Search Results for 'script'

[Steve Cross]

FWIW, I’m all in favor of app developers being able to make enough to sustain (and improve) apps that I use and like. Having said that, some apps (and categories of apps) will inevitably be worth more to me than others. If Apple sticks with a $0.99 per month minimum, a lot will not make the cut. BTW, that is not meant as a warning. Database and other “full-time” productivity apps can and should be worth at least that much. I’m thinking more of occasional usage utility apps, games, etc.

The announcement isn’t very clear (at least to me anyway), but I hope that it is possible to get annual subscriptions instead of just monthly. To me anyway, the psychology is different. I don’t mind paying an annual fee if I’m sure I’m going to use a service at least several times during the year. OTOH, it annoys me to pay monthly during those times that I may not use the service at all.

For example, I still subscribe to a few dead tree magazines even though I know that not all of the monthly issues are likely to appeal to me — but the overall convenience of not missing the good issues makes it worthwhile.

With software, I think the issues are similar. For better or worse, most of us have grown up with the concept of “purchasing” software for a one time fee (in spite of the near ubiquitous “licensed not sold” verbiage in the fine print). Even though the iOS and Mac OS app stores have confused the issue with their “free re-downloads for life” policies, I think most people can understand (and agree with, perhaps grudgingly) the need to pay upgrade fees for additional functionality.

I think an annual fee / annual upgrade cycle makes a lot of sense for software. NO ONE really likes the idea of “software as a service”. Paying a monthly fee simply to “maintain access” is too similar to paying your cable or cell phone bill. Prices seem to creep up, service gets worse, and there is a strong tendency to get “locked-in” because switching is expensive and/or difficult.

OTOH, most software should be upgraded annually — for security at least. For a lot of reasons, it is impractical to add new features on a monthly basis. End-user learning curve issues alone make it a bad idea. In addition, any really significant new functionality (not to mention security issues) often require a non-trivial architecture change — not something that can be safely done every month. There are good reasons that virtually all significant software products have carefully defined release cycles.

Like I said, I don’t have any idea what Apple is going to allow, but I hope they do permit annual billing. If you happen to be attending WWDC, please suggest it if you can. While it is clearly not as “developer-friendly” (or Apple friendly) as a predictable monthly income, I do feel that annual billing will be much more palatable to end-users and thus more successful overall.

[AngriBuddhist]

Yeah, the Subscription session videos will probably be the most watched of all time. I’m not a developer and I’ll be checking them out.

[Brendan]

I think we’ll find more about this when WWDC gets going. For now there are a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t know if the subscription system works by limiting access to the entire app if you’ve unsubscribed or if it’s just that certain features will be limited. I haven’t found out about that yet. If it’s that you subscribe to just using the software and keep paying while you still want to use it, then Apple will probably have some fairly inexpensive price tiers. In that scenario a developer probably doesn’t even need to write very much code or any at all to enable this. It would be something built-in to iOS. If it’s a feature subscription, then I don’t see it as being any different than a recurring in-app purchase. You pay for just those features that you want to keep using. Maybe it reverts back to a form of a Lite version if you don’t keep your subscription active.

Lots of questions, so few answers.

[AngriBuddhist]

Apple just announced a whole new subscription model for the AppStore.

http://daringfireball.net/2016/06/the_new_app_store

Whatever your opinion, this will cause a huge change.

I personally think that most consumers are unwilling to pay a reasonable price for quality software already and that this won’t chase away potential purchases. However, it could possibly convert an amount of them into subscribers, depending on what those 200 different price points are.

This just happened today. I’m not saying that TF should or shouldn’t go the subscription route. These are just my thoughts while I try to digest what it means for me, using Tap Forms as an example.

Tap Forms for iPhone (6S) is something that I use in my personal life. I don’t use it for work all day every day. Tap Forms for iPad, while I love the larger canvas, doesn’t perform well on my Air 1, which is 2 years and 8 months old.

Of course, if I use TF for light personal use, on iPhone only, I wouldn’t ever pay $4.99 a month. Even Apple’s current lowest price of $.99 a month might be too high for my TF usage and it’s current features.

That doesn’t rule out the possibility of me being willing to pay a subscription for TF.

What could be added to TF to justify a higher cost to me? What would it take for me to be willing to pay even $.99 a month? I don’t know. Maybe that will be answered in TF2.

The main question I have when thinking about the AppStore and new subscription model is, are there any monthly price points below $.99? If I can’t be convinced at $.99, is there a $.69 or $.79?

You want to be fair to the developer but also think about what makes sense for yourself financially. Do I want to pay $60 over 5 years for an iPhone app? Will I if I’m convinced of it’s value?

What happens when you unsubscribe? Do you no longer receive updates? Or do you lose all functionality?

Beyond today, will developers be able to fund and make a living off more ambitious pro apps? Or new types of services? Whatever the answers, this will be an interesting next couple of years.

[AngriBuddhist]

Hi Jimmy,

For myself, the random crashes have been things that I couldn’t reproduce.

The most headers that I have in a single form is 8. In the iPad version, I tried “messing about” in a section and closing its header and “messing about” in a section and then closing a different header. Neither caused a crash.

If you can give a more exact number of headers and a more detailed description of messing about, I’d try again to reproduce this on iPhone/iPad.

[fcteacher]

Hi!

I’m completely new to Tap Forms and looking for a solution similar to a very old Applescript workaround I had.

I often take photos that I link to persons in my database. When I want to send them to the printshop, it can happen that an image contains 3 persons, so I need 3 prints (1 for each person).

I once had an Applescript for my PPC database that did the job, but since I had to upgrade, all this is a thing of the past.

My hope is, that I can use Tap Forms to:
1.) Enter all the persons data (=> should be no problem)
2.) Enter the numbers of the fotos (e.g. IMG_1234, IMG_2345, etc.) in a data field (=> should be no problem)
3.) Use those database entrys to automatically link the files to the database (=> no idea if this is possible)
4.) Export the files in a way, where I know how many persons need a print of this file (e.g. labeled folders or files) (=> no idea if this is possible)

I would greatly appreciate any feedback to my pretty complex problem…
Thank you in advance!

[Rebecca Hamilton]

I know this is an old question, but in case you’re still looking, here’s what I did.
I set up a form with photo fields for the views from the envelope. Then, I created a field for each of the following: pattern company, pattern number, pattern description (i.e., shirt,skirt,dress or whatever.), fabric type, yardage, notions, winter, summer, autumn/spring. I created photo fields for the fabric I bought and intend for it, but that’s not really a pattern thing, just a way to keep track of my workflow.

You can create fields for anything you want.

Hope this helps.

[Brendan]

Hey everyone,

I’m getting closer to release of my next major upgrade to Tap Forms and I’d like to get some more beta testers to help out with testing. I’m still a couple months away, but the more people I have testing it out and providing valuable feedback, the better.

Here’s what I need from you before I will consider you as a beta test candidate.

• Send an email to support@tapforms.com requesting beta access.
• You must own a full license to Tap Forms for Mac and iOS already. The more experience you have with the current release the better.
• Let me know how often you use Tap Forms each week.
• You must provide me with bug reports and usability feedback. I’m not looking for feature requests. I have thousands of those already. I just need bug reports. However, if there are novel ways you think Tap Forms can be improved after you see the beta or if the way the beta works doesn’t sit right with you, please don’t hesitate to let me know. I will do my best to make it better before release.
• Email me your Mac(s) hardware UUIDs with a description of the kind of Mac you own. You can get it from the System Information app. Send me the actual text of the UUID, not a screenshot of it. I have a limited number of beta tester device slots, so I can only accommodate a couple of Macs for each beta tester.
• I will grant you access to a private Beta Testers Forum on my website here where I’ll be posting release notes for each build and where you can post bug reports and discuss the beta with other beta testers. You can also email me your feedback directly if you don’t want to post to the private forum.
• Have fun and enjoy helping to make Tap Forms the best data organizer on any platform!

I think you’re really going to love what’s in store!

Thanks!

Brendan

[Brendan]

How wide is the Title & Description field in the multi-column list view? Maybe make it more narrow. If it’s too wide for the printed page, Tap Forms won’t print it.

Do other columns show up if you enable the fields?

Thanks,

Brendan

[David Butenhof]

TapForms can’t import a “raw” Bento database file. You have to Export from Bento and then Import into TapForms.

For very simple isolated forms, you can just export from Bento as a CSV and import that into TapForms. But it’s best to — and for anything complex you need to — export from Bento as a “template”, including all the data, and then use File > Import Bento Template … to import that template into TapForms.

It worked great for most of my Bento data.

The only problem I had was that I’d used Bento Simple Lists for several critical databases to record multiple values; and TapForms can’t import those. After a lot of experimentation and exchanging information on this forum, I worked out a Python script to massage the Bento export into a form that TapForms could handle. It was a messy multi-step process, but it only had to be done once for each of the forms, and then I was blissfully free of Bento.

Welcome to the Light Side, Padawan.

[czuch]

And that will also update the single-column list view too.

Yes but I need to switch views for the single-column list views to update. I’d love to be able to edit using the transcript layout and have the single-column updated dynamically, without having to switch views at all. I think it does make sense for that view to be updated after I click outside the note like you say?

[czuch]

It also seems that there’s another issue: If editing in transcript mode and then switching to Multi-column view the last edit to the text field is lost unless you’ve switched from transcript to Default Layout while still in single-column view.

[czuch]

Hi there,

Using the OS X version (3.5.9) and I usually edit text fields in transcript mode (because it’s annoying to have to open a window just to enter text).
The problem is that the corresponding single-column view text field doesn’t update when I edit text in the transcript, I have to actually close and reopen the Form.

Thanks,

Czuch

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[C F]

As always, you’ve got an answer for everything ;-)

Can I change a text field to a note and not damage/lose the content? Having already imported large blocks of Description as a text field, if I globally change that Description text field to a note will I lose the imported text? If so, how do I migrate it to a note field (I have over 700 records so one by one is not really an option).

Also, can you change both the default formatting and lined paper appearance of notes? Thanks.

[Brendan]

Hi Opi,

You can ask Tap Forms to calculate the Average by selecting Average from the Summary Calculation function on a Number or Calculation field.

There’s no IF statements for non-numeric values. So you can’t have a text value injected into a field based on a comparison. FileMaker has a huge scripting language built-in to it so that’s why they’re able to do advanced stuff like that. I have a basic math parser in Tap Forms that can do some things, but not as much as FileMaker.

An IF statement would look like this:

IF(Price > 100, 1.05, 0.0)

That will return 1.05 if the Price is greater than 100. Otherwise it will return 0.

Thanks!

Brendan