As to your questions about HyperBrowser:
I feel strongly about Freeware software (either with or without the source). I
like to get something for free and I make all of my QL work (programs, writing,
etc) freeware and Open Source. The decision to do this is mine and even if I
wrote a program that I thought was commercial quality, I would think hard about
before making it commercial.
Before I comment I HyperBrowser, let me say that I tried it once, it would not
run, but I may have been the victim of the underscore vs dot file extension.
Before HyperBrowser is commercial, it needs a few things (don't know if they
are there now or not):
- Good Manual
Needs to be good enough to lead the average QLer through install and
running the program.
- Bugs Worked Out
Serious testing needs to be done to make sure that the program
works as advertised and will not die even with a "dumb" user.
- Professionally Looking
The overall feel of the program needs to look professional. Personally
I think new commerical apps should include the Pointer Environment.
As for price, the higher the price, the fewer that will buy it (but the more
money you will make). If pure commerical (through dealers) than 10-20 pounds
is about right. This takes into account dealer markup and mailing costs.
If selling direct, then you can drop that down a few pounds (cutting out dealer
markup).
I'd like to see a Hypertext browser for the QL. I see the need for a good
document browsing system. Dilwyn's "Text Viewer" was a nice try, but it was
not mouse compatible. I'd like to see a browser that lets the user use the
mouse to click on the hyperlinks. In this respect, if it's a good browser, it
would be nice to have all QLer's have access to it. Either as freeware or
fairly inexpensive. To cut costs down, it could be sold in conjection with
other programs (an not sold alone).
Tim Swenson
