OSA Kit ver 2.0 and upgrade value?

[sphinx]

Hi everyone,

I am going to release version 2.0 of OSA Kit and it has new features like :
1- You can display your own picture/image for the splash/loading screen.
2- you can edit the 'Loading...please wait' text and you can change the position and font of it or you can even delete it.
3- change the position, height and colors of the progress bar.
4- build single EXE file of your game and media with the new and enhanced OSA Package Maker.

According to this and As you may all know I have to pay fee to sign the ActiveX for another year and notify my customers to use the new signed ActiveX (not neccessairly the version 2.0 I can sign the old one too) unless they issue thier own certificate :

Should I ask for an upgrade fee from people who purchased it? and how much if yes?

Also I am thinking of offering a free version of OSAKit (not sure though) but this version will display a message box stating that this is a free version of the OSA Kit and a 'Powered by OSA Kit' displayed on top of the splash screen. What do you think of this? will that help or harm?

Any ideas you have for enhancing the OSA Kit more would be great!

Thanks in advance,

[ChilledOut]

This may be included in the "new and enhanced OSA Package Maker", but I would love it if you added the ability to recursively add folders to the package and/or have a command line interface for it.

[illume]

This may be included in the "new and enhanced OSA Package Maker", but I would love it if you added the ability to recursively add folders to the package and/or have a command line interface for it.

A little off topic...

...an easy way to do recursive file listings is with the find command. Useful for making file lists for programs that don't support recursion...

find -name \* > filelist.txt

For windows find is in cygwin, msys, and you can also get it in the native unix tools here:
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/

[sphinx]

This may be included in the "new and enhanced OSA Package Maker", but I would love it if you added the ability to recursively add folders to the package and/or have a command line interface for it.

The new package maker is actually a self extractor exe so you will build your zip file with any program you like and pass it to OSA Package Maker and it will generate a OSA file for you.


Now, back to topic please, any suggestions?

[BinaryMoon]

The biggest, most obvious suggestion is dropping vb in favor of something that doesn't require additional downloads. It's because of the need to download the vb runtimes that I didn't buy the first version.

I know you've mentioned rewriting it in something else in the past so I'm hoping this is going in :)

Also you mention buying the certificate. Would you do a cheaper version that people can sign with their own certificate?

Something else I've just though of - a possible security concern. What is there to stop people downloading the activex from someone elses site and then using it on their own? Do you tie it to a domain maybe? I would have thought it would be very easy to download and use malicously (install viruses etc). Maybe your packer could do something that needs to be recognised by the control so that you can only load packed exe's, which would limit the functionality to registered users.

[sphinx]

The biggest, most obvious suggestion is dropping vb in favor of something that doesn't require additional downloads. It's because of the need to download the vb runtimes that I didn't buy the first version.

I know you've mentioned rewriting it in something else in the past so I'm hoping this is going in

I think the VB runtime is not a problem especially with users using Windows XP! and there is two edition of OSA Kit :

* One WITHOUT VB runtime embdded (pros: Only 19KB , cons : 3 messege boxes will appear and they are certificate, VB runtime, Microsoft Socket control and that's only once for each user. Also if the user has VB runtime then only a messege box appear but no download actually happens)

* One WITH VB runtime embdded (pros: Only one message box will appear , cons : bigger file to download but bear in mind it only needed once and that's if and only if the user does not already have it)


Also you mention buying the certificate. Would you do a cheaper version that people can sign with their own certificate?
Good one and I will consider it fo sure.

Something else I've just though of - a possible security concern. What is there to stop people downloading the activex from someone elses site and then using it on their own? Do you tie it to a domain maybe? I would have thought it would be very easy to download and use malicously (install viruses etc). Maybe your packer could do something that needs to be recognised by the control so that you can only load packed exe's, which would limit the functionality to registered users.
What will prevent a registered user to do nasty things with it?!

[BinaryMoon]

What will prevent a registered user to do nasty things with it?!

Nothing, but I would have thought people who pay for your software are less likely to use it malicously.

I think the VB runtime is not a problem especially with users using Windows XP!

I use windows xp and had to download the runtimes the first time I tried your plugin. It's an extra barrier to entry that wouldn't exist if it was re written. I realise this is a lot more work but it's also at least one less sale.