Development Archives - Page 41 of 45 - MIDAS - Room Booking System

Category: Development

Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8…

4 minute read time · Updated February 12, 2025 · First published March 19, 2013

Exactly four years ago today, back on March 19th 2009, Microsoft first released Internet Explorer 8. In today’s fast changing web browser landscape that’s now very old indeed!

To allow us to continue to develop new and exciting features for MIDAS, occasionally it becomes necessary for us to “phase out” support for older browsers. This is when a browser’s market share drops very low, and it becomes too difficult and time-consuming to maintain compatibility with, limiting the capabilities of our scheduling software – which relies on your web browser.

For example, if you’re still running MIDAS in IE8 you’re already missing out on some features. This includes the ability to quickly drag-and-drop bookings around the booking grid to instantly reschedule them! We’ve not purposefully held this feature back from IE8 – the browser itself simply doesn’t support it!

Browser compatibility with the latest web technologies and standards (HTML5, CSS3, SVG, etc)

Chrome 25	89%
Firefox 19	80%
Safari 6	78%
IE10	74%
Opera 12.1	73%
IE9	43%
IE8	20%

Source: caniuse.com

We have previously dropped support for Internet Explorer 6, back in 2010. Two years later in early 2012 we also dropped support for Internet Explorer 7.

Back in November 2012, we first indicated that in the near future we would be dropping support for Internet Explorer 8.

At the start of this year, we gave further notice that IE8 support would likely be dropped “during the course of 2013“. At the same time we introduced a new feature to help notify users if their browser is too old:

Major companies such as Google have already discontinued support for Internet Explorer 8. Google took the decision in September 2012 to drop IE8 support across their range of services (including YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Drive, Blogger, etc) with effect from 15th November 2012.

Internet Explorer 10 Microsoft’s 10th and latest incarnation of Internet Explorer was first introduced with Windows 8. Last month, IE10 also became available to Windows 7 users.

Given the global availability now of Internet Explorer 10, it is highly likely that we will be dropping IE8 support for our room scheduling software before the end of 2013. (We’ve already seen a noticeable 4.6% drop in IE8 usage from our “hosted” clients alone so far in 2013!)

What does this mean?

Firstly, once we no longer support IE8, we won’t simply “block” MIDAS from being accessed via Internet Explorer 8! It may well be that subsequent updates to our browser-based scheduling software continue to function to some extent in IE8 after we officially drop IE8 support.

However, it does mean that we will no longer “test” MIDAS in IE8. Therefore, should you use IE8 and contact our support team with any issues, you will be advised in the first instance to update your browser.

Browsers Logos Internet Explorer 9 and 10 continue to be supported at this time, along with recent versions of all other major browsers. A full list of supported browsers can be found at https://mid.as/browsers

…but I currently use Internet Explorer 8 – what should I do?

If you’re a Windows 7 user accessing MIDAS though Internet Explorer, you can update your browser to IE10. This won’t apply if you’re running Windows 8, which already comes with IE10!

Alternatively, if you’re a Windows Vista user and use Internet Explorer, although you won’t be able to update up to IE10, you can still update Internet Explorer as far as version 9.

Our decision to drop support for IE8 will only impact a very limited number of MIDAS users; specifically those who presently use MIDAS in Internet Explorer on Windows XP. Unfortunately, the highest version of Internet Explorer that can be installed on Windows XP systems is IE8.

If you fall into this category, the good news is that MIDAS is also supported in recent versions of all other major browsers too. This includes Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. All of these can be installed on Windows XP to allow you to continue using MIDAS! However, given that Microsoft themselves will cease all support for their XP operating system in 2014, perhaps now’s the time to be thinking about updating your 12-year old operating system anyway!?

So we apologize in advance if you are one of the small handful of users this decision may affect later this year. It’s never an easy decision for us to drop support for a browser – but we hope you’ll understand our reasons behind this move, to allow us to continue to develop a world-class web based scheduling solution that’s at the forefront of today’s new web technologies and standards!

By giving plenty of advanced notice again now – and with the introduction at the start of the year of notifications if your browser is too old – we hope you’ll take the opportunity to update your browser before our support for IE8 ends later this year!

Tags: browser, IE8, internet explorer, microsoft

What’s new in MIDAS v4.02

4 minute read time · Updated January 19, 2024 · First published February 14, 2013

Well, seeing as it’s Valentine’s Day today, and we know you love MIDAS – we thought it would be a good opportunity to share with you some of the exciting new features and improvements we’re busy working on for our next release of MIDAS, version 4.02…

More Versatile Options For Booking Times

Start and Finish Times In previous versions of MIDAS, when specifying the times that bookings take place, you were presented with options to set a start and finish time:

We wanted to make specifying booking times even easier and more flexible, that’s why v4.02 will introduce two new time field options: “periods” and “durations“.

Predefined Time Periods

If you only wish your users to book in predefined time slots (“periods”) during the day, this option is just what you need!
You can set up a list of predefined periods of time, with each “period” having it’s own name.
For example, let’s say you’re running MIDAS within a school or other educational environment. In v4.02 you’ll be able to add your school day as a list of predefined time periods, for instance:

This way, instead of previously having to manually select a start time of 11:15 and a finish time of 12:15 on the booking form if a user wanted to book during “Lesson 3”, with this option those fields will be replaced with a simple drop-down list from which they can easily pick “Lesson 3”!

There are no limits on the number of predefined “period” lists you can set up. What’s more you can also specify on a per-user basis which particular list of time “periods” is shown!

Start Time + Predefined Duration

If all your bookings (or appointments) should be of a standard, predetermined length, this new option will be ideal for you!
MIDAS v4.02 will allow you to set up a list of predefined booking durations (in Minutes) that will replace the original “finish” time field. That way, users can simply select a start time for their booking, and a duration.

As with the “period” lists, you can set up multiple lists of booking durations and specify which list should be shown to which user!

As these three booking time options (Start + Finish, Start + Duration, and Periods) can be specified on a per user basis, the flexibility this gives is unmatched! These powerful new booking time options make MIDAS an even better scheduling choice for schools, as well as for businesses that need to schedule appointments!

Monthly Repetitive Booking Generator

MIDAS already includes a quick way to generate dates for repetitive bookings i.e. “every Monday for the next 6 weeks”, etc.. but many users have asked for a quick way to generate dates for monthly recurring bookings, say on “the 2nd Thursday of every month”, etc… so we’re giving you just that in v4.02!

Approve/Reject Booking Requests “Silently”

Silently Approve or Reject Booking Requests

When you approve or reject a Booking Request, MIDAS automatically sends an email notification to the original requester informing them that their booking request has been either approved, or rejected (together with a reason for the rejection).
In MIDAS v4.02, we’re including a simple way to override the sending of these notifications so that you can approve/reject requests “silently” without the original requester being informed of your action.

Send “Booking Reminders” to your external calendar (Outlook, Lightning, etc)

Send Booking Reminders as Outlook/Thunderbird Calendar Events

The “Booking Reminder” feature currently allows you to quickly add a reminder for any booking to your “My Messages” screen within MIDAS. In v4.02, we’re also introducing the ability to have these reminders emailed to you as calendar events. That way, if your mail client has an associated calendar application (such as Outlook, or Lighting (for Thunderbird)) you can quickly add these events to your external calendar with just a single click!

Other new features in v4.02:

The Monthly Overview can now be printed via the “Print” toolbar icon
New option to only accept booking requests from certain email domains
Norwegian translation

MIDAS v4.02 is expected to be available to Beta Testers later this month, with a full release shortly after.
If you’d like to help us test this new version, why not become a Beta Tester?

Love MIDAS In the meantime, as it’s Valentines Day and love is in the air, why not help us spread the love and take a moment to share MIDAS with your friends and colleagues on your favorite social networking sites

Tags: v4.02

What’s new in MIDAS v4.01

5 minute read time · Updated April 19, 2023 · First published November 12, 2012

Back in August we released MIDAS v4.00. This was a major release of our room booking system, culminating in over 8 months of development. Crucially, it utilizes a different, faster, and more efficient database architecture than previous versions.

Much of the original MIDAS code was re-written from the ground up, and many new features were added. Since then, we’ve been working hard on making MIDAS even better, and we’ll soon be releasing v4.01.

The primary focus for v4.01 has been to further optimize the speed and performance of MIDAS. In our benchmark testing, on average,
MIDAS v4.01 is 15% faster than v4.00 !!

Whilst the main focus for v4.01 has been on performance, we’re also squeezing in a few new features too:

Full Screen Mode

If you’re accessing MIDAS in a browser that supports the new “Full Screen API”, you’ll see a “Full Screen” link on both the login screen and within MIDAS itself:

Clicking a “Full Screen” link will make your MIDAS run in “full screen” mode – MIDAS will fill your entire screen! No tabs, address bar, taskbar or other items cluttering up your screen. You’ll be able to see your booking grid at its largest possible size!

You’ll be able to exit full screen mode at any time by clicking the “Exit Full Screen” link or by pressing “Esc”.

At time of writing supported browsers include: Firefox 15+, Chrome 22+, Safari 5.1+, and Opera 12.1+.

Additional Export Options

In v4.01, we’ve improved the Export function within MIDAS. Now you can export Resources and Invoice Summaries in either XML, CSV, or TXT formats. This is ideal if you wish to use this data in 3rd party applications (such as Quickbooks, etc).

Set Operating Hours for all Venues at once

Setting up your venue’s “Hours of Operation” is generally something you’ll do once. Still, it can still be quite time-consuming clicking lots of green squares for each hour period during the week for each of your venues. That’s why in v4.01 we’ve added an “All Venues” checkbox.

If you select this box, when you click “Save Changes”, the Hours of Operation for the currently selected venue will be applied to all your venues!

Improved Booking Information “Client” Tab

The Client tab of the Booking Information Panel in v4.01 now also includes a list of the client’s Paid and Outstanding invoices when you “hover” over a booking for any particular client. You can further click any invoice from these lists to jump straight to that invoice!

List paid and outstanding invoices — A Client’s Paid and Outstanding Invoices

Better User Experience when making “Booking Requests” on Smartphones/Mobile Devices

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ll know we recently introduced a mobile version of our main website. We’re currently in the process of developing a mobile-specific version of MIDAS too, which should make an appearance sometime next year. In the meantime, however, for MIDAS v4.01 we’ve made the Public Booking Request feature much more “mobile friendly”. It’s now easier for people to check room availability and make bookings requests through their smartphone or similar mobile device:

Public Booking Requests in v4.00 on Opera Mobile on a Smartphone — How the Public Booking Request form for MIDAS v4.00 renders on a Smartphone

Public Booking Requests in v4.01 on Opera Mobile on a Smartphone — How the Public Booking Request form for MIDAS v4.01 renders on a Smartphone

Keep Your Browser Up-to-date!

Browser Detection
We want you to have the best possible user experience when using MIDAS in your favorite web browser. We support our scheduling software in all 5 major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera). A list of the minimum and recommended versions for each of these browsers we support may be found here.

Keeping your web browser up-to-date is so important! That’s why, starting with v4.01, MIDAS will display a notification if your browser is too old to use MIDAS, prompting you to update:

Outdated browser detection — Unsupported Browser Warning

Additionally, if your browser meets the minimum version we support, but falls short of the version of your browser we recommend, MIDAS will also show a notification:

Update your browser — Old Browser Warning

These notifications are enabled in MIDAS v4.01 by default, but may be turned off if desired.

It’s a very exciting time for web based development – there are lots of new and emerging technologies and standards (such as HTML5 and CSS3). Some of these are already used by MIDAS v4 (such as the new “drag & drop to reschedule bookings” feature).

If you’re stuck on an older web browser that doesn’t support these standards/technologies, you won’t be able to take advantage of all the features that MIDAS (and internet in general) has to offer.

Plus you’ll be potentially exposed to web based security threats that emerge all the time if your browser is not kept up-to-date.

To allow us to continue to develop new and exciting features for MIDAS, we have to “phase out” support for older browser versions, as they become too old, and newer versions are available.

For instance, we took the decision in 2010 to drop support for Internet Explorer 7.

Now that IE10 is available for Windows 8 (and soon to be available for Windows 7 users), it’s likely that in the not too distance future we’ll be dropping support for IE8 too. Internet Explorer 8 is now nearly 4 years old – which by today’s fast evolving browser landscape is very old!

Don’t worry, MIDAS v4.01, will still be supported on IE8. The introduction of this new notification system with MIDAS v4.01 will hopefully encourage users to update their older IE8 browsers. That way they’ll be prepared for when support ends for older browsers, such as IE8.

UPDATE: 1^st January 2013 – MIDAS v4.01 is now available!

Tags: beta, v4.01

Try MIDAS v4 Now!

1 minute read time · Updated August 27, 2024 · First published May 31, 2012

Keen readers of this blog will know by now, that we have a major update coming to MIDAS this Summer!

A lot has changed in this update and it’s packed full of new and improved features. It also uses a new database format, and has much of the original code re-written from the ground up!

Whether you’re an existing user or totally new to the MIDAS way of online scheduling, we need your help to “test” this new update. This allows us to help identify and fix andy issues before its public release!

Becoming a Beta Tester couldn’t be easier. It’s completely free, there’s nothing to download, and you don’t need any programming experience or knowledge! All you need is your web browser and a bit of spare time! So why not sign up right now!

The more people we have testing this pre-release “beta” version of our popular room scheduling software, the sooner we can release this exciting new update!

Click Here to try MIDAS v4 Now!

Tags: beta, v4