Is it the first time that you are using Birds Evolution Pro? You're in the right place!
In this page, we will show you how to configure and use the software. Don't worry, it's not an hard job : using the software is more "instinctive" once you get the basics.
Note : you will often see "Birds Evolution Pro"/"the program"/"the software", these terms are equivalent. Same for "open" or "run". Screen captures are not often in real size, they may show some littles differences in comparison with your version (this is the version 2.14 of Birds Evolution Pro).
We won't describe the entire installation process since you can do it like any other software : if it's not already done, go to the download page and enter your email address to receive the link to download the installer, then run your Birds Evolution Pro installer once you have downloaded it. Windows Vista might ask you if you really want to open the file, just choose "Confirm" to execute the file. Then follow the indications that are pretty clear : do it step by step answering by "Ok" or "Next" and finally "Finish". Birds Evolution Pro will be installed on your computer.
If you have Windows Vista, it might ask you if you really want to run the software, just click on "Confirm" and the software will be loaded.
After a few seconds, Birds Evolution Pro will ask you what language you would like to use.
Choose your language (by default French is selected, so choose "English" by clicking on it), then click on "OK" (blue button).
You will have access to the User Settings page :
Fill the required information (marked with *), this step is needed in order to continue, please do not fill random information, what you are storing here is strictly confidential and it won't be sent to our website or any external website.
This window has others tabs : Taxes management (for invoices), Appearance (graphic customization), Advanced functions (language of the software, memory settings, password to enter in the software, real path of Birds Evolution Pro inside your computer).
We will see the "Bird Identity Card Customization" in another part of this help file.
All done? Let's go to the next step : click on OK to save your data.
A "skin" is a set of _scr/en/ that will be used in the software, this will only change the appearance, pick a skin and Valid. We will choose "Parakeets & Parrotlets".
We will describe this page in the "Basics" part of this help file, for the moment just remember that you would be able to edit the information that you have entered by clicking of the top right button (bottom of close button) were you can read "User Description and Software Settings".
Click to view in full-size mode.
The start window (also called start page or homepage) is the default window that you will see each time you open Birds Evolution Pro.
Each time you run Birds Evolution Pro, the start page is showing up. It's the starting point, after you have to bring "Assistants" to help you choose the file that you want to view. These "Assistants" are windows that doesn't store any information but are providing shortcuts to open lists (tables) which are views of the files of the software.
In others examples, we'll assume that you are on the start window.
This example may be simple, but now you know that :
A common problem occuring when you are starting to use the software : many people just "Edit" the species in the list when they have a new one. Don't do that, if you have two species, you must have two different record in the species list, that means that you need to click on "New" and not "Edit".
When you use this bird breeding software keep in mind that it has some fields that you might never use, or that you will use later whenever you will need it.
Let's take an example : the Species Card.
Here as it is indicated by the field with *, only the species name is required. Others fields can be blank, and the sofware will still accept your record.
And that's really something that you should understand : most of the fields are NOT required, but they are needed when you do advanced breeding management. For example indicating Latin Name could be usefull especially if you are willing to use functions like the birth certificate. Usual price could be interesting too if you want to compare the price that you paid a bird with the standard price of a bird. Egg weight loss and every other information is something that is useful when you are dealing with hand-reared birds.
We just talked about the first tab, there are 3 others that are also optional : mutations for entering any information about one mutation of the species (and then you will be able to go in your bird card and select each mutation that you bird has without rewriting it), standards rating (if you are doing contests this feature is a must-have to select your birds), and miscellaneous.
Did you notice the "+" at the right of "Weight Unit"? When something can be reused, we use a listbox, and if you want to add/edit data inside this listbox, you need to click on the "+" at the right of this listbox. With that option, it's really easy to edit any listbox!
Is there something that you can't see?
Sometimes you won't see the data and you know that it has already been stored in the software. Why? Because most of the time we never show all the data that isn't really necessary.
For example, we have this invoices/expenses summary, we generally just want to see the data for a specific period : notice the two dates at the top of the window. If you want to change this filter, just change the dates and click on the green graphic button.
Another example, the top of the pairs list, we can select the pairs creating date or a bird of a pair as a filter for our records :
We could pick other examples like the "Birds" Assistant, where you can select the sex and avaibility of the birds that you want to see in the list.
So remember that if you do not see all the records, some filtering options might be in use, usually it's something that is always clearly visible (in the title of the window or in a groupbox).
We saw some basics, now we can start with the real management. Go to the next step with "Adding Birds"
Now let's see how we can add birds into Birds Evolution Pro.
Open the "Birds" Assitant by clicking on "Birds", the first button at the top left of the starting window.
Notice that here you have :
By default, only present birds is selected, so if you want to add a bird that isn't currently in the breeding (sold or deceased for example), you will have to select "View All Records".
Let's click on "All Breeding".
Click on "New" to create a bird.
First the software will ask a name for this bird. If the bird hasn't got any name, just provide the band number. If the band number has already be used for another bird, you'll need to add something at the end of the band number, because this field is a unique field, you cannot have two birds with the same name/code.
It means that if you had a bird with the band number "WWW CDE 1208" that was already entered in the software and if you have another bird using the same band number, you will need to change the name/code of the second bird to ""WWW CDE 1208-B" for example, because the software won't allow the same band number twice. It's mainly done for you : if the name/code of a bird could be the same for two birds, it would be hard to understand which bird you have to deal with.
Here we will use "CDE1208-FEMALETEST".
Now we need to fill the information that we have.
Let's say that : our bird is a Canary, the variety is Harz, the sex is female (when the sex isn't know you can select "Unknown"), the origin is our breeding, it's a bird that is resting (too young) and it has a closed band with the number "CDE1208-FEMALETEST", it hatched in december 2008, and it's in the cage "Big cage # 1".
The second thing that we need to fill after the name/code is the species. You cannot type directly the species inside the Species field because it's linked to another file, which is the Species Files. Click on the blue button at the right of this field to open the Species List.
Here as you can see we already have a species named "Canary". But if it were empty or if others species was showing up here, we would have created the species by clicking on "New" (and after we would have typed "Canary" in the name of the species, then clicked on "OK").
Since we have our species, select it by clicking on it (here it's already selected (the line is blue) so we don't need to), then click on "OK" to valid your selection.
As you can see, we are back on our bird card for the bird "CDE1208-FEMALETEST", and the species has been selected! We can see "Canary" inside the Species field.
Let's enter the other data that we have for this bird :
As you may have noticed if you did the test too, the band number has been filled automatically since we assume that you are using the band number for most of the name/code in the software. Plus, the Age is showing up automatically since you provided the date of birth.
Note that if you do not have an exact date, just provide an approximate date, it's still better to have an approximation than to have nothing at all.
We forgot to select the cage number. This field is also linked to another file, that's why we need to click on the blue button at the right of the "Cage Number" field.
The bird cages list is showing up :
Click on "New" to add a new cage (no cage is entered yet) :
Valid by clicking on OK.
You will be back in the cages list, just select the cage and click on OK.
It will ask you if you want to indicate that the cage isn't empty, click yes.
Now you can go on "Parents/Genetics" tab, if you had entered the father and/or mother of this bird you would have selected it by clicking on the appropriate button (blue button at the right of each field).
You can specify Genetics for this bird, the basic feature is a Genotype and Phenotype only in text mode, and the advanced feature makes you able to pick the mutations genes of your bird. We won't show detals for this part yet.
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