BIRDAREA UPDATES

NOTE:  THE SPECIES/RANGES UPDATES ISSUED ON JULY 1, 2007 OR LATER (WITH CLEMENTS' 6TH EDITION SPECIES) CAN BE USED ONLY WITH MARCH 1, 2007 OR LATER PROGRAM ISSUES (FOR VISTA AND 7 OR EARLIER WINDOWS VERSIONS).

PROGRAM UPDATES

Note that the updates contained in the May 1, 2010 issues of the BirdArea program and its EditData utility, that are described in this section, are not updates of their species/ranges data. These data updates are described in the Species/Ranges Update section.

Changes made in free updates since March 1, 2007

• Territory code names in EditData species range outputs. When EditData is outputting a species range to Paper or Word processor file there is now the option of having territory codes converted to territory names.
• Additions to or modifications of on-screen help. Several paragraphs have been added or modified in the BirdArea on-screen help.
• Changes in Nation and Place codes. Changes have been made to reflect recent political developments or for clcrification.
• BirdArea installation error message. If a new user tries to start BirdBase after installing BirdArea, but before reaching Tutorial 4 of the BirdArea manual, BirdArea now sends a status signal to BirdBase that allows the missing NAMES.LST error message issued by BirdBase to explain why BirdBase cannot be started.
• Other improvements in error messages. Several BirdArea and EditData error messages have been rewritten to improve their clarity.
• Improvements in on-screen help. Several BirdArea and EditData on-screen help paragraphs have been added. And several have been rewritten to improve their clarity.

The May 1, 2010 issues of BirdArea and EditData contain the changes listed above, those described below in the March 1, 2007 update, and those in all the preceding updates listed further below.

If you have a copy of BirdArea issued on March 1, 2007 or later you can download the May 1, 2010 issues of it and EditData at no charge by following instructions in the How to Download the Program Updates section below. To determine the issue date of your copy, at the BirdArea Main menu click Help/About then click About BirdArea.

If you cannot use the free download to obtain the May 1, 2010 issue of the programs because you do not now have the March 1, 2007 or later issue of BirdArea, the May 1, 2010 issues are available on an inexpensive CD ROM; see the Prices and Ordering page. You may be interested in learning that March 1, 2007 was the first time since BirdArea and EditData were changed from DOS to Windows programs in 1996 that all owners were not able to update the programs by means of a free download.

The March 1, 2007 update

The Microsoft Windows operating system named Windows Vista was issued on January 30, 2007. To ensure full compatibility of BirdArea and EditData with Windows Vista and subsequent versions of Windows, yet retain compatibility with all earlier versions of Windows back to Windows 95, we had to change the method the programs use in manipulating a computer's fast memory (its RAM) to a more efficient one. This was a major rewrite, as can be seen from the increase in length of the BirdArea program file (its .EXE file) which went from 386 kbytes to 563 kbytes. For EditData the file length went from 507 kbytes to 710 kbytes.

But our work was worth it because benefits other than Windows Vista compatibility were obtained. The most important of them concerns the way the old method of dealing with the computer's fast memory limited the number of species that can be handled by the programs to not many more than the number of bird species that are found in Clements' sixth edition. Considering how frequently ornithologists split species, this would cause a BIG problem in the near future. With the new method the limit is more than twice the number of bird species in the sixth edition and so is of no consequence.

Changes made in free updates from January 1, 2000 to March 1, 2007

• More convenient procedure for making multiple changes with EditData. It is no longer necessary to repeat the same selection in the species pages when more than one change is being made on the same species.
• Improvements in on-screen help.  Some BirdArea on-screen help paragraphs have been rewritten to improve their clarity.
• Dealing with a sighting that has a questionable species identification. Such a sighting can be excluded from or included in those inspected by BirdArea to assign sighting status letters.
• Listing only the endemics of an area. BirdArea can now produce lists showing only the endemic species in any of the 319 areas into which it divides the world, or in any combination of these areas.
• Changes in ABA definitions of reporting areas and/or regions.  The year 2003 revisions in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdArea.
• Terminology changes in menus. The terminology in some menus has been changed to be consistent with that used in BirdBase.
• Simplification of BirdArea operating conditions menu. The menu has been simplified by removing an unneeded option to change the input date range.
• Correction in ABA reporting regions. An error involving the Falkland Islands has been corrected.
• Changes in ABA definitions of reporting areas and/or regions.  The year 2002 revisions in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdArea.
• Using smaller font in printouts.  To better match to the narrower and longer sheets of printer paper generally used outside North America, BirdArea and EditData now provide the option of choosing a smaller type font for the printer. This font reduces the width of the printed lines and allows more lines to fit on a printed page. It can also be employed by people in the U.S. and Canada who wish to reduce the number of pages in a long printout.
• Improved paper and word processor file outputs when inspecting ranges.  To make reading the information easier, these EditData outputs now group the codes into faunal zones, and label each group with its faunal zone.
• Preventing space characters after common names.  EditData now prevents space characters from accidentally being put after a common name, when a user is updating species in the species pages, because they can confuse interpretation of results obtained by running its Match BirdBase option
• Match BirdBase utility incorporated in EditData. An important enhancement to BirdArea incorporates as a Main menu option in its Windows utility EditData the procedure previously carried out by the DOS utility MatchBB. Doing so makes the software easier to use.
• Support for mammals. BirdArea and EditData have been modified to let them handle the world mammal ranges in the Mammal Data Add-On and do everything with them that the programs can do with birds. (The BirdBase update allows that program to also handle mammals.) See the page describing the Mammal Data Add-On for further details.
• Changes in ABA definitions of reporting areas and/or regions.  The year 2000 revisions in reporting area and/or region definitions of the American Birding Association have been incorporated in BirdArea.

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HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM UPDATES

Do not use the download if the BirdArea program you now have was issued before March 1, 2007. If you do, you will overwrite the BirdArea and EditData programs now on your computer with ones that may not operate. To determine the issue date of your copy, at the BirdArea Main menu click Help/About then click About BirdArea.

First follow the link below this line for detailed download instructions.
Download instructions

Then click the link below this line to download the latest updates of both BirdArea and EditData.
Download the BirdArea and EditData program updates BAPGM.EXE

If you should not download, or prefer not to do so, you can purchase BirdArea and EditData program updates and instructions for installing them on a CD ROM. Click the link below for price and ordering information.
Price list

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SPECIES/RANGES UPDATE (SEE THE NOTE IN RED AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE)

The November 1, 2011 update of the BirdArea  world range data file holds the species from the sixth edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World and their ranges. It includes all of Cornell's changes and corrections in the species thru August 23, 2011 and range updates issued by the range data editor, Shawneen Finnegan, that conform to the Cornell changes and contain many other changes.

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