Okay, so after months of ignoring this thread, I decided to finally try out SnapSuite because some of the things are actually interesting. Amazing what you find out when you read what the product is.
So I managed to find a link several posts previous to this one. It was hard to find! Not a good thing, if you want people to actually download your program, you need to make the download link easy to find. Even if you're working on new features, you need the latest stable version easily findable and downloadable! I suggest using your forum signature to link to the post/site with the latest version.
I installed it and launched it. First impressions are very important. That's why your user's first thoughts should not be: "WHAT THE SMURF IS THAT?"
Seriously? Six icons that take up half of my screen space? BAD! Those could easily be quarter the size (50%) and still feel a little too large. If you really want me to "Get started quickly with SnapSuite" then you need all of the quicklaunch icons available at a glance. I shouldn't have to scroll to see them all.
I think I know what you're going to say, especially based on some screenshots I've seen here in this thread. "SnapSuite is intended to be viewed fullscreen." Sorry, but with dual 19" monitors, there is hardly a thing I can stand to have maximized anymore. Don't force your preferences on your users.
Also, I noticed that when I hover over some of the icons, no description help bubble things pops up, and actually if I hover over the SnapScreen icon, it takes me directly to the SnapScreen tab without me clicking or anything.
Okay, now that I've finished talking about that, I can actually try out the features of the program.
AppLaunch:
I'm not sure how this is coded in there, but since I only have 3 of the applications installed (Firefox, IE, and Windows Media Player) I'm wondering if these buttons would break if someone were to customize their installation path for any of these programs. Then again, you probably did it the smart way and used registry information or something I have no idea about since I don't do this kind of programming.
EDIT: The FAQ answers this question:
Q: When I try to start a program with AppLaunch, nothing happens. What is the problem?
A: You need to have the program installed in order for it to launch. It also needs to be installed to the default directory.
In my opinion having quicklaunch bars for 7 web browsers is kind of useless. Especially if I only have 2 of them installed. I don't know how feasible this is, but AppLaunch would be much better if you could add entries yourself. Or, perhaps an even better idea, is if there's a way to detect if it's installed or not, just link to the application homepage to download it it if isn't installed already.
I also just noticed that the "Recommend a program to add" and "Help" buttons don't do anything for me. In fact, the Help button doesn't do anything for me on any of the tabs. I haven't tried any of the other buttons in the other tabs yet since I want to go through each section at a time.
Speaking of which... On to the next section!
AutoType:
Once again the buttons and things are too large for the screen:
That means I can't read the instructions. In fact, even if I grudgingly resize the window, it doesn't help anything. How does that make sense?
Okay, so visual problems aside... I can't get this to work. I press F1 and it makes SnapSuite disappear for a split second and then it comes back, but no text is pasted anywhere. I can see that it takes practice, so I figure I'll try clicking the button and clicking in this text box where I'm typing this right now to you. You can see from my screenshots what it should be typing. I'll do it right now:
And.. nothing happens. Actually the first time I did it, it locked up my computer for about 45 seconds. No mouse, no keyboard, no response.
Hi! I'm back. Back from where you might ask? A total system meltdown. After I had finished telling typing out that the AutoType stuff wasn't working, I noticed a giant button at the bottom that says "Clear/Hide your instant message history..."
I clicked it. I noticed an AHK script show up in my tray that said IM history will be cleared in 5 seconds. I clicked back here in anticipation and waited. Then this happened:
What the heck just happened?
NOTICE: POS
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It wrote all that stuff in here. "That was odd," I thought. Then suddenly 5 more AHK icons showed up in my tray. Each one saying IM will be cleared in 5 seconds.
OH SMURF!(Blue because Smurfs are blue)
I rushed my mouse over to try to close them out but was not fast enough. Suddenly everything on my desktop started opening up. A million zillion Windows Explorers opened up, and every couple of seconds another 5 or 8 or 10 AHK icons popped up in the tray again, repeating the process indefinitely. There was nothing I could do but hit the reset button.
And that, my friend, is where I'm going to have to end this little review. I'm afraid of what might happen if I continue to use SnapSuite. I'm fortunate I didn't have any unsaved documents open at the time of that total meltdown. I'm especially dreadful of what could happen in the SystemCare tab.
EDIT:
Okay, I felt it a little unfair to end there after all. While I was flipping through the tabs to see if the Help button did anything in any tab (it doesn't) I noticed some very cool stuff in your Support and About tabs.
Support:
I like how you've used the built in browser (SmartBrowse?) to display the FAQ, SnapSuite Website, etc. What I think is especially cool is how you've got this very thread (and it always goes to the latest post) as one of the Support Tabs. Very good idea!
Very cool!
About:
Pretty much the same thing here. It was a good idea to include info about SnapSuite being a part of the NANY 2008 Coding Challenge (but the image you're using shows a picture of Cody sleeping on Jan 01,
2007)
Then also a cool idea is to once again use the built in browser to show off DonationCoder.com and even the lovable (though currently migrated for Winter) WTFCody.com
That's a nice touch!
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I've been trying to get her to let me format all that crap off her laptop and put some good applications on there, but thus far she's been resistant.