BAM Universal 1.0 is now released !

Hello,

I’m excited to inform you that BAM Universal 1.0 is now released and published in the Windows Store

https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/store/apps/bam-universal/9nblggh680x2

BAM Universal was in BETA since December and with the help of BETA testers, I was able to complete the release version before June.

I have to admit that I’m quite proud of this version; I spend indeed lot of time to design its UI to make it very intuitive I think and adaptive for all W10 devices, and believe me it was not a trivial task 😉
In its free version, BAM Universal is fully operational but  some features are disabled An In-Purchase package can be acquired to enable all his features and make it a powerful budget app.

This version of BAM Universal is the first public version, so please be indulgent with the problems that you might encounter and do not hesitate to contact me to share your frustration before to rate.. 😏
BAM Universal will be indeed updated very often to fix any bugs reported but also to implement any useful features suggested by you, users.

In the next weeks,  I will write additional posts describing this Universal version and its features, so stay tuned !

I would like to thank again BETA testers and also all BAM users who motivated me to write this Universal version

JP Auconie
BAM Author

BAM Universal soon in Beta

Hello,

 

In my last post I gave you a statut and screenshots about the porting of BAM for W10 as a Universal App.

I’m prouded to inform you that BAM for W10 will be named BAM Universal .

This new name reflects the UWP nature of BAM which will be so  available on all W10 devices including PCs of course !
This version will allow to synchronize your BAM data between w10 devices using your OneDrive account.

I’m also happy to inform you that I will share very soon to beta testers  the first beta version of BAM Universal.
This beta should be  usable for daily usage but some features will be of course not yet completed and  polished, and of course bugs will be present in this beta so you will have some instability
However I will update then frequently the beta version fixing  bugs found and reported, and implementing or changing features taking in account beta testers feedbacks.

The idea with this beta is to give you the opportunity to try now this new version of BAM and participate in its improvement and stability before the release.

What I would like from Beta testers is to feedbacks about :

• the global UI experience
• the features
• Some features you consider as missing and mandatory in a version 1.0
• the status restoring previous BAM WP8 data

Important : BAM Universal will allow you of course to restore your BAM data created by BAM WP8, but once imported you won’t be able to reload these data in BAM WP8.

 

If you are interested to participate in this beta program, please send a mail to  bamuwp@outlook.com with “BAM Universal beta” in the subject.
I will keep you informed when the first beta will be available and you will receive a mail to download it.

I don’t know yet the estimated date for the release version but it can be quite fast if I have qiuckly a beta veesion stable and providing the same minimum set a of  features then the one included in  BAM WP8.

Anyway, once published BAM Universal updates will be frequent as I want to continue taking  in account quickly users feedbacks and be sure that BAM Universal is stable and provide a great user experience !.

 

Thanks again to use BAM and for all your  previous feedbacks !

JP

BAM Author

BAM for Windows 10 – status

Hello,

 

In my previous post I informed you that I started porting BAM to Windows 10 as a universal app (UWP) so you can use a same app on all Windows 10 devices including Windows 10 mobiles.

In this post I would like to give you a status on this migration which is really a big task and not just an additional update of BAM.

So far I’m very happy with the progress of BAMW10, and to share you my enthousiam I pasted in this post some screenshots of the app  to give you a preview of BAMW10.

I have again of course a lot of  work to do re-implementing import/Export, Backup/restore, tiles,etc.. and I want BAM able to create more powerful filters to search for operations of multiple posts, budgets, parties, accounts, etc..

I want also to provide a mechanism of synchronisation using OneDrive to synchronize BAM data on a W10 mobile and W10 PC which is not a trivial task.
So yes there is still lot of work to do to provide a version 1.0, but I really develop faster using UWP model and a unique code for PC and phone is so cool !

I will keep you informed on a next status in a new post

Thanks for your patience.

 

JP

 

 

 

 

BAM for Windows 10 pending development

Hello,

looong time I did not post on my blog !  sorry for that but I was really too busy with my job an some personal stuff.

I receive more and more requests asking me if BAM will be ported to Windows 10, and if yes when.

I can confirm you that BAM  is in pending development for Windows 10 and I’m satisfied by the progress !
The new Universal development model of Windows 10 requiring only on code for all W10 devices including phones which simplifies drastically the development.
I must admit that I spent a hard and long time to port my non-UI BAM code to my UWP project because of the new .NET framework and the big changes of the WINRT libraries. I had for example to develop an helper class just for all my Input/Output statements because lot of IO functions of WINRT are now Async.
Now, all my serialization/deserialization code is working.

I have now to recreate all the UI of BAM, but the new layout controls of UWP allow to create quickly real adaptative UI.
I just finished implementing all my lists and the BAM main menu and I started to re-create all my pages to add new account, transaction, category, payee/payer, and budget.  Once I will be able to add in the UI each item of BAM,  I will implement the BAM Settings  page and the OneDrive Synchronisation and will tune the UI.

Lot of works remain so but I’m really satisfied with the progress. I hope to be able to release a first version for end of this year.

I will update more frequently my blog now to give you a  status on this pending development

Thanks !

JP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BAM was “unpublished by Microsoft” 05/12 (republished 05/19)

Hello,

BAM was unpublished by Microsoft 05/12 and a ticket was opened at that time with Microsoft Store Support to know the reason.
Microsoft Support team replied explaining that BAM failed for the policy 10.5.2 :

<<
10.5.2

Your app can publish a customer’s personal information to an outside service or another person only after obtaining opt-in consent. Opt-in consent means the customer gives their express permission in the app user interface for the requested activity, after you have:

(a) described to the customer how the information will be accessed, used or shared; and

(b) provided the customer a mechanism in the app user interface through which they can later rescind this permission and opt-out.

>>

BAM is now republished again.

Even if I already display (during its first usage) in BAM a detailed page explaining how the application keeps your privacy and does not exchange your data outside the phone by default (export and  backup), it seems it is not enough and that I have to ask for user approval to allow that backup or export statements.
I will so fix asap that issue in a new version asking BAM users for their permission to enable exporting or backing-up BAM data.

For your information, BAM is present in the Windows Phone store since end of 2010 after the Launch of WP, is localized in 5 languages and respected until now all policies of the store, especially in term of privacy.
its UI, its level of customization, options, and features made it a popular budget application.

I apologize for the generated inconvenience and the delay you had to face if you had to reinstall BAM during that period, and I will publish asap a new version respecting Policy 10.5.2.

Thanks.

JP Auconie.
BAM Author.

BAM v9.50 (WP8) and v10.12 (WP81) are published: Thank you for your contribution !

Hello,

sorry for my long absence on BAM blog but I spent so much time on BAM updates these past months that I did not take additional time to update my BAM blog.
I will try so to update it more frequently now.

BAM updates

I just released one week ago latest versions for both WP8 and WP81 versions of BAM.
I manage indeed two “branches” now for BAM, one targeting Windows Phone 8.0, and one targeting Windows Phone 8.1.
These two branches generates for me more work because all changes I make on one branch need to be ported to the other, if of course the changes are not specific to WP 8.1 for example, but I prefer to have two branches of code instead of a unique code using some parts specific  to some version of WP.

I hope that you will like the new features I added in latest versions, mainly the date selectors  allowing to specify the futur balance date and the projection date to calculate the futur amounts of categories, payees, and budgets.  You can so very quickly estimate your expenses in the futur and have details on their repartition.

I added also some “display” options to put the group titles and amounts in bold for exemple or to change the groups spacing.
Even if these display settings  can appear as “gadgets”, they can make really the pages display more readable..
I added finally the possibility to configure a range of specific dates for a periodic transaction. You can so add multiple specific processing dates for a periodic transaction; it gives again more flexibility to the configuration of recurrent transactions.
Remember that the goal of BAM  is always to provide you lot of flexbility  in the usage of the app. I want indeed that every BAM user to be able to customize the app according to their own needs.

Feedbacks

I received lot of feedbacks from you , BAM users, and I would like to thank you a lot ! 🙂
As you noticed, lot of features implemented in BAM came from your own suggestions.
When you report me a suggestion, I will always reply to you and will inform you honestly if I will implement or not the suggestion.
Please continue so report me your suggestions and also the possible problems you are facing; I fix always some issues in a new BAM version but BAM is not yet free bug 😉

Documentation :

BAM provides some integrated help for almost all its pages and provide also a complete integrated documentation in HTML format. However  I admit that this HTML doc is very old  as some of you reported.I will take time so to update these HTML documentations to match with the latest versions.

vNext :

Some of you suggested to me to implement in next versions more powerful custom filters allowing for example to select multiple catageories, payees, or budgets or selecting multiple accounts.
I’m still thinking about the possibility to do that and the impact on existing custom filters.
As you maybe noticed I introduced some small rgeressions in recent published versions that I immediately fixed after you reported them to me, so each time I add new features or changes in  some existing fetaures, I need to be very careful to not break something !

Some of you also suggsted to improve the the graphic reports hub.
I’m ready to do that but I neeed to think about the pertinent reports to add or the best way to improve the existing graphic reports..

BAM on W8

I know that I already blogged about that topic, anouncing probably a version for the end of 2013 but I was really too optimist.
I prefer to be honest: I did not have time at all this year to progress on the development of BAM for W8. I have currently some sort of “working” version but I need to add and change lot of things before to achieve a version 1.0 ready to be published and public.
However, I will cleary put a high priority on that development next months knowing that BAM for WP is quite complete now even if there is always a place for improvement.

Ratings

I would like also to thank you for your average excellent ratings.
I would prefer really to have more ratings including comments as it really motivates me to continue on BAM updates.The ratings remain quite rare so please take one or two minutes to rate BAM.

 

 

Thanks again for all your suggestions and bugs reported, and your positive feedbacks on BAM.

Feel free to continue contatcting me if you have any requests and I will be pleased to exchange with you.

JP Auconie

BAM Author

BAM 9.40 published

Hello,

– I just published yesterday 9.40.
As you can notice this update comes quite quickly after the previous version 9.35. I received indeed many suggestions of new features/improvements and some issues to fix so  I worked a lot these past weeks to produce quickly that build and not introducing too much delay betwen updates. I improved mainly some processes like the Archives creation/load and the Reconciliation process.
I provided also some new list settings to choose the size of groups and elements caption in each list, to bring a better UI experience for people having small screen size for example.
I fixed also an issue occuring when you use BAM with light  theme selected (the picker on top of page are incorrectly displayed in this configuration).

– I will make a pause now in BAM dev for WP8 because I would like to spend more time on BAM for W8.
As some of you know, it became obvious to port BAM on W8. The two platforms, different in  their UI,  offer however the same Development paradigm (XAP and C# usage).
My challenge now is to offer the same level of UI experience on BAM W8, even if the UI interface on W8 is really different than on WP8.
Some UI controls used by BAMWP8 are not present on W8 (no Pivot control for example) so I spend most of my time on this UI aspect of BAM on W8. What is more challenging again is to implement a synchronization process between BAM on WP8 and BAM on W8 to be able to see on your phone the transactions that you created and W8 or vice-versa. Believe me, it is not so trivial ! 🙂

– I used recently the BETA chanel of WP Development Center to send quickly to selected BAM users some BETA versions of BAM.
This chanel is really easy to use and allows to exchange quickly between BAM users and me and get feedbacks trying a BETA version.

Please, feel free to contact me on BAMWP7@hotmail.fr  if you want to be added in the list of BAM BETA testers !

Continue please to contact me if you have issues to report or suggestions and , as I already said, if I think your suggestions  make sense for all the BAM community,  I will implement them.

Thanks !

JP Auconie
BAM Author

 

BAM 9.30 upcoming – lot of changes !

Hello,

 

Long time I did not update the BAM blog !

I apologize for that delay but I was quite busy to manage all nice suggestions and issues you have reported :-).

 

I spent long time these past week to update BAM implementing some great suggestions received and fixing some different issues.

I’m very pleased so to inform you that that version is finished and is in final testing now !
I thought initially to publish it this week-end but I had again to fix some few things so I will publish it probably in the middle of this week.
As usual it should be then available in the WP store in the next 5 days (I hope).

 

That version is a majore one as it brings lot of changes mainly  in the UI and the navigation but it fixes also some few issues that you reported.

ex:

– Nw ‘profile’ feature : you can create now different profiles of BAM data; for example a professtional profile and a user profile.
a profile is just a complete and independant set of BAM data (accounts, transactions, payees, categories, budgets,reports,etc..).
You can have one profile loaded at a time and change in one click.

– Welcome menu simplified with its own display options to avoid confusion and complexity

– Better navigation in the UI, swipe gestures between some lists only when needed

–  Fixes some issues with end of month dates in budgets and balances calculation

– can allow to enter periodic operations in the past

– creation date and processing date are now correct when creating splitting transaction

– Etc…

 

I will update that post when this version will be available in the store

 

Thanks again for all your suggestions and remarks

JP

 

BAM 9.20 is now avail on the store !

Hello,

 

I inform you  that the new release BAM is just available on the store since yesterday.

To be honest I  am very satisfied with that version 9.20 and specially the favorite transaction feature.
That feature was suggested by one BAM user who found it useful in another app (that he is not using anymore since he tried BAM 😉
I really tried to implement that feature to be sure the creation and reuse of favorite transactions will remains very easy and intuitive, and I really hoe that you will find also that feature easy to use.
For me that feature is very powerful because it allows to create very quickly some specific frequent transactions.
The possibility to pin in the welcome phone screen such favorite transaction is also a plus.

That new version of BAM provides also  now a calculator immediately accessible in the page to add a new transaction, as it was a recurrent request I received from BAM users, and I hope also there that you will appreciate its integration in the page.

As you can see I listen carefully to all BAM users who suggest me some features or changes. so please continue to send me your feedbacks and suggestions and I promise to reply each time and evaluate your suggestions.in

Some users report me lot of errors when opening pictures captured when adding  new transactions and I promise I fix them very soon in a new release that I will publish end of next week  I hope.

 

To finish that post, I would like to say that development of BAM for W8 progresses well; there is yet a lot of work to do before the first version but I am confident that I can release it in next 4 months.

 

Thanks

Jp Auconie
BAM Author

 

 

 

 

 

BAM vnext upcoming

Hello,

next version of BAM is quite finished !

I implemented two main new features which was suggested by a BAM user and that I found useful to add :

– A calculator is now integrated in the new transaction page and allows quickly to do some calculations around the amount to enter

– You will have the possibility to create transactions based a template, i.e based on favorite frequent transactions. You could so create frequent transactions by just entering the description of the transaction, and BAM will remember the last transaction created for that description.

I will explain more in details these two new features

I will so published that version probably that week end.

Thanks

JP