See Also: Revision History - Latest Version, Revision History 2015 to 2018, Revision History 2011 to 2014, Revision History 2007 to 2010
Fixes in Version 2.70b (July 25, 2007):
| - | Made several small improvements to the software licensing, including fixing a bug that prevented it from working properly on computers running Windows 2000 |
Fixes in Version 2.70 (July 18, 2007):
| - | DONATION now has software licensing, which means that when it is first installed, it is a 60-day evaluation version with slightly limited features, and you need to receive a license key from Software4Nonprofits.com in order to use all features |
| - | U.S. users now have the option of entering the Tax ID / EIN in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window, in which case it will be displayed on receipts. |
| - | Added a "Non-Receiptable" option to the Cheque # / Paid By drop-down list. This has the same effect as the existing "Pre-Receipted" option, which is that donations with this selection will never appear on an official receipt generated by the program. |
| - | Added a "PAR" option to the Cheque # / Paid by drop-down list. (This is the name of the United Church of Canada's Pre-Authorized Remittance plan.) |
| - | Added a scrollbar to the Cheque # / Paid By drop-down in the One Date Donation Entry window, which did not have one before. |
| - | Changed Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Donation Info ⇒ Sort by Name, Sort by Amount, and Sort by Member/Envelope #, so that they prompt for a range of dates, and only show the total donations between those dates for the current year, and between the corresponding dates for the prior year. |
| - | Changed several commonly-used reports that had only 1/4" left margins to have 1/2" left margins, so that if you wish to 3-hole punch them and file them in a binder, the punches do not sometimes cut out some of the first field's text. |
| - | Fixed a bug in Help ⇒ View License Agreement, where it would not work properly if your default web browser was Firefox rather than Internet Explorer. |
| - | Added a new help and manual page on Statements and Receipts which explains some options for using reports in conjunction with receipts to inform your donors of their donations regularly through the year, and also summarizing all of them at year end. |
Fixes in Version 2.60 (May 1, 2007):
| - | DONATION is now shareware (free to download and evaluate, pay if you are actually using it) rather than always free as it was before. |
| - | There is a new license agreement for DONATION reflecting this fact. It is installed with the program, in the file LICENSE.htm, and can be displayed with Help ⇒ View License Agreement. You are also required to agree to the terms of this license agreement when you run the installation program. |
| - | This isn't exactly a change to the program, but you can now find the program's web site at https://www.Software4Nonprofits.com. The old address of www.FreeDonationSoftware.org still works (and in fact entering it in your browser takes you to www.Software4Nonprofits.com) but the new domain name is more appropriate for the fact that DONATION is now shareware rather than always free. |
| - | When you print reports, a Print dialog box is now displayed, to allow you to select a printer, or a range of pages or number of copies to print. The only exception to this is when you are printing real (not sample) receipts, in which case it is important to print all of them, so the Print dialog box is not shown. |
| - | For some reason the Help ⇒ Email Dan Cooperstock option was at least sometimes bringing up a web browser window before bringing up the email to send. That has been fixed, and in addition this option has been renamed to Help ⇒ Email Software4Nonprofits.com. |
Fixes in Version 2.52 (February 8, 2007):
| - | Changed DONATION's main help file to be an HTML Help file rather than the old-style Windows Help file. This is necessary because Windows Vista does not come with a viewer for Windows Help files. Unfortunately, there are a few places in the program that still need to use Windows Help, so their help will not work under Windows Vista. |
Fixes in Version 2.51 (October 29, 2006):
| - | Updated the Canadian (including Quebec) receipts to use the most current expected wording from the Canada Revenue Agency. However this still only handles what they call "cash gifts with no advantage". |
| - | Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options now allows you to enter the location at which the receipts are issued. This is required for Canadian receipts, and printed on the receipt. For all other countries, this may be entered, but it is not printed on the receipt. |
| - | Added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options to create French-only receipts for Quebec. (Previously receipts for Quebec were always bilingual - English and French.) |
Fixes in Version 2.50 (April 15, 2006):
| - | It turned out that version 2.41 has two problems: First, it only worked on Windows 2000, XP, and 2003. Second, it was missing some files that would be required on some (but not all) users' machines. This version still only works on those newer versions of Windows, but it has had the missing installation files added in. |
| - | Otherwise, it is the same as version 2.41. |
Fixes in Version 2.41 (March 2, 2006):
| - | Added three new options to the Cheque # / Paid By drop-down list for donations: Debit Card, Direct Debit, and PAC (Pre-Authorized Chequing). You can still also just type in a cheque number, or any other values that aren't on the drop-down list. |
| - | Fixed an occasional bug in Canadian receipts, where if the listed donation details went onto a 2nd (or further) page, they could overlap with the category totals. |
| - | The program is now being created with PowerBuilder version 10, which was required to fix the previously mentioned bug. |
| - | Added a help and manual page on Modifying Reports Using SQL, which is not a new feature, but was not previously documented properly. (Note: The feature was removed in version 3.38, and replaced by the ability to Memorize Reports.) |
| - | Note: This version had some problems (see above under version 2.50) and was quickly withdrawn, so only a few users have it. |
Fixes in Version 2.40f (October 16, 2005):
| - | Added the ability to select which donors you want to see in the One Date Donation Entry window, based on donor categories or whether the donors have already donated in the current year. |
| - | In the One Date Donation Entry window, after selecting which donors you want to see, the Donation Date field is highlighted, to remind you to set it to the appropriate value. |
Fixes in Version 2.40e (March 6, 2005):
| - | Added a pointing hand icon to highlight the current row of the One Date Donation Entry window. This is just like the one in the Donations area of the main window. |
| - | In the installation program, made sure that the ODBC datasources created for accessing the program's database cause Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere (the database software) to not use TCP/IP for communications. This prevents a problem that some users were having where Microsoft Windows Firewall was preventing access to the program. |
Fixes in Version 2.40d (February 5, 2005):
| - | Fixed a bug introduced in version 2.40, where the Database ⇒ Import Donors menu option gave several error messages and didn't work |
Fixes in Version 2.40c (February 2, 2005):
| - | For users in the U.S.A., changed the wording from "Cheque #" to "Check #" in all remaining places in the program where it had not yet been changed. |
| - | For users in Australia, finalized the wordings on the Receipt for both organizations with DGR (Deductible Gift Recipient) status and those without that status. For details, see the help page about the window Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options. |
| - | Fixed a weakness in the installation program that allowed you to install version 2.40 into a different directory on your PC from the directory in which you installed your earlier version. (There is never a good reason to want to do that, because it will never overwrite your existing database during an install.) |
Fixes in Version 2.40b (January 30, 2005):
| - | For users in the U.S.A., changed the wording from "Cheque # / Paid By" to "Check # / Paid By" on the Donations area of the main window, and on the One Date Donation Entry window. This change had already been done on the Receipts, and a few reports. Some other reports still say "Cheque No". |
Fixes in Version 2.40 (January 30, 2005):
| - | For Canadian users, added the name and the web address of the Canada Revenue Agency to the bottom of the receipts, as required by a new regulation they have made. |
| - | added a new optional field to the Donation details area on the main screen, Fair Market Value. It only appears if you select it on the Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window. For now, it is not used in the receipts or anywhere else in the program (see the section on Fair Market Value in the page on Entering New Donations for more details.) |
| - | Added a new utility Database ⇒ Restore which you can use to restore backups that you made with Database ⇒ Backup, or if you are transferring your data between two computers. |
| - | On the window Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options, added options for versions of the receipt for Australian Deductible Gift Recipients, other Australian organizations, and Other countries (not the U.S.A., Canada or Australia). Note: All users other than organizations in Canada or the U.S.A. should be sure to go to this window and select one of these new options! |
| - | The program is now being created with PowerBuilder version 9 and the database software is now Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere version 8. I had been using the same old versions since 1999 - PowerBuilder 6.5, and Sybase SQL Anywhere 5.5. (Adaptive Server Anywhere is a new name for SQL Anywhere.) Unfortunately, this change has increased the size of the main installation file that you have to download to about 8MB from its previous size of 5MB. |
| - | There is a brand new installation program for DONATION, created with a newer version of the software I use to create the installation program, which is called SetupFactory. |
| - | changed Help ⇒ Read Manual, which previously let you read a local HTML version of the manual, to instead go to the program's web site, from where you can read a PDF version of the manual. This saves some space in the downloaded installation file. In addition, the PDF version is much more nicely formatted. |
| - | fixed a minor bug in Database ⇒ Import Donors where an error message that doesn't come up at all often, about being unable to open a file to hold conversion problem messages, gave the wrong filename |
| - | fixed a bug in Database ⇒ Backup where it would not store the backup to the root directory of any drive other than the diskette drive, A: (for example C:\), and did not give an error message. (The error did show up if you did Database ⇒ Check Backup.) |
| - | fixed a "security" bug where Limited Users were allowed to create Custom Reports, which let them see data they should not have been able to see |
Fixes in Version 2.37 (December 28, 2002):
| - | added the options Database ⇒ Copy Missing Donors ⇒ From current year to previous year and From previous year to current year, which allow you to copy missing donors and categories from one year to another |
| - | fixed a nasty bug in printing receipts with many donations on the receipt, when they were created as a group, and the details lines were 2 across. In the bug, some of the details could be omitted. I informed users about this bug about a year ago, along with some work-around solutions. |
| - | as part of fixing that bug, when the details lines of receipts are 2 across, they now go across then down, rather than down one column then down the next column, and they sometimes take less room on the page |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options to omit the Summary by Category section from the receipts |
| - | redesigned the Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options window to be easier to use and understand |
| - | improved the use of French on the bilingual (French and English) receipts for Quebec |
| - | fixed an obscure bug in Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options. If you included quotation marks in the Other Label fields, the program would crash, and then refuse to re-start. Now, you can't save changes on that window if you have included quotation marks in any of those fields. |
Fixes in Version 2.36 (September 29, 2002):
| - | added the option Reports ⇒ Custom Report, which allows you to specify a simple custom report by selecting columns from lists etc. This option creates the SQL for the report, then displays it in the Database ⇒ SQL Select window, from where you can create the report. |
| - | added an option to Database ⇒ SQL Select that allows you to view the report in the standard format, or in a grid (which allows you to change column orders and column widths) |
| - | changed the results of Database ⇒ SQL Select so that columns holding donation or receipt amounts are nicely formatted as currency |
| - | improved the report, Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date Summary, so that it gives totals by Paid By as well as totals by Category. |
| - | added "Cheque" to the options on the drop-down in the Donations area of the main window for "Cheque # / Paid By", for those users who don't chose to record individual cheque numbers in this field, but still want to record that it was a cheque. |
| - | fixed a couple of obscure bugs in Maintenance ⇒ Change Year ⇒ Next Year and Previous Year, which could cause a very few users to get an error message when they try to use them for the first time on a new year |
| - | fixed a bug in Reports ⇒ Receipt ⇒ Mailing Labels, if you select the 2.625" x 1" size, and a donor has no Firstname (for example a company name entered only in the Lastname field), the name would be omitted from the label |
Fixes in Version 2.35c (March 31, 2002):
| - | added a new report, Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Donation Info ⇒ Last 4 Years, that gives totals for each donor for each of the last four years, plus a grand total. |
| - | added an option on the Help menu, Support Forums on the Web, that goes straight to the web-based Support Forums for DONATION. Updated the documentation on Technical Support options. |
Fixes in Version 2.35b (January 2, 2002):
| - | fixed an unusual bug in Maintenance ⇒ Backup. The bug occurred if you chose not to backup to a diskette in the A: drive, i.e. you were backing up to your hard disk. If you had significantly over 2GB of free space on the hard disk, it would say that you did not have enough disk space to do the backup! |
Fixes in Version 2.35b (January 2, 2002):
| - | fixed a bug in version 2.35. The bug occurred when you started a newly installed program for the first time (as opposed to an update to an existing program), or when you used Database ⇒ Switch Databases to create a new empty database. The first time you started the program, after you provided the Organization Info and clicked OK, the program crashed. Then, after restarting the program, unless you went into Maintenance ⇒ Donation Categories and clicked OK, creating new donations would also crash the program. |
Fixes in Version 2.35 (January 1, 2002):
| - | added a new import routine Database ⇒ Import Donations that can be used to import regular (for example monthly) donations from a text file, or to import donations from a previous source when you first start to use the program |
| - | improved the messages given by the program during importing of data, if there is data that cannot be imported successfully |
| - | added a new field that you can enter for each donation: Description. To make room for it, moved the buttons on the main window. |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options that determines whether the new Description field is visible. If it is not selected, the buttons on the main window go back to their old positions (which I believe look better). |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letters Options to see the Description in the details area of the receipts. Only one of this option and the option to print the "Cheque # / Paid By" on the receipt can be selected, because there really isn't room for both. |
| - | added the new Description field to Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Current Donor, and Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Details, One Page Per Donor |
| - | both Letters ⇒ One Letter for the Current Donation information, and Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing for the Latest Donation information allow you to export the new Description field to mail-merge letters. Several Receipt fields were also added to these options, in case you prefer to use them to generate receipts with mail-merge letters. |
| - | for U.S. users, there is now an additional option on the drop-down list for the donation "Cheque # / Paid By" field: "Gift In Kind". There is no special processing for Gifts In Kind, however, at this point. |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options to allow entry of donations for $0.00. This might be used with Gifts In Kind, or to keep a record of NSF cheques in the database. When you enter such a donation, you must also enter a Description for it. |
| - | changed Database ⇒ Backup slightly so that you can re-use old diskettes with backups on them without cleaning them off first. (It prompts you to confirm it is OK to replace the old backup.) |
| - | when viewing reports, the dialogs that come up for Sort, Filter, and Save As now have help buttons which take you to help pages on those topics |
| - | added a new menu option, Help ⇒ Revision History, that allows you to go straight to viewing the revision history page in the help file |
Fixes in Version 2.34 (May 9, 2001):
| - | changed the program to always display currency figures in regional formats, according to the settings you make in Windows Control Panel's Regional settings. This applies to on-screen amounts, as well as reports, receipts, and mail-merged Letters. This is useful for international users (i.e. other than in Canada and the U.S.A.). |
| - | changed the Maintenance ⇒ Change Year ⇒ Previous Year routine to give you an option to copy the current year's donors and categories to a previous year for which there is no existing data. Previously, you could not go back to work on years before the first year for which you had entered data when you first started the program. |
Fixes in Version 2.33 (April 26, 2001):
| - | fixed a bad bug in the password routines, that would make some passwords assigned by Maintenance ⇒ Change Password ⇒ Program Entry Password fail to work on re-entry to the program. (The same problem applied to the other two types of password as well.) |
| - | added three new reports, to list the various types of categories which are set up with the options of the Maintenance menu. They are in the new Reports ⇒ Category menu, with the names Donation, Donor Category 1, and Donor Category 2. |
| - | added a grand total by donor to the bottom of each page of Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Category Totals, One Page per Donor. Previously it only listed the total for each category. |
Fixes in Version 2.32 (March 25, 2001):
| - | Split out some of the options from the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window into a new window, Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options. |
| - | Added an optional Limited User Password, which can be used for Tellers or Counters in churches with envelopes, who are permitted to do data entry in DONATION, but with severe limits on what data they can enter and view. |
| - | Added several options in the new Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window, which control exactly how much the Limited Users can do. |
| - | Added another option in the new Maintenance ⇒ Main Window Options window, which allows the Member/Envelope # field to be removed from the main Donor Details area, for those who don't use it. |
| - | Added an option Receipt ⇒ Reprint Range, which allows you to reprint a group of receipts for the current year, specified by a range of receipt numbers (for example numbers 50 to 100), without marking them as Duplicate receipts. |
| - | Changed the options for changing passwords on the Maintenance menu. There is now a Maintenance ⇒ Change Password sub-menu, with three options: Program Entry Password, Limited User Password, and Receipt Password. |
| - | For Letters ⇒ One Letter and Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing, when using it to generate receipts, you can now include a new field – YTDTOTAL. This is the total dollar amount of receipted donations for the current donor in the current year. |
| - | Improved the Database ⇒ Delete Old Data option. Previously, whatever year you were currently working on (which might not be the latest year for which you had data in the database), it deleted data 2 years older than that, or older. Now, it deletes data two or more years older than the latest year you have data for in the database. |
| - | Added a check on program startup that you have selected Small Fonts in the Windows Control Panel's Display tool. The program unfortunately just does not look right with Large Fonts, and in particular the built-in receipts look all wrong both on the screen and when printed if you use Large Fonts. |
| - | Cleaned up the colours on all of the windows to make them consistent. Previously everything looked OK if you used Windows Standard colours, but not if you used some of the alternate colour schemes that Windows allows you to use. Now all windows in DONATION are the colour that Windows calls "ButtonFace". (Previously some of them were a grey/silver colour, and some were ButtonFace, which was not obvious to us or to most users, because in the Windows Standard colours, ButtonFace is grey/silver.) |
Fixes in Version 2.31 (February 19, 2001):
| - | Added a Split Donor button on the One Date Donation Entry window, which allows you to enter two or more lines (in different categories) for the same donor. |
| - | Added a Totals by Category button on the One Date Donation Entry window, which displays the totals entered on the window, with subtotals by category. |
| - | Fixed a bug in One Date Donation Entry, where if you did not enter any donations and clicked Save, you got an appropriate message, but then you were unable to make any entries. |
| - | Enhanced the Database ⇒ Import Data routine to allow importing of an arbitrary number of years of data, and to allow importing the three Other Info fields for donors. |
| - | Added a routine Database ⇒ SQL Select, which allows you to basically create very simply formatted ad-hoc reports and data extractions, if you know the appropriate SQL statement to use. |
| - | Added a Save SQL button to the Reports viewing window, which allows you to save the SQL Select statement used to create that report to a file. This can then be retrieved, modified, and re-used in the Database ⇒ SQL Select window. (Note: This was removed in version 3.38, and replaced by the memorized reports facility.) |
| - | Fixed a bug that only happened for some users. Under Reports ⇒ Donor, all of the following reports had a bug: Donation Info ⇒ Sort by Name, Donation Info ⇒ Sort by Amount, Donation Info ⇒ Totals and Pledges by Name, Mailing Labels, Mailing Labels with Member/Envelope #, and Old Donors. The bug was that on all of these reports (for those users who saw the bug) only donors for whom you had selected a value of Category 1 showed up. |
| - | Fixed a bug introduced in version 2.30: If you used Maintenance ⇒ Change Receipt Password, the new password for the receipts was in effect during that run of DONATION, but when you closed DONATION and re-started it, the previous password re-appeared. |
| - | Fixed a bug in Maintenance ⇒ Change Year: If your lists of Donor or Donation Categories were different between the two years, the new lists didn't necessarily appear after you changed years. (They appeared if you exited and restarted DONATION.) |
| - | Fixed the entry of Member/Envelope numbers so that only numbers (no letters etc.) can be entered. I believe that everyone only uses numbers, but if you do enter letters, you get error messages in other parts of the program, for example in reports that are sorted by Member/Envelope number. |
| - | Changed how entering new donors, deleting donors, and updating either the name or the envelope number of existing donors is done. Previously, after any of these actions the whole Donor List on the left-hand side of the main window was re-read from the database, which could take some time if you had a lot of donors. Now, that list is just updated appropriately for the change you have made, without having to re-read it from the database, which should be much quicker. |
| - | Changed Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date Details with Member/Envelope # back to portrait mode, by narrowing some of the columns a bit. It had been changed to landscape mode in version 2.30. |
| - | Fixed a silly bug in the Donations display on the main window. For a donor with no donations, the display said "Total for 01/01/1900" at the bottom of the window. |
Fixes in Version 2.30 (February 30, 2001):
Major Changes
| - | Added a number of fields to the database structure, including Postal Code and Annual Pledge Amount to the Donors, and Cheque Number / Paid By to the Donations. |
| - | Separated some of the settings from Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info out into a new option Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letter Options. |
| - | Significantly changed the layout of the receipts for U.S. users, including removing the tear-off duplicate section, and adding the wording "Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code requirements for substantiation of charitable contributions, no goods or services were provided in return for the Tax Deductible contributions" to each receipt. |
| - | Added a facility Database ⇒ Import ChurchMouse Donors that allows users of the program ChurchMouse version 3.0 from Ferra Dynamics (which is no longer in business) to import the donor information. ChurchMouse no longer works in 2001, and will not be fixed, so this is a convenience for those who are finding themselves forced to switch from it. (Note: This option was later removed in version 3.00, as it was no longer needed.) |
| - | Added a new way of inputting donations, particularly for churches with weekly collections. You use File ⇒ One Date Donation Entry to bring up a list of all donors, where you can just go down the list and enter the amount for each donor that gave on that date, then save them all in one step. (You can also enter donation categories and cheque number / payment method if you wish.) Note: you cannot edit donations for a given date with this feature; you can only enter them the first time. |
Other Changes Affecting Receipts
| - | Added an option to Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letter Options to not print the individual donation details on the bottom half of the receipt, instead printing only the category totals. |
| - | Added an option to Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letter Options to show the Cheque No / Paid By field for each donation in the donation details area of the receipt. |
| - | Added an option to Maintenance ⇒ Receipt and Letter Options to remove the line of dashes between the sections of the receipts, for those who have pre-perforated paper and don't want to see the dashes as well. (Does not apply to U.S. users.) |
| - | Fixed a small bug on the receipts. If a donor has no Member/Envelope Number, it was still printing a prompt for "Member #" on the printed receipt even though it did not display when you looked at it on-screen. Now that prompt is eliminated in the printout as well, unless of course the donor does have such a number. |
| - | If the Cheque Number / Paid By field for a donation contains the value "Pre-Receipted" (which can be selected from a drop-down list) then that donation will never be included in a receipt. This handles money that came in through 3rd parties that already issued a receipt. |
Other Changes
| - | When the Donor List is being used to find donors on the main window, you could always scroll quickly to a Donor by envelope number by typing that number using the number keys on the top row of the keyboard. However, using the keypad keys (with Num Lock on) did not work. Now that also works. |
| - | Added a new option within Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing that allows you to have it merely export the data to a format useable by your word processor, without actually doing the mail merge itself. This is useful for those people experiencing problems with the Mass Mailing feature, or if you just want to experiment with it within your word processor. |
| - | Added a hidden option for debugging problems with mail merges. If you have unusual problems with mail merges, contact us and we will instruct you in how to use this option. |
| - | Changed the option Database ⇒ Import Data to make it more generic, so that it can import suitably-formatted data from other charitable donation programs. It was previously called Database ⇒ Import DOS Data and was only for importing data from the old DOS version of our DONATION program. |
| - | Rearranged the elements on the main window, so that the Donations area is now as wide as the whole window, and the Donor Details area expands when you are editing donors to be the full height of the window, so that you don't have to scroll to see all of its fields. The heading above the Donations area is now "Donations for Firstname Lastname". |
| - | Added a new report Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Donation Info ⇒ Totals and Pledges by Name that lists all donors with their donation amounts and annual pledge amounts for the current year. |
| - | Added a new report Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Category Totals, One Page per Donor that lists totals by donation category, within a specified range of dates, for each donor, one page per donor. |
| - | Modified most reports listing detailed donations to also include the cheque number / paid by field. |
| - | Modified all reports that include addresses to include the postal code. For labels and receipts, if address line 3 is filled in, the postal code prints after it, separated from it by two spaces. If address line 3 is not filled in, the postal code prints on its own line. |
| - | Modified some reports that one user reported were printing blank pages between each real page of the report, on an Epson bubble jet printer. This usually happens if the report is too wide for the specific printer. I made these reports a bit narrower which will hopefully eliminate the problem. |
| - | Fixed a nasty bug in Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing that seemed to happen only on some versions of Microsoft Word. The bug caused the merged data to be completely incorrect, with the wrong fields going in the wrong places. (This happened on one copy of Word 97, SR2, but didn't happen on another copy!) |
| - | Fixed a dumb behaviour where after adding a New Donor, the Donor List on the left was not automatically scrolled to display the new donor. |
| - | Fixed a dumb behaviour where after Deleting a Donor, the Donor List on the left always scrolled back to the 1st donor. Now it tries to scroll to the same place as it was, with the next donor after the deleted one highlighted. |
Fixes in Version 2.29 (November 5, 2000):
| - | fixed a bug in Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing. It did not work with Microsoft Word 97, because it gave an error message and died. It did work with Word 2000 (subject to the following two issues) or with WordPerfect. |
| - | fixed a weakness in Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing when used with Microsoft Word - it more or less required that you have Microsoft Excel installed on your machine as well. (It behaves very strangely if not.) It now exports the mail merge data in CSV (comma-separated Value) format rather than Excel format, so that Excel is not required. |
| - | fixed another weakness in Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing when used with Microsoft Word - if your copy of DONATION is not installed in the same directory as our copy is (which will indeed be a problem in most cases) you get strange behaviour when you use it. (It comes up with a dialog box prompting "Open Data Source" or something like that.) |
Fixes in Version 2.28 (October 15, 2000):
| - | added in new menu option Receipt ⇒ Filtered Donors which allows you to generate receipts for all donors and donations which satisfy certain criteria. The criteria can be based on donor or donation categories, the values in the three Other Info fields, or a minimum amount for individual receipts. This last option is useful for organizations in the U.S. who don't have to issue receipts for amounts under $250. |
| - | added in new menu option Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Unreceipted Donations, which lists all donations that have not yet had receipts issued for them. This might be used in association with the Receipt ⇒ Filtered Donors option to check that donations have not been skipped for which receipts should have been issued. |
| - | changed menu option Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Duplicate to be Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Duplicate/Corrected. This option now will correct the donation amount if it has changed (because you deleted a donation that was part of it), and print "Corrected Receipt" on the receipt. |
| - | added in new menu option Receipt ⇒ Duplicate/Corrected Receipt by Number, which is like the previous option, except that you don't have to be pointing at the right donor and donation to use it. Rather, it prompts for the receipt number to reprint. This is needed when you have deleted the only donation included in a receipt, so the new receipt total is $0. |
| - | added a new report Reports ⇒ Receipt ⇒ Incorrect Receipts that shows receipts where the receipt amount does not match the total of donations included in the receipt, because a donation was deleted. You need to issue a corrected receipt for each such incorrect one, to make it correct again. All users of versions prior to 2.28 should run this report to make sure they don't have any incorrect receipts that need fixing! |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info to specify that you are a U.S. (United States) user. If this option is selected, then the charitable Registration Number is omitted from the receipts, as it is not used or required in the U.S. |
| - | added an option in Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info to specify the Word Processor that you are using. You can choose between Microsoft Word 97 or higher and Corel WordPerfect (version 7 or higher). This is used for mail-merge letters (see below). |
| - | added in a new main menu Letters, which has the options One Letter and Mass Mailing. |
| - | Letters ⇒ One Letter allows you to send a letter to the currently selected donor, merged via your word processor (Microsoft Word 97 or higher or Word Perfect 7 or higher). The letter can contain just Donor information, Current Donation information, Total Donations information for that donor, or Selected Receipt information for that donor, allowing you to reprint a receipt in your own format rather than the one included in the program. You are given an option to edit the letter before it is printed. |
| - | Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing allows you to send the same mail-merged letter to some or all of your donors, again allowing you to include Donor, Donation, or Receipt information in the letter. Again, this can be a way to reprint and send out receipts in your own format, as well as doing other mass mailings to donors. |
| - | fixed a bug in Maintenance ⇒ Change Year ⇒ Next Year. When creating the data for a new year by copying donors etc. from the previous year, it did not copy any of the Member/Env. #, Other Info 1, Other Info 2, Other Info 3 or Comments field data to the new year's donor information. |
| - | changed Help ⇒ Read Manual, which previously gave you a choice to read the Microsoft Word or the WordPerfect version of the manual, to instead read a local copy of the HTML (web page) version of the manual. This requires that a web browser (for example Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) be installed on your system, but you do not need to have an active Internet connection. The Word and WordPerfect versions of the manual are no longer distributed with the program, but both of those programs will read the HTML version (donation.htm) if you do want to load it into a word processing program. The HTML version of the manual has been much improved in style, so that its appearance is much more similar to that of the old Word or WordPerfect versions. |
| - | this isn't exactly a change to the program, but you can now find the program's web site at www.FreeDonationSoftware.org. The old address of www.interlog.com/~dcoops/donat32.htm still works (and in fact entering www.FreeDonationSoftware.org in your browser takes you there) but the new address is easier to type and to remember. The web site has also had a major redesign and should now be much easier to use and navigate. |
| - | changed most reports so that they include a count of Donors or Donations (depending on what the report is reporting on) as well as totals of dollar amounts. |
| - | started a new tradition of including links, when appropriate, from elements in this Revision History section to the relevant section of the help file or manual, to help you find further details about new features |
Fixes in Version 2.27 (April 23, 2000):
| - | added bilingual (French/English) receipts as an option for users in Quebec or who have a national donor base; you activate it by using Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info and checking off the new "Bilingual Receipts" checkbox. |
| - | added a new report Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date Details with Member/Envelope #, which is like One Date Details (which can be used to double-check one day's data entry) except that it includes, and is sorted by, the Member/Envelope number |
| - | slightly renamed and re-ordered the options on the Receipt menu for clarity (no functional changes) |
Fixes in Version 2.26 (February 21, 2000):
| - | changed Donations display on the main window so that the Total and One Date total never scroll off the screen if there are several donations |
| - | changed Donations display on the main window so that donations that have already been receipted are grey and cannot be edited |
| - | changed Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Donation Info ⇒ Sort by Member/Envelope Number so that it sorts on the Member/Envelope # numerically rather than alphabetically. This can eliminate strange sort orders if the Member/Envelope #'s aren't all the same length. |
| - | added a new report Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Addresses by Member/Envelope Number which gives the Member/Envelope #, name, address, and phone for all donors, sorted numerically by Member/Envelope #. |
| - | added a new report Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Mailing Labels with Member/Env #, which prints mailing labels for all donors, with the member/envelope number included on the first line. These can only be printed on 4" x 1" labels. |
| - | added a new report Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Details, One Page per Donor, which lists the same details for each donor as appear on the receipts. You get to specify a range of dates when you generate this report. It could thus be used (for instance) for quarterly handouts to your donors to show them their givings. |
| - | on receipts, added the donor's name to the heading for the last section, "Summary by Category". That way if the receipt goes onto a 2nd page, the donor's name will at least be visible somewhere on that 2nd page. |
| - | fixed a bug in the automatic generation of member/envelope numbers. They are generated automatically by either using File ⇒ New Member/Env. # or right-clicking in the Donor's Member/Env. # field and selecting New Member/Env. # from the popup menu. This then automatically fills in the next available member/envelope number in the field. Unfortunately it would only work correctly if your numbers were less than about 30000. For larger numbers, it would fill in a completely incorrect number. This has now been fixed. It now works for numbers up to about 2147000000. |
Fixes in Version 2.25 (January 10, 2000):
| - | fixed a bug in entering donations. If a donor already had receipted donations, it would not let you enter additional donations for them for the same year. |
Fixes in Version 2.24 (January 6, 2000):
| - | fixed a bug in the generation of receipts. If a donor had a lastname but no firstname (for example an organization), the name would not be printed on the receipt at all. |
| - | changed Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample so that if you are using a Receipt Password, you do not have to enter it to create a sample receipt. |
Fixes in Version 2.23 (January 2, 2000):
| - | added a new option for receipts, Receipt ⇒ Current Donor Sample, which generates a receipt with "Sample Only" printed as a watermark in the background, and does not save the receipt information back to the database. This can be used for testing the program. |
| - | added a new report, Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ By Donor By Category which subtotals each donor's donations by donation category, and compares the current and previous years |
| - | added display of any Filter you put on a report on the report's header, unless you have also put on a special Sort |
| - | changed the entry of dates for donations, so that the date now defaults to the previous date you entered during this run of the program |
| - | add a new total called "One Date" at the bottom of the Donations area, that totals the amounts of the donations made by the current donor on the date of the currently highlighted donation |
| - | added a second size of mailing labels, 2.625" x 1". The previous size was 4" x 1". |
Fixes in Version 2.22 (November 24, 1999):
| - | changed receipts so that they will fit on (some) tear-off forms and can be used with window envelopes |
| - | changed the name of Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date to Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date Details |
| - | added a new report, Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ One Date Summary, which gives totals by category for donations entered with one date |
| - | changed Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Summary by Category to allow you to specify a range of dates for it to report on |
Fixes in Version 2.21 (October 4, 1999):
| - | added capability to use a bitmap signature on the receipts. It must be called signatur.bmp, and be 166 x 39 pixels, or a multiple of that size. |
| - | added an optional password for generating receipts |
| - | added some invisible fields to the Donor Mailing Labels report, so that you can print selected mailing labels based on donor categories, or the 3 "Other Info" fields, using the Filter button. |
| - | added the Member/Envelope Number (if there is one) after the member's name on the receipts |
| - | changed the receipts to use two columns for printing the donation details, which takes less room if there are a lot of donations covered by the one receipt |
| - | changed the receipts to add a section at the bottom summarizing the donations by category |
| - | changed the spacing on the receipt some (one user had reported problems with overlapping fields) |
Fixes in Version 2.20 (August 25, 1999):
| - | added Member/Envelope Number field to Donor Details. Can insert next available number easily by right-clicking in the field, and picking the menu option "New Member/Env #", or by picking File ⇒ New Member/Env #. Can search on it in the Donor List area by typing numbers. (Search on names by typing letters.) Can also search on it with the menu option File ⇒ Find Donor. |
| - | added Reports ⇒ Donor ⇒ Donation Info ⇒ Sort by Member/Env #, which is like the other reports on this sub-menu except it lists all donors, and includes their Member or Envelope #'s, and is sorted by those numbers |
| - | added Comments field to Donor Details. Can edit it in place (if you scroll down into that area), or in a larger window by right-clicking, and picking the menu option "Edit Comments", or by picking File ⇒ Edit Comments. |
| - | added Other Info 1, Other Info 2, and Other Info 3 to Donor Details. These fields can be called anything you like (such as "Email" or "Fax"), by using Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info, and filling in the field names in the Other 1 Label, Other 2 Label and Other 3 Label fields. |
| - | added support for printing a logo on the receipts. To do so, put a bitmap file named logo.bmp, with width 150 pixels and height 60 pixels, into the program directory (usually c:\Program Files\Donation). If there is no such file, it will still print fine. If it's there, it prints in the top right corner of the page. |
| - | fixed bug: once you had set a donor's Category 1 or Category 2, you couldn't reset it to have no category |
| - | fixed bug: you were only warned about entering the same donor name twice if you were inserting a new donor, not if you were editing an existing one |
| - | fixed bug: if you create a report, such as Reports ⇒ Donation ⇒ Current Donor, that has no data, then (after giving a message to that effect) the program dies |
Fixes in Version 2.14 (June 8, 1999):
| - | fixed printing of receipts with over 16 individual donations listed, which printed strangely on a 2nd page |
| - | as a result of this fix, had to limit printing of receipts to 500 per batch. (You can print receipts for as many donors as you have, by printing multiple batches.) |
| - | fixed the installation program to recognize when the version of Microsoft ODBC might not be new enough to run DONATION, and exit with a message about how to update ODBC if that is the case |
Fixes in Version 2.13 (March 24, 1999):
| - | fixed some reports that were printing extra blank pages on some printers |
| - | changed so that it warned you if you made the mistake of entering your organization's charitable number in the charitable number field for a donor |
| - | changed so that it warned you that the option should not generally be used if you checked the "Allow January" field in the Organization Info. |
Fixes in Version 2.12 (February 18, 1999):
| - | changed Database ⇒ Backup so that it works even if the database file has been moved from its original installed directory |
| - | fixed bug in Database ⇒ Backup that caused it to fail in some circumstances when backing up to a diskette drive (A:) |
Fixes in Version 2.11 (February 4, 1999):
| - | fixed a bug: if you went to create a New donor, and Canceled the add, then went to edit another donor, and Saved your changes, you might get erroneous questions about adding another donor with the same name |
| - | fixed a bug that only happened if you converted your data from the old DOS version of the DONATION program: the first donor ever entered could not have donations added for it. |
| - | changed searching on the Donor List by typing letters, so that if you type another letter and it still matches the current donor, it doesn't move, even if the next donor matches it too |
| - | changed so that after you finish adding or editing a donor or donation, it moves the "focus" back to the Donor List, so that you can start typing letters to find another donor |
Fixes in version 2.1 (January 26, 1999):
| - | added Sort and Filter feature to the Reports viewing window |
| - | added a report on donors which are themselves charities (required for Revenue Canada reporting) |
| - | various improvements in the manual |
| - | added more options to the Help menu |
| - | changed the hotkey for creating a New Donor from F1 to F3, so F1 could be used for its standard purpose of opening the Help Contents |
| - | fixed a bug in moving from one year's data to the next for the first time, if donor categories had been used |
| - | fixed a bug when creating two donations for the same donor in a row, which caused an incorrect warning message |
| - | fixed a bug on first starting up the program where if you did not start it for the current year, it got temporarily confused |
Version 2.0 was the first release of the Windows 95 version, released in early January 1999.
Version 1.0 was a DOS version of this program, first released in 1994.
By the way, if anyone is reading the above lists of changes and bugs and thinking to themselves, "Boy, that program is really buggy!", we do have a response. In our experience, all programs of any significant complexity have bugs in them. Unfortunately (to our way of thinking) most software companies do not choose to give information on fixed bugs to their customers, or they make it very difficult to get that information. As a Quaker, I have a strong belief in the truth, and feel it is only honest to tell you what we have fixed. Another way of looking at this is that we are very responsive to feedback from our users, as each of these was fixed almost as soon as we heard about it.
This topic was last edited on Aug 25, 2021