Monday, December 10, 2012

Sorting

Once you get started adding new coins to your collection, you will quickly notice that finding new Coins in the main collection view becomes more difficult.

 

To help with this, we've added an option to Sort the collection.  To sort the collection, first click the Action menu, which is the top right-most menu item found on the collection view.  The image to the right shows the collection view, with the Action menu circled in red.


Touch this item, and the Collection Actions view is displayed.  At the top of the list of Actions, you will notice an option to "Sort the Collection".

Click it.

This will bring up yet another view, this one showing the Settings and Sort By options for sorting your coin collection.

To sort by Coin Type, select "Coin Type".

That's it, now your collection is sorted by Coin Type.

Hope this helped, please leave comments if you have any questions, suggestions, or other feedback on how Sorting works in our App's.

Gratefully,
-john
chief software architect
SaintsSoft, LLC.


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Tip of the Day

Hello to all of our Customers.

John Kountz here, owner and designer of this App. 

Two years ago i found that i was unable to provide the support Customers deserved for what they were buying. To reconcile with that i decided to removed our App's from sale, it seemed wrong to take money and not support the software.

That might have been a bad decision. 

I have since retired from managing day-to-day development for Penthera as a Distinguished Software Engineer. 

After 6 months of being retired I realized the joy of building software was missing from my life. With the help of 2 other guys that want to remain nameless for the moment, we have decided to relaunch the best coin collecting Application suite for Apple users.

The bad news is you will need to first make sure you have backed-up your old collection to a Dropbox account because the new App's support importing of your old collection using a Restore to the new App's from Dropbox.

This App runs on iPhone, iPad's.


This App runs on a Mac Desktop of Mac Laptop computer

We are always open to improvement suggestions.

For now you should know our next major release will provide support for using iCloud for backup of your coin collection across all of your iOS and macOS devices.

Have ideas for improvements?
What model iPad do you use for US Coins?

Let me know (email).

Thanks!
john

US Coin for Mac YouTube video: (link)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

New Features in Rel 4.15

We just wrapped coding & testing for release 4.15 of US Coin Collector & Gold Collector App's. Besides several productivity improvements, the other major change includes addition of two new coin types:

  1. Early American Colonials
  2. US Pattern and Type Coins
Both of these new types were a major undertaking, they include a massive number of new issues ~ about doubling the size of our coin dictionary. We've done something different with how we are rolling out these new coin types, we've made them optional content. That is a nice way of saying we need to ask our customers to step up and help fund our Company by purchasing these new types.

If you like the App, and you'd like us to continue releasing new features, we need your help. It turns out that our developers and testers like to eat, and eating is getting more and more expensive. They remain content living in shared housing, sleeping in common rooms filled with bunk beds and a single shared bathroom. But the prices of Pizza and Soda have been going up relentlessly. We are delighted to have just topped 1,000 paying customers, and we are most grateful they've had the courage to plunk-down $2.99 to pay for one of our App's.

We would love to continue delivering updates to the software, please help us keep going by considering purchasing one or both of these new coin type's. Our ETA from Apple is Wednesday, November 21st for approval of Rel 4.15.

Thank you,
SaintsSoft, LLC Development Team

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Version 3.52 Update

SaintsSoft US Coin Collector Release 3.52 includes addition of Modern Commemorative Sets (1983 to Date)

Customers have been asking for this, we simply missed these on the initial release.

The other coin folks have asked about are the Silver American Eagles, which have existed in the App since day one and can be found in under Bullion, as in Silver Bullion which is what Silver American Eagles are.

Apple should release this update by July 4th.

Enjoy!

Friday, May 11, 2012

Import/Export

Just a short note on how import/export feature works with all SaintsSoft App's.

Export is done through Reports, by choosing the Export Format and then the single report that can be exported, basically all columns of the collection in a CSV (Comma Separated File format).

Import is done through the Coin view, Action menu (top right from the main Coin collection view), same place where you sort the collection.

Import shows three Format options: Default, Carlisle, Custom.

Default -  same format exported by any SaintSoft App. This is the format to use when you want to export, edit some data, and then import.

Carlisle - format used by Carlisle Software Development's Collector's Assistant. If you are using Carlisle then this is the format to choose to import you collection.

Custom - customizable format, you can move columns around to match up with other possible import formats. The UX is clunky, and there are odd restrictions, I should know I wrote it and I hate it. Open to alternative suggestions on this monster, I'm hoping the first two options get the job done for most people.

john kountz - chief software architect
saintssoft llc

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Printing from your iPhone (iTouch, iPad)

Printing reports is not something one would ordinarily associate with an iPhone. For Coin Collecting software, ability to print reports is mandatory.  GoldCollector introduced printing via EMail with the release of v2.1., and extends the feature further in v2.2 (release date week of March 12th, 2012) by allowing both Email, and Printing of an essential set of Reports:
  • Financial summary of the collection
  • Inventory detail listing of the collection
  • Buy list of the coins needed to fill Set "holes"
  • Coin detail's on any coin, including photos (unlimited)
Printing in iOS is one of those things that you would expect would just work, same as for your Mac or PC computer nowadays. And that expectation would be right, if you have one of the supported Printers.

Hence the rub, all Printers are not equal. At SaintSoft we recently purchased a high-end Cannon Printing Workstation. It does everything, including support for Wireless networks, scanning, photo copying, faxing, etc. Everything except supporting printing to Apple mobile devices (iPhone, iTouch, iPad, iEtc.).

There are a limited set of Printers that support AirPrint, list here.

If you are getting the dreaded, "No AirPrint Printers Found", message -- make sure your printer is supported and setup for AirPrint (ePrint in HP Speak).

We picked up an HP OfficeJet 8600, works great, for less than $150.

John

Monday, March 5, 2012

Reports Preview

Wow!

Two days ago we  announced plans to add Reports to the flag ship App, goldcollector.

Today I have something to share. These 2 screen shots show first-pass design for Reports.

On the Reports page, you will notice two sections: Settings, and Reports.

Report Types, under Settings, shows you the type of output's currently supported.

Below that, in the "- Reports-" section, you will see a list of currently supported Reports.

Financial Summary
This report shows a complete list of all coins in the inventory and shows Cost, Market Value, Net Position on each coin as well as summary totals.

Inventory  Detail
This report shows a complete list of all coins in the inventory, without Cost information, adding the Notes section.

Buy List
This report shows all coins "holes" in any of the Sets you are collecting. This report is useful for taking to coin shows, or dealer shops. It's a reminder of the coins you need to locate.

Coin Detail
This single page style report provides a detailed information dump of an individual coin, including any and all photo's of the coin. Very useful for sharing with friends, does not include $$$ information.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Version 2.1 Preview

We just locked down v2.1 this afternoon, posting it to the iTunes store and awaiting Apple approval (estimated @ 7 days).

I think our customers will be delighted with the next release, the main new feature being introduction is Sharing. We thought a lot about what collectors like to do, and why. One of the standard features of every coin app is the ability to print reports. That's a given, check-box item on every package.

We asked ourselves why, what is it that is interesting about printed reports, how do our customers use these reports. We identified two specific scenarios:
  1. Analysis
  2. Sharing 
By 'Analysis' we mean things like, what's our investment, what coins are in-the-black, are there any interesting correlations, in the data that might help us be better collectors. We have a basic 'Analysis' feature, which we plan on expanding big-time during the next six months. For now, we have the basics.

The second item, printing a coin information report which shows the coin details (type, issue, grade, etc.) along with cool photo's of our trophies is an equally important requirement. Thinking on this, we decided hard-copy was just too 80's, that today folks were more into Facebook, Blogging, Texting and EMail when it comes to communication. Our first pass at sharing allows you to email any of your coin's details to, well, anyone.

We'd love to hear what you think about this new feature, sorry you have to wait for Apple to do their bit. Once the feature was designed, we had it coded and tested in 48 hours. Seems silly we have to wait another 7 days while Apple reviews the changes...

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Bugs we know about

  1. When removing a coin from a set, the old coin's description and image are not removed from the set coin, making it appear that the coin is still assigned to the set. Status: Fixed in build 20.055.1
  2. No means for removing a coin photo. Status: Fixed in build 20.055.5

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Version 2.0 -- Pending Approval

Our next major release, Version 2.0, is pending Apple Approval. Typically, Apple approves App updates within 7 business days.

Expect to see this new version by Monday, February 27th (or sooner).

All known & reported bugs fixed.

New functionality -- ability to create SETS. Coin sets can be any combination, and number of coins. Next update will include statistics & tracking progress for Coin Sets.

As always, we are open to feedback.

If you find a bug, report it and we'll fix it.  If you'd like to see something changed, let us know.  If you'd like to see something we don't currently provide for, we'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for your continued support,
SaintsSoft, LLC - Product Development Team
John Kountz - Chief Software Architect.
Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:44 pm

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Bugs we know about

We update this post as new bugs are discovered. Please add a comment when you find a bug and we'll fix it.
  • v1.6 release - new Search bar does nothing. Somehow, that v.Next feature slipped into the build before it was ready for prime-time. We are working on adding full support for Search, expect to see this working in our next release. (January 29, 2012)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Tip of the day

Hello to all of our Customers.

John Kountz here, owner and designer of this App. 

Two years ago i found that i was unable to provide the support Customers deserved for what they were buying. To reconcile with that i decided to removed our App's from sale, it seemed wrong to take money and not support the software.

That might have been a bad decision. 

I have since retired from managing day-to-day development for Penthera as a Distinguished Software Engineer. 

After 6 months of being retired I realized the joy of building software was missing from my life. With the help of 2 other guys that want to remain nameless for the moment, we have decided to relaunch the best coin collecting Application suite for Apple users.

The bad news is you will need to first make sure you have backed-up your old collection to a Dropbox account because the new App's support importing of your old collection using a Restore to the new App's from Dropbox.

This App runs on iPhone, iPad's.


This App runs on a Mac Desktop of Mac Laptop computer

We are always open to improvement suggestions.

For now you should know our next major release will provide support for using iCloud for backup of your coin collection across all of your iOS and macOS devices.

Have ideas for improvements?
What model iPad do you use for US Coins?

Let us know (support@codingforbeermoney.com)



Thanks!
john

US Coin for Mac YouTube video: (link)

US Coin Tip

Thank you for purchasing US Coin, delighted to have you as a Customer.

Version 8 contains a major improvement to the way backup/restore works. When you make a change on your Mac laptop & backup the change, your iPhone, iPad, Touch devices will detect the changes and prompt you to download (restore) them.

This makes it much easier to keep track of which device has the latest & greatest version of your coin collection. Anytime you make a change to the collection, followed by a Backup, you will get notified on every other device you use US Coin on that a change has been made and needs to be Restored.

This feature can be enabled/disabled, should you decide it's not helpful. On iOS you can configure this in Settings, on macOS in Preferences.

We have submitted both the iOS and macOS App's to Apple for review prior to release, typically that takes 2-3 days. Look for version 8.00

Questions are always welcome, please feel free to Email me.

Did you know about US Coin for Mac?

It uses the same coin data you have entered on your iPhone, shares it with the Mac via a FREE Cloud Storage account with Dropbox. We just released a new update on US Coin for Mac with lots of exciting features to help you enjoy your collection.

US Coin for Mac YouTube video: (link)

Thanks!

john