Version 1.0.1 of the Bluyah app was released today. The following bug fixes and enhancements are included:
- Fixed a problem where creating a new Marquee could throw a fatal error if created against an RSS feed that contained no data. [Ticket #198]
- Fixed an issue with charts where IE users (gotta love IE!!) were not able to view or edit any charts. [Ticket #212]
- Hardened all of the Exports to better inform the user if they were attempting to render an export against a deactivated (or deleted) report. [Ticket #85]
- In a related issue, changed the list display for Reports and Exports to highlight those items where the underlying data Connector had been invalidated. This should make it easier for users to know when a connection to their data source can not be made (Feed went away, or DB password is no longer valid, etc.). [Ticket #208]
- Added logic to the Report create/edit screen to prevent users from creating a report with a name that is already in use. [Ticket #187]
- All exports in the Export list now contain a direct link to their underlying report. This should make it easier for you to make tweaks to the right report, if needed. [Ticket #126]
- Added better messaging to the Google Docs parser to inform users if their underlying spreadsheet is in a format that can not be understood by Bluyah (hint: All reportable columns MUST have a column name in row 1). [Ticket #214]
- Added support for Microsoft SQL Server database Connector. This has been a much-requested feature - so have at it. [Ticket #111]
Just to keep everyone up to date: DB2 and PostgreSQL database support is coming soon. We’re still running through all of the test cases, so thanks for your continued patience. We will let everyone know via Twitter when we have settled on the actual launch date. You are following us on Twitter, right?
Pie charts are simple, elegant, and serve a distinct purpose: how does ‘this’ compare to ‘that’ when taken as a whole.
Right after 0.4.5 was launched, I became curious. ’How many report exports have I created - and how popular are they?’ I wondered. Fortunately, Bluyah tracks ‘views’ for each export type. We are doing it for internal measurements, primarily, as it helps us determine where we need to invest our optimization time. But after throwing together a quick report query, I realized that (1) this would be a great feature for users to have for their own accounts (more about this later), and (2) I was surprised by the results.
Turns out the Marquee containing Mac World news posts that I added to the DiMax website last weekend is getting more eyeballs than anything else I’ve created so far. (Truthfully - I would have expected the chart I put together comparing Max Unemployment Rates since 1948 to garner more interest - but maybe people aren’t yet ready to hear that news…)
What were you saying about Pie Charts?
Which brings me back to my point. Just saying that as a sum Marquees are my most-served export type is all well and good. But showing you how each type compares is even more effective:
One of the tasks we are continually asked to do is to take some application data, format it in a way that gives the data some meaning, and display the results in a chart.
For anyone who has ever had to chart out a trend line, or attempted to calculate the intersection of two disparate data sets in Excel, charting quickly becomes a time-suck. You can very quickly spend more time developing the chart than you spent developing the original application.
With Bluyah, we’re going to make charting easier for you. If you understand your underlying data and can define it in a tabular format, you can go from that data set to a basic chart very easily.
The below example is built against the Bluyah database. The database view looks in the application’s user account table and counts the number of user accounts by week. The report was created off of this view without any modification. Then a chart “Export” was created off of the report.
From “idea” to the implementation you see here took less than 15 minutes.
Tell us what you think. Better yet, give us suggestions for improving Bluyah.
