[slug]macsql-31b2-released[/slug] I totally forgot that the 3.1 beta releases were all set to expire on October 31. So I uploaded 3.1b12 today, which is basically b11 with Spotlight support (and an expiration date of Dec 31).

I’ve never been a big fan of Spotlight, but maybe that was because it was incredibly slow on my PowerBook G4. Even on a dual G5 it seemed slow to me. But on my MacBook Pro it is very snappy and I can see the appeal. (I think a large part of why it sucked for me was that I’ve always had a lot of external hard drives and it would have to spin them all up anytime a search was done.)

But, I know it is important to Apple and many users, so starting with MacSQL 3.1b12, MacSQL documents will be indexed by Spotlight. And even better, if you searched for a database or table, when the document opens the Schema Viewer will display the first database/table that matches your search term.

As to a release schedule, look for 3.1b12 very soon, likely this week. The main things we’re working on right now are the documentation and new artwork. We hope to get a final release of MacSQL 3.1 out the door before Thanksgiving.

A new beta of MacSQL 3.1 is now available from the Download link at the top of the page. If you have b10, Check for Update will download and install a 1.5 MB upgrade. A manual upgrader for b9 is also available. The full download is 33.5 MB.

This update has fixes for the Job Manager, Form View, and a new binary import/export format.

Update: forgot to push the updated home and download pages. The files were there, just not linked. They are linked properly now.

This week we’ve made a few updates to the navigation on our website, including links to this blog and our Issue Tracker.

The Issue Tracker is where we want to keep track of bug reports and feature requests. Anyone can signup for an account (and if you’ve purchased our products, you already have one) and add issues, comment on issues, and track existing issues (currently via email notification, but we do plan to add support for RSS feeds). We also plan to add support for voting for the most important issues you want us to address, be they bugs or new feature requests. That way we can be sure we are working on what is important to you.

We’ve had it in semi-use for over a year, but it wasn’t really getting used enough because no one had access to it. Well, now you do. So please, give the Issue Tracker a try. Feel free to leave feedback here, send it to info@rtlabs.com, or leave it on the Issue Tracker itself.

I’ve been working on MacSQL 3.1 the last few days and have fixed a number of bugs with schema view printing, the job manager. I’ve also added PostgreSQL8+ support for tablespace, with oids, and on commit options in the create table tool.

The big new feature in 3.1b11 will be a new import/export file format — binary. This is a proprietary format (though I’d be happy to document it if someone really wanted to know it) that offers a big speed increase over the text-based formats. But the number one advantage is data type fidelity. Data can easily be migrated between different database servers without regard for formatting the data.

I ended up adding this feature because we are in the process of moving all of our data out of Oracle into another database server. (We are currently leaning towards PostgreSQL 8.1, but OpenBase might be a possibility because of the strong WebObjects support.) But moving our data was looking to be a big nightmare because of date formats. But using a binary format removed any issue with that, and any issues related to the size of a text literal in a Postgres insert statement.

The file format is endian-neutral, as we’ve tested exporting from PowerPC and importing on intel, and vice versa. It also includes versioning information, so previously exported data can still be imported even if we make changes to the file format.

I hope to release b11 by the end of this week. If not then, it will go out Monday morning.

Welcome to the Runtime Labs official blog. We’re adding this to our website in an effort to be more transparent to our customers. Look for regular updates on what aspects of our software we’re working on each day, along with announcements of new releases. Look for more real soon.