This update  was long overdue. A much more intuitive, quicker to use date picker has been uploaded, taking the place of the old, clunky drop down date selector.

Javascript date pickers are generally much of a muchness, but some have more muchness than others. Many of the fancier implementations are developed on the back of javascript libraries ( jQuery, MooTools  etc ). This is all very well if you develop applications using these libraries, but if not, having to download the library for such a small tool is pointless.

The date time picker I finally settled on is developed by Rainforest Software. It is a beautifully simple implementation, does exactly what it’s supposed to, and consists of a single, easily editable file.

Previously, when adding a Task via ‘tasks’ > ‘add a task’, and you chose a Client that had no live projects assigned, you were presented with the following :

mmm … informative, but not particularly helpful.

Now, a link to assign a project to that client  is provided, and the chosen client is automatically pre-selected on the ‘Add a Project’ form.

At last, after way, way too long, I have finally hooked up adderuppa’s payment processing system, and the subscription service is now live. Account holders have been given an extra 30 days free use; your subscription renewal date has been set to September 13th.

Two new options have been added under the ‘account’ navigation tab - ’subscription details’ and ’subscription history’, both simple and self-explanatory.

The details page allows you to amend your monthly contribution; if your subscription lapses, you will be presented with this page automatically, and will not be able to use the service.

The history page lists every contribution you have made, with a link allowing you to print off an invoice for each.

I encountered a couple of hiccups when trying to switch on the subscription process last night.

Watch this space, it will be here very soon …

Access to adderuppa will be temporarily suspended from 6pm GMT Tuesday, 11th August. This is necessary to enable me to set the subscription process live.  The work should not take long, as mentioned in the previous post.

All accounts will receive 30 days free use from this date.

I have finally managed to find time to hook up a subscription facility for adderuppa, and am in the final stages of testing. The intention is to set it live early next week.

During the switchover, I will need to prevent access to adderuppa for a short period to double check it before throwing the final switch. This should not take long, an hour or so maybe, and I will carry out the work at a time that will hopefully cause the least disruption. Full notice will be given shortly before this takes place.

Details of the proposed subscription structure can be read here. More details, about card security, trial periods, etc, will be posted shortly.

I have made a couple of small adjustments to the Invoice and Project PDFs.

First, and most significant, is the fact that the pdfs now use Helvetica as the font. Because this is a System font, and bundled in every machine as a default, it does not have to be embedded within the pdf. This means that the pdf file sizes have been reduced from of an average of just under 1Mb, to an average of around 20Kb or less. This revelation can be filed under ‘duh’.

Second, the Project PDFs have been divided into clearer segments with the help of a simple thin, black line, to aid legibility.

A sharp-eyed user made contact to point out that only whole minutes were being taken into account when calculating the cost of time recorded.

This was a ‘feature’ inherited from when I first started building adderuppa several years ago. Because a fraction of a minute added to each project isn’t going to make any difference to my income tax bracket, I was simply rounding the total recorded seconds for each project to the nearest minute.

Although every second timed had actually been recorded, the few stray seconds left over after rounding were not being used to calculate the value of that recorded time.

Having received the email, I realised that this lack of instantaneous feedback could be misunderstood, and confusing, and so the formatting of recorded time in the Task List and Project Task List, where these values are updated in real time as the timer is stopped, has been altered to replicate a stopwatch value, listing hours, minutes and seconds.

This has the dual benefit of giving instantaneous feedback on the user’s action, and helps to distinguish recorded time from estimated time.

Recorded time listed elsewhere is still rounded to the nearest minute, for the sake of clarity and simplicity, but the value of that time takes into account every second recorded.

You can now create very simple invoices for each of your projects. To help manage this facility, a couple of extra fields have been added to the Project section.

Project Details > ‘Purchase Order No.’

Finance Details > ‘Invoice Date’ and ‘Invoice Number’

An extra section has also been added under the ‘finance’ navigation, ‘invoice settings’. This is where you define whether to charge tax, as well as the name and rate of the tax applied. Any rate applied is applied to the ‘Amount Charged’ field.

To start the process, click ‘produce invoice’ under the Project’s ‘Financial Details’ section.

This displays a text box into which you can add the Invoice Wording. You also have the choice of whether to display the pdf in the browser, or download it.

Hit Submit, and you’re done !

Thanks to Toby James Creative for the suggestion.

After adding the facility to upload your own logo for inclusion on pdf documents, I thought it might be nice to display this as a permanent element, so that you can make adderuppa your adderuppa.

Ok, it’s very subtle, but it’s a start …