Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: New PDF editor: FlexiPDF from SoftMaker

« on: October 07, 2017, 07:30 PM »

Hey, Curt. I thought $24.99 was an outstanding price - kudos to you for finding an even better deal 

2

General Software Discussion / Re: New PDF editor: FlexiPDF from SoftMaker

« on: October 06, 2017, 08:37 PM »

Ashampoo PDF Pro seems to be a rebadged version of FlexiPDF. You can get it today with 71% off the usual price: Ashampoo 18th anniversary sale.

3

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: FileSearchy Beta - Quick file search utility (freeware)

« on: December 18, 2013, 07:11 AM »

I have several directories on my USB stick with a large amount of files (tens of thousands) that are of no relevance for indexing purposes. These include my email client (which stores attachments as numbered files) and some reference apps (which store their data in numbered HTML files).

4

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: FileSearchy Beta - Quick file search utility (freeware)

« on: December 13, 2013, 07:01 PM »

I have found it stable. It would be nice to have an additional option to exclude certain folders (plus subfolders) from indexing.

5

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New program: FileSearchy Beta - Quick file search utility (freeware)

« on: December 10, 2013, 01:27 AM »

I am running this from a USB stick for the purpose of finding files on my 32 Gb stick. It makes a very nice portable app.

6

General Software Discussion / Re: List all subfolders on multiple drives to text of csv

« on: August 30, 2013, 09:52 PM »

@ krksoft - impressive; is there a discount available to DonationCoders?

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General Software Discussion / Re: List all subfolders on multiple drives to text of csv

« on: August 30, 2013, 01:12 AM »

@ rjbull, FileLocator Pro can in fact handle multiple drives in a single pass

8

General Software Discussion / Re: List all subfolders on multiple drives to text of csv

« on: August 29, 2013, 07:37 AM »

FileLocator Pro can handle this task. Maybe also the freeware version FileLocator Lite (aka Agent Ransack).

9

General Software Discussion / Re: Similar program to automation anywhere (integration software)

« on: August 28, 2013, 08:59 PM »

I have used AHK a lot but more recently I favour Quick Macros, which is a very powerful tool with low resource usage. Reasonably low cost and highly recommended.

10

Mini-Reviews by Members / Mini review of Helpinator 3.10

« on: March 23, 2013, 07:32 AM »

Basic Info

App Name	Helpinator
App URL	http://www.helpinator.com
App Version Reviewed	3.1
Test System Specs	Win 7 SP1 on Intel i3 with 3Gb RAM
Supported OSes	Win XP/Vista/7 - at least 1GB of RAM with 50Mb free on hard drive.
Support Methods	Email or open a ticket at online support center
Upgrade Policy	Free updates for 1 year; 50% discount to latest version thereafter
Trial Version Available?	Unlimited trial version with 14 day expiry. Trial version does include some shareware nag dialogs.
Pricing Scheme	Single license $249; Lifetime license $499; 1 month license $29; 6 month license $99. Discounts are offered periodically on the product blog at http://www.helpinator.com/blog or at Bits du Jour
Author Donation Link	Donations not sought
Screencast Video URL	http://www.helpinator.com/tutorial.html
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	I am a current license holder of 2 similar apps (HelpSmith and Help & Manual) and have trialled Helpinator at length. The author does offer a free lifetime license for a bona fide review.

Intro:

Helpinator is a help authoring tool, which can create multiple formats of help from a single source. It includes a WYSIWIG editor with support for styles. Help projects can be customized using templates, variables and multilanguage localization. There is built-in management of project images.



Who is this app designed for:

The app is suitable for anyone producing technical help but could also be used for general in-house documentation (e.g., publishing policies and protocols over an intranet).

The Good

The key benefits include:
• Wide range of output formats - CHM, RTF, PDF, WebHelp, QtHelp, OracleHelp, JavaHelp, HelpGUI, EPUB, MOBI
• Help projects can be published to a WordPress site - topics are created online as pages
• Choice of single-file source (ZIP compatible) or single folder source (friendly for VCS version control)
• Project templates can be edited within the program
• Special feature for easy creation of step-by-step guides using a series of screenshots or other images
• Built-in management of images with screenshot tool and image editor; text and code snippets (with syntax highlighting) can also be managed within the program. The app includes a full-featured RTF editor based on TRichView.
• Automatic resizing of images for PDF output.
• Multilanguage support from a single source
• Conditional compilation based on project variables
• The app is stable and very responsive

The needs improvement section

There are some minor areas in need of improvement:
• The range of HTML-based templates is relatively small
• Use of templates could be more intuitive; error messages could be more specific in this respect
• The author includes his own help output format, which has been designed for use with Delphi. However,  no guidance is included on how to implement it.

Why I think you should use this product

Helpinator has several advantages. The most notable are the wide range of output formats, ease of creation of step-by-guide guides, and multilanguage support.

How does it compare to similar apps

Given the advantages noted above, the app is realistically priced when compared to similar programs such as HelpSmith and Help & Manual. This category of apps is relatively expensive, but periodic discounts are available for Helpinator. Online activation is not required.

Conclusions

Overall, Helpinator is a worthwhile alternative to other web authoring tools, with a number of useful advantages. For anyone considering such a tool, it should be in the shortlist of candidates.

Links to other reviews of this application

• Review on NeoSoft forum

11

General Software Discussion / Re: Good Multi-account (GMAIL included) email notifier

« on: April 02, 2012, 06:53 PM »

Pop Peeper is the hands-down winner in this category - www.poppeeper.com

12

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of an alternative to InfoSelect ...

« on: June 13, 2011, 07:45 AM »

I am a longtime IS user. At present I rely on IS 2007, which I run from USB (works well). However, with the advent of IS 10 I have been looking elsewhere, and recently came across another contender:

Smereka TreeProjects

Really quite impressive!

13

General Software Discussion / Re: What's on your flash drive?

« on: December 04, 2008, 04:25 AM »

7-zip
archivarius
autohotkey
axcrypt
beyond compare
calendarscope
charprobe
clipmate
csved
dbf viewer pro
dida html editor
emeditor      
evernote
find + run robot
fast explorer
faststone capture
faststone viewer
filebox extender
filelocator pro
firefox portable
flash renamer
flashfxp
fly help
form letter machine
free download manager
greatnews
irfanview
iyf
linkstash
listpro
local website archive
mynoteskeeper
nexusfont
notetab pro
notezilla
pagefour
pdfxchange viewer
pidgin
pop peeper
portable start menu
pspad
qlock
roboform
super flexible file synchronizer
softmaker office 2008
starter
the bat private disk
the bat voyager
visual dialog script
visual site designer   
vlc media player
vopt
website watcher
wordtabs
wordweb
xyplorer
zulupad

14

General Software Discussion / Re: phraseexpress: how does it work?

« on: November 18, 2008, 02:15 AM »

AutoHotkey misses support for formatted text, the AutoHotkey "user interface" is like vomit, it is tedious to add new snippets, it does not allow to assign multiple text strings to one single abbreviation. AutoHotkey also does not allow to group phrases in categories and you can't limit Autotexts to a specific programs. It also cannot import your AutoCorrect entries you created in Microsoft Word.

-Merida (November 16, 2008, 09:42 AM)

Merida, these comments suggest that you have only scratched the surface of AutoHotkey. Many (?most) DonationCoder.com regulars would not find the programming involved particularly difficult. I concede that AHK does not support formatted text or import from MS Word. However, the user interface is infinitely flexible. For example, I edit autotext entries using PSPad, which is called up instantly with a AHK hotkey. Phrases can be grouped in categories using simple menus, which can also accomodate multiple text strings off a single abbreviation. Limiting autotext to a specific program is also simple. Why have not have another look, starting at:
AHK hotstrings and auto-replace
If you get stuck with AHK the user community is incredibly helpful. By contrast PhraseExpress has no user community as such, just a technical support forum which has fewer entries in a month than AHK often gets in a day:
PhraseExpress forum

By the way, I'm guessing you are someone who has a system tray full of utilities that do different things. Much neater to get into AHK and have 'one ring to rule them all'!

15

General Software Discussion / Re: phraseexpress: how does it work?

« on: November 12, 2008, 08:49 PM »

I used to use PhraseExpress but now use AutoHotkey, which is much more powerful. It has a large and active user forum. In addition it is free! If your prime interest is autocomplete look here:

AHK autocomplete

16

General Software Discussion / Re: DoyleSoft Knowledge Base - scamware marketed with zeal

« on: August 23, 2008, 07:41 PM »

DoyleSoft, thanks for your reply. I must concede that there is nothing to stop you from taking some freely available code, modifying it and calling it your own. In fact I notice you did the same thing with DoyleSoft Basic, which was based on the obsolete program called KiDev K++ by Kinex. You later abandoned that because you felt you didn't have "the resources or ability to maintain it and fix its bugs", as discussed at http://codecraft.pro...splay&thread=368. Interestingly you never informed Kinex about DoyleSoft Basic, which would have been simple courtesy at the very least.

Returning to DoyleSoft Knowlege Base, I struggle with your claim that you have been continuously developing the product for six years. As someone else already noted above, you state that this process began in 2004 which is only 4 years ago! More importantly, the product still contains very basic flaws, which are amply described in reviews such as http://www.bladedtho...wledge-base-v2-4b74/ and in comments at http://www.giveawayo...com/forums/topic/960.

17

General Software Discussion / Re: DoyleSoft Knowledge Base - scamware marketed with zeal

« on: August 16, 2008, 10:17 PM »

Thanks for the blog link. Nice to see the author is a good family man, although it would be even better if he applied some family values to his software!

I also enjoyed the irony of the fact that he uses the following quote on his blog:

"No matter how much frosting you apply to a pile of crap, you still won't have a yummy tasting cake." - Paul Toone

18

General Software Discussion / DoyleSoft Knowledge Base - scamware marketed with zeal

« on: August 16, 2008, 07:33 PM »

DoyleSoft Knowledge Base was promoted last week on Bits du Jour. The author's description at http://doylesoft.com includes the following: 'We pioneered the world's easiest to use Knowledge Base software. The peace of mind a Knowledge Base program can bring you may be more affordable than you might think...With my background in software development and optimization, I released Version 1 of DoyleSoft Knowledge Base early in 2004. Since then I have been continually improving DoyleSoft Knowledge Base with the help of feedback from an increasing number of enthusiastic users. Six years later, DoyleSoft Knowledge Base is still the world's easiest to use knowledge base, period.'

In fact this software was on Giveaway of the Day last year and was exposed there as a crude ripoff of a free VB demo by Andrew Park. See http://www.giveawayo...com/forums/topic/960 for more details. The program has several basic bugs and even a brief trial by Bits du Jour staff would have shown it to be unsuitable for promotion.

A quick Google search shows that the author is hyperactive in promoting this scamware all over the net - normally $79.95! It is probably a depressing reminder that marketing a dud piece of software with zeal is more lucrative than toiling with love over a well programmed app and then not putting a lot of effort into selling it.

19

Living Room / Re: Registry hack needed: Full date in the tray clock

« on: May 16, 2008, 07:55 PM »

Have tried the above mentioned but a better solution is 1st clock from:

http://www.1stclock.com

Sadly it is not freeware and arguably quite pricey for a relatively minor desktop refinement.