omega wrote in said:
That's a key aspect to many of us in defining crippleware. Where menu
items within its interface are rendered dysfunctional. Either greyed,
or worse, launching a "you must buy the pro version" windows.
I don't mind grayed out menu entries as long as the functions they
represent are not "vital" for the main operation of the program in
question. Nag screens is another issue. But to some extent I can live
with them too - if the remainder of the program is "worth it" (cf. my
argument in <about
Sandra, where non-working modules can be avoided. See also Thorsten
Duhn's nice suggestion in
<on how this can be
done with Sandra).
As for FA, I haven't used the new free version my self long enough to
say, only briefly encountered when installing it on a friends
computer. In other words, I don't know how "extensive" those NAG
screens are... I mean - how often will they pop up and how easy are
they triggered or how easy can they be avoided? My immediate
impression was they would pop up when you tried to do simple and
"obvious" stuff, like message sorting...stuff that is hard to remember
to steer clear off. I mean some features you are familiar with and use
every day with other programs (like sort order, as in changing the
file sort order in a file manager, message sort order in e-mail client
and so on), and thus it harder to steer clear off than say features
you hardly ever use (like some modules in a diagnostic utility like
Sandra). In other words, when "normal" behavior, stuff that is kind of
built into you fingers - stuff you do often, triggers NAG screen -
then - it is not only annoying, it is simply not nice - as in
undisclosed ad-ware with pop-up advertisements.
Another difference with Sandra and FA, as far as NAG screen goes, in
Sandra the NAG tells you the modul is not available in this version
and so on, in FA it prompts you with a multiple (three I think) choice
dialog, where one is "yes I want to buy" (or similar) - which If
clicked - I guess(!) will contact their sever or direct you to their
webshop..... Nothing like that in Sandra, it lets you know the feature
is not available in this version, and points you to the help file for
more info if you want it (or something like that - I did not check now
- Sandra is on my other setup)
Or if not, does anyone know at exactly which version the design changed
to the one being described?
Would like to know that too. My guess would be when they merged the
two versions into one (ver. 1.92 I think); one download - one
installer - two versions.
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
