XYplorer Beta Club

Posted: **20 Oct 2006 22:13**

As for Nistor's review, I'm following Allen's lead again, and will probably write a counter-review. I never gripe about price unless it's exorbitant, and $37.95 is not for XYplorer. Remember, Directory Opus is charging about $80 for a version license, whereas XYplorer provides a unique (and honest) Lifetime license.

I rarely bitch about price unless it's an instance like the recent Image Genius upgrade that went from $30 to $100, and they split the program with a pro version for a mere $200! Now I did gripe about that. (And I'm also griping about Vista's pricing and EULA, but that's another forum.)

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 03:05**

Coming a bit late but I'll go anyways

admin wrote:
dual pain preacher wrote:... you have a chance out of ten to have your settings reset to the factory defaults. I haven't seen such a "limitation" before, and I must say that this sounds like having a trial run with a plane that may stop its engines in a flight out of ten, until you buy it.
I must admit I found this part of the review quite sensible (although the plane simile is wrong). I think I'll take this limitation away because I don't want to upset customers in spe...

Well, I actually thought it was a new & "interresting" idea, and how our bad reviewer talks about kinda confort me with this idea, in a way.
Obvisouly he got it all wrong, it's not like the plane may stop its engines at all, cause XY still fully works, more like all your settings in the plane's computer, the way your seat was, volume on the headphone, etc was gone, reset. you can stil fly to w/e you want, but you you have to reset everytime or so.
Yeah, it's annoying, hence his misleading review IMO, but it's meant to I think. You're TRYING the software, for FREE, so you can judge how it is/if it suits you BEFORE BUYING it, so it sounds normal to me that you can't just get all your stuff, settings, toolbar, etc done just like you're at home already!
I mean, it's no freeware

When you try a car before buying it, you can't make it your own already, just try it and see if it's good for you, and IF SO, THEN you buy it & set it the way you want/make it your own. 'till then it's not really yours, it's a loan, you're only testing it.

If when testing XY one can set it all as he wants, & do all that he wants, he might just go "why the hell would I pay for nothing ? (as in, what i already have)"

Anyways, just my 2 cents...

admin wrote:Maybe somehow cripple find files...

Yeah that's easy to do: either set a max number of results (can be really annoying), or disable some filters, or limit how many filters can be used at once/per search...

admin wrote:A bit like jacky's default tab...

hmm.. allow me to disagree here

See, I don't want to be limited in my number of tabs, and I actually wanna be able to open new tabs when i want (using the Open in New (Background) Tab features all around); just that when I don't, THEN it goes in my default tab (of my choice, which would also not be the most-right one (most-left one actually

) Not related to how many tabs are open or anything...
Really don't look like "my" default tab, as in very different use, I think.

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 07:54**

Trying a car before buying it...: yes, same here. Only what is the emotional reaction when you suddenly lose the cool configuration and are reset to the beginning? It's not happiness... And I want to keep the people happy during trial and hungry for the real thing. It should be like an hors d'oeuvre!

Cripple find files...: set a max number of results will be difficult to communicate in the app. It might just look like a wrong result. And you cannot really test the function with that limitation. I rather popup a little nag message before the search starts.

jacky wrote:
admin wrote:A bit like jacky's default tab...
hmm.. allow me to disagree here ...

I said "A bit..."

(not "A byte..." haha)

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 08:38**

zridling wrote:... Had various limits been placed on that 5.00 version I was testing, I might have given in more quickly and stayed inside my comfort zone, never registering XYplorer and waiting until version 6 arrived to take a second look.

Yes, I'm aware that I will lose some good customers by crippling. But I'm convinced I will lose many more (paying) customers by not crippling. XYplorer (then TrackerV3) was completely uncrippled/unnagged for almost 3 years, and when I tell you how many copies I sold in that time, tears will flow.
You know, times/morals have changed. The internet is a very different place now than only say 6 years ago. Today it is completely undisputed among developers that you MUST cripple if you want to sell. It's a law. The greed psychology is weird but true: If you go freeware you easily get millions of fanatic users for a heap of bullshit pasted together in half a week. But if you dare to take money for your work (and it is very hard work), you get hate reviews, cracking, etc.

You see, I'm looking for the best way to do it but it's not easy. These are the (alas slightly contradictive) tasks:
- Keep everything fully testable.
- Do not annoy the user too much at any time.
- Give a good value to those who pay.
I'm still open for any good ideas to solve the paradox of cool crippling...

I'll extend the trial period to 30 days. It's the de facto standard anyway it appears.

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 09:15**

admin wrote:and when I tell you how many copies I sold in that time, tears will flow.
I'll extend the trial period to 30 days. It's the de facto standard anyway it appears.

And about the income part of it...I've been wondering why, for ALL the VERY hard work you put into this product, you don't have some sort of a trivial/minimal fee for updates...virus software has a yearly fee...tax software has to be bought each year..etc...I personally wouldn't mind (or even donating), maybe $5, a year to help keep you motivated...yes, that isn't much, but if all the regular gang here did it, it might be enough for a real nice dinner out!

My suggestion was to keep trial at 21 days for some of the nags, and then at 30 days, to impose all the nags...as stated, sort of an extra grace period...but whatever you do, full disclosure up front on website of what limitations are during trial is, I feel, quite important...I hate downloading something and then finding out that it's crippled in some way!

Knowing the crippling/nags first makes it more bearable.

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 09:24**

j_c_hallgren wrote:
admin wrote:and when I tell you how many copies I sold in that time, tears will flow.
I'll extend the trial period to 30 days. It's the de facto standard anyway it appears.
And about the income part of it...I've been wondering why, for ALL the VERY hard work you put into this product, you don't have some sort of a trivial/minimal fee for updates...virus software has a yearly fee...tax software has to be bought each year..etc...I personally wouldn't mind (or even donating), maybe $5, a year to help keep you motivated...yes, that isn't much, but if all the regular gang here did it, it might be enough for a real nice dinner out!

My suggestion was to keep trial at 21 days for some of the nags, and then at 30 days, to impose all the nags...as stated, sort of an extra grace period...but whatever you do, full disclosure up front on website of what limitations are during trial is, I feel, quite important...I hate downloading something and then finding out that it's crippled in some way!
Knowing the crippling/nags first makes it more bearable.

It's all here: http://www.xyplorer.com/limitations.htm

Donations are always welcome

Posted: **21 Oct 2006 09:53**

allen wrote:Ooh, this is an option I would use. I tend to manually continually purge tabs as I only like to have 3 or 4 open tops -- the fewer that are open, the more readable the tab bar is -- being able to force a limit would be cool. Then just grey it out in the unregistered version.

For example, I have two tabs always locked and open -- a flat list of all shortcuts in my start menu for quick acess to all applications and "My Documents" (home locked). These two tabs make accessing all my frequently used stuff a real breeze. Setting the limit at 4, I could maintain that I have two tabs for easy back and forth movement (2 pane style ) while keeping it from getting cluttered with multiple tabs as I some times do. (Launching a new location from either locked tab makes a new tab, if I'm not paying attention they can really add up!)

Edit: Regarding after-expiration nagging, I don't think a simple nag is anywhere near sufficient. Totally crippling the application may be a bit much, enough to anger and drive off customers, but there needs to be a real compelling reason to register. Obviously not for all of us, but how many people do you know who paid for Winzip back when it could be used unlimited without paying? How about mIRC -- even the US Government uses it within their comms systems -- UNREGISTERED. Why? They can. Even if the bottom line isn't money, why bother to fill out a page or two of information when you can just click once and dismiss the nag?

What if, after the trial, the options were disabled. You can use it in full as you last configured it but beyond that you can't edit your settings again without registering (or getting your hands dirty in the ini). Or maybe disable other features that are more matters of convenience than absolute necessity -- color filters, favorites, individual list management, etc.

(For the record, I purchased both winzip and mIRC back in the day -- I've never met another registered user of either program but many, many, many who have used each for years -- not even noticing the nag. Nagging is -not- enough. Even a nag with an annoying numeric countdown may not be enough -- though certainly better than one that can be immediately dismissed.)

I agree!
Also added that max number of tabs option, and BTW, I did register WinZip!

(after standing the countdown nag for 2 years or so; however, I became very angry when the next version did not accept my license key anymore, and the support of course never answered any questions...

)

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 13:26**

FYI, the review poster responded to my counter review. The bottom line, ignoring all other merits, is that (apparently) if you don't have 2 panes you are not a file explorer worth its salt.

I only have to say two product's names and their prices:
Total Commander, 34$
Frigate, 39$

XYplorer may have some good points, but the fact that it doesn't have side by side panels makes it like a one-wheel vehicle reaching 400mph...that doesn't sound too easy to drive, isn't it?

This is my opinion about the program and I don't have to adjust this rating, because this is what I still think about this program, and maybe in the future I'll have a side by side review of file managers to include XYplorer too...

I suppose if he doesn't mind giving a program a generally good review, then inconsistently horrible score based on one feature . . . what can you do? Personally, I wouldn't want to go 400 miles an hour on a 2 wheel vehicle any more than I would on a one wheeled vehicle -- but generally speaking, I don't often see high speed file manager collissions. If I'm goign to be going 400mph in anything, though, I want the biggest window possible -- not a bunch of little ones with blindspots :)

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 14:25**

allen wrote:FYI, the review poster responded to my counter review. ...

Just saw, it was his 2nd ever review, that might excuse him...

http://www.softpedia.com/progViewUserRe ... 70425.html

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 14:48**

As a fellow dual-pane-freak, I have to say his review was shockingly bad.

If I was reviewing XYplorer I'd give it FULL marks because I recognise that for a single pane tool it is easily the best, most feature-rich and frequently updated/supported tool out there.

I've been watching with great interest your daily beta releases - now if I could just have dual-pane with all these other nice features you've got I'd be in heaven!!!

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 15:12**

j_c_hallgren wrote:I could accept as a substitute having two tabs visible together, even if the tree was single and reposition based on which tab was 'active'...

Had posted this early in this thread...any comments on this idea?

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 15:40**

j_c_hallgren wrote:
j_c_hallgren wrote:I could accept as a substitute having two tabs visible together, even if the tree was single and reposition based on which tab was 'active'...
Had posted this early in this thread...any comments on this idea?

If this was do-able it would be a great compromise offering the best of both worlds maybe - I'd certainly be willing to test it out for daily use.

Single-pane-freaks stay as they are... dual-pane-freaks get their 2 open cupboards as per my analogy I posted

This would allow you to easily implement the TotalCommander "Compare Files" and the "Mark newer, hide same files" functionality as you NEED two panes to have such a great feature.

If this works then you'd also have another sale

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 15:51**

Forgot to say that to make this work, when in this proposed dual-tab mode, blocking the use of the Info Panel might be required (due to horizontal screen space needed)....and I'd be comfortable with this as I could envision having user select which two tabs to show together and thus could have another tab(s) in single mode that point to same location(s) that would be able to have IP open...

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 20:17**

j_c_hallgren wrote:
j_c_hallgren wrote:I could accept as a substitute having two tabs visible together, even if the tree was single and reposition based on which tab was 'active'...
Had posted this early in this thread...any comments on this idea?

Sounds like dualpane to me. Even worse, dualpane + tree. My monitor says "no".

Posted: **23 Oct 2006 23:52**

admin wrote:
j_c_hallgren wrote:
j_c_hallgren wrote:I could accept as a substitute having two tabs visible together, even if the tree was single and reposition based on which tab was 'active'...
Had posted this early in this thread...any comments on this idea?
Sounds like dualpane to me. Even worse, dualpane + tree. My monitor says "no".

My monitor says "Yep, it's ok."

XYplorer Beta Club

Reviewed by dual pane freak

Re: Reviewed by dual pane freak

Re: Reviewed by dual pane freak

Re: Reviewed by dual pane freak

Re: Reviewed by dual pane freak