.
•Restoring database backups is now done in a new way internally. (You should not see any difference.) With this change, users of the BitDefender anti-virus software, who have its SafeFiles module turned on, will no longer have to turn off that module to be able to successfully restore.
•A similar change was made to the Database ⇒ Validate menu option, doing it in a new way that should not cause problems if BitDefender anti-virus has its SafeFiles module turned on. Also, that menu option is now allowed for the Local Network Client version.
•Added drill-down capability for fields in many reports that include summary donation totals by donor. Values in those reports are shown in blue and you can click on them. Clicking on them shows a detail report of the donations included in the displayed total for the donor whose total you clicked on. A Back button at the top-left corner of the detail report takes you back to the original report.
•Made a change to the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option's processing, that can speed things up (especially for users of the Web Network Version) after the import is completed. That may also fix problems that a couple of users experienced where the program seemed to hang, or exit, after the import was completed.
•Fixed a problem in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option, which could cause the program to crash, or to not display any added donors, after a successful import. (They would still have been successfully imported, and would be displayed if you exited the program and restarted it, or restarted it after a crash.)
•Fixed a bug in both Letters ⇒ One Letter and Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing where using a mail merge template designed for one type of merging (for instance, for receipts) was used for the wrong type of merging selected in section 1 of the window (for instance, Donor Information Only). That could give a technical error message and then crash the program, rather than correctly giving some warning messages and showing "FIELD IS MISSING" in a lot of places in the merged document, where there were merge fields that didn't belong to that type of merging.
•Both Reports ⇒ One Date Donation ⇒ Details and Summary and Details with Member/Envelope # and Summary now include a Summary by Paid By section, as well as the previously included Summary by Category section. So now those reports include everything that would otherwise need to be seen with two separate reports on that Reports ⇒ One Date Donation sub-menu: Details (or Details with Member/Envelope #) and Summary.
•Fixed a problem where the Help button in the two Email Sending Configuration windows opened to the Introduction Help page instead of the correct page.
•This version was created with a new release of the program we use to create DONATION, called PowerBuilder 2017 R3.
•Saving built-in receipts (but not mail-merge ones) to PDF, and emailing them, now uses the PDF facility built into PowerBuilder, the program we use to build DONATION, rather than the 3rd party PDF printer novaPDF that is included with DONATION. NovaPDF is still used for saving mail-merge receipts and letters to PDF and emailing them.
•Especially for users of the 5 simultaneous user Web Network Version, made some changes that may speed up some activities that read program settings from the database. However, they also mean that if another simultaneous user changes certain settings, your program may not "see" those changes until you exit and restart it.
•Fixed a very odd and obscure problem: If you created a Custom Report, then used the Save As button to save it to formatted Excel, and closed the Excel program after working with it and before you closed the report-viewing window, then you cannot close the report-viewing window, and are stuck. (You can then only exit DONATION by killing it with Windows Task Manager.)
•Removed all restrictions on the minimum dollar amount of pledges, as long as the annual pledge amount (or total pledge amount for multi-year pledges) is greater than zero.
•For multi-year pledges, individual years' pledge amounts can now $0, though the total still has to be at least $50. (This was in fact partly true previously, except that if the amount in the current year was $0, you could not save changes to the Donor on the main window.)
•Added the Tools Menu option Explore Temp Directory, which can be helpful in some tech support situations.
•Fixed a bug introduced recently, for Local Network Version and perhaps also Web Network Version users: even though your license key said you could have 5 simultaneous users, if you tried to run the program for a 2nd simultaneous user, it would stop you, with a message that you were only allowed to have 1 simultaneous user.
•In both the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option and the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option, if you use the Browse button to select a file, the default file type showing has been changed to "Microsoft Excel Documents". You can still change that, with the file type drop-down near the bottom right of the file selection window, to the previous default, "tab-separated File", or to "comma-separated Value File".
•Fixed a strange problem that started in version 4.05 where a couple of users were missing a table (CONNECTIONS) in their database that should have been created many versions of DONATION ago, causing error messages when the program was run after the update.
•Fixed a bug in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ All Data menu option. In many cases if you were unable to run the process in that window because you didn't have the right inputs available, the Close button would not be enabled, so it would be hard to exit the window. That option is little-used because we strongly recommend instead using the simpler and more flexible Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option and Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option instead, if they will be sufficient.
•Fixed a problem introduced by version 4.05 where in the Standalone version, in some places in the program (including when switching databases, or after making a database backup) you could get a message that didn't make sense, like: "You are using the Standalone version of DONATION, but your license key is not authorized for that. Rather, it is authorized for the normal Standalone version ...".
•In the Batch Entry / One Date Donation window, the Copy Prev button is now active even if there is only one donation for the current donor on the last date on which donations were entered for them. Previously there had to be at least two.
•There's some new behaviour in date fields, in addition to the existing keyboard shortcuts for them: When you enter a date field, normally its first component (before the first slash or dash) will become selected (highlighted). Pressing the left or right arrow keys or the forward slash key (/) will cycle through the three components of the date field (month, day and year, in whatever order they are displayed on your computer). That can make it easy to just change one of those components, for instance the day of the month. Once it is highlighted, just type what you want to replace it with - there's no need to delete what is there first.
•Fixed a bug in the update installation program for the Web Network Version, when you use Tools ⇒ Check for Updates: you would get an error message like "On Post Install ... Attempt to concatenate global pwd1 (a nil value) ...". Although that message should not have come up, it did not actually indicate any problem with the update.
•Fixed a problem that could occur when registering from the program, if your Windows username included a space (like "Dan Cooperstock"), and your default web browser was not Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. In those cases, the registration could fail. This same problem could also affect certain other cases where the program opens web-type files that are on your local computer.
•Fixed a problem where the new automated license key retrieval could try to get a license key that was already older than the version of DONATION that you are running, which would not have been appropriate.
•Added a validation to the rarely-used Database ⇒ Import All Data menu option to ensure that the CONSTANT.TXT file has exactly one line of data in it.
•Made another correction to the new feature in release 4.04b where entering any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign, popped up the Calculator window. It also popped up if you typed an x or X for times, which was intended, but unfortunately it also popped up if you typed Ctrl+X or Alt+X, which was not intended, and has been corrected.
•The following change was actually made in either release 4.01c or 4.02 (we are not sure which), but we forgot to record it in that version's revision history. Previously when users of versions that allow simultaneous users (Local Network, or Web Network with an appropriate payment level) wanted to create receipts, no other user could be logged in at the same time. Now other users can be logged in - they just cannot also be creating receipts at the same time. As soon as the user creating receipts exits from viewing the receipt (and possibly printing it, emailing it etc.), another user can create receipts.
•Made a correction to the new feature in release 4.04b where entering any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign, popped up the Calculator window. It should have popped up only when you had actually just typed one of those characters, but instead, it would pop up any time you typed any character at all, if one of those arithmetic operators was contained in what you had already typed.
•Like the change to the Web Network Version made in Release 4.03b, if you are using the Cloud Storage Service and you leave the program inactive - not doing anything in it - for two hours, you will be disconnected, so as to not block other users from using it. The best practice if you will not be using it for a while is to exit the program, and restart it when you wish to use it again.
•The Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users window for the Web Network Version now allows Administrators to reset passwords for other users, and unlock other users who have become locked out by too many unsuccessful login attempts.
•Many fields for entering currency amounts will now open a new Calculator window, if you enter any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign.
•For users of the Standalone and Local Network versions, the software licensing has been changed. Now in most cases, if you have an Internet connection, new or updated license keys can be retrieved directly and instantly from our server, rather than having to send an email request to Software4Nonprofits and wait for a person to send you the key.
•Creation of new empty databases (for instance during an initial install of the program, or with the Database ⇒ Switch Databases menu option) is now done by copying from the empty database file DONATION4.EMPTY, rather than by doing a database restore from the database structure backup file DONATION4.metadata. That should solve some problems caused by some anti-virus programs, that prevent certain writing to directories under C:\Users\Public, which is where the program's Data Directory is created.
•Changes to your Organization Name in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window no longer require licensed users of the Standalone or Local Network versions to request an updated license key. Instead, the changed name will automatically be written into your license key file.
•In the Web Network Version, if you leave the program inactive - not doing anything in it - for two hours, you will be disconnected, so as to stop using up server resources and not block other users from using it. The best practice if you will not be using it for a while is to exit the program, and restart it when you wish to use it again.
•Web Network Version users with Read-Only permissions can now change their login passwords, and other information for themselves, with the Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Edit Your Login menu option. Previously the User Administration menu under Maintenance wasn't even visible for Read-Only Web Network Version users. Also, if Read-Only users use Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users, while they cannot use that window, the program offers to show them a list of the Administrators, who can use the window.
•In the Batch Entry window, added a limitation to typing at most 50 characters in the Description field, if you are choosing to display that field. Previously if you entered more than that, you would receive a techie error message and would not be able to save the batch.
•Adjusted a change made in version 4.02e: now when you make the program's main window or Batch Entry wider, there is a maximum width the Description field will widen to (enough for about 50 capital letters), if it is displayed. With the previous change it could expand to ridiculous widths, for instance if you maximized those windows.
•Any action in the program that needs Internet access now first checks that you are connected to the Internet, and if not, gives you a chance to connect and try again.
•Fixed a bug for users upgrading for the first time from a release prior to version 3.80 (released in April 2016), where it could not do a required minor update to the database structure.
•Fixed a bug when using the Web Network Version - its Upload/Download ⇒ Download Web Database to Local menu option gave an error message "Your backup file on the server that was created for this download process could not be deleted ...". In fact the message was incorrect - there was no problem with the download process.
•The installation program is now digitally signed with what is called an "Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate", which may help prevent things like Microsoft's SmartScreen Filter or Windows Defender from incorrectly objecting to downloads - which have nothing wrong with them.
•Removed the Create ID button from the Backup/Restore ⇒ Backup Frequency and Options window for the versions other than the Web Network Version (which doesn't have that menu option). Now, various options in the program, including registering, requesting a license key, and turning on Internet Backups in the Backup Frequency and Options window, automatically generate a Unique ID if you don't already have one, so that button is no longer needed.
•Fixed a bug that caused a crash if you tried to use the Upload feature when first initializing the Web Network Version, or either of the Upload/Download menu options after it had been initialized.
•Changed Backup/Restore ⇒ Backup Database so that if you choose to back up to a USB memory key, it does the backup directly to there in one step, as long as there seems to be sufficient space on the USB. Previously it always first did the backup to the Backup subdirectory of the program's Data Directory, then copied it from there to the USB.
•Added a small section on getting Yahoo email accounts configured for successful email sending in the Email Sending Configuration help page.
•Fixed a bug that crashed the Lite version if you tried to use the Reports ⇒ Report Browser menu option.
•Fixed a bug introduced in version 4.02, which for some users was causing it to not be able to do a needed conversion to the MEMORIZED_REPORTS database table.
•Fixed a problem with registrations done within the program, which weren't always working properly when they were forwarded to the website. Also removed a step from this process, so you no longer have to also click Submit on a web page to complete the registration, when it is started within the program.
•Improved the management of connections to the server database in the Web Network Version.
•Fixed a error that some users could encounter when upgrading to release 4.00 or later, with messages about failure to update the memorized reports.
•Changed the wording of version numbers, like this 4.02e, to "Release #4.02e", to avoid confusion with how we use the same word "version" for the named versions of the program - Lite, Standalone, Local Network and Web Network Versions.
•In the Web Network Version, any of the following changes will now invisibly send an email to us, to make sure we keep our contact information for your organization up to date: Changing the Organization Name in Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info, changing your name or login email address in Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Edit Your Login, or any additions or deletions of users or changes of user access levels in Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users.
•When you make the program's main window wider now, when possible the Description field will widen along with the window, if it is displayed. The same applies to the Batch Entry window if you are displaying the Description in it.
•For users of the Web Network Version, if a Program Entry Password had been set in a previous version, don't still prompt for it after doing the Web Network Version login.
•Changed the default sort order of donations on the main window, for new users, to "Newest to Oldest". That shows the most recent donations, and the blank line for entering donations, at the top. This can also be changed in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window, on the Donations tab.
•Added a section to the Help topic "Generating Charitable Receipts" about printing on A4 paper.
•Fixed a possible bug for users whose Windows usernames are longer than 8 characters, where backup or restores might fail.
•Further fixed the fix in version 4.02 about potential problem data in Donor Comments fields that could allow your database to be backed up, but not restored, with the new version of the Firebird database software.
•Added a new version of DONATION, the Web Network Version, that is still installed on your Windows computer but has its database on a Software4Nonprofits server. See Multiple User Options for the pros and cons of using this version.
•The program is now using a newer version of the Firebird database software. This means that if you are sharing the same database between multiple users, all of the computers running DONATION must be upgraded. Otherwise, when you transfer a database from a program running the new versions of DONATION and Firebird to one running the older versions of both, the database will not be able to be restored.
•Renamed the existing Network Versions of DONATION to be called the "Local Network Versions", to more clearly distinguish them from the Web Network Version.
•Changed the fix made in version 4.01c, to a problem where some users of the Cloud Storage Service found that their computers could not communicate with it, and got a message that said incorrectly that they might not be connected to the Internet or might need to make a rule in their firewall to allow access. This is now done in a better way.
•Added Reports ⇒ Administrative ⇒ User Login History, which shows all dates and times that any user logged on or off of the program, in descending date order (latest first), for any range of dates.
•Added an option "Seconds to Pause between Emailing Receipts" to the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window, for the occasional user whose email provider won't let them send more than one email every some number of seconds, without stopping them due to concerns about spamming.
•All importing and converting of data from other programs has been changed to show progress, by counting up the number of rows saved back to the database, after every 10 rows. This includes Importing All Data from text files, and converting from Membership Plus, GiftWorks, Geminon, or Wincrafters Church Assistant.
•A progress bar is also now shown during the save operations in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option, the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option and the Database ⇒ Reassign Envelope Numbers menu option.
•Removed the Backup/Restore ⇒ Restore Old Database (DONATION3.DB) menu option, because it was only needed for conversion from version 2.70b or earlier of DONATION (released in 2007 or earlier), and almost no users should still need that. See Converting Data from Prior Versions if you do need that.
•When using the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ From Church Assistant menu option, the program will now give you an option to import the data even if it is two or more years old. Previously it would refuse to do that.
•Fixed potential problem data in Donor Comments fields or Memorized Reports contents, that could allow your database to be backed up, but not restored, with the new version of the Firebird database software.
•Fixed bugs where the Help buttons in both the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option and the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option didn't take you to the right help page.
•Fixed a bug in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations menu option where if you used the "Adjust to Current Month" or "Adjust to Last Month" checkboxes, but the month they adjusted to was not in the year you were working on in the program, the import could still happen, putting donation dates into that working year that were not actually in that year.
•Fixed a bug in Receipt ⇒ Duplicate/Corrected by Number, where if you enter a receipt number that doesn't exist in the current year's data, you get an inappropriate error message saying "Error retrieving receipts information from the database". Now it properly tells you that there is no such receipt number.
•Fixed a bug when entering or editing donors: if you entered just spaces in the Business Name field, that would still cause the program to think there was a business name, and end up displaying nothing on the row for it in the Donor List, and on some reports.
•Fixed a bug in Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample: If you create a sample mail-merge receipt with it, then use the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window to switch back to using the non-mail-merge receipts, and use Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample again, it will not have the "SAMPLE" watermark on it that it should have.
•Fixed a bug in the new Correct button on the main window, for correcting already receipted donations. Previously it would allow you to make a change to a donation that made it be non-receiptable, but when you then printed the corrected receipt, that donation would still be included. Now you are prompted to confirm that you want to change the donation to be non-receiptable, and if you confirm that, the receipt number is removed from that donation so that it is no longer included when print the corrected receipt.
•If you have specified logo and/or signature images, previously they were loaded from the database every time you started the program. Now they are only loaded when they are needed, for instance if you are creating receipts or mail-merge letters. (This should make no difference, except for saving time during the start-up of the Web Network Version.)
•A few users reported instances of emailed receipts having the message "You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer" on the bottom of the page, although DONATION is indeed licensed. Added a bit of further diagnosis that will pop up a message and stop the emails from being generated if the passing of the license information from DONATION to novaPDF fails, which would cause that behaviour.
•Fixed a problem where some users of the Cloud Storage Service found that their computers could not communicate with it, and got a message that said incorrectly that they might not be connected to the Internet or might need to make a rule in their firewall to allow access.
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 4.01: Many users couldn't save reports to PDF with the Save PDF button in the report-viewing window.
•Fixed another bug introduced by version 4.01, if you used the Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Duplicate/Corrected or Duplicate/Corrected by Number menu options (or for Canadian users, the same menu options under Receipt ⇒ Gift in Kind Receipts). If you chose "Also include any unreceipted donations for the same donor" in those windows, it would fail, with a message about "Cannot save receipt number information back to the donation records in the database" and some SQL error details.
•Fixed another bug introduced by version 4.01: various fields in the Tools ⇒ Register Online window wouldn't allow long-enough entries, particularly the Email Address field, which gave an error message saying that what you entered wasn't a valid email address, if it was longer than 13 characters!
•Fixed another problem in the Tools ⇒ Register Online window: if you had previously registered, and then went to that window, then clicked Cancel rather than Submit, then the next time you ran DONATION you would get the window prompting you to register or to say that you had already done so.
•Fixed another long-standing bug with the startup window prompting you to register or to say that you had already done so: if you chose to Register from there, the same window would still be displayed the next time you started the program, and would keep being displayed unless you clicked the "Already registered" button. Now it won't, if you click to Register Now and do Submit the registration.
•Changed the validation of email addresses you enter in the program to allow for the final part after the last period to be up to 18 characters long (the previous limit was 8, and one user encountered an email address that was valid but that DONATION wasn't allowing).
•Added a Correct button above the rows of donations, which can be used to make corrections to already receipted donations, and then immediately create a corrected receipt including that corrected donation. See Editing a Donation for details.
•Added a right-click popup menu on donation fields on the main window, with options Delete and Correct, that do the same things as those buttons in the row of buttons above the donation details.
•We recently found out that for what they call donations with Advantage, the Canada Revenue Agency requires that a description of the advantage be printed on the receipts. Many changes were made to the program to accommodate that, for Canadian users. See Donations and Receipts with Advantage for full details. However, the following a few of the changes for Canadian users:
oAdded a new optional donation field Description of Advantage (also sometimes called Advantage Description) where you can enter that description. (For non-Gift in Kind receipts, you can alternatively enter that description of the Advantage in the existing Description field).
oAdded alternate versions of all Canadian English and French receipts - both the built-in ones and the mail-merge ones - for donations with Advantage, that print the description. Such receipts are always one receipt per donation, because of the fact that they have to include the description of the advantage.
oWhen you create receipts and there are receiptable donations both with and without advantage, the program will ask you which ones you want to create receipts for - you cannot mix such donations (with and without advantage) on the same receipts or in the same batch of receipts.
oNew checkboxes in Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options, Letters ⇒ One Letter and Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing to allow you to edit and/or merge with the special templates for receipts for donations with advantage.
oIn mail-merge letters for individual donations, or for receipts with advantage (including Gift in Kind ones) include a new merge field «AdvantageDescription».
oThe Reports ⇒ Custom Reports window now includes the Description of Advantage in the fields that can be selected for Donations, as long as you are displaying that field.
oThe first time Canadian users run the program after upgrading to this version (or to a later version, from an earlier one), if you have any receiptable donations that are missing descriptions needed to create receipts for them, you will be given a message informing you of that fact.
oFor Canadian users, added a new Notes column to Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Unreceipted, which can show "Missing Description" for donations where a description is needed to be printed on the receipt, but has not been entered. This applies to both Gifts in Kind and donations with Advantage.
•Added another way to access Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Unreceipted, through the new menu option Receipt ⇒ Unreceipted Donations Report.
•All Canadian receipts show the new web address (URL) for the Canada Revenue Agency's pages about charities: www.canada.ca/charities-giving in English, or www.canada.ca/organismes-bienfaisance-dons in French. However, if you use mail-merge receipts and have edited their contents, you will have to make the changes to those web addresses yourself, by editing them with the button in the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window.
•Similarly, for Canadian users, if you use mail-merge receipts and have added text to them (such as a cover letter) and will be doing any of the new receipts for donations with Advantage, you will have to make those same changes as you made in the existing receipt template to the new templates for receipts with Advantage.
•Added Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ All Donations ⇒ Sort by Date, All Fields, which is visible only if you are displaying the donation Eligible Amount field. As well as fields displayed on other reports on that sub-menu, it also displays the Eligible Amount and Advantage Description fields.
•Corrected both the Help on the Reports ⇒ Fiscal Year sub-menu and the text in the Report Browser to show that its reports Donation Details, Sort by Date and Donation Details, Sort by Name can be selected to be restricted to one donation category, if you wish. (That could also have been done with the Filter button, of course.
•Corrected a bug when creating a multi-year pledge for organizations with a fiscal year different from the calendar year, where it could calculate the End Date to be a fiscal year end prior to the Start Date. In fact, multi-year pledges are currently only allowed to be for calendar years, so the End Date is now calculated based on calendar years rather than your fiscal year, eliminating this bug.
•Saving reports to PDF uses a new facility for doing that which is built into PowerBuilder, the program we use to build DONATION, rather than the 3rd party PDF printer novaPDF that is included with DONATION. NovaPDF is still used for saving receipts and mail-merge letters to PDF and emailing them.
•Added a section to the Multiple User Options help topic on the upcoming Web Network Version of DONATION.
•Changed the installation program to automatically fix problems that a few users were having, where for some reason it could not overwrite files in the program's installation directory, so the install failed.
•This version uses a newer version of PowerBuilder, the program we use to create DONATION, and as such we are giving this release a new main version number (4.00).
•When converting from Membership Plus databases, added handling for two never-before seen problems in the Membership Plus data: too-large internal Fund IDs (a number you don't see) that don't fit in the internal donation category numbers in DONATION (that you also don't see), and missing funds (donation categories) for donations. The donations with missing funds will be assigned your first donation category.
•Fixed a very unusual problem when creating Bank Deposits, where you click the Deposit Slip button and it won't do it because it says the total cash from the donations being deposited doesn't match the Cash Count, even though it says the amounts are the same!
•Fixed the Membership Plus conversion so it can now work with Membership Plus version 5.0d, which has an internal version number of 4.93, which made the program think it wasn't at least version 5 (the minimum version it knows how to convert).
•Added both Custom Reports and a section listing all of your Memorized Reports at the end of the list in the Report Browser, unless you are using the Lite version that doesn't include Custom or Memorized Reports.
•Memorized Reports can now have optional Descriptions added to them, in addition to their name. The Descriptions can be added when you are memorizing them, or on the Memorized Reports window itself.
•Added some details about a couple of powerful free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editors that you can use from our internal mail-merge editor, for things that cannot be done in the internal editor, to the page Configuring an Alternate HTML Editor.
•Fixed a bug in the Database ⇒ Switch Databases window where uses of the Browse button always gave a message that the selected file wasn't in the correct directory.
•In the Reports ⇒ Memorized Reports window, after running a report, and closing the window(s) doing that took you to, you return to the Memorized Reports window. (Those other windows can be the main Reports window, or the SQL Select window.) Fixed a weakness where the information about the list of reports in the Memorized Reports window is not updated on that return. That could be necessary if you made changes and re-memorized the report in one of the windows you were taken to. Without this fix, re-running the same memorized report immediately would ignore those changes. Also, any new memorized reports with new names would not have appeared on the list in this window when you returned to it.
•Fixed a bug when you use the Delete button In the Memorized Reports window, where you got an error message and the report didn't disappear from the list. (It actually was deleted though.)
•When converting Membership Plus databases into DONATION, the program now allows for two previously unseen problems in the Membership Plus data: duplicate Fund IDs, and organization Members with no name fields filled in at all.
•For Australian DGR recipients, one line of the built-in receipt was too wide on A4 paper, so adjusted that some.
•The rules for determining whether a donor or donation is non-receiptable have been changed to be case-insensitive, so for instance the value "NON-RECEIPTABLE" will now also work for a Cheque # / Paid By or donor or donation Category value, and Category values will work that start with "nr " or end in " nr", to make the donor or donation non-receiptable.
•If you have set a Receipt Password, entering it is now required for the Receipt ⇒ Delete Range menu option, when it was not required for that before.
•You can now enter the Receipt Password in place of the Program Entry Password when you start the program, if both are set up. If you do that, you will not also be prompted for that Receipt Password if you use any of the Receipt menu options that normally require it, during that run of the program. (The Help page on Passwords in the Program has always stated that this was allowed, but either that was never correct, or we accidentally broke that capability at some point - we're not actually sure which!)
•Fixed a bug in the «DetailsTable» field for Pledge mail-merge letters, if the Pledge type set in the Pledges tab of Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options was one with a Start Date: donations made exactly on that Start Date, that were part of the pledge, were omitted from the results of the «DetailsTable».
•The program does not display properly if you have Windows 10 and have set your display into Tablet Mode, so if that is the case, you now get an error message with instructions for turning off Tablet Mode, and the program exits. You can restart it after turning off Tablet Mode.
•Changed the messages that come up if you try to backup or restore using a UNC path (such as \\computername\path\...). Previously that never (or at least almost never) worked, and you got a hard to understand techie error message from the Firebird database software. Now you get a clearer message, earlier, directly from the program. (This change was actually in version 3.85, or perhaps 3.85b, but we forgot to mention it before this.
•Added a section warning about ways you can print mail-merge receipts that will cause them to not be saved back to the databases, in the Help topic on Generating Receipts using Mail Merge. Also added a message about that problem if you go into File ⇒ Print Preview when viewing a mail-merge receipt, because that print preview window has a Print button that the program cannot detect the use of, and thus causes the receipt to not be saved.
•When saving reports to files with the Save As button, there is now an option to open reports saved as HTML in Excel, in addition to opening them in your default web browser. However, that is likely to come out worse in most cases than if you save them directly as Excel.
•Reorganized the Tools ⇒ Register Online window, splitting the fields up into groups for Organization Information, Contact Person, and Other Comments.
•When using Batch Entry, previously it would allow you to enter a Gift in Kind without a Description. Now it won't. (Normally it makes more sense to enter Gifts in Kind on the program's main window anyways.)
•Fixed a problem when you are doing Email/Print on receipts, if you choose to do the Print part to the "novaPDF Pro v7 for DONATION" printer to get a PDF containing all of the ones that are to be printed rather than emailed. It would previously give you the message "You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer" at the bottom of each page of the PDF. Now it doesn't. For normal built-in receipts, you would choose that printer with the Print Setup button, print to clicking Email/Print. For mail-merge receipts, you get to select the desired novaPDF printer in the Printer dialog box that comes up.
•If you are using the Cloud Storage Service, and you enter a different Internet Backup Password on program startup from the last one you used, the message asking you to confirm whether or not you actually want to change the password to a new one is clearer, and you are asked a 2nd time to confirm it, if you answer that you really do want to change it. This should help to prevent accidental changes to the password.
•Fixed a rare problem in the editor/viewer for mail-merge letters and receipts, where you get a message about "Null object error in of_focus event" and the program crashes.
•Fixed a bug where if you were doing fiscal year data entry and receipting, the Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors menu option would give error messages and not work.
•When you are editing donor details, when there are empty address lines with a filled-in line following them, they are moved up. For instance, if Address Line 1 is empty but Address Line 2 is filled, in line 2 is moved up into line 1, and similarly with lines 2 and 3. (This change was actually made in version 3.82, but we failed to mention it in the revision history for that version until adding it in there, and here, now.)
•When you are Importing Donors, empty address lines have following filled-in address lines moved up into them, just like when you are editing donor details as described in the previous point.
•If you are emailing just a single receipt or letter, and there is a problem sending that email, the error message you receive should now be more informative. Other emailing error messages will also now be more informative, and the email log file that it may offer to show you should also now always be correct. (Previously sometimes it was not showing the log file from the actual error that was relevant.)
•Many reports that included donation category names would not print the entire name if it was long, especially if a lot of capital letters were used. Most of those reports should be fixed now to work with virtually any donation category name that you can enter. (They are a maximum of 20 characters long.)
•Fixed a problem that could prevent database schema updates from version 20 or 21 to the current version to fail, with error messages about an unknown column named BANK_DEPOSIT_DATE.
•Sometimes the Tools ⇒ Fix novaPDF Problems menu option would not succeed because DONATION was running while the fix program was running. Now you are prompted to allow DONATION to exit prior to running the fix.
•In the selection window for Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Contact Information, you can choose between reporting on all donors, or only donors with donations within a specified date range. However, the heading text of that window previously said you could also select it only for the currently selected donor, which was not correct. That incorrect wording was removed.
•Made a correction to the fix in the Cloud Storage Service made in version 3.84g, to not mess things up if the user's Windows username has a space in it.
•Increased the warning wording in both the program and this Help file about the fact that editing mail-merge receipts or letters in Microsoft Word can damage them, causing merge fields to not merge. Also added a messagebox explaining how to identify and fix merge fields that did not merge because the file was damaged by editing it in Word.
•In the Bank Deposits window, changed the way deleting a retrieved existing bank deposit works, to fix a bug where the delete failed if not all the donations that were originally in the deposit were retrieved into the details area of the window. (That could happen, for instance, if the donation category of one of those donations was changed to one without an associated accounting program income account.)
•In the Maintenance ⇒ Change Password ⇒ Internet Backup Encryption Password menu option, it now allows passwords of length up to 20 characters (previously only 10), and only accepts a change if the password is sufficiently strong (see Passwords for Email and Internet Backups for details).
•In the Database ⇒ Delete Old Data menu option, corrected it to behave as described in the Help, namely to allow deletion of data up to the year three years before the current calendar year (for instance, deleting up through 2014 if it is now 2017). Previously, due to a programming error, it forced you to retain one more than that.
•Added several references in various Help pages to the use of the phrase "contribution statement" in the U.S.A. to refer to what the program always calls "receipts".
•Made a fix to the Cloud Storage Service so that if the user's Windows username has accented characters in it, they do not cause problems, which previously they did.
•Added a bit to the Help topic on Importing Donations about importing multiple years of donations when you first start using the program.
•Made some improvements to the Help topic Year End Procedures to add further clarity.
•Further improvements to the changes in version 3.84e.
•Fix a problem where some users were observing that if they had Internet Backups configured, after the normal backup was done, and it prompted for the Internet Backup Encryption password, the focus would be in the main window instead of that window prompting for the password.
•Changed how the program updates the database structure, so that if some updates have somehow been missed in the past, the program can go back and do them, rather than exiting because a later update cannot be done.
•When you are Importing Donations with Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations, previously if there was a donation category in the import file that wasn't already on the list of such categories in the program, the import would stop with a message that you needed to add that category manually. Now the import routine will automatically add any new categories for you.
•Further fix in the Deposit Slip report introduced in version 3.84, to separate out lines for cheques on different dates, if you have not entered a Cheque # / Paid By value for them at all. (With the fix in version 3.84c, would already separate them out correctly, whether they were on the same or different date, as long as the Cheque # / Paid By values were different.)
•In the new Deposit Slip report introduced in version 3.84, if a cheque was split into several donation lines because it was for multiple donation categories, it will now be summed up into one line in the list of cheques in the report. Previously there would have been one line for each donation line.
•Fixed a bug that caused version 3.84 to crash for users with the Cloud Storage Service turned on.
•Added a new Donors Only Password, for users who should be able to see and change donor information but not financial information. Also separated out a Help page on Passwords in the Program.
•Multiple changes related to allowing for counting cash and creating bank deposit slips in the program:
oAdded a new "Word for Cash" field in the Donations tab of Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options to specify the word you use in the Cheque # / Paid By field for cash donations (defaults to "Cash"). It is needed to identify which donations in Batch Entries or Bank Deposits are considered to be cash.
oAdded a new window for counting cash, accessed via a new Maintenance ⇒ Count Cash menu option, or new Count Cash buttons on the Batch Entry or Bank Deposit windows.
oYou can now print a report that may be usable as a deposit slip from the Bank Deposit window, with a new Deposit Slip button.
oAdded the Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Slip report to reprint those same deposit slips from Bank Deposits you have specified.
oOn the Bank Deposit window, changed the previous Print button to read Report. It displays the existing bank deposit details report.
•In the Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details report, moved the Summary by Category and Summary by Paid By sections of the report to be side by side, to save room.
•Added a new Help topic on the main window.
•When DONATION exports Excel files to text files for importing in various places (for instance in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors menu option) it now exports to Unicode rather than ANSI text, which means that characters in various other languages should now be imported correctly.
•Fixed a bug when re-retrieving an existing bank deposit in Maintenance ⇒ Create Bank Deposit. If there were further donations that matched the retrieval conditions, that weren't already saved in that bank deposit, previously they would come up with "Include" checked, and the Save button would be disabled (greyed out), so you couldn't save that, unless you unchecked then checked one of the checkboxes. Now those additional donations come up with "Include" unchecked, so you can decide whether or not to include them (possibly by clicking the Select All button) and then Save your change.
•Fixed a bug when importing donors. If a Category1 or Category2 value being imported contained a single quote (such as "John's Bookkeeping"), and there was more than one occurrence of it, the import would fail with a technical message that indicated it was trying to insert duplicate values into the database. Plus, one copy of that category value would actually already have been imported into the appropriate Donor Category table in the database (viewed with Maintenance ⇒ Donor Category 1 or 2) but modified to include a tilde character before the single quote (like "John~'s Bookkeeping").
•Fixed a bug in the Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing menu option: If you chose to just Export the data instead of merging it, the LastYearAmount column would always be empty.
•Corrected several places in this Help file (all in pages about Importing) that said that a Member/Envelope Number could be 10 digits long. It can actually only be 9 digits long.
•For Canadian users, using distinct receipt formats for Gift in Kind donations is now enforced by the program, because it is required by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Previously it was an option. The "Use different receipts for Gifts in Kind / Non-Cash Gifts" checkbox previously shown on the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window for Canadian users was thus removed.
•Canadian users of the free feature-limited Lite version can now also create distinct Gift in Kind receipts, since they are required by the CRA, and can enter Description fields and appraisals for donations. (Those donation fields were previously also not allowed in the Lite version, because they were most often needed only for Gift in Kind receipts.)
•For Canadian users, when doing Receipt ⇒ Reprint Range or Receipt ⇒ Gift in Kind ⇒ Reprint Range, if some or all of the receipts in the range to be reprinted are of the wrong type (Gift in Kind versus regular) you will now get appropriate warning messages about that.
•Changed Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors to bring up a window that allows you to copy donors and categories from any year (and any intervening years) to any other year, instead of having two sub-menu options for copying forward or back one year.
•When you use the Reports ⇒ Custom Report menu option and do a report over a range of more than 2 years, if there are donors in prior years included in the report that are not in the last year, previously they would be excluded from the report. Now, in that situation you are prompted with an option to do the equivalent of Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors, in order to get all required donors into the last year for the report, to make sure none are missed.
•Added Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Non Donors, that lists all donors in the current year's list that have never donated, with the number of years they have been in the system for.
•Added Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ All Donations with Deposit Status, which shows every donation with a range of dates that you specify, with whether they have already been included in a bank deposit, or will be omitted from a new bank deposit, and if so why, or would be included in a new bank deposit. This report can be used to help figure out why donations that you think should be included in a bank deposit aren't being retrieved when you try to create a new bank deposit.
•Made several small improvements to the Maintenance ⇒ Change Password menu options:
oYou now cannot set up a Limited User or Read Only password if the Program Entry and Internet Backup passwords are identical. (That's because all users should know the Internet Backup password, if one is set up, but then the more limited users would also know the Program Entry password.)
oYou now can't set the Program Entry and Internet Backup passwords to be identical if a Limited User or Read Only password is already set up, for the same reasons.
oYou now can't set any of the Program Entry, Receipt, Limited User or Read Only passwords to be identical to each other.
•Both Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Addresses and Addresses by Member/Envelope Number now include a field for the total amount given by the donor in the current year, which can be filtered on, but is not actually displayed on the report.
•In the Database ⇒ Import sub-menu options for importing data from Membership Plus, GiftWorks and Geminon, negative amounts can now be imported. Previously they would be omitted from the conversion. (This change was possible due to the change in version 3.80 to allow turning on an "Allow Negative Amounts" option in the Donations tab of Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options.)
•Added the Help ⇒ Search by Topic or Keyword menu option, that actually just brings up a messagebox giving you instructions for how to do that, but also has buttons that take you either to the Help file where you can use the Index for searching, or to the How to Use Help help page for further instructions.
•Changed Help ⇒ Contents and Index so that it always opens on with the Index showing, which we believe is the most commonly helpful option. Previously it would show whichever of the Contents, Index, Search or Favorites tabs that you had last been on when you used the Help file.
•If you select the pledge type "Annual with Start Date and Category", there is a new Pledge information letters mail-merge field: «TotalAmountAllCategories». It gives the total of all donations for the year, whether or not they are for the pledge category. It will always be the total of the donations listed in the «DetailsTableAllCategories:...» field.
•For users who are not in Canada (based on the setting in the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window), you are now allowed to leave donors' Address Line 1 fields empty. For Canadian users it is still required, because the Canada Revenue Agency requires a donor's complete address to be printed on receipts. When importing donors from files, or converting from other software systems, there are new messages and behaviours for Canadian users when a donor to be imported is missing an Address Line 1 value.
•When you are editing donor details, when there are empty address lines with a filled-in line following them, they are moved up. For instance, if Address Line 1 is empty but Address Line 2 is filled, in line 2 is moved up into line 1, and similarly with lines 2 and 3.
•Added a new Help topic, Handling Anonymous Donations, which is something people often ask us about.
•Resolved a problem when Converting from Membership Plus databases, where the import would fail if there were Member rows in the Membership Plus database with no internal Member ID field value. (That should not be possible, but was happening with one user's data.) Now such rows are ignored. We are quite sure they could not have had associated donations, so that should not be a problem.
•There is a new Tools ⇒ Fix novaPDF Problems menu option, which downloads and runs a program from our website to uninstall and reinstall the novaPDF PDF printer, to fix problems that sometimes come up (for instance if you uninstall the printer driver, or delete some of its files). The program is also using a newer version of novaPDF.
•When you are installing a license key or evaluation extension key, the program now removes unexpected characters (which might be invisible!) from the lines before doing anything else, to correct unusual errors in the copy and paste process of putting the key into that window. It also checks the lengths of those lines of the keys after that, and doesn't proceed if they are an unexpected length.
•For the statement-type reports, Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Details, One Page per Donor and Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Category Totals, One Page per Donor, if you emailed them, the text body of the email that you specified should have been saved and redisplayed for you to use the next time you emailed them. But it wasn't - now it is.
•The Receipt ⇒ Filtered Donors window (and Receipt ⇒ Gift in Kind Receipts ⇒ Filtered Donors if you are using separate Gift in Kind receipts) now allows you to also filter the donations on a range of donations' Dates Received. This could be used to generate receipts for all donations for an event where the donations are all recorded on the same date, if there wasn't already a distinct donation category you could filter on for that. It could also be used to receipt just one receiptable donation for a donor with multiple unreceipted donations, as long as you also enter a donor criterion to restrict the receipts to that one donor. It could also, of course, be used for an actual range of dates (not just one date).
•You can now give your own names to the Donor Category 1 and Category 2 fields, in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window. Doing so also changes the names of relevant menu options, text on reports, etc.
•In the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors window and the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donations window, the option to not review the data to be imported before completing the import has been removed. Now you will always be shown the window on which you can review that data.
•In the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors window, you are now warned if it appears that donors to be added have the same names as existing donors, which could mean that the import would create duplicate donors.
•Fixed a bug in the new checkbox for "Allow updating existing donors, matching on the Member/Envelope Number" in the Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors window. When you were updating existing rows, it could fail with a techie error about a violation of a foreign key constraint, when trying to delete a row from the DONOR table that had donations. (The import feature doesn't ever actually delete any rows, but it was trying to update an existing row by deleting it then re-inserting it.)
•The Database ⇒ Import ⇒ Donors window now has a new checkbox for "Allow updating existing donors, matching on the Member/Envelope Number".
•In the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window, you can now choose to include both the Cheque Number and the Description in the Details Table for the built-in (non-mail-merge) receipts. You could always do that for mail-merge receipts. Previously you could only choose to include one or the other for the built-in receipts. The default is still to include neither.
•There is a new option on the Donations tab of Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options, "Allow Negative Amounts". Although for issues like cheques that have been entered into DONATION then come back NSF we recommend just deleting that donation, some users prefer to enter a separate "donation" that has a negative Amount, to reverse the original donation. Checking this new checkbox allows for that.
•Fixed a bug that did not allow an Eligible Amount of a donation to be $0 if you had not checked the "Allow $0" checkbox on the Donations tab of Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options.
•If you select the pledge type "Annual with Start Date and Category", there is a new Pledge information letters mail-merge field: «DetailsTableAllCategories:...». Unlike «DetailsTable:...» for such pledge letters, which only lists donations towards the pledge, the new field lists all donations in the current year, whether or not they are toward the pledge.
•If you select the pledge type "Multiple Year", there was a bug when editing Pledge information mail-merge letters: if you inserted the field «DetailsTableAllYears:...» with the Insert button, it should have prompted you for which Donation fields to include, but it didn't. That has now been fixed.
•When you are creating a bank deposit, if you have donations with an eligible amount different from the total amount (split receipting) you can no longer set the Bank Account and the Advantage Account to be the same account name, which would have been an error. The Advantage Account must be an income account in your accounting program.
•In Custom Reports, you were not supposed to be able to select both a regular amount field (Total Amount or Eligible Amount) and a summary field (a Sum or count), because that really doesn't make any sense, but it was not preventing that as it should.
•Also in Custom Reports, you can no longer select both the Donor Comments field and a summary field (a Sum or count) because that generated SQL that would not work.
•If you start by installing the free feature-limited Lite version, then install one of the full-featured versions (Standalone, Network Server or Network Client) on top of that, previously your 60-day evaluation period would count as starting when you installed the Lite version, and thus the evaluation period might already be over. (In that case you would have to get an evaluation extension to continue evaluating that full version, unless you paid immediately.) Now doing this upgrade restarts your evaluation period. In the unusual case where you had previously had a paid licensed copy of a full version, switched to Lite, and then switched back to a paid version, this will also remove your saved license key from the licensing file, so you will have to reinstall the key (if you still have it and it is up to date) or re-request it (if your payments are up to date).
•In the Maintenance ⇒ Paid By Values window, there is an obscure way to cause it to have two rows with "Cheque" or "Check" in them, which should not be allowed, and prevents you from making any other changes. Now if that is the case, when you close that window, it will detect the problem and delete the duplicate row.
•If you enter an incorrect password in the program (such as a Program Entry password), the message you get now includes the Organization Name from the database you are trying to access. That can be helpful if you have multiple databases, and might be putting in a password for the wrong one. It's also helpful if you forget your password and we have to give you a temporary one to get in, because it is based on the exact Organization Name, which you can then tell us.
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 3.79, if you are trying to install an evaluation extension: the program exits, after giving a message "Internal error: licensing object not passed when opening w_new_eval_date".
•Changed the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window, to separate out checkboxes for including the Details Table and Summary Table for the built-in (not mail-merge) receipts. This allows you to omit both of them. This may allow built-in receipts with the Receipt Style / Location of "Quebec (French only)" to fit on one page, when they otherwise went to two pages. Unfortunately receipts for "Quebec (bilingual French and English)" still print a blank page even if you omit both tables, a bug which we have not been able to eliminate so far.
•Fixed a bug where when you printed sample mail-merge receipts (or saved them to PDF, or emailed them) created with Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample: the "SAMPLE ONLY" watermark might not appear. (This was supposedly previously fixed in version 3.73d, but I think the fix only worked with older versions of Internet Explorer.)
•Fixed another bug with the built-in (not mail-merge) sample receipts, where if you emailed them with the Email/Print button (which for sample receipts always goes only to yourself, for testing), the Details Table and Summary Table disappeared in the emailed PDF file (and on-screen, after the emailing).
•Users have been having trouble configuring email sending with Gmail in the Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window. There are now two different solutions available in the program for that. Details are in the Help page Gmail Configuration.
•In the first Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window, made the figuring out of the settings from an account in Microsoft Outlook work for newer versions of Outlook (Office 2016 and 2015). Also included details so it could directly figure out settings for @me.com addresses.
•Added Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Duplicate Member/Envelope Numbers for finding donors in the same year with the same member / envelope number, which should not normally be able to happen, but could occasionally happen, most commonly by using the Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors menu option.
•Found the places in the program that would allow duplicate member/envelope numbers to be added, and changed all of them to either report on it after the fact, or prevent if if appropriate.
•Fixed a bug when using the Lowest Unused Member/Env. # option to assign a number to a donor, where if there were donors with duplicate member/envelope numbers, it could try to give the first duplicated number to yet another donor!
•Fixed a problem in the date formatting for receipts. It was supposed to use the format "d mmm yyyy" either if the long date format in Control Panel started with a code for the day number, or if your Receipt Style / Location was one for Quebec, and the format "mmm d, yyyy" otherwise. Now it does.
•Added a new Receipt Style / Location option, New Zealand, in the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window. There are new customized built-in and mail merge receipts for New Zealand. If you were previously using the Receipt Style / Location "Other", and had customized the Other mail-merge receipt for your use, it will be copied to become a customized New Zealand receipt for you to use.
•The built-in receipts for Canada (English), both types of Australia, New Zealand, and Other, should all fit in #10 window envelopes now, as long as there are no separate lines shown for the total amount and eligible amount (split receipting). Unfortunately the same change could not easily be made for the mail-merge version of the receipts - we recommend that you continue using Receipt Mailing Labels if you are using them.
•For mail merge receipts with a «DetailsTable:...» field (and other mail merge letters that can include that field), if ";2column" is included to cause it to have two columns of donations across the page in the table, but there is only one donation to be included in the table, then only one set of column headers is now displayed in the table. Previously two sets of column headers were displayed even when there was only one included donation.
•There are two new receipt mail merge fields, for Receipt Style / Location options that allow for fiscal year receipting and data entry: «Fiscal» and «YearOrYearEnd».
•Those two new fields are used to change the wording for such Receipt Style / Locations to say that the receipt is for the year ending on the fiscal year end, when you have changed the current year to use fiscal year receipting. The same wording changes were made on the built-in receipts for those locations.
•Clarified in the Help for Batch Entry that even if you check "Include existing donations for the specified date", donations that have already been receipted are not displayed. That is because receipted donations cannot be edited, and the only reason to bring them back up on this window would be to edit them. If you just want to see them again, use a report, such as one of the Reports ⇒ One Date Donation reports.
•Added some improvements to how the program figures out how to launch Microsoft Word or Excel, for some users where those Microsoft programs were present on the system but not being found by DONATION.
•Fixed a harmless bug where after certain types of actions you could get a "Null object reference in nvo_receipt" message when exiting the program.
•Eliminated a techie error message (which doesn't actually harm anything) when you try to Memorize a report with no title or subtitle, like mailing labels or envelopes.
•Some aspects of the program code have been significantly re-organized to allow us to share more code between this program and our ACCOUNTS bookkeeping program.
•Fixed a bug where errors communicating with the Software4Nonprofits.com website, like when using the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option, could cause the program to crash with a techie error message about nvo_http.
•Fixed a problem some users were having with emailing where they got messages saying it failed when it shouldn't have, particularly with messages about components not being unlocked.
•Fixed a bug introduced in version 3.77, where Canadian English or Quebec French or Bilingual mail-merge Gift in Kind receipts were failing with an error message about incorrect SQL. Regular (non-mail-merge) Gift in Kind receipts, and non-Gift in Kind receipts, and receipts for any other location (like U.S.A.) were not affected by this bug.
•Added a section on Specific Gmail Problems to the Help page on the Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration menu option, because a lot of users are having problems with that when their email address are Gmail addresses.
•Made some improvements to the messaging for the unusual cases where there is something wrong with the program's licensing file, to allow you to better understand what is wrong and what to do about it. If it is necessary to re-download and install the program the fix such problems, the program will give you an option to go to the DOWNLOAD page on the website to do that.
•The program now comes with a newer composite version of the 3rd-party controls that used to be separated, for sending emails (Chilkat Mail), for communication with websites (Chilkat Http) and for extracting files from compressed files (Chilkat Zip).
•Fixed a problem where users with Microsoft Excel version 16 might not be able to get it to open files from the program, for instance from the Save As button for reports.
•When uploading Internet Backups to the server (as part of making regular backups, or when you exit the program as part of the Cloud Storage Service) the progress indicator is now reasonably accurate. (Previously it just went across the screen once or more, but didn't correctly indicate the percentage of the upload that was done.)
•Introduced an option for Using Fiscal Year Data Entry and Receipting, for users in countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, where the tax receipting year is not the calendar year. It's turned on by a new checkbox in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window.
•Renamed the "Receipt Style For" field, found both in Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info and in Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options, to "Receipt Style / Location", for clarity.
•In many places in the program, if you entered data in a field that was not allowed, the error message about that would come up in a message box using a very small font, with the title "Data Entry Error". Now most of those messages use our normal larger font message boxes.
•Fixed a bug when creating bank deposits, where if you have used a bank account name that included double quotation marks, the program crashes when you enter the window for creating another bank deposit. The same problem may have also applied to other fields, like the Advantage Account.
•Fixed a bug in the Maintenance ⇒ Change Year window, where if you select a new year that doesn't yet exist in the database, answer No when prompted to confirm changing to it, and then just close the window by pressing ESC or clicking Cancel, you are still prompted about creating the new year.
•Added a Letters ⇒ Email Newsletters menu option that allows you to send an email to all or filtered donors with email addresses, with an attachment.
•Corrected an inconsistency in receipts for Canada (English) where the displayed Donation Date (for receipts containing only one donation) was in a different format from the receipt date.
•The Maintenance ⇒ Receipt Options window has been slightly re-arranged, and has a new option that only applies to mail-merge receipts and letters: "Use Windows short dates for Details sections". This is mostly intended for users in countries using languages other than English or French, and applies to both the table of donation details and the DonationDateOrYr field, when the receipt is only for a single donation.
•The Receipt Options window also now allows editing of the Receipting Person (the name of the person who signs the receipts), which can still also be edited in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window (where it could always be edited before). This should make this field easier to find.
•Renamed File ⇒ New Member/Env. # and the corresponding popup menu on the "Member/Env. #" Donor Details field to Next Higher Member/Env. #, and added File ⇒ Lowest Unused Member/Env. #, which automatically fills in that field with the number that is the first gap in the sequential numbering (or 1 if that hasn't yet been assigned to any donor).
•On the Donor tab of the Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window, added a field for "Lowest Member/Env. # for automatic assignment", that applies to the menu options in the previous point, and is also used as the default starting point for a new "Starting Env. # for assignment" field on the Database ⇒ Reassign Envelope Numbers window.
•Added a "magic" mail-merge field MultipleDonations for use in receipts, that can be used in sections such as "«if:MultipleDonations»text related to multiple donations«else»text related to single donations«endif»" to include variable text based on how many donations are included in each receipt.
•When you switched to a new year for the first time, it was supposed to ask you whether to skip copying donors who didn't have any donations in the last 2 years, but it was not doing that, so it always copied all donors from the previous year. That is now fixed, and the question is being asked again.
•The Cloud Storage Service is now available, which is an improved way for users with DONATION on multiple computers (not on a local network) to transfer their data between computers, using Internet backups, but without having to worry about whose turn it is to have control of the database, because it takes care of that for you.
•In the Database ⇒ Switch Databases window, if you choose a different database in the Current column of checkboxes, the default button now becomes the Switch button, so you can just press Enter to do the switch rather than having to click on it.
•Added comments at various places in this Help file explaining that you should not try to move your database to a 3rd-party cloud storage location like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive etc.
•You can now force languages other than English and French to be used in the headings of the «DetailsTable», «DetailsTableAllYears» and «SummaryTable» mail-merge fields in mail-merge receipts or letters, by adding lines with the correct wording into the DONATION.INI file in the program's Data Directory.
•Fixed a bug: If you do Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details (or the same report from Reports ⇒ Report Browser) when there have not yet been any bank deposits in the current year, it first tells you that there are no bank deposits and then when you click OK to that message, the program crashes with a further error message.
•Fixed a bug: If a donor has a business name with a comma in it, like "Smith, Jones and Company" then the heading for the donation details area on the main window becomes reversed (as if it was a person's name), so for instance this example would be displayed as "Jones and Company Smith".
•Fixed another bug: If a donor category field is empty, you change it to "<Add New>", then don't add anything in the popup window and close that window, the category value stays showing "<Add New>". If you then Save, you get a techie error message and you cannot save. The fix is that when you do that, the category now automatically reverts back to the blank (empty) one.
•In both the French and Bilingual Quebec built-in version of the receipts, make the amount move up on the 2nd copy (the one for the provincial tax form) if it's not "split receipting" (no need for lines about the total amount, advantage, and eligible amount). That makes the two copies look more identical.
Version 3.74b (December 3, 2015):
•Fixed Total Donations information mail-merge letters: the «TotalAmount» and other totals fields were wrong (way too high) in the merged letters, for any donors with previous year donations, because of incorrect SQL used to add the «LastYearAmount» field in version 3.74.
•For mail-merge letters created with Letters ⇒ One Letter or Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing, added a «LastYearAmount» field to Donor Information and Donation Totals Information letters.
•Also, in the Donor Information, Current Donation (or Individual Donations) Information and Donation Totals Information letters, if there was no pledge for a donor, the «Pledge» field in a merged letter was empty, fixed that to display $0.
•Changed Tools ⇒ Register Online, and the Register page on the website, so that the field for the organization's website address allows up to 70 characters (previously 50).
•Provided an option in the Maintenance ⇒ Configure Bank Deposits window, for QuickBooks users to change the date format in the export files from MM/DD/YYYY to DD/MM/YYYY, if they are having problems with importing those dates into QuickBooks on a computer with a Short Date Format like DD/MM/YYYY.
•Fixed a bug where if you try to install an expired license key, the error message you get states an incorrect date as being the expiry date of that license key.
•In the mail merge editor, added an Actions ⇒ Zoom menu option, which actually just puts up a message box telling you how to zoom with keyboard or mouse actions.
•Added a Glossary page to this Help file.
•Fixed a bug in Letters ⇒ One Letter or Mass Mailing, where if you Show Advanced Actions and then Edit Copy, you can get an error message "Error re-retrieving drop-down list of Letters to include new copy."
•Fixed a bug when using Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample if you have chosen to use mail merge receipts: the "SAMPLE ONLY" watermark was not necessarily showing up.
•Corrected the description in this Help file of Reports ⇒ Fiscal Year ⇒ Donor Totals, Sort by Name to no longer incorrectly say that it reports on two fiscal years. It only reports on the current fiscal year, like all other Fiscal Year reports. Also corrected this in the description in the Report Browser.
•Added some logging on successful email sends from the program, to help us be able to debug extremely rare problems reported by users where the program says an email was sent successfully, but nothing is ever received. (The log is in the file mailLog.txt in the program's Data Directory.) Also changed the logging on email sending errors from being an XML file to be a plain text file, which is easier to read.
•Fixed an obscure bug in the Reports window. If you had put on a Filter, then removed that Filter, then clicked the Rerun button and re-run the report, you got an inappropriate couple of messages about something being invalid and having to re-save the memorized report. (And it wasn't even a memorized report in the first place!)
•Fixed a very unusual potential problem where in the Database ⇒ SQL Select window, if you are given a password by Software4Nonprofits to allow you to do some form of data updating in that window, that password could fail to work because it had an unprintable character in it.
•Fixed a small weirdness in the Maintenance ⇒ Create Bank Deposit window, where if you retrieve an existing deposit, and it doesn't include any donations with an advantage (see Split Receipting), the Delete Deposit button that appears is in the wrong position (too low, partly overlaying the list of included donations).
•The program will refuse to create mail merge letters or receipts, or to do several other functions, if the Windows Control Panel's long date format gives dates that are longer than 20 characters, because for technical reasons this causes problems. Previously the program only told you about that, and gave a longish message saying how to fix that format. Now it gives you an option for the program to try to fix it for you.
•Added a new Help topic Titles in Donor Names, explaining why there is no separate field for titles in the Donor Details area, and some ways to work around that if you do want to record them.
•Hid a few Reports menu options for limited users, that were accidentally shown.
•Improved the clarity of messages you can receive if you run a Network Version of DONATION but only have a license key for the Standalone version. Previously those messages referred to the fact that you were using the Firebird Server, which most users wouldn't understand - now it just refers to the Network Version of the program.
•Added the ability to have two bank deposits to the same bank account on the same date, through a trick.
•Added an option to delete an existing bank deposit after retrieving it.
•Receipts for Quebec that use French dates have a new date format for the receipt date, composed of the day number, a 3-5 letter abbreviation for the month, and the year. For instance, "31 juill. 2015" for July 31, 2015.
•Made a fix in the installation program so it will work on the upcoming Microsoft Windows version 10.
•In the Backup/Restore ⇒ Backup Frequency and Options window, added an option for you to be reminded to backup the program every time you exit it.
•In the Reports ⇒ Custom Reports window, there are two new fields you can select in the Donation fields list: Month # Received and Quarter # Received.
•Also in Reports ⇒ Custom Reports, if you select the # Donations field, and a range of years, and Separate Totals, there will be one # Donations field column for each year in the report, as was previously done for the Sum(Total Amount) and Sum(Eligible Amount) fields.
•In Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details, fix a tiny bug: the bank name could be cut off in the header of the report if it was at all long.
•Fixed a very unusual problem when you are updating from a version prior to 3.72, where if you had two bank deposits done on the same date but as part of different years' data (such as in early January of some year), a database conversion step as part of that upgrade failed.
•In the Database ⇒ SQL Select window, more types of SQL statements (beyond the normal SELECT statement) are now allowed, with the provision of a SQL updating password from Software4Nonprofits, than were previously allowed. This will allow our support people to fix certain types of rare problems in users' databases without having to have those databases sent to us by email backup, fixed here, and sent back for restoring.
•Fixed a problem where certain complex numeric expressions (that aren't for currency amounts) get formatted as currency when they shouldn't, in Database ⇒ SQL Select.
•Fixed a rare but bad bug in emailing receipts, letters or statements: If you were using mail-merge receipts or letters, and you edited the merged documents, and they were for more than one donor, and then you chose to email them, you would be prompted for whether to save the edited changes before continuing. If you answered Yes, the documents for all donors would be included in the PDF attachment to the first donor receiving an email (a bad privacy violation!). Fortunately this had only happened to one user, to the best of our knowledge, because it's a fairly unusual combination of steps! (This could also happen with unusual merge documents even if you didn't edit the merged documents before trying to email them - that is also prevented by this fix.)
•All backup filenames now have a time component as well as a date component, such as DONATION-YYYY-MM-DD.HH.MM.SS.DB.GBK, where YYYY-MM-DD is the date the backup was made, and HH.MM.SS is the time.
•There was a weakness in the handling of bank deposits, in that you couldn't have deposits to two different banks on the same date, and when doing reports on old bank deposits with Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details, it always showed them as being done on the bank that you last did a bank deposit on. That has been fixed for bank deposits recorded after installing this version. (Reports on bank deposits made before installing this version will still all show up as being on the last-used bank before this upgrade.)
•When you start DONATION with an empty database (on a first install, or re-install on a new or rebuilt computer) the DONATION Initial Startup window now has an additional option to restore from an Internet backup, if you have one, and know your Unique ID for Internet Backups and the Backup Encryption Password you were using for such backups. (This change actually appeared in version 3.71c, but we forgot to note that fact at the time.)
•On the Reports ⇒ Donor sub-menu, the report options Mailing Labels, Mailing Labels with Member/Envelope # and Envelopes all now have a new option to print only for the currently selected donor on the main window.
•Fixed a minor bug: the paging buttons in the Reports viewing window were being disabled for Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Details, One Page per Donor, and Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Category Totals, One Page per Donor, when there really were multiple pages. Now they are enabled in that case.
•In the Help topic for Finding a Donor, clarified that accented characters cannot be found by the normal method of just typing in the Donor List. Instead you have to use the Ctrl+F Find Donor window to do that.
•Fixed a bug when doing Receipt ⇒ Duplicate/Corrected by Number, where if all of the donations included in that receipt had been deleted, so it should have been reprinted with a new amount of $0, the program could crash.
•Fixed a bug introduced in version 3.71 - if you were registering for the first time with Tools ⇒ Register Online, and you hadn't previously set up an email address with Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration, the email address field would be both empty and uneditable, and you would not be able to submit the registration because the program would ask you to enter an email address!
•Fix a bug added recently: If you are using the evaluation version, and from the Evaluation and Licensing window that comes up when you start the program, you click "Request License Key" or "Request Key for Extension of Evaluation Period", the program crashes with an error message. (Those both still worked if you went into the program with the Continue button, and called up that window from the Tools ⇒ Request or Install License Key menu option.)
•Some improvements to the messaging if you try to do a backup or restore on a drive letter that is not available (e.g. a USB memory key). Also improvements to various other bits of messaging in the program.
•Added a Copy Prev button to the One Date Batch Entry window. For donors who give the same amount each time they donate, that allows you to quickly copy in that amount (including for donations split between multiple donation categories) as the current date's donation.
•Also on the One Date Batch Entry window, changed the hotkey for Split All from Alt+T (which didn't work, because it was already the hotkey for the Totals by Category button) to Alt+P.
•Added a Database ⇒ Import ⇒ From Geminon menu option, for importing data directly from a Geminon database file. (Geminon is a Canadian church software program that went out of business several years ago and is no longer supported.)
•Added a menu option Maintenance ⇒ Change Password ⇒ Read Only Password, that allows you to set a Read Only Password. Entering DONATION with that password means you can view data and reports, and create letters etc., but not change any data, generate receipts (other than sample ones) etc.
•The top sub-report in Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details, showing the details, had somehow become too narrow, causing longer values in the Cheque # / Paid By field to be cut off. Made it the proper width again so that would not happen.
•Fixed some problems that can happen in the installation program if you are installing into a non-standard location for the program files, or re-installing to one location when a prior install went to a different location.
•Fixed a bug where if you move or resize the main window after it opens, and then do something that causes the data in the main window to be re-retrieved (like changing the working year, or restoring a backup) the window goes back to the position and size it was when it first opened.
•When you are emailing receipts, letters or statements (but only mail-merge receipts, not the regular built-in ones), or emailing newsletters, you now have the option of inserting merge fields into the Subject line and text Body of the emails, as well as in the merged document (for receipts, letters and statements) that is being attached as a PDF. That lets you personalize those emails.
•Also when you are emailing receipts, letters or statements, or emailing newsletters, you can send the Body of the email as HTML, if you are very familiar with it, by having "<html>" (without the quotes) as the very first thing in the Body, and ending it with "</html>". Of course, other appropriate changes have to be made to make it valid HTML that will display well! HTML body text can be viewed in a web browser with a new Show in Web Browser button that appears if the body starts with "<html>".
•In the mail-merge editor, the default template documents installed by the program now show thin grey dotted borders around all table cells, to help you see how the document is structured and assist in any editing you do. Those borders disappear when you print the merged document, save it to PDF, or email it - they are only visible on the screen. For existing edited documents where those borders are not shown, they can be added with a new menu option Edit ⇒ Show Table Borders on Screen.
•Fix a bug where if a mail-merge template document is over 32K in size, any merge codes after that point are ignored when you do the merge.
•For reports that prompt for something (like a date, or range of dates) added a Rerun button to the report-viewing window, that lets you respecify those prompted-for values, and redisplay the report with your new values.
•Made the report viewing window resizable.
•For Canadian (English, French only and bilingual) corrected or duplicate/replacement receipts, that create a new receipt with a new number and reprint the existing one with a $0 amount, the new receipt is now displayed first, before the reprinted replaced original. That should avoid some confusion.
•If you were correcting or replacing a receipt for Canada, and you told it not to change the receipt status, and you had changed the number of donations included in the receipt from one to more than one or vice versa, there was a bug. The bug was that it didn't change the wording "Date of donation: [date]" to "Year of donations: [year]" or vice versa as the number of included donations changed. ("Date of donation" is only supposed to be used when exactly one donation is included in the receipt.)
•In Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Addresses and Address by Member/Envelope Number, added the email address to the report.
•Added Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Contact Information, that shows the name, phone number and email address for each donor, or each donor with donations within a specified range of dates.
•Fixed a bug: The French-only built-in receipts had a number printing at the top right of the page that did not belong there.
•Fixed a bug in the Bank Deposit details report (available from the Maintenance ⇒ Create Bank Deposits window, or via Reports ⇒ Bank Deposit ⇒ One Deposit Details). The bug was that the Summary by Paid By sub-report within the report could include amounts for donations that should have been excluded, because their donation category had no configured matching accounting account.
•Fixed a subtle bug that appeared in three reports under Reports ⇒ Donor: Mailing Labels, Mailing Labels with Member/Envelope #, and Envelopes. The bug was that they had an invisible field total_amount, which could be filtered on or exported, which was always the total donations for that donor in the current year. It should have been the total donations within the selected range of dates, if you chose to only generate labels or envelopes for donors with donations within a selected range of dates. That has been corrected.
•Added a Save SQL button to the reports-viewing window, which can be used in the process of Loading and Saving SQL for Reports.
•Fixed a problem introduced by version 3.69b, where if the program tries to send an email and is unsuccessful, if it offers to show you a log with the error, that log may not be informative (because it was actually the log of the wrong action).
•Fixed an inconsistency between the program itself and the installation program about how they find the program's Data Directory - a couple of users were finding that the different methods used, which we thought always gave the same answer, did not do so.
•Improved the wording in the Evaluation and Licensing window (accessed via Tools ⇒ Request or Install License Key) when you are already licensed. If it tells you that your eligibility for support and upgrades has expired, and you need to pay to renew that, it makes it clear that this is "according to your most recently installed license key", which may or may not be correct. (You might have paid more recently, but just not requested, received and installed an updated license key yet.)
•Fixed a bug in Letters ⇒ Email Newsletters, where the program would crash after a successful set of emails, if you answered "Yes" when it reported on how many emails it sent and asked you whether to close that window now.
•In the One Date Batch Entry window, in the Category drop-down, moved "<Add New>" to be above the empty row, so if you have no default 2nd or 3rd donation categories set in the Options window for batch entry, you use Split Donor, and you try to use the down arrow on your keyboard to move to your desired category, it doesn't immediately find "<Add New>" and pop up the window for adding a donation category. (Selecting categories by their first letter is faster anyways: see Keyboard Shortcuts.)
•Added some content to the Help page on the Data Directory, to avoid possible confusions about the Data Directory itself versus its Data subdirectory, and about the "Documents" versus "Public Documents" subdirectory under C:\Users\Public in recent versions of Windows.
•Hopefully fixed a problem that occurred very occasionally (we believe on 64-bit computers) when the installation program tried to install the novaPDF PDF printer, and it would not install, giving the message "Error 1 installing novaPDF".
•Fixed a bug that only occurred on a few reports where the VCR-style paging controls could be disabled on multiple-page reports. (They are only supposed to be disabled on reports that are only one page long.)
•Enhanced an error message for a rare situation where the novaPDF printer can't write to its settings file, to explain how to resolve the problem.
•In the internal mail-merge editor, split the Insert ⇒ Page Break menu option into three sub-menu options under that: At Start of Document, At Current Cursor Position, and At End of Document. This was done because in some mail-merge documents, particularly receipts, inserting the cursor at the apparent start or end of the document and using the existing Insert ⇒ Page Break menu option didn't always work properly at all.
•Improved the messages you receive if the program tries to send an email and is unsuccessful, to be clearer and more helpful about what the problem likely is, and how to fix it. (This applies whether you are doing so from the Test button in the Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window, or trying to actually email a letter, receipt, report or database backup.)
•Made a number of improvements to the File ⇒ One Date Donation Entry (Batch Entry) window:
oThe Options window has new drop-down lists for First split donor category and Second split donor category, that control the donation categories for rows for donors added by the Split Donor button.
oThere is a new Split All button on the actual data entry window, that brings up a prompt to select a donation category, and then adds one row for each displayed donor, with an empty Amount and the selected Category.
oThe Add Donor button now works, bringing up a window on which you can add a new donor and then continue entering the batch of donations.
oAll controls on the Options window now have accelerators (underlined letters, so you can select that control with Alt plus that letter).
•Added a note in the Help topic Non-Receiptable Donors and Donations to clarify that the codes that can make donors and donations not be included in receipts are case-sensitive, so for instance while "Non-Receiptable" works, "Non-receiptable" or "non-receiptable" would not work.
•In the Help topic Pledges in Donation, added a new sub-section on "Entry of Donations towards Pledges" to clarify that aspect.
•Added the ability to specify a range of dates to report on in Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Summary by Date and Category.
•Made an improvement in Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Summary by Dollar Ranges so that adding a Filter doesn't run the risk of breaking the report by making the dollar ranges get out of order and sometimes be duplicated.
•With the new ability to configure an alternate HTML editor, with some external editors the file format could be somewhat damaged, causing merges to not work properly, if you returned to the built-in editor after saving changes in the external editor, and then did not make any further changes in the internal editor and save them. That has been fixed.
•The program was making a check on startup that it could find a unique identifier for your computer, and giving a message to you if it could not do so. (This was going to be needed for an upcoming feature.) A few users were getting that message, so some additional code was added to find other sorts of unique identifiers if the original version wasn't working.
•The built-in and template mail-merge receipts for the U.S.A., and the built-in receipt for English Canada, were all re-arranged to make them fit better into standard #10 single-window envelopes. (The template mail-merge receipt for English Canada already seemed to be fine.)
•Added a section to the Help page on Emailing Newsletters about handling unsubscribes. Also added a sentence that mentions unsubscribing, to the default text body to be sent with the email newsletter, which you are prompted with as a suggested starting point the first time you send one.
•In the mail-merge editor, when you use the menu options Insert ⇒ Logo Image or Insert ⇒ Signature Image, if they are a multiple of the standard suggested sizes, the program now gives you an option, to choose between inserting them at their actual size, or scaling them down to that standard suggested size.
•All signatures embedded in the template mail-merge receipts and other letters installed by DONATION are now sized to the official size for the signature image, 166 x 39 pixels.
•Changed the way logo and signature images are inserted into the HTML of mail-merge letters and receipts to be more proper modern HTML, so that they would work better in some external HTML editors.
•Added a new Actions ⇒ Configure Alternate HTML Editor menu option in the internal editor for mail-merge letters and receipts, that allows you to configure another external editor to be used. Doing that configuration causes a new Actions menu option and toolbar item to appear, for editing with that editor.
•In the Help section on the Details Table in the Help page on Mail Merge Fields, added a sub-section "Changing the Font Size for the Details and Summary Tables", because obvious ways of doing that do not work, so you need detailed instructions if you need to do so.
•Fixed a small problem where some of the mail-merge template files installed with the program could come up incorrectly in certain external editors due to an incorrect character set code.