Needlebase Users Blog & Release Notes

Release Notes - build 201111022231

Monday, 07 November 2011 19:23

Release Notes - build 201110201249

Monday, 24 October 2011 19:59

The following improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Improved API reliability. Fixed a problem with using the API to upload new files.

Release Notes - build 491466

Thursday, 08 September 2011 18:42

The following improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• New login screen. The new login screen encourages the use of Google accounts for access to needlebase.com. New Needlebase Personal users will be required to use Google accounts (which can be based on non-Gmail external email addresses.) Existing Needlebase users can continue to log in with their Needlebase passwords by clicking the link or use your existing Needlebase credentials.

• API Keys. In the past, you could make API calls by supplying your account login and password with the request. Starting Friday, it will be necessary to supply an API Key with your login instead of your regular account password. You will be able to obtain an API Key by clicking Request API Key in the popup window raised by clicking on the account link in your my.needlebase.com start page after logging in. See https://my.needlebase.com/docs/NeedleReferenceAPIKeys.html for an example of the use of the API Key with the commonly available third party tool, curl.

• Personal data privacy. Needlebase Personal users can now mark their databases private to avoid exposing them to public Internet access.

Release Notes - build 487921

Monday, 22 August 2011 17:22

The following improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• New tag button. An option to "clear these tags from all [page group] group pages" will appear in the tag panel if there are multiple pages in the current page group with a particular tag type. This lets you remove a tag from all pages in the current page group with a single click.

• Password forms disabled. This week's update to needlebase.com includes a new restriction on password protected sites. Due to a few incidents where personal data was collected from behind a paywall and then published, Needlebase will no longer support filling in password forms.  If you'd like to share your feedback about this change, please submit your comments via the support link.

Release Notes - build 484155

Monday, 08 August 2011 15:52

The following improvement was deployed to needlebase.com:

• Paged query output: The parameter "exportStartPage=n" can be added to a query URL for CSV export to return the nth page of 1000 records. If n is too big for the number of pages, you will get a HTML error code instead of a page of results. By default, CSV export pages will include a top header row. To suppress the output of this header, add the parameter "showHeaders=false" to the query URL.

Release Notes - build 481198

Wednesday, 27 July 2011 20:47

The following fixes and improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Address parsing speedup. Data collections that include address data should now be added to the database significantly faster.
  
  
• Database architecture change. Implemented a new database architecture expected to significantly increase scalability.

Release Notes - build 477386

Wednesday, 06 July 2011 20:04

The following fixes and improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Change in Key Rules. We no longer allow data-models in which two different types both disambiguate each other. So if you have a relationship from A to B marked as "key", the corresponding inverse relationship from B to A cannot be a key. This is basically never what you really want, anyway. Existing databases will not be affected yet, but we'll be contacting people whose existing databases have key-loops of this sort.

• Paging Links. The tag-guessing process now better handles some cases of non-numeric paging links, including alphabetic rolodexes.

Release Notes - build 475807

Monday, 27 June 2011 14:25

The following fixes and improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Page frame failure. If a frame on a source page fails to load for any reason, this will not stop data collection on the rest of the page.

• Related-type tip. Dismissing the "click here to add a related type" tip in the model view now works again. For a while this tip was reappearing even if you'd dismissed it.

• Account panel reporting. We were reporting resource usage incorrectly in the cases where a data collection was started in one month but completed in the next month.

• Clear rest of these tags. The right-click popup for changing or clearing tags from a source page now provides the option to clear rest of these to clear all remaining tags of the selected type from this point on the page and below. This supplements the options to clear all tags from the page, and to clear the tags from this point and below regardless of type.

Release Notes - build 471568

Tuesday, 07 June 2011 18:46

The following fixes and improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Group sorting. When viewing a grouped table in the Needlebase Data Explorer, click the sort link to pop up the following sorting options:
  • Sort by key
  • Sort by key in reverse
  • Largest to smallest
  • Smallest to largest

• New tag doesn't clear suggestions. When a new tag is added, existing suggestions on the page will not be cleared.

• Google email logins. People with Google email accounts can now log in using their existing accounts and passwords. Click: Or login with a Google account... on the login screen. There are two cases to consider:
  
  If you have an existing needlebase.com account associated with a gmail.com address. You can click that Google account link to use your gmail login with needlebase.com, using your gmail password through OpenID. If you manually fill out the needlebase.com login and password fields, you will have to use the needlebase.com private password that was previously generated for you.
  
  If you don't yet have an existing needlebase.com account but still want to use a gmail address. You will wind up on our signup page. Once your needlebase.com account is created (usually this will be done the next business day) you will be able to log in as above with your gmail address, through OpenID.

Release Notes - build 468490

Monday, 23 May 2011 16:27

The following improvements were deployed to needlebase.com:

• Administration section renamed. The old Administration section of links visible on the left sidebar of most Data Explorer screens has been renamed Tools. This section includes a Modeler link to the database data model, a Messages link to any status or error messages associated with the data collection runs, and the Trash link to any data deleted from the database.

• Improved suggestions. Orange "hotspot" tags that show possible tagging problems on source pages should now appear less frequently and with better accuracy.