Program similar to FindRun Robot

[onthejazz]

I just downloaded a copy to check what all this is about. It seems
like Freeware to me, even if it isn't Freeware in the traditional sense
of the word, you can still get it for free with minimal effort (I just
did). You'll have to excuse the anal zealot's running around here.
You (Klaatu) tell him to limit his discussion here to programs that are
indeed freeware, but he didn't start the discussion. What? a person
doesn't have the right to argue their point or defend their position,
how closedminded & shortsighted is that? I wholeheartedly invite this
thread to continue as it is interesting, I can't recall a developer
doing something quite like this.

good day.
boltz

 

[Craig]

To most reasonable people, free = requires no money.
Hence freeware would be, to them, software requiring no money.
Mouser's software fits this exactly.

Acf's current definition reads as:

/Freeware: Legally obtainable software that you may use at no cost,
monetary or otherwise, for as long as you wish./

Their software seems to fall under this definition. Although the
proggies posing the dispute are registerware, it's been explained that
this can be legitimately avoided.

Mouser's also taken a fair amount of effort to explain what's going on,
including that his organization's policy is a work-in-progress. I hope
mouser continues with his work, his site and his (relevant & on-topic)
communications in acf.

In short, Klaatu doesn't speak for me on this.

Craig

 

[John Fitzsimons]

this is actually an interesting point - personally the division of
"lite" and "full" versions is exactly what we are trying to avoid.

Fair enough.

our whole intent is to be able to bring everyone the full version and
ask them to donate whatever they think it's worth to them, including
nothing if they can't afford anything (or if they don't want to pay for
it for whatever reason).

Okay, a very "idealistic" model. My point remains however, if people
don't try your programs then they will not be in a position to be even
considering donating. Your "system" could stop people making the first
step.

we are specifically interested in promoting the idea that users should
donate what they would like to (and are able to) donate, and not a cent
more, for the full version of all of our programs. (note also in case
it's not clear, users who donate any amount once get access to every
program and all content on our site, it's not like you donate for each
program).

Okay, thank you for the clarification. It is unfortunate that idealism
can so often clash with "reality". :-(

Freeware authors (rightly) expect a degree of promotion here. It is
perhaps a pity that when your site is mentioned in future that people
will mention your "gotchas". So will compare less favourably with
freeware sites without any strings attached.

Bye the way, your PayPal donation link says ..."We are sorry, we are
experiencing temporary difficulties...."

On a positive note I DO like your "Suggested Donation" page.

Hope something here is of help to you.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[John Fitzsimons]

i'm afraid that's right; after 6 months you need to visit the key page
and click generate to make a new key for the program.
actually i think we are probably going to change that to have it pop up
the reminder to get a new key after 6 months and never expire; it would
serve the same purpose.

A very good idea. I will tell you why. Suppose you were to go out of
business. Without being able to "renew" registration everyone using
your programs would find them becoming unusable.

Some people may have that in the back of their minds when
investigating your system.

Added to that sometimes people give away (supposedly freeware)
programs that "expire". When renewal comes they say "The cost is
now $ for renewal."

A devious (dishonest ?) way to get people to beta test their product.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[John Fitzsimons]

just to be clear, you only have to "register" once. then after 6
months you just go to the key page url and click one button to make
another that lasts another 6 months.

Okay, still very annoying. I don't need that sort of irritation. I
have better things to do than to have to constantly go back to web
sites and "re-register". Or renew a registration.

you said:

here's the SECOND (bolded even) item on the "start" page
(http://www.donationcoder.com/About/start.html):

"I'm already using one of your programs.. Where can I download a
freeware license key for it?
In order to encourage donations, some of our programs require
non-members to sign up at our forum and download a new freeware license
key every 6 months."

Okay, I obviously missed reading that part.

there is a LOT of information on our site, it's a bit hard to make
every piece of information obvious from every page. we've been through
menu iterations of the pages, moving information here and there, we're
doing our best.

Well, the obvious place to be sure to include that info would be IMO
the download page ie.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/releases.html

Instead of saying "some require license keys" you could have said
"some require license keys, and renewal of these keys, every six
months."

Many people don't mind "registering" to get freeware. Many would
suggest that leaving out the six month bit from that page was
purposeful.

fair enough; every program page that requires a freeware license key
says has a link at the very top item on the upper left of the page:
"[Request License Key]" that takes you to key page whch explains
exactly the policy. maybe we could add a little more information with
that link.

Yes, instead of [Request Free License Key]

consider something like ;

This product requires a Free Licence to activate.
[Request Free License Key]

i get the feeling that it's never going to be enough though. part of
the problem is that people with plenty of money might feel like why are
there all these complications? why can't i just push a "buy now"
button? a problem with doing something more complicate than pure
freeware or pure shareware is the difficulty of explaining the idea..
probably never going to be a perfect solution. the only good part i
guess is that the people who do join our site tend to be people who are
a little more interested in being part of something, rather than just
the gimme it now here's the money crowd.

The point is that in able to make "sales" er...donations, one first
needs to try out your programs. Registering even once will lose you a
great many potential customers. Repeated registering will lose you
more.

If your programs had been freeware I would have considered trying out
a number of them. As it was once I found out your "system" I didn't
bother. I don't need more annoyances in my life.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/

 

[John Fitzsimons]

if people are really interested i'd be happy to dig up and make
available for download the last version that had no license key code.
you can view the program help file for a complete version history to
see if there's anything new you need:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/help/index.html

< snip >

So people can try the "freeware" version before "donating" for the
"enhanced" one ? Good idea.

 

[Vic Dura]

You'll have to excuse the anal zealot's running around here.

No, we don't have to excuse them. We have to tolerate them, but not
excuse them.

 

[Vic Dura]

Acf's current definition reads as:

/Freeware: Legally obtainable software that you may use at no cost,
monetary or otherwise, for as long as you wish./

The "or otherwise" is subjective. Each person defines it for him/her
self.

 

[tsaint]

John,
"Okay, still very annoying. I don't need that sort of irritation. I
have better things to do than to have to constantly go back to web
sites and "re-register". "
6 months is constantly?????

"The point is that in able to make "sales" er...donations"
A snide remark which doesn't become you. We could split hairs over
definitions of sales and donations till the cows come home, with no one
changing their position.
Why not just embrace the spirit of what mouser is trying to do and be a
bit generous of spirit? Guess I'm trying to say with that, go with the
CONSTRUCTIVE comments, but leave out the odious comparisons to "devious
(dishonest?)" people.

 

[mouser]

A very good idea. I will tell you why. Suppose you were to go out of

business. Without being able to "renew" registration everyone using
your programs would find them becoming unusable.
Some people may have that in the back of their minds when
investigating your system.

that's a very good point - here is what we have said publically on our
forum and maybe it needs to be put into print on the pages:
if we ever go "out of business", and the license keys are no longer
generated, all full member non-expiring license keys can be freely
shared.
in other words, should we ever dissapear, people are invited to
distribute and share non-expiring license keys publically.

 

[mouser]

here's another though -
people are (perhaps rightly) focusing on the 6 months renewal thing.
the main point of that was like most of our approach, to try to get
people to really *think* about donating; we hope that by getting them
back to the site after 6 months of use they will realize "hey i really
use this program, and the site has just gotten better in those 6 months
since i decided not to donate, maybe not i will".

but as i've said w.r.t. people being able to email me to request a
non-expiring license if they are sure they don't want to donate, maybe
we could allay some concerns if we simply said this:

Your initial freeware license key generated will turn into a "startup
nag/reminder" (and not expire the program) after 6 months.
At that point you can return to our site and generate a *permanent
non-expiring license key* for the program.

That would 1) make it so the programs never stop working.
and 2) make it so you only ever have to come back once for a renewal
key, after that it turns into full normal pure non-expiring non-nagging
freeware.

Alternatively if we were worried that that would make it just too
tempting to hit the "make me a non-expiring license key" button and
quickly never look back, we could ask that they renew twice before it
turned into a full non-expiring license key, i.e. after 6 months you
download another 6 month key, and after that you are given permanent
non-expiring license key; that's a no brainer for me and i see no
reason not to add that right away; later we can decide maybe we should
just give a permanent key at the time of first renewal.

i'd appreciate any thoughts on this - maybe this is a compromise that
people on the fence can feel good about?

 

[No I'm Spartacus]

At least...a recommendation:

please, do a RFC-conform SIG-delimiter "-- " (DashDashSpace) instead of
"--" without space after the dashes. With your "--" without the Space
your SIG comes false as a quoting as you can see above :-(

THX for your kind understanding.

Hi Peter,

Hm, my sig actually had two spaces after the "--" so it should have
been ok. Anyway, I've removed one, so it is now just "-- " and should
be ok (I hope). Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[onthejazz]

interesting site.

boltz

 

[David]

Hi Peter,

Hm, my sig actually had two spaces after the "--" so it should have
been ok. Anyway, I've removed one, so it is now just "-- " and should
be ok (I hope). Thanks for the suggestion.

This one now works correctly, thanks.
--
David
Remove "farook" to reply
At the bottom of the application where it says
"sign here". I put "Sagittarius"
E-mail: justdas at iinet dot net dot au

 

[Vic Dura]

That would 1) make it so the programs never stop working.
and 2) make it so you only ever have to come back once for a renewal
key, after that it turns into full normal pure non-expiring non-nagging
freeware.

This seems reasonable.

 

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

Hm, Instant File Name Search eh? It looks interesting - what I could
do is set my file manager (Total Commander) to take over from Windows
Explorer as the default for opening folders, do a search in I.F.N.S
and when I get a result, double click on it to open it in TC. That's
an alternative way to do what I wanted. I think I will give it a go.
Will post back here with my results.

Seems a bit long winded to me. Most file mangers that support a tree
view have means to quickly locate directories. Take Tracker as an
example: Use the <Fully Expand> function to get the directory tree
in whole, select the top folder you whish to start your search in and
then just type the name of the required folder until the cursor gets
unto it.

<OT>
The same goes for the TC you use. Set the option <Always load complete
directory tree> and you can quickly jump to any folder inside the tree
by just hitting Alt+Ctrl+xyz... (xyz... being the name of the folder).
The first time you load the tree will take a few seconds. Later on
the access is instant.

Remember to replace Alt+Ctrl by the key combination you set up inside
the options menu. To search for sub-strings starting *anywhere* inside
the folder names you need to use the '*-'char as first letter. The
combination Ctrl+Enter jumps between all possible finds for the
current selection. There are other quick-access means inside TC, too.
(CD-Tree for instance.)
</OT>

BeAr

 

[No I'm Spartacus]

Seems a bit long winded to me. Most file mangers that support a tree
view have means to quickly locate directories. Take Tracker as an
example: Use the <Fully Expand> function to get the directory tree
in whole, select the top folder you whish to start your search in and
then just type the name of the required folder until the cursor gets
unto it.

<OT>
The same goes for the TC you use. Set the option <Always load complete
directory tree> and you can quickly jump to any folder inside the tree
by just hitting Alt+Ctrl+xyz... (xyz... being the name of the folder).
The first time you load the tree will take a few seconds. Later on
the access is instant.

Remember to replace Alt+Ctrl by the key combination you set up inside
the options menu. To search for sub-strings starting *anywhere* inside
the folder names you need to use the '*-'char as first letter. The
combination Ctrl+Enter jumps between all possible finds for the
current selection. There are other quick-access means inside TC, too.
(CD-Tree for instance.)
</OT>

BeAr

Hi BeAr,

That actually works quite well. Thanks for that suggestion. In the
meantime, I had actually got the long winded method to work. I ended
up using Agent Ransack as the search program, and had fiddled with the
registry to make TC take over from Explorer when opening folders. I
would open Agent Ransack (which was set to search the folder where I
keep all my downloaded programs), type in the name of the program I
wanted (under the programs folder, each download has its own folder,
named after the program itself), hit the search button, and when the
match came up, double clicked on the folder to open that folder in TC.
With your method, all I have to do is to switch drives, hit Alt+F10,
start typing the folder name and it should come up first (Ctrl+Enterif
there is more than one match and the first match is not the one I
want).

This is basically what I wanted to do from the start - I only wish now
that you could set TC to always open the tree view in the same drive
or folder each time - that way, I could knock out the extra step of
having to change drives before I went into the tree view. I kep my
programs on a separate drive to the c: drive, and most of the time I
am using TC to access files on the c: drive - and when you go into
TC's tree view, it opens in the folder that was active (eg have
c:\temp active, open the tree view and TC will automatically put the
tree view on c:\temp).

 

[Peter Seiler]

No I'm Spartacus - 10.12.2005 03:25 :

Hm, my sig actually had two spaces after the "--" so it should have
been ok. Anyway, I've removed one, so it is now just "-- " and should
be ok (I hope). Thanks for the suggestion.

you are welcome. Now your SIG is ok

 

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

That actually works quite well. Thanks for that suggestion. In the
meantime, I had actually got the long winded method to work. I ended
up using Agent Ransack as the search program, and had fiddled with the
registry to make TC take over from Explorer when opening folders. I
would open Agent Ransack (which was set to search the folder where I
keep all my downloaded programs), type in the name of the program I
wanted (under the programs folder, each download has its own folder,
named after the program itself), hit the search button, and when the
match came up, double clicked on the folder to open that folder in TC.
With your method, all I have to do is to switch drives, hit Alt+F10,
start typing the folder name and it should come up first (Ctrl+Enterif
there is more than one match and the first match is not the one I
want).

Yuck! Have you ever tried to just search for 'files' which have the
attribute *directory* and a given name specification?! That is common
functionality of most file manager search dialogs!

<OT>
If you can think of a function a file manager could/should support,
you can be (nearly) certain that it *is* implemented somewhere within
your (and my) favorite file manager. Just read the help about Tabs,
Feed [search results] to listbox, Ctrl-Right/Left keys and other nice
functions.

This is basically what I wanted to do from the start - I only wish now
that you could set TC to always open the tree view in the same drive
or folder each time - that way, I could knock out the extra step of
having to change drives before I went into the tree view. I kep my
programs on a separate drive to the c: drive, and most of the time I
am using TC to access files on the c: drive - and when you go into
TC's tree view, it opens in the folder that was active (eg have
c:\temp active, open the tree view and TC will automatically put the
tree view on c:\temp).

<OT>Browse the options. You can set this program to *not* save the
last position on exit. Instead, there is a special menu entry to save
the current appearance on *any* point of time you may whish.</OT>

You either should look for a more simple file manager or RTFM. Else
most of the goodies are lost on you... ;-) There are good free
alternatives like Tracker which you *may* find more intuitive. But
nothing will spare you the need to read the manuals.

BeAr

 

[Saxman]

Over the 8 or 9 months since the site has been online, we've never once
hesitated or questioned someone who asked for a free license - nor made
them feel bad about asking - that's just the whole point of what we are
trying to do.

Mouser has honorably provided me with a lifetime key upon request for which
I am thankful.

After installation and registering the key, several annoying pop-ups
remained, but now seem to have disappeared.

For such a good utility, the donation reminders are a shame. Maybe it
should be shareware?