Part-DB 2.8.0: Scanner improvements, KiCad improvements and more

Part-DB 2.8.0 has some big new features:

Scanner improvements

The barcode scanner was improved. In info mode the page will directly show a preview of an found part.
The biggest thing however is the ability to create a new part based on an distributor barcode: If you have ordered parts with digikey, mouser, LCSC or Amazon, you can just scan the barcode and Part-DB will parse the barcode, fetch the informations of the parts and redirect you to the part creation page with all infos prefilled.

Handling with external barcode scanners was also improved: The scan field properly parse and displays non-printable characters now. And by configuring a special präfix on your barcode scanner, you can directly scan a barcode and open the part page, no matter where in Part-DB you currently are. No need to open the scanner app first.

KiCad integration improvements

The KiCAD API of Part-DB now returns caching headers to improve cachability in KiCad.
Also Part parameters and part orderdetails will now be shown in Kicad if you want so.

And more

View the full list of changes in the release notes: https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v2.8.0 

Part-DB 2.6.0

Part-DB 2.6. has some new big features:

Update manager

Thanks to @Sebbeben there is a new (experimental) update manager, allowing to update Part-DB directly from the Web interface, when it was installed via git. 

It is for now experimental, users require the permission for it, and you need to explicitly set `DISABLE_WEB_UPDATES=0` in your `.env.local` to enable it. This might change in the future, if there is more experience with the reliability of the web updater.

You can also update from the console line with the new `partdb:update` console command.

Generic webshop provider

There is a new generic URL provider, that allows to import rudimentary part infos from many different webshops. It works by parsing either the JSONLD or microdata provided by the webpage, which is used by search engine to show rich product results. The amount of data you can get from it, depends on the website, but it is normally the name, some description, an image, a category, the price and the shop's order number for the product.

That way it is possible to easily import things from sellers, which have no specialized info provider. Just select the "Generic URL" as provider and use the URL as keyword. Alternatively you can also use the new "Create part from URL feature"

Create part from URL

Bases on the Generic URL provider there is now a specialized page to create a part from an URL. Just input the URL and it will try to to retrieve infos from it and offer to create a new part from it.

If you input an URL from an existing info provider (like an TME shop URL), then it tries to delegate it to that provider, to get the more detailed results from it. Please note that this not works for all info providers yet.

And more

There is also an Info provider for conrad and some other smaller changes. See the release notes for detailed info: https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v2.6.0

A new version of Part-DB 1.17.0 was released.

See the full changelog here:

https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v1.17.0

# Part-DB 1.13.0 - PostgreSQL support, natural sorting and more 

## PostgreSQL

Part-DB now supports [PostgreSQL](https://www.postgresql.org/) as database. See [documentation](https://docs.part-db.de/installation/choosing_database.html) on how it compares with other database types.

## Natural Sorting

Part-DB now supports natural sorting in part tables and tress.

So instead of sorting elements like `DIP-14`, `DIP-28`, `DIP-4` , `DIP-8`, the elements now get sorted like expected as `DIP-4`, `DIP-8`, `DIP-14` and `DIP-28`.

If you are using PostgreSQL or MariaDB 10.7+ then this kind of sorting is supported natively and natural sorting gets automatically enabled.

If you are running SQLite or MySQL then it is possible to emulate natural sorting by setting the `DATABASE_EMULATE_NATURAL_SORT` to 1.

Please note that this emulation can be very slow and might have some issues and quirks.

# Full changelog

LCSC info provider

Part-DB now can use import part information from LCSC distributor. See documentation on how to use it.

Improved search bar

The search bar now makes suggestions for parts while typing. This should make searching much quicker in many cases.

API improvements

It is now possible to properly create new attachments and parameters on elements using the API like you would expect.

Also, it is now possible to upload files to attachments via API and let Part-DB download URLs. See API docs for more info.

Full changelog

https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v1.11.1

Part-DB is now featured on the official KiCad website under the external tools page:

https://www.kicad.org/external-tools/

Part-DB can be used with KiCad 8 as HTTP library as central inventory database.

KiCad integration

Part-DB now supports the experimental HTTP library feature in the KiCad nightly builds (KiCad 7.99). It allows to define metadata like the KiCad footprints and symbols on Part-DB parts and use Part-DB as libray inside KiCad.

See here for more information.

See Github release page for full changelog:

https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v1.10.0

See Github release for full changelog:  https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v1.9.0

## Update existing parts
Using the blue button in the tools tab on a part info page, you can update part info from an info provider. This means you can pull datasheets, price infos and more from digikey, octopart and more for existing parts.
You still needs to review and manually choose what infos you wanna keep

## Merge parts
You can now merge two parts together: If you have created two versions of the same part by accident, then you can now merge the two versions of the part into a single one. All information like datasheets, partLots, etc. are combined.

## Blue dot on newly created collection items
Newly created items of a collection, which were not persisted to database yet, are marked with a blue dot on the delete item: 

This is especially useful when merging parts together or update parts from info providers. 

## Part Associations
You can now associate part with each other. This can for example be used to denote alternative/compatible parts, or what part replaces an obsolete part.

With the new Version 1.8.0 release, Part-DB offers a REST API to let external applications interact with Part-DB.

It allows reading and edit datastructures, parts and projects via an JSON based interface, so you can write your own software that interacts with Part-DB.
To access the API an application requires an API token, which is generated on the users settings page. API access is experimental and must be enabled on a per user/group basis with the correct permission.

See documentation for an introduction on how to use the API. In your Part-DB instance under the /api/ path you will find an interactive documentation, that shows you all available endpoints and allow you to try them out.

You can look up all available endpoints and available parameters in the demo: https://part-db.herokuapp.com/api
(you will need to login with username user and password user first)

See the GitHub Release page for more info: https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-server/releases/tag/v1.8.0

Part-DB now offers an information provider system, which allows you to query various cloud sources for part information.
For now only creation of new parts is possible based on cloud providers, in later versions it will be possible to also merge the information in existing parts.

The system is built to be universal, with just a little provider specific "driver" and the remain is done by Part-DB. That way it is pretty easy to integrate new data providers (so most likely other vendors and databases which offers APIs) into Part-DB.
For now the following data sources (which use the distributor APIs) are available:

• Octopart
• Digikey
• TME
• Farnell / Element 14

Depending on the provider, your created parts will automatically have a name, description, manufacturer and footprint info, part parameters, datasheets, pictures and shopping information/prices.

See documentation for more info, especially on the configuration.

You can test the new features in the demo (you need to login as user first).