Birder Home is developed for bird watchers who like to have own resource center having textual information, images, audios and videos.

Main Functions

User Guide

Open drawer menu, select 'family' to open family list. There are below functions in the list.


Same as bird family, the operations for bird species are the same.

Click on any bird species in list view, to show the bird species detail page, including multimedia information.

  
  
  

In internet search for audio, user can get list of bird sound files from Xeno-Canto, and then download in app by clicking download button. User can also display the sound file information by clicking "i" button.

Media manager is used to manage multimedia information, press 'add' floating button to add media file, and use rename or delete function in each item's menu.

In image player, user can display image's meta information by clicking "Metadata" button at lower left corner.



User can search, filter, highlight or bookmark from appbar. 

Four sort options are provided: primary name, secondary name, scientific name and taxonomic order.


In drawer menu, user can choose to display the master list or any favorite list created by user. At the bottom of the menu, user clicks the plus button to add a new empty favorite list.

To add bird species to favorite list, user choose master list to display all bird species. Then, click on the avatar icon of bird species interested. The avatar icon changes to a tick icon, and 'heart' icon is shown at top right corner of app bar. By clicking the 'heart' icon, available favorite list is shown to selection. Check the favorite lists desired to add bird species and then finish by clicking tick icon at top right corner of app bar, or cancel by back button. User can then choose favorite list to display in drawer menu.


In drawer menu, user can choose to display databases or favorite lists. User can rename or delete user defined favorite lists and databases, or add by clicking add button at the bottom. User can display the list's information by clicking the "i" button.


If SD card is available, user can choose to store information either in phone memory or SD card. The storage path is shown for reference.


User can use Google Drive to backup and restore created database and multi-media files. Before any operation, user should sign in Google account and authorize the app to save app data into Google Drive. Then user can backup simply by pressing "backup" button. Similarly, user can restore data by simply pressing "restore" button. It is suggested to use Wifi when there are many multi-media files.

File type supported: UTF8 CSV or Excel (xlsx) 2018 or newer edition

Import to Favorite List

Column "NAMESCI" of bird species's scientific name is used to identify a bird species added into a favorite list. When the scientific name is not in the master list, this is ignored.

The file name of CSV or worksheet name of xlsx is used as favorite list's name. If the favorite list does not exist, it is created. Otherwise, the bird species is added into the existing favorite list.

Import media file name to master List

Column "NAMESCI" of bird species's scientific name is used to identify a bird species When the scientific name is not in the master list, this is ignored. Another column named "PHOTOS", "AUDIOS" or "VIDEOS" contains the file name of media file to be added to the bird species. Each bird species can have multiple rows for different file names or several file names separated by "|" in one cell.

After data is imported into database, user chooses the media files' source location, app copies the files to correct location. Or user can manually copy all the media files to the corresponding sub-directory in path shown in setting's page. Below storage location in phone as example,

image files: Phone/Android/data/com.jimmy.twitcher_home/files/images
audio files: Phone/Android/data/com.jimmy.twitcher_home/files/audios
video files: Phone/Android/data/com.jimmy.twitcher_home/files/videos

For google sheet users, one can download to xlsx for this function.



Alert! Malformed database file may crash the app or cause abnormal behavior, pay special attention on the process.

New database takes a lot of data entry, most of the time, this is more convenient to do in desktop computer instead of mobile devices. Here provides a way to create a new database on desktop.

Firstly, two software are required.

Procedure to create new database:

  1. Download spreadsheet template template.xlsx and database template template.db
  2. Open the spreadsheet template "template.xlsx" in Excel or Google Sheet
  3. Data Entry: Enter bird family data into "family" worksheet first, then enter bird species data into "master" worksheet. Description of the columns are,

  4. Bird Family data format:
    Column
    Description
    IDbird family unique identification number
    IDXTAXONunique taxonomic order index of bird family
    NAMEPRIprimary name
    NAMESECsecondary name
    NAMESCIscientific name

    Bird Species data format:
    Column
    Description
    IDbird species unique identification number
    IDXTAXONunique taxonomic order index of bird species
    NAMEPRIprimary name
    NAMESECsecondary name
    NAMESCIscientific name
    DESCbird species description
    NOTEpersonal notes about the bird species
    LOCATIONlocation data of bird species
    PHOTOSimage list: file names are separated by "|", file name cannot have "|" character
    AUDIOSaudio list: file names are separated by "|", file name cannot have "|" character
    VIDEOSvideo list: file names are separated by "|", file name cannot have "|" character
    FAMILYID of bird family this bird species belongs to

    bird family worksheet sample:

    bird species worksheet sample:

  5. export worksheets to csv file in UTF-8 format
  6. In Google Sheet, pull-down menu File > Download > CSV.

    In Excel, pull-down menu File > Save as > choose folder > choose file format CSV UTF-8

    File name of family is family.csv, and that of master is master.csv

  7. Open DB Browser, and then open downloaded database template "template.db".
  8.  
  9. Import bird family: 
    • Import > Table from CSV File
    • choose "family.csv" created in last steps
    • check "Column Names in First Line" and "Encoding" settings.
    Import bird species by same procedure, but use master.csv instead.

  10. Save and close the database, rename the database to desired file name
  11. Copy the database file to mobile device, the location is shown in storage path of app's settings page. Images, audios and videos are copied to the corresponding sub-folders.




User can download database samples from settings page -> database sample.


 

also can download and copy the database to path shown in settings page.

Databasedb Linkxls Link
HKBWS 21-05 hkbws_2105.db hkbws_2105,xlsx
IOC 11.2 ioc_112.db ioc_112.xlsx
HBW v5 hbw_v5.db hbw_v5.xlsx
Clements 2021 clements_21.db clements_21.xlsx