Have we all been blindsided?

http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.11490.0/reminder-aw-price-increase.html

I,m sorry, I meant by the ONE line, slipped into the price announcement!

The version 2.0 will not be released under any free open source licenses.

Could some one PLEASE tell us what that REALLY means?

Sorry if it came as a surprise. It was discussed several times since 2.0 alpha was out in August.

http://www.activewidgets.com/javascript.forum.7409.2/widget-2-0-free-version.html

Alex,
I'm only a week into this, and I didn't see it comming, at all! Nor could I have predictied it.

Could you tell us the your full intentions?

1.) Does this mean, there also will not be code available to test? To use, to discuss? to learn?

2.) Does this mean also that with the 2.0 there will be full documentation?

I surely Don't mind giving you money, for this Beautiful code! (in this case, i'm afraid my own!) Not at all. But having to wade throught this forum to find even the simplest of documentation... is time comsuming at best.
thanks for all you help this week...
my best! its beautiful! But something out of my reach now!

-g

The intention is to sell ActiveWidgets licenses the same way as with any other commercial software library. The license terms will stay the same as with 1.0 -

http://www.activewidgets.com/licenses/developer.htm

What is changing is that I will not release the same code under GPL as I did with version 1.0.

- the library comes with the full source code (as before) and the license allows changing the source code if needed.

- there won't be much new documentation on Feb 8th, but this is the main thing I am starting to work on now (as the code is mostly complete) and I expect much of it done before mid-March.

Alex... I'm a commercial license holder, and I have to say that I think you're doing the right things with and for your business. I have no problem at all paying for an excellent product. I'm certain the documentation will come up to speed soon, as it has in the past for the previous version.

It always annoys me how so many people expect to have free code available... as if your life's mission is to educate them, provide for them and continually, eternally support them in their efforts... for nothing.

EVERYONE.... Stop whining about it. Alex has created a marketable, viable, usable product that works well, looks great and has a market niche that can make him some money. If you don't want to pay for the priviledge of using it, then fine.... at least don't stomp around here like a kid having a tantrum because your lollypop was taken away.

Go Alex! (and by the way, I think you ought to raise your price. If it were my product, I would!)

Yes. I agree with Tim.

This is a great product and really saved me a lot of time.
I learned about this product 2 months ago and AW was just the product I was looking for. It is stable, well documented, and open source. I was able to finish a project I was involved in a lot sooner than scheduled.

I've spent many dollars for different tools and templates for various apps I make. Initially, I was reluctant to use AW because it was free. From past experiences, I learned that free-products lack features, no documentation, and poorly coded. But AW was not. I was convinced that AW has many useful and essential features and will meet my needs. I bought AW rightaway.

Those who have enjoyed this AW for free all these years, well it is time to pay up and help the guy out.

Thank you for your time.

I still can't understand why someone would b1tch about the documentation... I found everything I needed to know in the documentation, and more with the forums (by using the search function)

I've written my own paging, search, filter and advanced search as well as a common grid creator. It allows me to be up and running with a project within a matter of days instead of weeks.

Stop moaning about paying someone to do the hard work FOR you and try doing it yourself. You will soon realise it's easier buying a license!

Can anyone still clarify this question: will there be possible to download and evaluate the 2.0 final or even proceed some code testing under developer license agreement free of charge?

I agree with most of you in the fact that AW is a great tool. I do disagree with "Anon" to the fact that the documentation will guide you to all you need, there are many paths that lead to no where (but Alex has promised complete docs soon). And the forum is rather rudamentary. That is why we set up a true forum at friendsofaw.com. As far as licensing, having version 1.0 being open source, and v2 being commercial is a typical marketing stratedgy. And the price couldn't be better. If you aren't planning on making a profit on your product, use v1, if you need more features and you are planning on selling your end-user application, then the price couldn't be better for you, much better than paying someone to create similar tools from scratch. As far as being able to download when the final is released, I could not say, that would be up to Alex.

Good for Alex trying to make a buck on his hard work. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we can appreciate that.

But as developers, I think we also have a few expectations.

1) With open source software, "you get what you pay for". Everyone loves free or cheap code, but we know we shouldn't expect any docs or support. If there is any available, that's a bonus. But basically in the end "You're on your own!".

2) For commercial software, it changes the game. For a sizeable license fee, we all expect professional documentation, good online assistance, perhaps even a "1-800" number or Tech Support email with prompt response times to our problems.

So as of tomorrow when the the Site Standard Edition gets slapped with a $2,500 pricetag, I'd say AW has made the jump from "Open Source" to "Commerical Software". So putting personal feelings aside (to all the "AW friends" out there), I think everyone that has to pay $2,500 for software should reasonable expect good docs and support. (Can you imagine what expectations one would have if they were paying $10k for the Professional Edition site license??).

v1 = GPL
http://www.activewidgets.com/licenses/gpl.htm

v2 = Commercial
!!!

Enough said. What part of that can't you get?

As far as docs, they are promised to come. I yes, we would expect them to be FULL API specs for commercial licenses. Sounds to me like you are counting your coins before you have your change.

GPL = "no docs? no support? no problem. Didn't cost me a penny"

Commercial = "no docs? no support? WTF? I paid thousands of dollars and a .js file is all I get?"

Tony... what part of that can't you get?

One last thought...

If docs were coming shortly, Alex could have easily hold off on the pirce increase for another week or so until he could roll out the "full package" (software, docs, API specs, etc.).

Instead, Alex made the choice to raise the price now and deal with this (must anticipated) criticism of no "commercial type" docs, forum, support, etc. This shows to me that he doesn't expect these to be ready anytime soon.

But feel free to prove me wrong.

Now I never said it wasn't lacking docs, or that when paying that much money, docs should be a given, but the JS source is some of the cleanest I have seen, and most skilled js programmers could dip into the source and see the calls they need. All comments aside, I feel your anguish and need for these as not all people are JS pros, myself included. Maybe Alex can shed some light, and extinguish this flame baited post with some insight.

Sam,

What form of DOCS are you looking for? Are you demanding that the information be in a Word Doc? Or do you require it to be delivered in PDF format? Are you looking for a book with chapters on "How to create a grid"? And with respect to the missing support that you mentioned above, what type of support are you requiring that you are not currently getting?

And one final question, are you a registered owner of a paid version of 1.0? If not, how do you know you are missing something with support? I am a paid owner of 1.0 and I do not feel support from ActiveWidgets is missing or lacking. I have been developing software for over 20 years and I have purchased many components, programs, etc that have NO SUPPORT AT ALL. I recently purchased a program I really needed and on the purchase page it stated that the program was no longer being supported, that there was no e-mail support, no phone support and the author no longer was answering questions on the forums. I recognized a good product and knew I needed it so I purchased it knowing I could never know anything more about it then I learned from using it. I also recently purchased a $3,000 product from Borland and there was NO documentation, only a help file that is very hard to navigate. Come to think of it, the $2,000 version of Visual Studio didn't come with docs either. Hmmm, seems like a trend here.

I am not saying that the current situation is perfect, and neither is Alex, but I am not expecting to pay my money and have Alex come to my house and teach me how to use the product. I think the only thing missing are small examples of what each method does. There currently is a list of methods for each control on the website right now. I have used the current information to gain a deeper insight as to what the controls can do. So I believe that the current docs could be improved, but they are not that far from being finished. At least as far as my expectations go.

This thread is not very productive :(

Alex owns this product which gives him the right to decide what to deliver, when to deliver and under what terms. He has been very forth coming about the current state of the documentation, short comings in the forum and even the quality of the code with each release.

We are able to evaluate the code for free and decide if it is worth $395 AS IS.

Improving the documentation and examples will further benefit Alex so my guess is that it will eventually be done. But everyone knows what they are buying right now and should consider if it is worth it to them AS IS. If not, then you can look for another product or wait until this product meets your expectations.

I also suspect that many people (not all though) using the free version today do not qualify. Is your product really non commercial AND also being released under the GPL license? For most people it is hard to post that source code.
http://www.activewidgets.com/licenses/gpl.htm

As far as I'm concerned the only change for me is version 2.0 costs $94 more than version 1.0. Version 2.0 is worth more and this is not a big deal.

Now... back to work (everyone please)

Jim,

You ask what kind of docs I'm looking for? Well... Let's take any example on the V2 "control.htm" example.... how about a CHECKBOX.

According to the "reference" on this website, I know how to make a checkbox (http://www.activewidgets.com/ui.checkbox/). But what is the method to tell which boxes are checked? How do I get the values? Is the an onClick function? These aren't out-of-the-ordinary questions either. But the only way I'd know this is to dig thru the unorganized forum or the source code itself. Honestly, for a $2500 product, I'd expect even a basic "javadoc" type API specs. That's not too much to expect.

Next you ask about my licenses. First of all, I'm a web consultant so I have to "sell" my clients on AW since its technically for them. I had my previous client purchase V1, and I was investigating V2 for another project. Quiet honestly, the only thing I have to judge V2 buy is a couple new examples (see my paragraph above on how to use them) and a forum filled with "RC1 bug", "B4 issue", "RC1 not working right". So as of now, V2 is not my recommendation. In my opinion, having compared the same programming using V1 vs. V2 in performance, reliability, and overall value... V1 is still the winner. (assuming you can live without a few bells & whistles with the new controls & edit)

Lastly, I know you are a "friend" of AW. Your loyalty shows. And while Alex has a remarkable niche with AW, let's not get carried away by saying the services and products offered here at $2500 is comparable to what you get with a big-time software vendor. Using your example of Visual Studio, how can you compare this fourm to msdn.microsoft.com? Similarly, I can drive 10 miles to downtown Chicago and attend a free MS walk-thru on Visual Studio and its features. I can download updates to VS automatically on my computer. And so on. For the record, I don't even use VS for most of my clients (Java/Oracle mostly). But the point being is just because you charge "big guy" prices, doesn't mean your a "big guy".

Sam,

I will make this short... by reading your questions about the checkbox, it appears to me that you have not read any of the posts that have been made all over this forum about viewing the examples in the QuickRef directory. These are very well documented and there is a demo devoted to the CheckBox. In that file you will see the answer to your CheckBox questions above:

obj.onControlClicked = function(event) { your code here }
  obj.getControlValue() // if you want to know if it is checked=true or unchecked=false

There is a lot of information in these demo files. Along with the information on the tree structure on the right (3rd and 4th top level items) you can learn almost everything about a control. Sure, it's not all there yet, but it will come.
If there are any other specific questions you have about the controls I will be happy to assist if I know the answer. If not, someone else might know the answer.

Exactly, jim. As I said in my last post:

But the only way I'd know this is to dig thru ... the source code itself.

During development, I found myself having to search from example to example looking for the functionality I needed. And if I didn't find what I needed, does this mean the functionality doesn't exist? Or was it not an example? How would I know with any basic API specs?

For $2,500, I'd expect more answers and less examples.

Sam,

you are absolutely right regarding the lack of documentation and this should be significantly improved during the next 4-6 weeks.

Another topic - Is it ok to release the product which is not 100% perfect? I think it is ok as long as remaining bugs and missing features are not critical and there are enough people to benefit from the release. In this particular case I know of several projects which were completed and tested but could not go to production because AW component did not officially have 'released status'.

Regarding the price - I think whether the price is right is very individual and mostly depends on which features do you really need and if you can get those features elsewere with better price/quality ratio. If Visual Studio has everything you need - there is absolutely no point of looking into small toolkits like ActiveWidgets. But if it does not and the features which are important for you are only available here - then the comparison does not make sense.

Sorry if it ever looked like I am pretending to be the 'big guy' - for me the high price is rather an indication that this is a niche product with small market size. You have to be Dell and ship in large numbers to afford dirty cheap price.

When will V1 licensed customers recieve V2?

Please contact me and I will send you the package.

I would like to say after reading all this. I actually used the alpha code from v2 in a production version and it was released this wasn't grid it was just the tabs. and at that time it was quite obvious with the sample how to use the controls. The grid wasn't quite there with firefox at the time so I worked with the v1 grid where I needed it.

And support I have never needed to contact since the docs have always been fine had a few questions here and there but nothing urgent so I have posted to the forum and gotta say jim has answered most :)

Alex,

You have the right to sell the software.

However, we have the right of:

* feel beetrayed and scammed,
* think that it's not the best of moves,
* pirate the software,
* use open source alternatives.

It's my opinion that you will feel very bad when you'll see your script on IRC or bittorent.

It's also my opinion that we should not sell things that do not exist without a medium, such as ideas, words, music and software.

I'm just happy I didn't have time to devellop too much with this script hence I only loost 1-2 days of work, but some people have lost way more time and they are allowed to be angry with your greedy decision. Judging from your posts this is something that you don't seem to understand.

Good luck and thankx for nothing....

Cris_co,

I agree that you have the right to:

* feel beetrayed and scammed,
* think that it's not the best of moves,
* use open source alternatives.

Of course you don't have the right to
* pirate the software


Alex,

As far as business decisions go... I think it would benefit you and ActiveWidgets to find a way to offer a free trial version. Of course, since the current model involves providing the source I understand how this may be difficult.

I'm extremely glad I found your software about a month ago and was able to evaluate it and make sure it met my needs. Once I confirmed it was what I needed I had no hesitation buying my license. However, if I didn't have this trial benefit I would probably have settled for a lesser solution that did not include Active Widgets. This is because I have evaluated many other products in the past only to find out they did not get the job done so I am now hesitant to buy first.

With your current model I think you risk missing out on new customers who find you through the search engines. You may have to rely (too much) on word of mouth and referrals to get new customers.

You have me as a happy customer and referal.

Good luck as you make this transition.

I'm disappointed. I don't have any code based on ActiveWidgets but I had high hopes for it once it was all debugged. I don't mind that you want to go strictly commercial and your price is reasonable compared to the competition. My problem is that based on how it worked with Firefox as of beta4, I wouldn't buy it. The first thing I tried was the "add delete row.htm" example in the "new" directory. When I click on the grid, the mouse is ignored. I can add and delete rows but the grid doesn't respond to the mouse until after I click on a header or scrollbar. I'm using firebug - a Firefox JavaScript console extension - and it reports a lot of errors. There's a list below.

At this point, I would have to do a lot of testing before I could justify paying any money. Since the code is no longer available. the testing option is gone so for me, this kills it. I can't justify putting any time into it. Maybe in the future, you'll have a debugged version for Firefox along with some evaluation option. If you ever do, let me know and I'll take another look at it. Until then, I wish you good luck.


Error in parsing value for property 'cursor'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Error in parsing value for property 'display'. Declaration dropped.
Error in parsing value for property 'display'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Selector expected. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_background-attachment'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_background-position-y'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_background-position-y'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_height'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_left'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_margin'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_margin-right'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_overflow-x'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_padding'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_padding-bottom'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_position'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property '_width'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property 'box-sizing'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property 'filter'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property 'max-heght'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property 'text-overflow'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)
Unknown property 'word-wrap'. Declaration dropped.aw.css (line 20)

Sorry, I accidently left my name off the above post.

Those are style sheet errors, and not JS errors, they are ignored because Firefox does not support those properties. They have no effect on the AW being displayed.

JS error != CSS error

Tony,

But that doesn't really address Joe's point. Firefox is marketed as a "supported" browser for AW. So whether Joe is having issues with AW.js or AW.css, AW is still causing errors.