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garlin007

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garlin007 last won the day on August 21 2015

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  1. This sound similar to the problem in HomeManage where after adding about a dozen assets images can't be added to new or existing assets until the program is restarted.
  2. With regard to reusing asset numbers, I use HomeManage, but it has the same behavior where asset numbers are never reused. In a way this can be a good thing, since by never reusing numbers there is little chance of a conflict/confusion when you look at inventories from different dates. This could happen, for example, if you needed to restore your data from a backup or if you compared a report that you printed a while back to a current report. However, if you have a reason that you want to reuse the numbers of items that you previously deleted, then one thing to remember is that when you delete an item it is moved to Deleted Items, and is not actually removed from the database until you also delete it from Deleted Items. (Same idea as the Recycle Bin in Windows.) If you want to reallocate the number of an asset that you deleted, then edit it in the Deleted Items folder and move it to the appropriate folder in your collection. Once you have permanently deleted the item from the Deleted Items folder, though, it will be practically impossible to reuse the item numbers of the deleted coins.
  3. Procedure to duplicate the error: 1. Create a beneficiary named John Doe by entering John Doe as the Beneficiary in an asset. 2. Create a beneficiary named Jane Doe by entering Jane Doe as the Beneficiary in an asset. 3. Go to the View tab, expand Beneficiaries, click on Jane Doe, and then edit the properties of Jane Doe. 4. Change Jane to John and save the record. The system does not prevent a duplicate beneficiary.
  4. Although you can create a Beneficiary with just a single name (which the system assumes is a last name), when you subsequently edit the Beneficiary properties you can't save it with just a First or Last name. For example, if you created a beneficiary by typing "John" into the Beneficiary field of an asset, the system creates a Beneficiary with a Last Name "John". If you then go to the View tab and try to edit the properties of this Beneficiary, the OK button won't enable until there is both a First and Last name. Because of this restriction you can't move "John" from the Last Name to the First Name field.
  5. If you Search for Text using the Find dialog and sort the Items Found by AssetNum the resulting list of items is not sorted correctly. There are two cases. Case 1. If you set the sort to AssetNum before you start the search, then sort order of the Items Found is about 80% in order. Here is an example of the AssetNum order resulting from a search of my data: 4 12 53 50 135 150 142 177 180 174 186 198 244 246 254 289 298 302 317 335 348 331 342 346 407 402 403 405 Case 2. If the initial sort is something else, like Description, then when you press AssetNum to sort by AssetNum the resulting list is reversed. For this example the resulting order is descending Description.
  6. In my case, the HomeManageID is important to me since I have exported the inventory into a workbook into which I import the images programmatically, and I need the HomeManageID to do this. I have also shared the images in the AssetImages folder, so I am using HomeManageID to identify assets. At present I can only show the AssetNum on the HomeManage screen, so it is important to me that AssetNum and HomeManageID are the same. This will be rectified in the next version, when you plan to add HomeManageID to the list of possible fields that we can show on the lists. The present behavior does ensure that each item has a unique AssetNum, but doesn't ensure that all new items start with AssetNum = HomeManageID. Does your message imply that you don't plan to change which AssetNum is assigned to new assets which are created by Duplicating existing assets? True, when you delete an asset it is moved to the deleted items folder. In my case, the assets I deleted were assets I had accidentally entered twice, so I also deleted them from the deleted folder, leaving a gap in the AssetNums.
  7. I note that when you add a new item to HomeManage it assigns the same number to AssetNum and HomeManageID. However, if you Duplicate an asset, and if there are unused AssetNums (because you deleted assets), it does not. I don't think that this inconsistency was intended. I suggest that when you Duplicate an asset that HomeManage should assign the same number to the new asset's AssetNum and HomeManageID. I have not thoroughly researched and repeated this bug, but here is what I think is happening. Let's use a hypothetical example. Suppose that I have 197 assets numbered from 2-93 and 95-104, and 106-200. Assets 1, 94 and 105 were deleted, so there are no assets with those AssetNums nor HomeManageIDs. My guess of what is happening when you Duplicate an asset is that the program assigns the next number in sequence using Access for HomeManageID, but assigns the first unused AssetNum which is greater than the AssetNum of the duplicated item to the new asset. Using my example, if I duplicated item 50 the program would assign HomeManageID 201 and AssetNum 94 to the new item it created. Please keep in mind that this is just a theory based on which AssetNums I saw were assigned to the new assets I created using Duplicate. I discovered this problem days after-the-fact when I was trying to match photos to assets and discovered that the photo numbers didn't match the AssetNums for a few items in my database. I remembered that I created those assets using Duplicate and confirmed that there were no duplicate AssetNums in my database, meaning HomeManage assigned unused AssetNums to Duplicates it created. I have not actually verified that this happens every time you Duplicate an item nor have I determined the algorithm for assigning the new AssetNum. I note that AssetNum 1 wasn't assigned to any of the duplicated items, yet is unused in my database. This is why I am guessing that the AssetNum assigned to the new items is an unused number greater than the AssetNum of the item being duplicated.
  8. This bug is repeatable. 1. Show the Category tab or View tab in the main screen. Do not select any Category or View. 2. Select Tools, Preferences from the menu. 3. Select the Columns tab. 4. HomeManage crashes. 5. I did not test all of the Views, but the program also crashes when some views are selected. E.g. Vehicles. So that the user can edit the columns for the current view, HomeManage tries to select the currently displayed view in the Categories (of which "Showing a Category" is one of the values) dropdown on the Columns tab of the Preferences dialog. I think there is a bug in the Preferences when it tries to determine which view is active and no Category is selected. RELATED ISSUES / SUGGESTIONS Suggestion 1: There are 8 views in the Categories: dropdown. If the user selects a view other than one of the 8 (e.g. Status, Purchases, Groups, Warranty Expiration) then the Categories: is blank. Although it is possible to edit the columns from this dialog, the scheme isn't named and so it isn't possible to edit it without opening the preferences dialog while the view is being shown on the main screen. This makes it difficult to edit several views or to compare views. For example, if I wanted to replace AssetNum with HomeManageID on all my views, I couldn't do it by just opening the Columns preferences and using the drop down to iterate through the views. My suggestion is that every view should be named and be accessible via the Categories: drop down. Suggestion 2: I suggest that "View:" (singular) might be a better name than "Categories:" for the dropdown on the Columns preferences tab.
  9. Although when you create a new item the AssetNum is set equal to the HomeManageID, it is possible for the user to change the AssetNum at which point they will not be the same. Since the asset images are numbered using HomManagID,some users will find it useful to see the HomeMangeID instead of or in addition to the AssetNum. For example, I was browsing the images in my AssetImages folder, and wanted to add some information to the asset tied to the photo named Asset123(1).jpg. I couldn't find the asset, since I was not aware that the asset with HomeManageID 123 had an AssetNum of 35. Ultimately I had to open the Access database to figure out what was going on.
  10. I have more subtle problems with images using Windows 7 (documented in other tickets), and I found that using "Disable desktop composition" in the compatibility settings for the program helped ease, but not eliminate, my problems. As a way to help debug your problem, I suggest testing to see if changing the compatibility settings will fix or ease your problem. If you are not familiar with compatibility settings, here is a page from Microsoft's website which explains how to make the change. The changes, by the way, are totally reversible. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-8/older-programs-compatible-version-windows
  11. I believe that you will need to search and replace any single quotes with two single quotes when you make the query, like this: Before '[Assets].[YearMade] = '1800's' AND [Assets].[LocationID] <> 3 AND ... After '[Assets].[YearMade] = '1800''s' AND [Assets].[LocationID] <> 3 AND ...
  12. If you have a Year with a single quote mark in it, like "1800's", then when you select that Year on the View tab you get an error like Syntax error (missing operator) in query expression '[Assets].[YearMade] = '1800's' AND [Assets].[LocationID] <> 3 AND ... Similarly, you get an error if a Color has a single quote. I did not test all of the views, but you don't get this error if a Manufacturer has a single quote in the name. I suspect that this error will occur for all of the views which don't use a database record to store the property, such as Warranty Expiration, Expiring Leases, Color, Year, and Made Of.
  13. I have used HomeManage for a month, so I think I can answer most of your questions using my own experience. Q: Can I back up on Microsoft's OneDrive (this feature is disabled in the trial version)? A: When you back up using the built-in Backup Data to Internet function on the Tools menu, HomeManage creates the same kind of backup file that it does with the Backup Database function on the File menu, and then it FTPs this file to Liberty Software's FTP server, using your license key as an ID. When you run the Backup Database function it prompts you for a backup location and a file name for the backup. The default is the Backup folder under the HomeManage folder where the data is stored, but you can change the folder to your OneDrive. Then, OneDrive will back up the backup file you create to the Internet. Q: Under Item Properties there is section that says "In Vehicle." What is that? A: I don't use this feature of HomeManage, but I believe this gives you the ability to assign an asset to a Vehicle temporarily without losing the information about which room the item will be returned to when it is removed from the Vehicle. I think you could also use Vehicle for an extra level of location refinement in a room, such as to designate which table an art object is on or which desk a computer is on. Perhaps other board users could explain the cases where they found it useful to use a Vehicle instead of just creating a "Room" for the vehicle. Q: Can you explain the "Notebook" under Item Properties? Is that where you enter maintenance information.? A: I don't use this feature, either, but the manual says that this is for tracking expenses. One nice thing is that the Vendor is a link to a Vendor record, so it would be possible to get a report of all items outstanding at a particular vendor (e.g. a furniture repair shop) or all the money you spent with a particular vendor over a specific period of time. Q: One suggestion is to maybe break out the Notebook costs into labor cost, parts cost, and total costs. A: I suppose it is up to Liberty Software to consider how granular to make the cost types, but I can think of more like Tax, Shipping, Finance, Insurance, etc. I am not saying that I need more granularity, since I don't even use this feature, but if Liberty Software takes up your suggestion to add more cost types, then I would suggest that they be user-definable (like other fields which HomeManage allows to user to rename), since I think that different users would have different needs in terms of how they might want to divide up the costs. Q: Will there be a HomeManage 2015? A: I think I read in a few posts from Admin that Liberty Software is planning a 2015 version. Q: Last suggestion-add insurance policy number field in the "Add an Insurer" dialog box. A: The Insurance Policy (and expiry) are in the Asset record. The intent is for the Insurer to be a "contact" record, like for Dealer, Manufacturer and Buyer (Sold To), and all the contact records have the same information. The Insurer could be associated with several insurance policy types (Auto, Home, Business, Pet), or several different policies/expiry dates of the same policy type (e.g. one for each of two automobiles). This is why they are in the Asset, instead of in the Insurer. I haven't tried this, but if you want the Insurer to represent a policy, then you could create an Insurer for each policy, put the policy number and expiry in the Insurer's name, like "Alstate 12345-222-35 12/20/2015", and leave the policy and date fields blank on the asset records. When you renew the policy, you can just update the Insurer's name to have the new policy number and expiry date, and assuming that the new insurance covers the same assets, they will all have been updated with the new information. By the way, I think it would be significantly harder to maintain this information using the Proprties button, as I think HomeManage expects. I think that HomeManage expects you to search for all the items assigned to a policy, select them all, and then change the policy in all the assets using the Proprties button. However, the Properties dialog does not have the Expiry Date on it, so I think you would have to update these one by one for each item covered by the policy. Admin, shouldn't Expiry Date be on the multiple items properties form? BTW, qlinyear, you have posted several unrelated issues into a single topic with a vague title. This doesn't encourage others to read your post and contribute their comments. Also, once an answer has been posted, it will be difficult for future users to find and learn from the answer, so they will ask the same question again. I suggest that for your next posts that you put each idea into its own topic, and then give each a title which lets users know what the topic is about without having to read it. For example, titles like "Can I backup HomeManage to OneDrive?" or "What are Vehicles in the Asset Properties for?" or "Feature Request: Add Policy and Expiry Date to Insurer".
  14. Actually, it appears that error message isn't erroneous. The "long" Descriptions appear to be stored in the Categories for the session. However, if you close HomeManage and then reopen it the long descriptions are no longer there. I am changing the title of this thread from False error message when adding more than 50 chars of text to Category Description to Feature request: Make Description field for Category longer. I suggest a fairly long limit, like 500 or 1024 chars, whatever HomeManage normally uses for long text fields.
  15. Only once when I edited a photo did the thumbnail update after I edited the photo. I noticed at the time when the thumbnail did update that I edited the photo using Paint, while now I am editing it using my default editor which is Irfanview. I don't know if the difference in behavior is due to the program being used for editing. After editing an image I press OK on the Item Properties dialog with the Item Picture(s) tab selected, hoping that this will trigger an update to the thumbnail. I also tried selecting another tab before pressing OK, but this did not fix the problem. I notice that after editing that the image on the Item Picture(s) tab does not change, even if I select another tab and go back to the Item Picture(s) tab. It only changes on the Item Picture(s) tab if I save the item and then re-open it. The only way I have found to force the thumbnail to regenerate (other than to regenerate all of the thumbnails from the Tools menu) is to reopen the asset, and then copy the image and paste it back on itself. However, since HomeManage reduces the quality of images when they are loaded or pasted (I can see the reduction in file size), this manipulation reduces the quality of the jpg. Since the image I am editing is an image which HomeEdit has already reduced in quality, this adds up to three reductions in quality, (one by HomeManage when I originally loaded the image, one by IrfanView when I edit the image, and another by HomeManage when I copy and pase the image). How does HomeManage know if the image has been edited? Does it use the file date? Hash code? Perhaps if I knew this I could take an action to make HomeManage recognize that the image has changed so it will regenerate the thumbnail. Ideally, HomeManage should be able to detect if the image was changed after the thumbnail was last generated, and regenerate the thumbnail when required. As a second choice, I would like the ability to regenerate the thumbnails for just one asset to fix cases of missing or mismatched thumbnails.
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