Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Scythebill 16.4 - "New for" column in checklist spreadsheets and more

Scythebill 16.4 is now available!  There's a "New for" column in checklist spreadsheets, a number of small import improvements, and other small fixes.   As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.

Update: Scythebill 16.4.1 was released on June 2nd, with bug fixes to import handling of timestamps and new locations (especially affecting BirdLasser).

"New for" column for location checklist spreadsheets

The last release of Scythebill added an option for a "Lifer?" column when you save a location checklist as a spreadsheet.  This release replaces it with a much more useful "New for" column, telling you not just if that checklist species would be new for you but how - whether it's new for your world list, the country (or state), or even if it'd be new for your world Photographed list (the latter only appears if you ever attach photos to sightings).




Import improvements

The summary of "New for" species when importing sightings should be both less confusing and not require resizing to be visible.  (Before, for example, if you had world lifers and new species for a site in one import, the lifers wouldn't show up as new for the site;  they will now.)

BirdLasser, BirdTrack, and Wildlife Recorder imports sometimes require you to choose a location for imported sightings off of a latitude and longitude.  Scythebill should now be much better at making that process less painful - countries will be filled in far more often, the "existing location" drop-down menu is sorted by closest location in KM, and it's generally smarter at guessing whether the new sightings should require a new location or can use an existing location.

Scythebill-format imports now optionally support a Genus/Species column, as well as an "End time" column.  Both of these are useful for importing from custom software - if some software exports genus and species names separately, rather than joined to a scientific name, you don't have to combine those columns before importing.  Similarly, you can supply an "End time" instead of a Duration, and Scythebill will calculate the Duration for you.

Scythebill now automatically supports imports for "Lawrence's", "Brewster's", and "Sutton's" Warblers - a few North American hybrids which might appear in eBird exports with those names.

Finally, BirdBase imports now properly handle imports from Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories.

Other fixes

  • If you "remember" a report from Show reports which used the "Times sighted" option, it'll now show the correct number on the home screen.
  • Gibraltar is no longer considered part of the UK for the Total Ticks "Country" report.  (I don't think any British birders consider Gibraltar sightings as part of their personal British list, but let me know if I've gotten that wrong!)
  • You can now export "list-building imports" for eBird.  These are described on the eBird site, but briefly, they let you include sightings which don't have an exact day.  They'll be imported into eBird with the date January 1, 1900 and a visit comment of "life-list building checklist".  These sightings will be included on your life list in eBird, but won't be publicly visible or used as data on eBird.
  • Exporting data for eBird might create files which couldn't be imported, with an error message like "Observation time is required for protocol...";  these shouldn't appear anymore.