A new update of Plant Base has been released today and available on the Download page. This is for desktop/laptop editions – Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Primarily a maintenance release with the main objective of cleaning up and optimising some of the code. It also improves synchonisation between OS editions where a few sections had got out of step. The changes result in some improvement in run-time efficiency but the end-user will be very unlikely to notice any difference!

There a few other small changes though. The most obvious is the addition of a clickable list of Plant List, if any have been made, in the otherwise empty space of the right-hand panel if no list is currently display. This is just an extra quick way to select or change between between personal lists – especially handy if there are quite a few to choose from.

Some adjustments have been to the user interface, nothing major, mostly improvements to the MacOS edition and some small things for Linux. There are also a number of bug fixes for minor or rarely occurring issues.

For Linux users I know there is a remaining problem with direct printing – it works but the quality is poor. It’s difficult because this is not caused by the program code but due to some issue with the build software. Hopefully it will get fixed soon, but in the meantime if good quality prints are needed then the best solution is to use another application to print from files created by either the reporter or export functions. The Windows and Mac editions are not affected.

There is no revision of the plant data with this version, the database files are the same as in 2.1.14. However, updates to the data are actively in progress and will be issued at a later date.

It’s a good idea for existing users to update to the new program version, although not essential if unaffected by any of the bug-fix issues. Linux users in particular should try to run the latest version if possible.