2013 Craftsman Costbooks are Available in Version 1.6

Version 1.6 of Construction Cost Estimator is now available. This update includes the option to purchase the 2013 Craftsman costbooks as in-app purchases. If you already purchased the 2012 Craftsman costbooks, the 2013 update is free. Version 1.6 is also the last update that will support iOS 5. Version 1.6.1 will require iOS 6.0 or greater.

The 2013 Craftsman costbook data has been updated to include the top-level categories, such as Demolition, Electrical, and Painting. This makes it much easier to browse through the cost items in the same way that you would browse the Table of Contents in a printed book.

The costbook search algorithm has also been significantly improved to search through all levels of the hierarchy to find matching cost items. Additionally, all of the parents and children of those matching items are shown in the search results as well. So if you search for “painting”, you would see the top-level category called “Painting and Finishing” and all of the sub-folders and individual cost items within the Painting folder. You would also see an individual cost item called “Touch-up Painting”, along with the following parent folders in the hierarchy: Doors -> Exterior Doors -> Door Repairs. This will make it much easier to quickly find the cost items you are looking for.

Version 1.6 also includes some other new features that customers have been asking for, such as the ability to show or hide the Material, Labor, Other, or Subcontract columns individually, the ability to assign a default Cost Category the the cost items in your custom costbook, and the ability to display the total labor hours at the bottom of the estimate.

Version 1.6.1 should be available sometime next week, with a few bug fixes and the ability to delete the associated cost items from the estimate when you delete a Phase or Area from a project. Note that version 1.6.1 will require iOS 6.0 or greater.