BidBest Versions

- Fixed bug where program froze/crashed when trying to parse bidpack with VTO errors in it (The first publication of the Nov B727 MEM bidpacks contained malformed and missing Reserve RLG and VTO line information - it's been reported and a corrected version should be posted soon).

- Added LAX domicile.

- Very minor fix - If a line is not displayed (including Reserve and VTO lines), you cannot bid it using the "Bid Range of Lines" command (the older version seemed to allow an override, but it didn't actually work). You should instead figure out why you can't see the line; make sure your personal information is set correctly as to Seat Position: use the Change User Info command under the Edit menu.

- The August bidpacks had some changes in the way the lines are displayed; there is an extra "TRIP CR HR" line, and the RSV lines are displayed in a completely new format. I modified the parser to handle these changes. NOTE for MD-11: There are separate sections for Captain and First Officer lines; BidBest will display ALL the lines regardless of your seat position; use the checkbox at the bottom right of the main window to hide whichever range of lines does not apply to you. I think it is safer to show all lines and use human intervention to hide some of them, rather than try to pick out a subset of lines automatically and possibly lose some lines if there is an error or nonstandard entry in the bidpack page headers (I've had problems with non-standard page headers in the past).

- The new Awards parser would only do Captains correctly - fixed.

- Updated the Bid Awards parser to handle award file saved to disk from website.

- Added a check to make sure you aren't trying to parse the Acrobat (pdf) version of the bidpack.

- Bo Meyer pointed out that the Bidpack-style display of a line had the wrong size font, so that some information was overlapping and unreadable.

- The December bidpack for 727 wouldn't parse - didn't like 'day 10' on pairing 903 - fixed the parser so it works correctly.

- The July bidpack for MD11 ANC contained an extra 'new page' character at the top of the file; BidBest was choking on this - fixed.

- Fixes a bug where if you tried to open an older-version Worksheet, the program would put up a warning message and then crash. It should now be better behaved. Thanks to Chris DeBaets for this bug report.

- Is the same as 1.5.8 except that I tweaked the new 'I-T-U' filters so that they sort by max BLG disregarding carryover amount, instead of only choosing lines with NO carryover. This should produce the desired effect.

- Fixed a bug where you could not display pairing detail by double-clicking on a line in 'bidpack' format. Thanks to Joe Parker for reporting this.

- NEW: For people in pay-only status due to being in Initial-Transition-Upgrade Training: There is a theory going around about how best to bid when you are in this situation (supposedly better than bidding the codes for 'Highest Paying Line"). I've added three new filters to make this easier, plus a special 'Bid I-T-U' bidding option that automates the process. I make no guarantees that this is indeed the 'best' way to order your bid choices, but it's there if you want to try it. I also added an 'Unbid All Lines' menu choice to make it easier to delete a whole bunch of bid choices at once.

- The first line of the March A-300 bidpack was non-standard, causing the parse process to fail. Modified the parser so that it will handle such non-standard format better (I hope).

- Bo Meyer reported that if you bid a range of VTO lines, the program pasted it into the bid choices list twice - fixed.

- Fixed bug: if you started up BidBest by double-clicking on an existing Bid Worksheet, you could not see the Reserve or VTO lines. Fixed - thanks to Chris DeBaets for pointing out this one.

- Fixed bug where trying to Print a Calendar View caused crash. Fixed bug where displaying a line in Bidpack Format was displaying the wrong line. My thanks to Chris DeBaets and Joe Parker for finding and reporting these bugs! I also changed the Filter By Report Time so that it looks at local time, not Zulu.

- Changed display of lines so that "Sort By BLG", "Sort By Max Carryover", and "Sort By Line Number" all display both the BLG and the carryover amount.

- Fixed a bug where the "View Line in Bidpack Format" was displaying "garbage".

- Added "Filter By Carryover Amount" (so you can exclude high or low carryover lines).

- Added "Filter By Max/Min TAFB" ("show only lines with pairings that meet criteria" - so you can exclude weeklong trips, for example).

- Changed the "Filter By First Duty Period" so that arrival time is local not Z - this should assist in deciding if a pairing is "day" or "night.".

- And fixed a bug - Filter by Layover City was not counting the number of matching pairings correctly.

- When viewing Bid Awards, sorting by Seniority and then by Line Numbers was causing a crash. Also, I've worked on the Bid Choices insertion caret - it looks different and should behave more like you'd expect it to.

- Version 1.4.9 (minor fixes) wasn't built quite right and users of older Mac Operating Systems were getting a "ControlsLib missing" message.

- Fixed a bug where the "Show Bid Choices: Bidpack Format" command couldn't handle VTO and Reserve lines.

- Fixed bug where the Bid Worksheet window wasn't behaving well when resized. You should now be able to make the window bigger vertically, and thus show more lines at once, if you have a big enough display monitor.

- In Feb bidpack, couldn't parse pairings like B727 Pairing176, because the hotel info was "TBA" and had an extra empty line following it; fixed.

- Recent updates to BidBest (thanks to Aaron Grady for the suggestions):

- Modified the Filter by Layover City so that following the filter, it will sort on either the number of pairings on the line, or the length of the layover (approximate). This is so you can look for longer layovers, if you wish.

- Added Sort by Max Block Hours

- Added a Show Bid Choices: Bidpack Format to the Window menu, so that you can display your current bid choices one above another in a separate window.

- If the parse of a bidpack is bad, the program will display the WhatNext dialog instead of a blank screen (saves a little time & mouse clicks).

- Since all MD-11 lines require frequent use of the "Show Lines Range" filter, I've added a checkbox near the bottom of the main window to allow you to lock in a lines range.

- Pure standby pairings with deadheads were not showing up in Filter By Deadhead with a specific deadhead city requested. Also, for the 727, parsing SIBA lines was causing the Mac to emit an annoying series of beeps (I inadvertently left some debugging code in the last revision - sorry, folks).

- Hotels with names starting with digits (e.g., "4 PTS SHERATON") were causing the associated layover city to be skipped in "Filter By Layover City".

- Could not sort Awards by seniority.

- Fixed some problems with Printing (specifically, the Reserve lines). My thanks to Ray Butts for pointing out the bug.

- The Sept '99 bid awards now include lines that were awarded as pay-only, as well as the actual award. Fixed parser so that it can handle this format.

- Changed display of "sort by max carryover" so it shows amount of BLG and amount of carryover.

- The June '99 bid packs have a slightly different format: a day off is marked by " ---" while a mid-pairing day is all spaces. Fixed the parser so that expanded lines would display correctly.

- Re-re-fixed parsing of the Seniority List. I have my fingers crossed. Chris DeBaets has been a big help in testing this for me - thanks!

- Fixed some problems with parsing Seniority List.
- Added two new Sorts (By # of Pairings, and by CH/DaysOn Efficiency Factor) and one new Filter (By Lines Range) in response to requests by Jay Barnwell and Brad Forest. Changed layout of the bid worksheet window slightly.

- Fixed bug where could not parse the Jan awards, because parser was interpreting a January date ("01/03/99") as beginning of Line 1.

- Fixed bug where Print command was disabled for Calendar and All Pairings on Line windows.

- The Find All Lines Containing Pairing filter wasn't working when a bid pack contained a list of lines that had a break in line numbers. For example, the MD-11 lines jumped from 100 to 125 (this is a made-up example)The fix involved mapping the line number correctly onto the index).

- Format of bid worksheet changed YET AGAIN; in Jan was \n instead of \r; in Feb was \r\n insteadof \r.

- Program could not handle the situation (MD-11 bid pack) where lines were not always in blocks of ten lines (caused Line 103 to be missing from display).

- Added filter to show only lines in a certain range (so MD-11 F/O's could block out lines lower than 101).

- Program couldn't deal with new Reserve line format.

- Added feature: Shift-double click on a line will display it in same format as the printed bid pack.

- Fixed bug: Dashes were being drawn wrong in single-line display for pairings with a single trip number, e.g., an a.m. out-and-back.

- Added a filter for pairing report time (before or later than a specified time).(David Smith request) :"Filter by Report Time"

- Added feature: the program now retains filter request info when Saved. (Monty Lee suggestion).

- Made some changes to Filter by Deadhead dialog.

- Added feature: can now specify what pairing num the SIBA pairings start with (used to be 900; but in the May bidpack, it's 950).

- Added the ability to display and print a calendar showing the pairings on a single line (hold down Option key when double-clicking on a line in the main window).

- Also added the ability to display and print the text of all the pairings on a single line.

- Fixed bug: pairing parser wasn't counting the number of legs in first duty period properly.