MIDAS v4.03 – Now Available!

We are pleased to announce the availability of MIDAS v4.03!

Read on to find out about the new features and improvements that made it into the latest update to our web based scheduling software.

New Addons

MIDAS API
API Access
MIDAS API
RSS Feeds
New Addons for MIDAS

Perhaps the most exciting new feature of MIDAS v4.03 is a new “addon” system. This may be accessed via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Addons. This new feature allow you to extend the capabilities of your MIDAS through a range of optional addons.


Two brand new addons are initially available, to coincide with the release of v4.03. These are:

  • a much requested API (allowing developers to interface with MIDAS from their own software applications),
  • an RSS Feed addon (allowing MIDAS to automatically generate customized RSS/Atom data feeds from your bookings)
SPECIAL OFFER: For a limited time, existing customers can add either of these addons to their MIDAS for HALF PRICE!! – simply visit the upgrade page

New Invoice Settings

New Invoice Settings
New Invoice Settings in MIDAS

We’ve introduced two new invoice-related settings to MIDAS for v4.03 to help you better keep track of your invoices! There’s now a setting that will prevent modification/deletion of bookings for which invoices have been created. A further setting has been added to prevent the deletion of invoices (once an invoice has been sent), until the invoice is paid in full.
..and that’s not it for improvements to invoicing, in v4.03, you can also now filter invoices by client too!

Show More on Booking “Blocks”

Booking Block details in MIDAS v4.02
In previous versions of MIDAS, you could specify a single booking field to be shown on booking “blocks” in the grid, and a field to show, along with the times of the booking, in a tooltip when hovering over the block
Booking Block details in MIDAS v4.03
With MIDAS v4.03, there’s now options to display two booking fields on blocks and two fields on corresponding tooltips!

Improved “Grid Layout” Printing

Print The Booking Grid
New Print Layout Options

In MIDAS v4.03, you can now generate even more versatile printouts of your bookings! We’ve given you the option to select, at time of printing, the booking field to be shown when printing bookings as a “grid”. Previously this had been fixed to show the name of the client/organization that each booking was for.

Performance Improvements

We constantly strive to make MIDAS as fast and efficient as possible. To that end a number of performance improvements have been made in v4.03.
Various code optimizations have been found, and in places, the number of database queries has been reduced.

If you use “Watches“, one of the biggest performance improvements you’ll notice in v4.03, is that multiple bookings will be added/modified/deleted faster!

When emails are sent from MIDAS, this can take a second or so, as MIDAS (or rather the server itself) has to establish connections to a mail server and send data.

In earlier versions of MIDAS, when it came to watches, a separate email would be generated/sent for each individual booking that “triggered” the watch. So for example, if you had 3 users all “watching” a particular venue for new bookings and another user then adds a booking to that venue every day for 5 days, MIDAS would generate a total of 15 notification emails (five for each of the three users watching the particular venue).

However, now, in v4.03, the same operation would only generate 3 notification emails (one for each user, each email containing a list of all five bookings). This reduction in the volume of individual notification emails sent by MIDAS results in considerable improvement in performance and speed for customers who have “Watch” email notifications setup in their MIDAS system.

Our “cloud hosted” customers should also notice a small improvement on all page load times with MIDAS v4.03. This is due to a new internal setting that reduces certain re-directs. This should improve page load times by a few hundred milliseconds.

New “Pastel” theme

Pastel Theme for MIDAS
New Pastel Theme for MIDAS Room Booking Software

We’ve created a new, optional, “Pastel” theme to coincide with MIDAS v4.03. The new “Pastel” theme features soft, pastel shades, and may be seen in action in our live online demo. We’ve made the new “Pastel” theme compatible with any version of MIDAS from v4.00 onwards. So if you like it, why not download and install it to your MIDAS at mid.as/themes.

GUI Updates

As well as a new visual theme, a number of small updates to the GUI (Graphical User Interface) have been made for v4.03, including:

  • When “jumping” to a booking from a search result, the selected booking will be indicated in the grid (its border will temporarily flash)
  • When “jumping” to specific bookings (i.e. via Search or a “Client’s Other Bookings” link), relevant bookings are highlighted in the grid
  • The animated “working” indicator is now shown in more places to indicate activity (i.e. when deleting multiple bookings)

Issues Fixed

MIDAS v4.03 includes a cumulative roll-up of fixes for all known issues discovered since the initial release of v4.02

Changelog / Release Notes

The full change log may be viewed at mid.as/changelog.

How to get MIDAS v4.03

If you’re an existing user with an active Support Subscription you can update to this latest version right now via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update.

If your Annual Support Subscription has recently expired, don’t worry – you can quickly renew your subscription then get the update.

…and if we host MIDAS for you, there’s no need to do anything – we’ve already automatically updated you to v4.03! (you may still want to check out the new available addons though!)

If, however, you’re not yet using MIDAS for your organization’s scheduling, you can purchase securely through our website.


What’s new in MIDAS v4.03

Here are some of the new and improved features included the forthcoming v4.03 update to our web based booking software.

New Addons

MIDAS API
API Access
MIDAS API
RSS Feeds

Perhaps the most exciting new feature of MIDAS v4.03 is a new “addon” system. This may be accessed via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Addons. Addons allow you to further extend the capabilities of your MIDAS.

Two brand new addons will initially be available, to coincide with the release of v4.03.

The first is a much requested API. The API allows developers to interface with MIDAS from their own software applications.

The second is an RSS Feed addon, allowing MIDAS to automatically generate customized RSS/Atom data feeds from your bookings.

New Invoice Settings

New Invoice Settings

We’ve introduced two new invoice-related settings to MIDAS for v4.03 to help you better keep track of your invoices! There’s now a setting that will prevent modification/deletion of bookings for which invoices have been created. Additionally, there’s now a setting to prevent the deletion of invoices (once an invoice has been sent), until the invoice is paid in full.
And that’s not it for improvements to invoicing! In v4.03, you can also now filter invoices by client too!

Show More on Booking “Blocks”

Booking Block details in MIDAS v4.02
In previous versions of MIDAS, you could specify a single booking field to be shown on booking “blocks” in the grid, and a field to show, along with the times of the booking, in a tooltip when hovering over the block
Booking Block details in MIDAS v4.03
With MIDAS v4.03, there’s now options to display two booking fields on blocks and two fields on corresponding tooltips!

Improved “Grid Layout” Printing

Print The Booking Grid

In MIDAS v4.03, you can now generate even more versatile printouts of your bookings! We’ve given you the option to select, at time of printing, the booking field to be shown when printing bookings as a “grid”. Previously this had been fixed to show the name of the client/organization that each booking was for.

Performance Improvements

We constantly strive to make MIDAS as fast and efficient as possible. To that end we’ve number of performance improvements have been made in v4.03.
Various code optimizations have been found, and in places, the number of database queries has been reduced.

If you use “Watches“, one of the biggest performance improvements you’ll notice in v4.03, is that multiple bookings will be added/modified/deleted faster!

When emails are sent from MIDAS, this can take a second or so, as MIDAS (or rather the server itself) has to establish connections to a mail server and send data. In earlier versions of MIDAS, when it came to watches, a separate email would be generated/sent for each individual booking that “triggered” the watch. So for example, if you had 3 users all “watching” a particular venue for new bookings and another user then adds a booking to that venue every day for 5 days, MIDAS would generate a total of 15 notification emails (five for each of the three users watching the particular venue).

However, now, in v4.03, the same operation would only generate 3 notification emails (one for each user, each email containing a list of all five bookings). This reduction in the number of individual emails sent by MIDAS will result in a considerable improvement in performance and speed for customers who have “Watch” email notifications setup.

Our “cloud hosted” customers should also notice a small improvement on all page load times with MIDAS v4.03. This is due to a new internal setting that reduces certain re-directs. In turn, this should improve page load times by a few hundred milliseconds. Every millisecond counts!

New “Pastel” theme

Pastel Theme for MIDAS

We’ve created a new, optional, “Pastel” theme to coincide with MIDAS v4.03. The new “Pastel” theme features soft, pastel shade. It can be downloaded and installed to your MIDAS at https://mid.as/themes. The new “Pastel” theme is actually compatible with any version of MIDAS from v4.00 and above. You can preview it in action for yourself in our live online demo booking system.

UI Updates

As well as a new theme, a number of small updates to the UI (User Interface) have been made for v4.03. These include:

  • When “jumping” to a booking from a search result, the selected booking will be indicated in the grid (its border will temporarily flash)
  • When “jumping” to specific bookings (i.e. via Search or a “Client’s Other Bookings” link), relevant bookings are highlighted in the grid
  • The animated “working” indicator is now shown in more places to indicate activity (i.e. when deleting multiple bookings)

Issues Fixed

MIDAS v4.03 includes a cumulative roll-up of fixes for all issues discovered since the initial release of v4.02


New API and RSS addons

MIDAS v4.03 is just around the corner, and this update to our popular web based scheduling software will include a number of new features and improvements over previous versions.

Perhaps one of the most exciting new features of v4.03 will be the introduction of a new “addon” system, allowing the capabilities of your MIDAS to be extended through a range of optional extras.

A couple of optional “addons” will be initially available to coincide with the release of MIDAS v4.03, including a much anticipated API addon, and also an RSS addon…

API Access

MIDAS APIThe “API Access” addon will allow developers to interface directly with MIDAS from their own software applications! You can read more here.

Extensive API Documentation, including code samples, is already available online and the API Access addon is also now available to Beta Testers.

If you’re a programmer/developer and would like to test the new API, become a Beta Tester today!

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds Settings

The RSS Feeds addon will allow MIDAS to automatically generate multiple public RSS 2.0/Atom data feeds from your booking data! Read More »

…and here’s an example of a typical MIDAS RSS Feed


Both the above “addons” are available right now to beta testers, and can be found within the software via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Addons.

Once MIDAS v4.03 is released, new customers will be able to include optional addons at time of purchase, or add them at a later date.
Existing users will be able to obtain addons for their MIDAS as upgrades in just a few simple steps!


Web Browser Roundup – April 2013

It’s been a busy few weeks in the world of web browsers! There’s been some major changes in the browser landscape too! So here’s our take on what’s been happening..

  • Internet Explorer – IE11 coming later this year? / IE10 available for Windows 7 / Farewell IE8
  • Firefox – v20 now available… and a new rendering engine on the horizon?
  • Chrome – v26 out now… and ANOTHER new rendering engine on the horizon?!
  • Opera – 12.15 now available… and a change in rendering engine to.. WebKit? no wait.. Blink?
  • Safari – What will all these rendering engine changes to other browsers mean for Safari?

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer 11 coming soon
Microsoft are busy working on their next update for Windows 8, currently billed as being “Windows 8.1”. It’s expected to be available in the latter half of this year. Windows 8.1 will almost be a kind of “service pack” for Windows 8, but will also contain a number of improvements and updates to apps & software. Perhaps the most exciting updating coming with Windows 8.1 will be Internet Explorer 11.

Yes, that’s right, no sooner is IE10 out of the door, and Microsoft are following it up with IE11 in a relatively short space of time (well, for them anyway!). We think this is great to see from Microsoft! In the past, updates to their flagship browser have been few and far between. Compare that with Mozilla’s current release cycle for Firefox, churning out a new version of Firefox every 6 weeks!

MIDAS will be supported in IE11 when it becomes available. It remains presently unknown as to whether IE11 will be “exclusive” to Windows 8.1, or if like IE10, it will also be made available for Windows 7 users as well.

…and yes, you did read that right – Internet Explorer 10 is available for Windows 7 right now! (and has been for over a month). If you’re a Windows 7 and Internet Explorer user, we strongly recommend that you update to IE10 get the best out of MIDAS.

Finally, if you’re still an Internet Explorer 8 user please read our “Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8” post. Essentially, please upgrade your browser… as we won’t be supporting MIDAS in IE8 indefinitely!

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)


Mozilla Firefox

Firefox 20
Mozilla’s rapid release cycle means that we’re now up to Firefox version 20! In a tweet yesterday, the Firefox team claim that with their latest version of Firefox “you can get the web up to 7 times faster than older versions”.

Mozilla also announced last week that they were collaborating with Samsung on a new rendering engine, named “Servo”. A “rendering engine” is essentially what converts raw web page code into what you actually see on your browser screen. Mozilla’s long standing rendering engine has been “Gecko”, but according to Mozilla;

“Servo is a research project to develop a new web browser engine. Our goal is to create an architecture that takes advantage of parallelism at many levels, both on the CPU and GPU, while eliminating common sources of bugs and security vulnerabilities associated with incorrect memory management and data races. With Servo, we aim to take the kinds of fluid, richer multimedia experiences expected in today’s smart phone and tablet applications to the next level on tomorrow’s web and tomorrow’s hardware.”

“Servo” is still in its early days and according to Mozilla;

It’s too early to say how [Servo] will be adopted going forward. No decision has been made as to whether Servo will replace Gecko. Gecko remains the ‘productised’ web engine for Mozilla.

So it may be that Servo ends up being a rendering engine for Mozilla’s smartphone/tablet browsers, and Gecko remains for desktop Firefox editions. This could get confusing, but it’s more likely over time that Mozilla will standardize their rendering engine across all platforms.

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v20+ recommended)


Google Chrome

Chrome 26
The current version of Google’s Chrome browser is v26. Ever since its first release – which was only 4 years ago! – Chrome has always used the WebKit rendering engine, most notably used by Apple’s Safari web browser. Chrome’s subsequent input into the WebKit project has really driven WebKit development forward in the last four years. WebKit is now arguably the most standards-compliant of all the rendering engines currently used by the major browsers.

However, Google recently announced that they would be developing a new rendering engine for Chrome, called “Blink”. Blink is expected to make it into builds of Chrome within just 10 weeks! Unlike Mozilla’s “Servo” engine, which is being built from the ground up, Blink is heavily based on the WebKit project.

Google have released a Blink Q&A video if you’re interested in learning more about this new rendering engine and its implementation

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v26+ recommended)


Opera

Opera 12.15
Opera are having a bit of a turbulent time of late, and in some respects appear to be loosing a sense of focus and direction!
The Opera browser was first released in late 1994. This makes it the longest running browser that’s still in active development and current use today.

Apart from its longevity, what also makes Opera unique is their own “Presto” rendering engine.

Now, you may remember that back in January, we reported that Opera were making a switch from Presto to WebKit. Well, at least for their mobile browser offerings.

Then in February, it was confirmed that Opera would drop Presto for their entire range on browsers (not just mobile).

This was a move that surprised a lot of analysts, and received a mixed response from Opera’s loyal user base.

Whilst it would have been sad to see a very mature rendering engine being put out to pasture, it would have meant that with Google and Opera both contributing to WebKit (along with Safari). This would provide more continuity between browsing experiences on the three browsers. Also with three major organizations contributing to the development of WebKit, it would have become very powerful. It would certainly have Mozilla and Internet Explorer (who don’t use WebKit) quaking in their boots!

…but this was before Google announced Blink… and shortly afterwards, Opera changed their minds. Opera decided to jump on the Blink band-wagon too, after having gone all out and confirming they were moving to WebKit!!

So it’s a little confusing at the moment as to the direction that Opera are going down! ..but as things stand, here are the list of rendering engines that the five major browsers are using/will be using in the near future:

BrowserCurrent Rending EngineFuture Rendering Engine
Trident Rendering Engine Internet ExplorerTridentTrident
Gecko Rendering Engine Mozilla FirefoxGeckoServo?
Blink Rendering Engine Google ChromeWebKitBlink
Presto Rendering Engine OperaPrestoBlink?
WebKit Rendering Engine Apple SafariWebKitWebKit

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)


Safari

Safari - The Future of WebKit
As you’ll know from our previous Web Browser Roundups – it’s been pretty quiet on the Safari development front in recent months. There’s not much happening on the face of it!

Safari’s rendering engine is WebKit, and last month it looked like both Google and Opera would begin contributing code to the WebKit project. In fact, Opera even began contributing code to WebKit.

This was before Google announced it was moving away from WebKit in favor of a new rendering engine, Blink. Then Opera followed suit and announced it was also teaming up with Google for the new Blink rendering engine.

So what will this mean for WebKit and the Safari browser that will soon be the sole user and primary contributor to the WebKit project?

Well, it remains to be seen! WebKit was successfully developed without Google’s input in the days before Chrome. It may well survive without Google’s input in the future. But with Google and Opera pooling resources into Blink, and Firefox potentially introducing a new rendering engine too, the WebKit team (and Safari) are going to be facing a tough challenge to keep up!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)