gwgan writes...

The ability to print a To Do list to a file is blocked in the current version, when is this likely to be changed?

Is there any progress on the ability to include customised records in the general set yet?

Gwgan

On 2007-01-21 7:20pm GenSmarts replied...

It's not blocked... it's simply not there. We put the icon in as a placeholder when we made some changes to the screen. There's isn't a time table for when we might build that feature, though obviously it's on our list of things to do.

We have made some progress on the second issue, but nothing we're ready to release yet.

On 2007-01-23 4:30pm gwgan added...

It's pretty disappointing not to have any timescales for these changes. The print to file feature in particular, shouldn't be very complex to implement and would improve the usefulness of the program enormously.

Gwgan

On 2007-01-23 5:11pm GenSmarts replied...

Sorry to hear you're disappointed, but we'll consider your comments a vote for these two enhancements. We do keep track of what people ask us for and that does have a big impact on our prioritization of things.

On 2007-02-01 9:22am LoriBragg added...

I don't want to start a firestorm here but I am wondering about these priorities. It seems as though in the last few years the updates have been few and far between. Several years ago there were hints that major upgrades were in the offing, as well as new and interesting programs. Nothing appeared but a small update after many months but new promises were made that more was coming.

I know that software development can get bogged down, both from customer service as well as from over-engineering. The current version is amazingly low in bugs so customer service should be minimal.

I for one would love to see more software from a company this innovative. I hope more is coming, even if new costs accrue to users. The initial cost here was slight for the value; I hope the software will not grow stagnant for lack of funding.

Lori

Lori Bragg

On 2007-02-01 10:38am GenSmarts replied...

We do have less time for new enhancements than we used to, and that's the root cause of fewer updates - not enough time.

The lack of time isn't related to funding... rather it's just the opposite. As the number of GenSmarts users exploded, the amount of time needed for support increased.

We never dreamed GenSmarts would become a franchise product, but that's the way it worked out. So the other products we hope to build some day will have to wait until the GenSmarts explosion settles. That's goodness, but had we known that was going to happen, we certainly would have taken a more optimal and consistent path to get where we are today.

I also suspect things are quite different than most "armchair developers" realize... the actual size of our installed base... the complexities and considerations involved in seemingly the simplest of enhancements... the effort involved in supporting a dozen different database formats and half a dozen different versions of windows... etc.

On 2007-02-04 5:16pm gwgan added...

The views expressed by Lori are similar to my own. However I do sympathise with the need to balance your resources across support and development.

It seems to me that a print to text file feature would be a very useful interim tep for a number of the enhancements to output that are listed in the forum. Once data is in a file then the user is free to manipulate it, so the "sorted" to do list asked for elsewhere in this forum could be produced by the user with a bit of extra effort. Similarly output from customised record could be incorporated with output from the standard records. I'm sure there would be other examples. At least such a mod would only have to consider the various versions of windows, rather than the multiple database formats.

Gwgan

On 2007-02-04 5:40pm GenSmarts replied...

Rest assured, we have a product plan that accomodates what you're describing and much more and are actively working on it. I'm just not going to make that plan public... there's mostly downside risk and very little upside to making it public.

FYI - have you tried simply defining a generic/text only windows printer and printing to that? I believe that driver supports file output.

On 2007-02-07 7:35am gwgan added...

Thanks for the tip, that works fine

Gwgan

On 2007-05-10 12:54am GenSmarts replied...

I can now say confidently that the ability to print to a file will be available May 8, 2007. [:)]

See http://www.GenSmarts.com/version2

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