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Image (c) William Warby
It has always been possible to use Bird Journal on an iPad, but only as an iPhone app. This meant over-sized text and graphics and also being harder to find in the App Store.
The recent Bird Journal iOS app update solves this. The same app is designed for both iPhone and iPad screens. We also took the opportunity to enable landscape orientations, increase the resolution of images to ensure crisp display on the iPhone 6/7 plus and fix a number of bugs.
Our initial effort was to try to reuse the same full V5 user interface found in our desktop software. While this was clearly possible, our experiments showed performance was not satisfactory. Startup time was increased notably, especially on older devices. There were also challenges preserving edit screen behaviour to ensure the fastest and most tailored experience for recording in the field.
We decided keeping and extending the existing mobile user interfaces was the best choice. The apps will be as fast as possible and fit with the design style of iOS/Android. Behind the scenes we'll be making changes to ensure we can add features more quickly, have less to maintain and bring more consistency between platforms.
Don't forget to visit our feedback site to let us know what mobile features you'd like to see next. And if you have a moment, please consider leaving a review on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. These really help others discover us.
Earlier this year we launched the version 5 desktop software and the response has been very positive. We've heard from many of you about how the new interface is smart and intuitive, and how it's nice to be able to finally run Bird Journal on the Mac. And we've also heard from many who want more from the Bird Journal free edition.
Today we're excited to share that we've added even more to the free edition. We've removed many feature restrictions from Bird Journal. So many that the mobile apps are now completely unrestricted! Starting today you'll be able to enjoy these previously premium features across all devices:
- Input worldwide bird records
- Input non-bird wildlife records
- Filtering (e.g. to see year/location lists or to find all entries where you've seen a particular species)
- Enhanced context and browsing (e.g. lists of recent photos & entries)
Additionally...
Premium is now even more affordable!
Prices for premium have been reduced in almost all regions in response to research we conducted. We hope this will make the best Bird Journal experience open to even more users.
Premium is now even more powerful!
Advanced analysis features remaining in premium have been extended. Updates available today include:
- Lifer & year first badges and summary on the entry page
- New customisable premium Firsts report
- Enhanced premium Species Progress graph (Formerly Intra Year Species Progress)
- New printable premium Checklist report, highlighting potential lifers & country firsts
Answers to likely questions about these changes can be found in the article "Now even more Free: FAQ".
Bird Journal runs on Mac, PC, Android & iOS and is available from birdjournal.com
Image copyright reggie35 Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
Taxonomy updates in Bird Journal are long overdue. The last three months have been spent preparing the first major updates and ensuring the experience is as smooth as possible. You may have noticed a few app updates recently to support this.
Going forward we intend to stay up-to-date and release updates frequently. As of today, updates are available for both:
- IOC 6.2 - April 2016
- BOU 45 (incl. recent additions) - July 2016
Updates are installed from the library. If you're using the version 5 desktop app, you'll see a notification badge telling you how many updates are ready to install:
Open the library, select the Updates tab and press Update All.
Updates are mostly automatic, but in some cases you will need to review and make changes. The user interface will guide you through this, and more guidance can be found in our supporting article
"Taxonomy updates, how-to".
Other taxonomies will follow with the Clements taxonomy next.
EDIT: If you don't see the updates in the library that you would expect, please make sure you've installed the latest versions of the Bird Journal apps.
Editing records in Bird Journal is achieved by editing a specific entry. Certain changes however will be very tedious made to individual entries.
The Replace Species feature was recently added to the version 5 desktop app and allows replacement of species and subspecies usage, across all entries or a subset. It can be accessed via the Tools menu button.
Likely uses of this feature are:
- Updating records after taxonomic updates
- Updating records to subspecies accuracy
- Switching records to another taxonomy
- Fixing mistakes
A desire to consolidate records to a single/few taxonomies is something we've seen a lot recently. If this is something you would like to do please vote for the suggestion "Allow bulk update between taxonomies" on our feedback site. A more specific feature may be helpful.
In early versions of Bird Journal we relied on software updates to also provide you with updates to "built-in" taxonomies and checklists. For taxonomies & checklists created by other users there was no mechanism to apply updates from the author.
The Bird Journal Library was first introduced in version 4. It does for taxonomies and checklists what, e.g., the App Store does for apps:
- Easy discovery of available items
- Install items so they're available to use without internet
- Submissions reviewed for accuracy and completeness (See our Library Publish Guidelines)
- Only install items relevant to you - the library can grow freely without slowing your experience
- No app updates needed to receive updates to library items
- User created items can be easily updated for everyone
Given the similarity to how apps are delivered, it's possible we may later allow updates to be automatically installed. For the time being though, we want to give you the control in when they're updated.
One thing that was missing is notifying when updates are available. This is now available in the version 5 desktop app (mobile apps to follow) and you'll start to see notification badges more frequently as we keep taxonomies & checklists up-to-date.
As with installing library items, updates are automatically synced to any other devices you are using.
Keep a look out for more updates appearing soon!
I'm pleased to announce that the version 5 desktop app is now live, with a refined user experience, Mac support and some great new features.
Many, many thanks for all of your help during the beta. We hope you're as pleased with the end result as we are. It's certainly been the most open, collaborative development process for us so far, with the initial beta being available very early on.
Please help us share the news!
Maps were just added to the Bird Journal 5 beta, and they're much improved.
Spiderifying
Many observations at the same point are no longer a problem thanks to "spiderfying" in Bird Journal 5 maps.
Satellite view
We've wanted a satellite view for a while. Now we have it.
Improved clustering
You can easily see how many items are in a cluster and the colour indicates this too. Hovering the mouse over the cluster shows the range covered. Clicking on a cluster zooms in to show the contained items.
Photo maps
Photos map looking much nicer with photos directly on the map!
We've also completed work on the library and settings screens:
If you've not tried the version 5 beta yet, you can download an install the beta from here. Follow us using Facebook or Twitter to stay tuned to Bird Journal developments - we post regularly on what's new.
We're busy with a number of things at the moment, and I thought it would be nice to give you a brief update on each.
Bird Journal 5
We've now released the early public beta for version 5. Feedback so far has been very positive - thank you, and keep us posted with your observations/suggestions.
In case you missed the opportunity to sign up, you can download an install the beta from here.
You can view the status of the beta in this document.
We'll be continuing work on this with an aim to completing it this year.
Renewals
We've finished work on our subscription renewals system. You can now view and update billing info from our website. Emails will be sent to remind you of upcoming renewals or expiry.
iOS App Update
With the recent updates from both Apple and ourselves a few stability/quality issues have crept into the iOS app. We'll be working on an update to address these starting next week, and hope to get it into your hands as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.
We've had a lot of fantastic contributions to the Bird Journal library since my last update in November last year.
Here's a summary of items added since then:
- Birds of Australia (BARC IOC +ssp) - Checklist by Charles Ling
- Birds of British Columbia - Checklist by Alan Cairns
- Birds of Norway (IOC), Norwegian Names - Synonym Pack by Sindre Solberg
- Birds of Sweden (IOC), Swedish names - Synonym Pack by Roger Karlsson
- Birds of the UK, BTO 2-Letter Codes - Synonym Pack by Jonathan Davidson
- Birds of the UK, BTO 5-Letter Codes - Synonym Pack by Jonathan Davidson
- Butterflies of Australia - Taxonomy by Mike Jarvis
- Frogs of Australia - Taxonomy by Iian Denham
- Fungi of Europe - Taxonomy by Simon Booton-Mander
- Longhorn Beetles of the United Kingdom - Taxonomy by James Emerson
- Mammals of Australia - Taxonomy by Mike Jarvis
- Mammals Of Southern Africa - Taxonomy by Iian Denham
- Mammals of the Netherlands (excl Bats), Dutch names - Taxonomy by Peter de Hoog
- Mammals of the United Kingdom - Taxonomy by Colin Brodie
- Mammals of the Western Palearctic - Taxonomy by Sally Gordon
- Micro Moths of Norfolk, United Kingdom - Taxonomy by Ben Lewis
- Myriapods of the United Kingdom - Taxonomy by Colin Brodie
- Orchids of Europe, North Africa & the Middle East - Taxonomy by Sally Gordon
- Reptiles of Australia - Taxonomy by Mike Jarvis
- Woodlice & Allies of the United Kingdom - Taxonomy by Colin Brodie
A huge thanks to Bird Journal users Alan Cairns, Ben Lewis, Charles Ling, Colin Brodie, Iian Denham, James Emerson, Jonathan Davidson, Mike Jarvis, Peter de Hoog, Roger Karlsson, Sally Gordon, Simon Booton-Mander & Sindre Solberg for their contributions.
To get started with these, open the library by clicking the Library button/menu item. Then search for the item of interest and click/tap Install. It will then be available on all of your computers & devices.
If you've created a Taxonomy, Checklist or Synonym Pack that you think may be helpful to others, please consider publishing it to the library. We especially need non-bird taxonomies for the US.
To publish an item you have created, just enter some notes about the item and press Publish. We'll review it to make sure there are no duplicates and that naming is consistent, etc, then make it live. There are
guidelines with more detail on what we look for, and there is an
area on the forum dedicated to discussing the creation of library items.