For those of you who want to start using this software right now, without taking the time to read the complete manual.

To begin let's add a batch. Click the New Batch button in the toolbar. Select a Bird Type and Breed. If you don't select a Group or Incubator, the defaults will be used. Enter a Batch Name(some symbols can’t be entered). Select the number of Eggs you are setting. If you want to change the Candle Date, do it before selecting Start or Hatch Date. Finally set either the Start Date or Hatch Date and the other dates get automatically calculated. Click Save.

The next step is doing something with the batch you just created. Clicking on a batch in the list will populate the Batch Statistics panel with data from that batch. You can now edit the batch name, type, breed, group, # of eggs, # were fertile, # chicks hatched, incubator, and add comments. You can also set any date independently for the rest(e.g. If you candled a day early). You will have to click the Update button for any changes to take place.

The Advanced Panel will allow you to manage your eggs indivially. You'll need to enable it before you can use start using it. Enabling Advanced will disable the egg entry controls in the Batch Statistics Panel since these will be automatically generated from Advanced data. It will also disable changing the batch type.

A quick look at some other features, switch to the Notifications Panel to see current notifications, the Groups Panel is for managing entire groups, the Schedule Hatch button is for managing scheduled hatch dates that can be used in the Add Batch dialog, the Reminders button is for adding and deleting reminders, manage your Breeds and Bird Types as well as other options from the Settings and the Print Month button prints a calendar containing all the batch dates for that month.

The Graphs button opens a dialog for displaying graphs with batch or group data. Step 1: select mode. Step 2: select item(s) from the list(use Ctrl or Cmd + Mouse Click to select multiple). Step 3: click Refresh Graph button.

On the desktop HatchKeeper uses pop-up notifications to alert you of Batch Dates. On Android it passes events to the built-in calendar so not only does it add Batch Dates to your calendar, it will also alert you at a configurable hour of the day.

Happy Hatching!

The HatchKeeper Team.