Serious Question: Reptile Software

So I keep seeing the occasional thread pop up about reptile software. And I want to get some feed back on this. What features do you seek in these programs, and what are some popular choices? I'm a programmer, and the thought that people pay money for these things when they can be provided for free intrigues me. So I'm asking for serious feedback, what key features do you use these programs for, and what would you like to see in them? I'd like to take a shot at developing something people can use easily as part of their lives for tracking stats about their reptiles.

Submit as much info as you'd like, even including examples, screenshots, or even mock ups of how you'd like to see a program laid out for you. All feedback is appreciated!

wouldnt it be similar to software used by dog breeders, cat breeders, horse breeders?

i dont get the difference.

i heared that one of the largest breeders has a software that gives him a value for how well a certain snake is genetically represented in the collection, and preferentially holds back individuals that are less represented in order to keep inbreeding low. thats a nice functionality.

its somewhere in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIgSD8iwg1s maybe you can ask them

Be nice if one of them would stick around for more than a couple years after taking our money. Updates and fixes are always nice. I've paid for three so far, and no more. Went back to index cards. No worries they'll leave me hanging. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

wouldnt it be similar to software used by dog breeders, cat breeders, horse breeders?

i dont get the difference.

i heared that one of the largest breeders has a software that gives him a value for how well a certain snake is genetically represented in the collection, and preferentially holds back individuals that are less represented in order to keep inbreeding low. thats a nice functionality.

its somewhere in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIgSD8iwg1s maybe you can ask them

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This is why I am asking haha, I don't breed any animals so I don't really know what people are trying to keep track of when it comes to using these types of programs. If features and links to programs people currently use are provided, they will greatly help in establishing the common features in most of these types of software.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

wouldnt it be similar to software used by dog breeders, cat breeders, horse breeders?

i dont get the difference.

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They don't track when their animals shed our goes to the bathroom.


Op,
I would love something that would help keep my notes together. Currently I use OneNote and have a separate note for each animal that I record the dates of sheds, feedings, movements, and other notables. It would be great to have a selectable list that I could fill out all at once. As in, my 3 young bloods, brb, ball, and gtp all have been eating the same size rats. It would be awesome to select those and then just fill in the blanks of date and what was eaten so all the profiles would update at one time. Currently I copy/paste.

It would also be nice to be able to pull out certain information when desired. Such as weight. Say I want to see the progression of my snakes weight. It would be nice to select that and have all the entered dates and corresponding weights pull up. Again, what I currently use I have to scroll through the list and pick out the info.

Then when a snake has a movement it would be convenient to pick the said snake select the date and movement option and hit record where it could again be pulled up at a later date if needed.

I also think tracking birthdays or purchase dates to follow snakes age or time owned would be cool.

Maybe a photo option to have the ability to use each snakes picture as there profile icon.

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Originally Posted by KMG

Op,
I would love something that would help keep my notes together. Currently I use OneNote and have a separate note for each animal that I record the dates of sheds, feedings, movements, and other notables. It would be great to have a selectable list that I could fill out all at once. As in, my 3 young bloods, brb, ball, and gtp all have been eating the same size rats. It would be awesome to select those and then just fill in the blanks of date and what was eaten so all the profiles would update at one time. Currently I copy/paste.

It would also be nice to be able to pull out certain information when desired. Such as weight. Say I want to see the progression of my snakes weight. It would be nice to select that and have all the entered dates and corresponding weights pull up. Again, what I currently use I have to scroll through the list and pick out the info.

Then when a snake has a movement it would be convenient to pick the said snake select the date and movement option and hit record where it could again be pulled up at a later date if needed.

I also think tracking birthdays or purchase dates to follow snakes age or time owned would be cool.

Maybe a photo option to have the ability to use each snakes picture as there profile icon.

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See, this is the sort of stuff I wanted to hear. All of what you just stated is not very hard to implement at all. I'd love to hear further ideas of the sort.

I would like a web API, someone can come to my available page, and click and see feeding records for every baby without me having to touch it.

Some way to setup defaults, snakes 1-10 might eat frozen small rats, snakes 11-15 might eat live small rats and then I got a clutch of babies eating mice. If that could be preset and all I have to click is "it ate", my problem with software I have tired is inputting the information takes too long. Snakes are never perfect, sometimes in a clutch 2 babies won't eat out of 20, can I feed the other 18 with a few clicks?

mobile app would be nice for updates since our phones are generally always on us, could also use the phones camera to read QR codes to bring up snake information.

Okay, web APIs and mobile apps are a bit more complex, but I'm sure with time those can also be created. Right now I'm focusing more on data collection on your computer. Adding in ways to access it once it's a functioning program can always be added in later.

I'm still using homemade charts (good ole' microsoft word) for weights, dates fed and what they ate, and shed records, as well as purchase dates.

Myself and my husband were talking about this the other day... Something as simple as a MS excel type spreadsheet program would be great.. A spreadsheet format to input data, then the ability to select needed fields and graph (say, if I wanted to graph a single snakes weight gain then loss over a period of time, etc.). Of course, this is something we could do in excel.

If you were designing a snake-specific software, the features above would be nice (faster to input info in a spread sheet format), but also have the ability to select specific snakes and pull up the info listed above but on an individual basis. Also, being able to select a group of snakes like ohhwataloser said and hit "it ate" would be good too.

I teach and we use a software program called renweb. When you enter attendance into the program you have many "codes" you can put in (like AU for absent unexcused, etc.). It has a nice feature by which you can select a code (i.e.... I click the "AU" button), then click a name and it marks them, then there's a "fill present" button.. You can hit that and everyone else will be marked present except the AU student. If a feature like this could be built in, whereby I could select a group of snakes that eat on the same day, etc. Only mark the miscreant that didn't eat, then hit "fill ate", that would cut down on time.

Hope this helps!

If I'm using a program, I'd want options to track every time something happens. Poop, shed, feed, weighed, paired, layed, any time an event happens I want an easy way to track it. And I want to be able to pull reports easily for those things, because if Junior poops after every 4th feeding and then suddenly poops after every feeding, I want to know about it so I can start figuring out why (is there a problem with his digestive tract, did my feeder supplier change something on their end?). I also want to compare reports easily among groups, is Junior growing slower or faster than his siblings? Is that clutch growing at the same rate as this one? I want customization for my feeder tracking so I can define parameters, my medium rat might not be the same as everyone else's but a 70g rat is 70g everywhere, and I want to track rats, mice, and ASFs by clicking one thing (like maybe just "add food" then select "rat - 70-90g"). And because I'm a visual person I want my animals organized graphically, like I could click or tap (because it would have to work on a phone/tablet also) a little button with the animal's name and then add whatever routine data I needed quickly, almost like having a virtual rack.

If it could also handle things like tracking payments (in an ideal world payments might even come to me for things instead of constantly going out) so I can easily see what I spend per week/month/year on feeders/bedding/housing/vets and figure out the real costs per animal etc. (although seeing that in real numbers might cause me to have a mild stroke).

And because I do not have a program like this, I'm stuck with my current jumble of excel, index cards, and color-coded markers (and I am rapidly running out of markers).

Well sine I program as well I will tell you first off what I don't like. Most programs have way more stuff then most keepers will ever use. Because of this programs are virtually rendered useless. They had the one program from two members on here that was like $30, and IMO too much because for starters it was laid out pretty bad and just had way too many options that rendered the program useless. On top of that the navigation of the program was horrible.

For your average keeper, and breeder they don't measure snakes, record prey weight and all the other stuff. Then recording poop and pee and all that is useless. I use index cards and have a great layout. I just bring the flash drive to fedex kinkos and have them print out like 25 sheets, which is 50 cards. That lasts for 6 months+ roughly but longer probably as I've not used a whole one yet.

It's all made in a microsoft excel and then whole punched and put in a small binder which I can bring with me anywhere, much easier then trying to find data on a computer if I sell a snake. When I sell a BP, I simply give the buyer the feeding card. On the front it has a spot for name, morph, genus, sire, dam and something else. Then under that it has a lot of boxes for feeding: Date - Food or prey or something like that. I simply put 1-3-14 - RP or SR. RP = Rat Pup, SR = Small Rat. If they refuse I write Refused. On the back of the card it has Shed Date - Weight. When the snake sheds I weigh it and write the date & weight.

It's simple and it's all the data that 95% of reptile keepers/breeders will use. Who really keeps track of when they poop, pee, drink water, how many logs, what they weighed, the diameter of the poo, the color/smell. I mean all that crap is worthless to know. Simple enough, hey I don't remember when the last time my snake used the bathroom. Pick the snake up, flip over to see the belly and do you see the black thing near it's vent? Yep. Well it must of not been recently or you can generally tell by the tail when the area right before the vent is really thick.

So basically instead of a program being simplistic and easy to navigate people add all these useless options that make it annoying to navigate and use, so only keepers who think it's a good program really use it. Now I don't mind giving the excel file, or converting to .pdf for you to have a printing place print it on index card paper, but I have to check with the person who made the file in the first place. If it's okay with him then I'll post a link on here, and then maybe you can write a program that looks just like the card. Then it'll be easy and manageable. I'll help you with the layout and stuff if you'd like but I haven't programmed since Visual Basics 3-6 back on AOL 2.5-5.0 when I used to program booters and anti's :)

A free QR code reading program that allows updates to the "database" via a cell phone or tablet (android for me) would be nice.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by ViperSRT3g

So I keep seeing the occasional thread pop up about reptile software. And I want to get some feed back on this. What features do you seek in these programs, and what are some popular choices? I'm a programmer, and the thought that people pay money for these things when they can be provided for free intrigues me. So I'm asking for serious feedback, what key features do you use these programs for, and what would you like to see in them? I'd like to take a shot at developing something people can use easily as part of their lives for tracking stats about their reptiles.
Submit as much info as you'd like, even including examples, screenshots, or even mock ups of how you'd like to see a program laid out for you. All feedback is appreciated!

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Hey, are you talking desktop tracking or web based app tracking? I have actually been very very quietly, until now obviously (My wife did not even know) working on a very large web based project for about a year. I have been watching and listening to what people have been wanting in a tracking app for over the last year now, and have compiled from pretty good information.

Some of this could be a bit biased, as I am a web dev, but here is my take:

From what I have gathered, a desktop only app (sorry to be blunt, and like I said, I could be wrong here) is pretty much out. Web is in. Which has already been done pretty well, by iHerp, except (no offense to iHerp, I love iHerp and use it alot) I feel that it is missing a few things, like the power of databases. As a business in the reptile industry, I want to generate reports based on the tracking information... let me manipulate that data, much like Degei does. I can enter the cost of different actions, but never can I actually see totals for anything, just seems a bit silly. On top of that, a one-stop shop is what I see being the most beneficial, which also makes this a very large project.

My vision is to take the best of the tracking abilities/features of iHerp & Degei combine them with the classifieds of iHerp, Fauna and Kingsnake, add ebay like auctions, and then some tricks of my own that will make people think, "why was this never thought of until now", which I will of course, keep to myself for the time being.

I know this is very ambitious, especially as I am building everything from the ground up, which if you think about it has very many projects rolled into one: you have a image gallery, tracking, classifieds, auctions, generating reports, and many more and they have to all work together. To top it off, I am just one person, this scale of thing is usually the work of a team, which I am really starting to think that I should assemble one, so I can actually finish this in a reasonable time.

I apologize if this steps on some toes, which is why I have been keeping this quiet for some time, that and I was waiting until I was sure this would be a reality and was near completion, which it is definitely not, but maybe talking about it will keep me on task as I think this is something the industry really needs.

I spoke to Viper and gave him a layout of what I think would be the ideal program. Simple and more useful than all those other programs.

So just a quick update on this program.

I've begun working on the GUI for this, and it will allow you to have different ways of viewing your snakes, from using their names, ID numbers, or even photos as icons for each snake. You'll have different levels of detail so you won't get flooded with information fields to fill out and look at.
From there, you'll be able to check up on the snake's info, edit data, and all that other fun stuff. (Still adding in more things to track, this will probably be the part that takes the longest)

Once I finish up the data input and display aspect of things, I will be able to begin writing the data saving and loading aspects. This will also include printable forms to send with snakes if you're a breeder.

Based on some of the suggestions here, it seems like people who have a lot of snakes may actually need reminders of when snakes need to eat. So I've also decided to add in feed calendars and such so people can track when they've last fed a snake, as well as when they should be due for another epic meal time.

And thankfully because of my job as a CMMS Manager, and a game server host, tracking the cost of materials and payments will definitely be in there, though these things will definitely be some of the last things to be added. The main priority would be features that allow users to interact with their data. I'm also learning up on BP Genetics so that I can possibly include a gene calculator, as well as a genetics tracker, but these are also low priority items right now.

Lastly, the database will definitely launch with automatic updates, so that you will always have the latest version of my program! I'll be sure to make more announcements as they become available, and as always, keep posting more ideas!

So I'm putting together the list of data to track for each snake, this will allow me to prioritize the data fields to add in first. Subsequent updates can be made to add in more data fields. If you have more suggestions, feel free to post it and I'll add it to this list!

Note: Fields marked with (Graph-able) are fields that will be able to be comparable with similar data in graphs.

Snake Characteristics
Name/ID
Scientific Name
Age
Weight (Graph-able)
Length (Graph-able)
Gender
Genetics
Temperament

Extra Data
Feed Dates (Graph-able)
Shed Dates (Graph-able)
Poop Dates (Graph-able)

Data for Future Updates
Inventory Tracking (Cost of materials, etc)
Incoming/Outgoing Payments
Market Price for Snake Morph/Type - A reliable method of obtaining a market value would need to be established

Why not have the ability to add custom fields for the people who log everything or the ability to hide fields, personally I wouldn't want to see data such as scientific name, length, temperament, shed or poop dates. I would never record them. As for market price, I think you would need fauna or kingsnake to feed data to you, which with their current system, I don't see how they would be able to do that.

Also what platform will this program be available for?

HerperPro. offers every thing that has been metioned in this thread. I use it, they even have a Ball Python Module that works with World of Ball pythons. com to import morphs for ball pythons. keeps housing records, genetics and sibling records for all the animals, feeding records, even prints scanable QR code tub stickers and cards to allow you to up date 50 animals for free from your smart phone, It keeps invoices and value records, it will even keep price lists for people selling more that a few animals.. chek it out as WWW.herperPro.com the basic one is free if I remember right.

I'm developing this software for Windows based PC's for now. Also the abundance of information fields is why there will be multiple view levels. The core information to be tracked will be available in the simple view. While more and more information can be tracked if switching to a more advanced view.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

HerperPro. offers every thing that has been metioned in this thread. I use it, they even have a Ball Python Module that works with World of Ball pythons. com to import morphs for ball pythons. keeps housing records, genetics and sibling records for all the animals, feeding records, even prints scanable QR code tub stickers and cards to allow you to up date 50 animals for free from your smart phone, It keeps invoices and value records, it will even keep price lists for people selling more that a few animals.. chek it out as WWW.herperPro.com the basic one is free if I remember right.

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The thing I don't like about Herper Pro is the fact if you get the cell phone version that works with the program itself then you have to pay if you have over 50 snakes. It's a yearly fee as well. I just don't agree with this in a way because you've already bought the program. I also find that Herper pro has way too much stuff on the front that renders the program useless. I wouldn't even use 70% of the features it has. The program isn't free, but you can use a trial version.

I find cards to be the best for me because it's simple with what I use and it doesn't have all this extra stuff that I don't want to see, but that's my preference.

I will see if I can include a custom field view where you choose exactly the fields you want to keep track of. The only thing that will slow that process down is how the GUI would lay itself out based on the fields chosen. Fortunately that's a long way from now so I don't have to worry about that just yet.

I used excel spreadsheets for years. A month or so ago I switched over to HerperPro. Does everything I want it to and does it on the Mac. It's actually easier than using my old excel sheets.