iebnn

The viewing portion of the FTP would tkae literally 10 minutes to add. I already have a library for it. I think preview abilities are nice. I could have a text preview in there too. I'm trying to think of things I find useful in software I use. It'd just be a modal and scrollable window that opens up when you tap Preview for an image file. I'd popup a modal text viewer for Preview on text files. Etc. Edit on images would open 3rd party image editing software. On text files, DragonEdit.

I'll try to see when the author expects to add SSH. It will be added eventually I think. Could be a while though. I'll also tell the author about how lots of other HTTP solutions already have SSL.

I can't do anything with how the text is displayed unfortunately. I'm using Palm's text field, which isnt very flexible. I never thought about line endings... I believe Palm supports both (since palm natively uses unix style iirc).

I'll try to add as much keyboard support as I can.

I think I'm going to work on getting DragonEdit done, then work on DragonFTP. For now I'll just bundle LFTP with the software (like I've done in the past) and say that DragonFTP is coming soon or something. Or should I hold off on releasing DragonEdit until I get DragonFTP done too...?

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

billegal

The preview function for FTP seems OK. The tie-in to the editor is more important.

If they are two products, release one when done. There is no need to wait unless they can will be ready within a short period of time (a month at most). If they are far apart, I would not mention the FTP product until nearly done with a preview/beta version, particularly if not fully under your control. Before releasing anything, make it clear that the FTP program will be an additional charge/available separately.

One thing I might do is wait until DragonFTP supports SFTP in view of the existing solutions. Here's why:

Pricing could be $14.95 for DragonEDIT (if really powerful, even $19.95 is not unreasonable), $14.95 for DragonFTP ($5 discount for bundle with Edit). That bundle is more than competitive with what is out there, particularly if the integration is useful.

If you wait until DragonFTP with SFTP is ready, that can be $19.95 or even more. There is no competition for that product. I would not discount that much even if in a bundle. If you were feeling generous, a $5 discount is the most I would discount for a bundled solution. $25 to $35 is nothing for a complete solution to someone who can use it.

iebnn

Thanks for all these ideas. I'm not so good at coming up with pricing etc. so this really helps.

One concern is that $15-20 is a lot of money to pay if you're only going to use it as a text editor. And I think that this product could compete very well with other text editors. I can add DOC support in a future version. Also, it will be the only VFS text editor that I know of that can open files larger than ~600kb. But when competitors' editors are $7-13 or so, $15-20 is going to scare off a lot of people I think.

Also, isn't near $40 for an HTML/FTP solution pretty expensive? I think that there are a lot of hobbyists/non-IT people who use PHTML. What about a cheap DragonFTP that comes free with DragonEdit, and a DragonFTP Pro that includes SSH?

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

billegal

Wasn't pEdit like $32? If there is not other editor that can open such large files, who is competing with you?

Again, these people paid $200 or more for an electronic datebook. $40 is nothing, I think, for remote FTP editing with a decent editor. Maybe $35 is the top. The pricing question is something that requires serious study in order to make an informed decision. If you will use Handango, talk to them about it. My opinion is don't compete on price when you have features the others lack. It makes your product seem like a commodity with the other low end products.

Again, I wouldn't fragment the products because everyone should be using SFTP anyway.

iebnn

I'm not going to have SFTP in DragonFTP for a while probably, so I can't change that much for it until I add that functionality.

$40 seems like nothing when you already paid $200 or more, but my product isn't the only one that people use on their Palms. There are still a lot of people who aren't hardcore IT users who use PHTML just for their personal web sites or whatever, and $35-40 would be much too much for them. I know I wouldn't pay that much.

I don't think that there is any editor that can open text files of any size from VFS. Most other editors are DOC editors. SiEd can edit up to around 600KB files off VFS, since it uses all of the heap to store the text. My application only opens a little bit of the text at a time, and stores the entire text in a temporary Palm database. Since my handling of this temp database is exactly like how DOCs are handled, I can easily add DOC support in the future if I can write/obtain code for DOC-specific functions (writing, reading, encryption, compression, etc).

I think DragonEdit has potential for being one of the major players in the text editing market. I just have to keep it professional looking, have good documentation, and good marketing.

For docs, I hate writing manuals. And I never read through them for products. I was thinking of having tip windows come up in each new screen of DragonEdit. It'll give an overview of that screen's interface, how to do some things, etc. You can tap "Don't show this again" to hide that tip window. I'll have an button in Options to unhide all tip windows again. I'll also have help buttons in the top right of the modal dialogs.

As for documentation that is viewed on the PC, I think it will just be a "FAQ" of things that users will want to do but whose method might not be immediately apparent. Like the process for uploading files, etc. And a short overview of the app. I don't want to write a fully comprehensive manual of everything in the application. Do you think this would work and still be helpful? I think it could actually be more helpful than just a manual.

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

billegal

You say that EDIT will come first. Unless you can articulate some clear and beneficial advantages over the other solutions, then I agree, your product cannot command a premium. In that case, charge the same as or less than your competitors.

I guess I'm not clear on what the DragonEDIT advantage is over pHTML. Is it large documents? Is it connectivity? Is it language support? Is it code library support? Is it interface? Is it preview on the Palm?

Connectivity seems critical to me--no one else has it. Make sure the integration with SFTP runs deep. Library support would be good so users could contribute the various language packs this way. Large document support is OK, but really, how many web pages are over 100kB? Would people pay for that? Most people will edit HTML or PHP (runs longer). No one will edit a C file of any length because it is too removed from the compiler.

Which of these features gives the best competitive advantage? What is that advantage worth to the users? That's how I'd determine pricing.

I'm beginning to think that the program rollout should wait until FTP is ready (that's the real advantage) and then SFTP should be a Pro version. The Pro version needs to be at least $10 more than the non-Pro.

$40 is nothing and here's why: Your product will be the only Edit + SFTP combination out there. That is worth a premium.

EDIT alone sounds a lot like the competition. A few of the features you've mentioned might put the price for EDIT alone to $15, but I'm guessing you have better insight into that than I do.

iebnn

Here are some of the main advantages over PHTML off the top of my head:
Improved interface
Hires+ (landscape coming later too)
Large doc support
Find/replace (powerful, regex and etc)
Tag and attribute autocomplete (think Dreamweaver, Homesite)
Full tag database (editable by user), with multiple language support
Better wizards
FULL CSS editor (like Dreamweaver's, it lets you visually edit and add CSS classes etc)
Usable as a general text editor (I'll have an option to show/hide HTML interface elements, not sure how to implement this yet though)
Hires fonts
FTP "favorites" for uploading, and tight integration with DragonFTP
HTTP-get
Better snippets support
Useful Javascript/DHTML built-in snippets
Ability to open as many docs as you have available memory (PHTML was limited to 3)
Integration with online HTML verification scripts

And a bunch more. That's what I can think of for now.

Large doc support is more for people who edit large text files, not just sites. Besides, it's not much more work to support files of any size, if I'm going to support files larger than 32kb (that's the limit for the text field).

Good idea on the language packs. I'll have several translations available too (I have friends who speak other languages fluently)

For now, the main selling points of mine over the competition (other text editors) are:
Large VFS file support (I don't think this has even been done yet)
Very nice find/replace (you'll see when I release the next demo)
Hires+, landscape
Hires fonts

Also, I'll have DOC support in the future. Some apps have some of my unique features, but they lack other features.

DOC editing is outdated. People shouldn't be working with such a proprietary format when everyone has VFS now.

I might be able to wait until I finish the first version of DragonFTP to release DragonEdit. DFTP shouldn't take longer than a few weeks-month to finish. Not including documentation/icons though Then when SFTP support is added, I'll put that in a Pro version, add some other features to the Pro version, and sell that for a lot more (no competition). $20-30.

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

iebnn

No, this project is far from dead...

They said it couldn't be done (er, not really)
They said it would take too long (well, just a long time)

But I've finally finished the large file support for DragonEdit! Just now I opened a 100kb text file off the memory card and browsed around in it

I just have some kinks to work out and then I can get to work on the other features. This was a MAJOR accomplishment that took probably around 50 hours of work, at least. Expect much faster updates now that I have this part of the app pretty much done.

On that note... I need alpha/beta testers. Email me at beta@greendragonsoftware.com if you're interested. Tell me why I should let you beta test DragonEdit. If you qualify and you're helpful with testing, I'll give you a free copy of the finished product.

Thanks!

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

robitaille88

Great work! Congrats!

There's only one thing not mentioned here that I believe would be absolutely nessesary for this program, high-res icon! lol

I would like to suggest/agree that there simply be 2 products, DragonEdit and DragonFTP, release whenever you get them done (which will probably be at different times). I would like to suggest, that once both are on the market, you could bundle them together.

And if the price becomes "too high" then simply continue selling PHTML at a lower price as a Personal version or something.

Thanks for your time

[By the way, I sent you an email]

iebnn

Thanks

I'll definitely have hires icons.. I couldn't do that in the last dev environment I used for PHTML (using HB++ instead now).

I'll think about a bundle. That's for much later though. I think I'll just offer a coupon for the other product when you buy one of them. The non-SFTP version of DragonFTP will be probably somewhere around $7-8, if I can make an SFTP version it will be Pro and will probably be $30-40.

PHTML is going to be cut. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the pricing with DragonEdit, since it's both a text editor (which should be $10-13) and a really powerful HTML editor (which should be $15-17).

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.

billegal

Glad to hear things are progressing. I'm happy to beta test, but I don't have a lot of time right now. I'll PM soon.

vreug

Any chance you can add the ability to open memos from the memopad database?
I used to use Wordsmith and it had the ability to open memos as well as docs. It was convenient not to have to leave one app and open another if I wanted to copy something to or from a memo. I think this could be a useful addition to your text editor!

Wytnucls

Tough to charge for a text editor when VFSi is a multi-volume freeware text editor that can open at least 750kb files (for those that don't know, that's a whole paperback novel), works in Hires+ and Landscape (UX50), comes with a compression engine and a 1024kb Jpeg/Bmp viewer!

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iebnn

Vreug: I'll add this capability, it's very easy. You'll be limited to 4k I think (possibly 32k) with memo files though, but you can Save As into a file on the memory card.

I'll add DOC support too, but that will be the next version (I need to save some things for the future... plus it'll let me get this out quicker)


Wytnucls: VFSi looks nice, I haven't seen it before. I just tried it out, but it was a little difficult to locate online (the link you sent had a dead download url). Its text capabilities are similar to Memo Pad's, and it can only open text files with a .txt extension (not even .c or .htm or anything). DragonEdit does much much more than this Open multiple docs, advanced find/replace features, docs of any size (no other editor does this with VFS text files), etc.

Compare DragonEdit to products like QED, zdocj or SiEd. I can assure you that DragonEdit will contain most if not all the features of these products, plus a lot more. QED goes for around $13 and seems to sell well. The other two are freeware but lacking in features.

Oh, and DragonFTP will have a jpg/bmp/etc? viewer. I may later add one to DragonEdit so you can see what image files look like before you include them in your HTML documents or whatever you want to do.

Oh, and no compression right now. Who wants a compressed text file on a memory card anyway? But I'll have some sort of compression when I add DOC support later on.

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DragonEdit - powerful text, DOC, and HTML editor.