Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Directory Opus 9
Innuendo:
When DC first offered Directory Opus with a 50% discount I was the first to warn that this product is very expensive when it comes to upgrade fees & the authors are very quick to take offense if anyone even begins to insinuate that they may be charging even a nickel too much for their program or its upgrades.
I won't fault Mr. Potter for his pricing tactics. The best way to become a success is to charge as much as the market will bear for your product & his market seems to be doing very well. It's just a little too expensive for my tastes is all. If he were head & shoulders above the competition it'd be an easier pill to swallow.
However, with viable (cheaper) alternatives out there such as Total Commander, Directory Opus becomes less of a must-have. If one works within archives a lot (7z, ARC, RAR, ISO, LHA, etc) then Total Commander totally obliterates Directory Opus. At least in that area anyway. Total Commander & Directory Opus have different design philosophies, though, so each has different sets of strengths and weaknesses.
For the money, dollar for dollar (or whatever your country's equivalent unit of measurement is) Total Commander is the better deal. For less than the cost of one version of Directory Opus, you get a lifetime license for Total Commander that entitles you to free upgrades forever. No one can say the author, Mr. Ghisler, is slacking off due to a lack of regular income, either. The new v7 that is in release candidate status right now is a hugely anticipated upgrade with tons of new features that has literally been years in the making. It, too, will be available free of charge to anyone who has ever bought a Total Commander license...even if you were one of the ones who bought a $10 v1 license way back in the day.
If one widens the scope from file managers, one could also look at the binary file usenet downloading program Newsbin Pro to see another very successful lifetime license story. Version 5 just came out a few months ago and it was totally rewritten from the ground up being optimized and tons of new features added. Again, this new version (and all future versions) are free to anyone who ever bought a Newsbin Pro license.
There are other examples, but I think my point has been made. Do not mistake this post as any indication I wish ill of Mr. Potter. Quite the contrary, I am one of his oldest fans. At the risk of making myself sound geezerly I'll say that I was a proud owner of Directory Opus v1 on the Amiga. Directory Opus was one of the best file managers on the Amiga & it is one of the best file managers on the PC.
Until the number of plugins reaches near the number that are available for Total Commander then Directory Opus is going to be extremely lacking in specific areas. I'm sure the plugins will come in time. Right now I'd settle for more archive file formats being supported.
Speaking of such, read-write capability for RAR files is something that just unfortunately is not going to happen for any file manager (at least not in a legal fashion). RAR's author/inventor will gladly license the read api, but staunchly refuses to let anyone besides himself market programs that can write RARs.
MrCrispy:
Why would someone want to create RAR files? In my experience the majority of rar archives come from p2p sources and its the preferred format of the 'scene', but you hardly ever see it for mainstream downloads. The savings over free formats like zip/7zip are far outweighed by the universal zip support built into nearly every OS and utility on the planet. I can safely send zip content to anyone and be sure they'll be able to open it. </end off tangent rant>
AbteriX:
Hi Leo,
may i ask you here a question instead of the DO Forum?
Related to this posts :
http://resource.dopus.com/viewtopic.php?p=19878&sid=23be236653daf93fc4dab6c1e65e2654#19878
[...]
* USB key export is a separate Licence and EACH physical key requires a separate export Licence at AUD$10 each.
If you lose you USB key you will need to write us a pleading letter:)-greg GPSoftware
--- End quote ---
> If I upgrade my USB thumb drive from a 1gb to a 4gb [...], do I need to purchase a new USB license [...]-djeaton3162
--- End quote ---
> in this case you can re-use your licence.-greg GPSoftware
--- End quote ---
Now my question:
I don't understood > in this case you can re-use your licence.
So is this licence in any way ""hardware bundled"", i mean, can i us DOpus today on this USB device and tomorrow on an another...
.. or must i always eMail GPSoft to update the licence?
I think about buying DOpus but i use different USB-Sticks (some day an stick, but sometimes an little USB-Drive instead,... only used by me one after another)
Thank you if you can ask this for me.
.
---
Edit
FYI Leo,
Your link to the fully-featured text editor as seen at Getting to know Directory Opus is not valid any more.
Did you have an other link please?
Innuendo:
MrCrispy,
Sure the zip format is convenient and widespread, but the choice of archive format goes beyond just compression. While RAR offers modestly better compression than ZIP the main reason I use it is far superior error-correction and repair capabilities if somewhere down the line my archive has become corrupted.
My rule of thumb is for quick and dirty packaging and emailing something ZIP is fine, but if I want something to stay in an archive an extended amount of time on my hard drive then I use the far more robust RAR format. I have lost some archives over the years to the ZIP format so I shy away from using it for long-term storage.
Innuendo:
Abterix,
I think what the Directory Opus web site is telling you is that if you lose your serial number that unlocks USB functionality in the program, be prepared to beg the authors for it to be re-issued to you. (Which doesn't make sense to me. As long as you can prove you purchased it I don't see why you would have to 'beg' for something you legally own).
Now if you have USB functionality & you were using it on a 1GB usb drive and later decided to buy a new 4GB (or whatever) usb drive you are within your rights to transfer the program from the old usb drive to the new one without having to re-purchase anything.
I'm going to be watching DO9 closely. The USB functionality & the clever ways of getting around UAC are exciting features. I can't wait for the 27th.
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