Lagi Pittas wrote:
> Richard
>
> You totally missed my point.
It seems we missed each other's points. Mine was about ROI.
> First off if the website is taking 24 hours of the developers time
> then there is a problem. I went on the main site and there was a link
> to the documentation yesterday - and guess what page not found...
Requiring me to guess unfortunately leaves me at a disadvantage for
helping you: while I have submitted bug reports for broken links as I
come across them in the past, clicking the "API" link in the footer of
the main page takes me to the API page as I would expect.
While link-checking is important, it's also a very separate matter from
this thread about asking the team to take time away from other things to
add their programming tool to lists of tools in the rather different
category of authoring tools (more on that below).
Just the same, of course we want to see good links there so if you come
across broken links in the future please submit a bug report for those.
If the one you referred to here is still present, please consider
offering guidance that would allow the team to fix it and I'll happily
forward that for you.
> But more important is the fact that we all have "day jobs" as in I'm
> self employed but I still scan the web for interesting stuff to do
> with livecode or fox or PDF or Pytghon or whatever.
Many of us do. And when I come across a listing of tools where LiveCode
might be relevant, I find it takes me less time to suggest it to the
site owner than it does for me to write about it here as something for
someone else to do.
Moreover, nominations to any such list will carry more weight when they
come from happy users, rather than from the vendor directly where
they're often seen as just cheap attempts to get free advertising.
All SERPs can be useful, but organic SERPs are the ones worth pursuing.
> I would suggest that instead of looking at dancing cats - i'm being
> facetious here - just take a little time out to do what Richmond and
> others did.
Rather than post to this list about something simple I want to see
happen, I'll often just do it. Saves everyone time, including me.
> Here's a suggestion why don't RR hire one of these virtual assistants
> that cost maybe $400 or $500 a month (it's not peanuts when a house
> costs less than $15000 in the Philipines - so we are not using slave
> labour) and give him the task of spreading the word full time 50 of
> us paying $10 a month would do that and we save time arguing what
> should be done - Im sure these last 2 postings have cost both of us
> more than $10 in time.
The LiveCode forums are spammed daily by "mechanical turks" hired to do
that sort of thing for other companies.
To make sure such listings are relevant requires good knowledge of what
LiveCode is, and what it isn't, and the ability to tailor descriptions
well for the specific target venue.
I tend to use LC for a wide range of UI-related graphics work, as well
as for charts, user journey maps, and other basic illustration tasks.
But if I were to submit it to every list of drawing tools I come across
I'd only annoy the site owners and disappoint those who download
LiveCode expecting something other than an excellent multi-platform GUI
app dev kit.
LC is closer to authoring tools than to drawing tools, but
out-of-the-box it's not quite the same thing.
That's a bigger discussion than I have time for this morning, but
perhaps the best way to appreciate how authoring tools like Adobe
Captivate distinguish themselves from development tools it may be
helpful to look at some of those distinctive features, which often include:
- Thumbnail views
- Ways to link views
- Media import and integration
- Presentation templates
- Assessment templates
- LMS integration
All of those things can be built in LiveCode, and even in Microsoft
Visual Studio, Delphi, XCode, and a wide range of other development tools.
But in a development tool you'll need to program them yourself, while an
authoring tool is a software in which its programmers have already
delivered those features in a GUI.
Some authoring tools provide a scripting language, but even when they do
the successful ones offer it as an option, with critical-path authoring
tasks well supported in the provided GUI.
A big part of the xTalk work I've been doing for clients over the
decades has been crafting authoring add-ons for the development tool.
In each case the client has an established presentation appearance and
flow in mind, and we build combinations of templates and tools to make
production of interactive media for those flows much easier.
With this experience I know firsthand how excellent a fit xTalks are for
supporting authoring needs. And LiveCode is arguably the most capable
of all, certainly offers the broadest platform coverage.
But many of the features that distinguish authoring tools are not
included in the out-of-the-box experience in most development tools, not
even our favorite one.
We can change that, of course. LiveCode is quite flexible, and offers
an excellent foundation for building many things.
One useful step in that direction is a community project in the EDU
Outreach forum for assembling stacks that make the experience of
developing software with LiveCode a bit closer to an authoring experience.
> I totally agree with you on your main point that we can all get more
> money but we can never get back our time - $500 a month to get the
> word out, when RR is "in the best financial position in this decade",
> come on now something doesn't add up - I would suggest no thinking
> outside the box in marketing. Nothing need be put further back in the
> queue.
Being able to solidly move their development efforts forward does not
necessarily equate to having piles of unused cash floating around.
When prioritizing any activities for any business within the practical
confines of our finite world, any good manager will consider opportunity
cost:
- From which current initiatives would you recommend they pull that
$500 to cover the cost of this proposal?
- And to guide future prioritization, what metrics would you suggest
for assessing ROI relative to the tasks set aside?
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
____________________________________________________________________
ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
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