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Wed, 08 Aug 2007 PortAuthority has gotten a terrific review on VersionTracker. And sales are already starting to come in; usually it takes at least a few days before a new release results in sales. It's been a good day, and all this definitely validates the direction I've set for my software. Onward! I've released version 2.3 of PortAuthority today. Apart from being faster, cleaner and more intuitive to use, I think this version represents the final piece of the look-and-feel puzzle that I've been working with for several months: things look familiar, and work in the way you expect. Clicking on something once causes data to display in the standard manner. Entering a term in the search bar and hitting return runs a search query. There should be a lot less adaptation required to use PortAuthority; no more "this looks like a search field, I guess I'll enter text here"; no more "a single click didn't work, I'll try a double-click." I consider this a milestone release, not just for my users, but because what it represents to me in terms of my own growth as a developer. I've pushed hard to learn how to make my applications more usable, more intuitive, more Mac-like. I've gotten a lot of user-feedback, some high-level and some very fine-grained, that has helped me target what changes to make in the look and behavior of the program; and I've learned how to implement those features using the resources of my programming toolkit, Tk. Once I learned exactly what UI behaviors to target, finding (or implementing) the appropriate functionality in Tk wasn't difficult; Tk is rich enough to support these things, as rich as Apple's Cocoa frameworks. I haven't wasted my time in working with Tk; whatever issues my programs have had stem far more from my own limitations, rather than the limitations of my toolkit. It's all about learning and growth: listening to user feedback, researching how to implement what they're asking for, and then getting it right, whether on the first try or through trial and error. It's also about leaning on the expertise of a larger community, finding open-source components when my own skill (or time) is insufficient for a specific feature, and in turn contributing my expertise to that community when I am able to do so. All the work I've done in the past several months streamlining the UI of PortAuthority has not only led to a better program, but a better developer. It's going to be very easy for me to implement the things I've learned in my other programs. And it will also be easy for me to contribute some of the fruits of my work back to an open-source community, in the form of easy-to-use code components. And finally, both users and myself will benefit from this: users, through easier-to-use programs; and myself, through increased sales of software. So: if you use MacPorts, give PortAuthority 2.3 a try. You won't regret it. |
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