ISV Kaizen

This post is a brief digest of most important events in our company for the past several weeks. In order to keep this blog mostly self-hype free I summarized all our news in a single short post.

Dr.Explain 3.1 release

We’ve recently released the new version of our software help-authoring tool, Dr.Explain 3.1.

This update is a great step in the product history. Until the version 3.1, many software developers and vendors have been using the Dr.Explain to document their Windows software, HTML pages, or Flash (SWF) applications.
Now, the Dr.Explain 3.1 enters the Java world. Java developers can benefit from the same technology, and automatically generate professional documentation for their Java applications made with Swing components.

Besides the support of Java applications, Dr.Explain 3.1 brings more new functions that will help software vendors produce astonishing documentation even faster. The customizable capturing scenarios allow to precisely specify which window element or HTML tag to analyze or to skip, how to handle its child elements, and how to name and to annotate it. Other gems of the new version are new graphical effects and image rendering technology. All screenshot images, callout lines, text label fonts, shadow and blending effects are drawn with high precision which leaves no chance for fuzzy edges, making documentation illustrations look clean, realistic and nice (beautifully clear).

More info: www.drexplain.com

New Dr.Explain forum

If you have questions, concerns or ideas regarding the Dr.Explain software and if you want to discuss it with other users or with Dr.Explain team publicly then I invite you to join our forum at: http://www.drexplain.com/forum

ISDEF 2008

This week I, Dennis Zhuravlev (a.k.a. Dennis Crane), the CEO of Indigo Byte Systems, will attend the ISDEF 2008 conference in Moscow, Russia. If you attend this event also then I will be happy to meet you there.
There are lots of possible reasons to meet me there:

• To ask questions about our products (Dr.Explain and TBS Cover Editor (on behalf of TrueBox Shot software)), our company, or me.
• To receive a discount coupon
• To know what new projects we’re going to launch shortly
• To tell about your products or services
• To discuss a possible venture or partnership
• To offer a topic for this blog
• To trade something
• To give or to take an interview
• To chat about software, business, sport, politics, or large hadron collider
• To take a shot of beer, brandy, vodka, rum, whiskey, tequila, juice, tea or coffee
• … or just to say: ‘Hello, Dennis!’

If you’re going to ISDEF, please let me know via e-mail or comment. I’m looking forward to meet you on ISDEF 2008.

If you decide to split your software product into several editions with different settings then you will likely wonder how to name them. Naming software editions depends upon what do you offer and what do you limit in each edition. There are several common approaches in building editions:

• Functional limitation (F)
• Environmental or purpose usage limitation (U)
• Limitation of number of installations (N)

Here is a list of common edition names. The hints in parenthesis designate which of the approaches each name suits better.

Level 1
Junior (F)
Beginner (F)
Student (U)
Educational (U)
Light (F)
Lite (F)
Bronze (F,U,N)
Empower (F,U,N)
Starter (F)

Level 2
Standard (F,U,N)
Regular (F,U,N)
Intermediate (F,U,N)
Personal (U,N)
Home (U,N)
Silver (F,U,N)

Level 3
Advanced (F,U)
Professional (F,U)
Business (F,U,N)
Commercial (F,U)
SOHO /Small Office or Home Office/ (F,U,N)
Company (F,U,N)
Gold (F,U,N)
Mega (F,U,N)

Level 4
Deluxe (F,U,N)
Architect (F,U,N)
Site (F,U,N)
Enterprise (F,U,N)
Platinum (F,U,N)
Premium (F,U,N)
Exclusive (F,U,N)
Ultimate (F,U,N)

This list gives you an idea how to get started with your own software editions. Combine names from different levels to build your own successful product line.

If you know more naming examples then post them as comments please.