Scythebill 19.4.0 is now available. It's got the new - and last - IOC 15.2 taxonomy. It's also now available in the Windows Store!
As always, download here, and let me know if you have any problems, either on Facebook or by email.
Update: Scythebill 19.4.1 was released on May 16. See fixes at the bottom of the page.
IOC 15.2
The IOC taxonomy has released its latest, and last taxonomy. More than anything else, I'd like to thank the prime movers behind the IOC taxonomy - David Donsker, Frank Gill, and Pamela Rasmussen - for all of their excellent work over the years. They've set a very high bar for future taxonomy maintainers!
This last update is largely one of alignment with AviList, and as so it contains more lumps than splits. There are some splits from the SACC (South American Checklist Committee) which I would expect to be mirrored in the AviList and eBird 2026 taxonomies. As always, you can visit the "Split and Lumps" report in Special reports to get a full rundown of how it affected your list:
The obvious question is what I'll be doing with IOC - and AviList! - going forward. My current plan:
- eBird has stated that in 2026 they will be fully aligned with AviList. Therefore, the eBird 2026 taxonomy release will be AviList, so when Scythebill upgrades to that taxonomy (expected in October), it will support AviList.
- I plan to keep IOC 15.2 supported in Scythebill for about one year. By the time the eBird/AviList 2027 taxonomy is released, I plan to remove IOC altogether from Scythebill.
Windows Store
Scythebill can now be installed directly from the Windows Store! No more dire warning messages from Windows, just a fast and easy install.
The direct downloads will still be supported going forward, for those who prefer that path.
If you've used the old direct downloads and are moving to the Windows Store, you may want to uninstall (the old) Scythebill to prevent having two (potentially incompatible) versions installed.
Other fixes
- A few species were accidentally marked as "Undescribed" (Principe Scops-Owl, Timor Nightjar, and Ampay Tapaculo), which removed them from life list totals.
- Trips which crossed top-level regions - and were therefore "World" trips - no longer block editing the trip name.
- A (harmless) error message when closing the "Edit..." dialog in Browse by location is now fixed.
- Opening a non-.bsxm file as if it were a .bsxm file now gives a clearer error message.
- 19.4.1: Imports from non-eBird software might fail with a NullPointerException.
- 19.4.1: Wildlife Recorder imports support trips that use another trip as a location.
- 19.4.1: BirdLasser "lifelist" exports are now supported
- 19.4.1: the "Report issues" menu item has been removed (Bitbucket stopped supporting this feature, so the link didn't work)
Super, thank you very much Adam for creating Scythebill and not only updating taxonomies but also making many improvements. It is the best one I have found and much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteAgreed!!!
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm having trouble finding the executable for the new Windows installer. I can easily find the .bsxm file but want to recreate a shortcut from the executable, but I've done much searching and cannot find it in any of the usual places.
ReplyDeleteThe Microsoft Store puts apps in a hidden WindowsApps folder in Program Files, if I remember correctly. I'll have to see why it's not creating the shortcut automatically.
DeleteI just was able to reestablish my shortcut which works fine; still don't know where the executable file is, but I'm okay with that. Thanks for all that you do!
ReplyDelete