A Letter From the President - Christian Holbrook
January 6, 2010
Greetings to all of you out there in WireCAD user-land! Welcome to a new
decade! First, let me take a moment of your time and say thanks. We,
here at the WireCAD ranch, would like to thank you for your support. We
are a small organization dedicated to making tools that make your life
easier. We love to hear from our users. We know that times are hard
right now. Everybody is feeling the pinch. We at WireCAD are offering
our own stimulus package comprised of two parts. First, we are not
raising our prices. WireCAD v6 will cost the same as WireCAD v5. Second,
we have created a free version of WireCAD v6. We call it XL FREE and it
is truly free! That is no cost. Zip, nada, nil. It is, however, hampered
and will not run plug-ins. It will provide an easy means by which people
in your workflow can view drawings, databases and reports without having
to purchase a full copy. We have added additional incentives to the
Assurance program like discounts on training and some cool free plug-ins.
We have been working hard to get this release done by January 1st 2010
for the start of a new decade but have, thus far, missed the mark. We
are now targeting February 1st. The beta version is available from the
bug tracking site and to date does not require a key, though that will
change on/or around January 15th.
As many of you know we have been working for the last two years to bring
you WireCAD version 6. This has been a monumental task as it is a
complete rewrite of the software from the ground up. We have taken this
opportunity to make WireCAD as open as possible. WireCAD v6 includes a
plug-in framework and software development kit (SDK) that allow you to
customize the application to suit your needs. We have also made the
application work with other languages and locales. We have provided a
plug-in that allows users to translate WireCAD messages into the
language of their choice.
WireCAD v6 has too many improvements to list all of them here but let me
touch on the highlights.
We are now database agnostic*. We will be shipping v6 with both SQL
Server databases, and VISTA DB (file based) databases. Later in the year
we will add support for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle. We will not be
including support for MS Access, since we believe that Microsoft will
discontinue support for that product line in the near future.
WireCAD v6 has all of the same automated drawing tools and reporting
capabilities of v5. In addition we have added a ton of new features that
will make your life even easier. We now have hierarchical data
structures in the project databases that relate cables to systems,
cables to drawings, systems to drawings, etc. This allows us to bring
you drill-down reports. WireCAD v6 also has multi-relational cable
structures. This provides a means by which you can interconnect one
output to multiple inputs or vice versa. You determine whether the cable
is represented by a single database entry or many. As you may know,
WireCAD has had the ability to customize the cable number format. We
have now included that same ability for the SysName. You are not locked
into a "TYPE-##" format but, rather, can make use of any of the included
variables to create a custom format.
Enough of the sales pitch. Now let tell you about some of the changes
that we have made that you may or may not be so happy about. We are no
longer supporting MS Access databases. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft
continues to dial back support for Access and has made SQL Server a lot
easier to get into (read free but not zero admin), though it will never
be as easy as Access. We have changed the reporting engine to be much
friendlier but we do not have a conversion utility to bring any of your
custom reports forward. Sorry. We have not yet rewritten PatchVerx to
plug in to v6, though it is on our roadmap.
We have changed the way the software registration process enforces the
license agreement by adding floating licenses. In previous versions you
have had the ability to activate WireCAD on two machines concurrently
for a single user. With v6 you will be able to install WireCAD on any
number of machines concurrently though only one machine (or your license
count if you purchase multiple licenses) will be able to operate
concurrently. Note: if you currently hold multiple licenses you will
have the choice of being issued multiple single-seat keys or a single
multiple-seat key.
WireCAD v5 and v6 can live on the same machine. In order to make use of
your v5 projects you will need to convert them to v6. The conversion
process does not touch the drawings in any way. It simply converts the
old MS Access database into a new SQL Server or VistaDB database and
adds some additional housekeeping files to the folder. The project, once
converted, can still be viewed in v5, though any database
adds\edits\deletions would not be visible since they would be made in
the v6 database.
I and the team here at the WireCAD ranch thank you again for your
support and kind words over the years. We look forward to seeing you at
the trade shows this year. Come by and say hi.
Christian Holbrook
President
*Not all features are available at all product levels. SQL Server
databases require administration, care and feeding and keep a whole
industry of database administrators employed. Holbrook Enterprises, Inc.
cannot provide database support for server based databases.
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