Custom work, willing to share?

hpl123

Hi all,
When it comes to custom development, if you have bought features etc, please share info (if you can) and we (interested users) could possible pay you for it to help you get some of the money back.
Thanks

intra

You know.. this could be a good time to make up an AwareIM community feature database (kinda like kickstarter) where we login and put up suggestions and see if anyone else wants the same paid additions.

Splitting costs makes sense if other people want the same features.

customaware

Top idea Pete.

I'm in.

Lets start with a STRTOKEN suite of functions.

Cheers,
Mark

intra

Since i tend to do ALOT of string manipulations I've found that INDEX_OF only takes into account the first occurrence of a particular delimiter.

Example: THE01_03_443_342321

Currently to break down all the segments into separate attributes, i use INDEX_OF and then the string and write it back into another attribute and keep truncating the results until each segment comes out.

Its painful..

After talking to support, they are willing to help by adding another parameter into the INDEX_OF so we can tell the function which delimiter instance to use.

SO it could work out to be like this in future

Substring(String,INDEX_OF('',String,2), INDEX_OF('',String,3)) which should cut out "443"

Cost: $100

hpl123

Good idea Intra,
I have thought about this to. I thought about creating a kind of appstore for Aware IM BUT with different code/features. A codestore. The codestore should have the functionality to support different modules and the modules module should have different options for us users.

1: Code/features/modules that either Awaresoft has developed (which is not part of the AIM core features) or that users has developed (self or together with Awaresoft). Users can download free code/features or pay for premium ones. This way Awaresoft or the users that has payed for custom work can "sell" these features and get some of the money back.

2: Feature request system (FRS). The FRS should have options to support posting feature requests and letting us the users a) vote on most wanted features , and , b) support funds raising for specific features

3: ?

The details of how the codestore should/could work is another question.

hpl123

Another thought is to create a premium program where members pay say 10USD monthly and these funds go into a development account and Awaresoft continually develops different custom features. The features developed could be prioritized through a vote system. All members in the premium program would get access to these developed features and users not members in the program would have to pay a sum to purchase these features. With enough members the funds would accumulate fairly quickly.

Again details on how this should/could work is another question.

hpl123

hpl123 wrote
users not members in the program would have to pay a sum to purchase these feature

These funds would also go into the development account.

tford

While I have contributed to a couple of special features of AwareIM to be developed, I'm not a fan of this approach taking over the development road map of AwareIM.

During the 6 years I have used the product, the developers behind AwareIM have done an excellent job of continually improving the capabilities that it offers in a very logical fashion. I trust them to continue making improvements in a methodical and logical way in the future.

I (and other users) have invested time contributing our time / intellectual property (sample BSV, answering detailed questions, etc) to help others understand AwareIM via these forums. I'm confident that these contributions have allowed support to focus more of their time on development consistent with their road map. I firmly believe that this help has also been a "contribution" to AwareIM.

When I first began using AwareIM, Pete (pbrad), spent a significant amount of time helping me get my mind around some of the concepts. As a result, I felt compelled to spend time (which is $) helping others on this forum after I had mastered the intricacies of AwareIM.

pbrad

Hi,
I have to agree with Tom. I feel that the AwareIM team develop the application in response to their best feel for what are the generic market demands. So far, I have not been disappointed in their interpretation of where their software should go.

I would not like to see a few parties that only have their own best interests in mind hijack the development path. I have paid for my share of improvements to the software over the years and I don't see a problem with this approach.

Frankly, while I am very glad to see the product continually improve and I feel that this is a requirement in order to stay current with technology and available competitive products. I believe that rampant changes that are pushed on the development team can cause havoc in the testing/release/feedback/bug fixes schedule and might well result in headaches for the average user. I would much prefer that they select their own development pace. In any case, I'm not sure that they would be open to this kind of pressure from the user base.

Just my two cents worth.
Cheers,
Pete

intra

I agree with everything said, like all idea's there's bound to be different sides to the story and pro's and cons.

The idea of an APPSTORE might be a little far fetched at this point in time, my agenda was to see if we could pool our idea's in a co-ordinated fashion and then go to AwareIM support to add it.

AwareIM is a great product, no doubt about it. I've not seen (ever) such rapid response to problems/bugs and features. WELL DONE!

Speaking to support, they are pretty happy about is banding together provided we can get everything into one co-ordinated effort for new features. After all.. what helps us as developers, helps AwareIM.

Synergy.

hpl123

I'm just thinking out loud and i am new to Aware IM and software development for that matter so i trust your judgement when it comes to whats best for Aware IM / development. I am a raving Aware IM fan already and i want whatever is best for Aware IM.
Also when it comes to support, i agree to whats been said here about them being unusually active with help, development etc and thats great!

ACDC

Sorry, I don't agree with Tom or Pbrad. AwareIm have 3 agendas which they advertise on their website.

1 Sell a development Tool
2.Sell their services by developing an application
3.Develop plug-ins etc etc

So to think an increase in sales of anyone of the above is going to affect the development of the core product or take over their development roadmap is just plain crazy and even laughable.
They know exactly what they are doing and if they were to stress on the increase in workload I am sure they would employ more staff.

I am sure a lot of the main features in AwareIm have come from paid developments anyway.

Paid developments ensure a very rich and diverse product and most often other users score big time because they get them for free.

If you are a mainstream developer, the only way of survival is to pay for the feature you need to be added so you can get your product up and get paid.
Wish lists don't really work that well.

So I definitely vote yes for this concept and think its a good idea to participate in some kind of pitching in way.

I have had some success with this concept in the past, but very often find what I may think is a great feature others might not so you end up paying for it anyway.

aware_support

Thanks, everyone, for your input.

We can see where both sides are coming from and we can see valid points in arguments of both sides.

Our position on this is as follows:

1) When customers request minor additions that do not require too much development effort and do not have too much impact on the overall direction of the product, we are quite happy to implement their requests. The usual approach is applied here - if people want their requests implemented as a matter of priority they need to pay for the development.

2) When customers request major features that require a lot of development effort and have significant impact on the product as a whole, we assess each such request on a case-by-case basis. If the request is in line with our understanding of the direction of the product, we are willing to take up the development - either we put it on the roadmap or we increase the development priority if the customer is willing to contribute to the funding of the development.
If, however, the request is very specific to a particular customer and does not improve the product overall, we are very unlikely to take it up (unless we have the resources to do this without jeopardizing everything else)

intra

Index_of improvement was completed with build 1653.

Thanks support.