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Asking for Advice on distribution, please?
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Brian Christmas
G’day Folks I’m after some advice please. I want to place my 10-years-in-the-making Project, Mail Manager, on the open market. At first I thought of the App Store, but reading Shane’s ‘Explored’ has me worried. If you’ll bear with me, I’ll explain what my App does, and how. Then, if you’ve persevered, I’d appreciate any advice on how to market it, and any thoughts on if it would pass App Store scrutiny. It’s role is to automatically process incoming email images, that can be used for such tasks as die making. It’s designed to run 24/7, and has done so for 5 years as an App, and 5 years prior as a collection of scripts.. 1. It’s all wrapped into one App package, that relocates itself to the Application folder, and adds a permanent Icon in the Dock. Once running, it runs 24/7. It contains an additional 11 embedded Apps. 2. It places a Barcode128 font into the Fonts folder. 3. It places an Applescript ‘Mail Manager Caller’ into the Application Scripts folder. 4. It places an Applescript ‘ftp Downloader’ into the Folder Actions Scripts folder. 5. As it’s first installed, it creates a Mail Rule, and applies it to a User selected Inbox. 6. It has six embedded signed Application in a ‘Scripts’ folder, which it calls and runs as needed. 7. One of the embedded Apps, ‘Mail Manager Item Printer’, runs pretty much all the time. 8. In the same folder, it contains two pdf’s, that it opens as requested, for information. 9. It’s role is to takle all incoming email, and print pretty much any and all attached Graphic file, at 100% Size, on a user selected sized sheet, overlapping with a user set overlap on multiple page prints. 10. It optionally adds two barcodes, and two English text dialogs, to each individual image. Each Barcode starts as unique to that email, and has a terminating unique-to-that-print-Job-within-the-email number. 11. When finished, it prints a ‘Cover Sheet’, on a smaller user selected sized sheet, that contains all necessary details, such as Company Name, Email DateTime Barcode, Sender, list of Attachments, list of opened zipped attachments, text contents of email, etc. 11. It saves the finished emails in a time dated mailbox, one for each day, each month, each year. 12. It saves all Clients details for later referral. A list of details of a user set number of emails is displayed. Clicking on one will open the email, and its saved data folder. 13. It saves all images, both before and after barcoding, to the local Mac, and an optional copy to a nominated server. It has a Utility App for finding and opening old emails and their folders. 14. It optionally uses the ftp Client ‘Interarchy’, to monitor folders on a remote Server, automatically downloads the folders after any items are added, and prints and stores them as for an email. 15. It has two extra Applications in a folder, in the embedded Scripts folder, the folder which optionally can be opened to the Applications folder. 16. One of those Apps is for copying as many times as required, to any workstations, that make up part of any manufacturing process that uses the printed images. 17. This app allows scanning of the printed barcode on the image sheet on commencement of work on any particular job, and at the end of the work. More than one can be in progress at once. 18. It also seletively allows the entry of measurements of each job, in either inches or centimetres. 19. It allows a remote server such as in the Accountancy department, to be selected, and indicates the online status of that server. 20. If the server is online, it allows periodic saving of completed jobs to the server, saving the timing, measurements, and email and image sheete details. If errors occur, the job details are not lost. 21. It saves and displays sent completed jobs for 14 days, at each workstation. 22. If Accountancy access is selected, the main Mail Manager App also saves relevant data to the same Accountancy server FILE as the work stations. It is irrelevant what order the information is stored in. 23. The second App (still being written) will assess the data, and display an summation of each email (Total processed time, total processed Job area (if applicable)), and offer a range of pre-prepared email layouts using that data, that will just need completion by the Accountancy department. 24. When Mail Manager need another App to carry out anything, it saves a .dat file to the desktop,with all necessary variables, calls the App to open, which reads the saved file, trashes it, carries out the work, and closes. 25. When certain other Apps are open, such as a Utility to set up Interarchy easily, or to set up up files for interaction with PitStop Pro (an Acrobat utility), Mail Manager halts processing while those Apps are open. 26. Two Apps run permanently, one that monitors optional Interarchy downloading, and 'Mail Manager Item Printer' (this closes when Mail Manager closes), 27. Mail Manager also optionally sends detailed emailed reports and graphs of incoming mail and total printed Jobs. These can be any hour(s) of the day (start of GMT zero time day, to present hour), a single nominated hour that sums up the previous 24 hours data, a daily, weekly, monthly, and two yearly reports (day by day, & month by month) (all optional). 28. It also can optionally send error messages (wording as set up by Operator, logo added by Mail Manager), to Clients that submit problematic artwork, and also/only to the Public Relations Department (or whatever; an email list can be constructed) 29. Every Graphic that GraphicConverter can print can be optionally turned ON/OFF individually. 30. Mail Manager can be placed into a cancelable/renewable 10 minute Standby, and can re-process emails that are dropped onto a 're-cycle’ mailbox (It only reprints the cover sheet). 31. Mail Manager requires TextEdit, Interarchy (optional), GraphicConverter, Quark (optional), Acrobat, PitStop Pro (Optional), InDesign (optional), Illustrator, Word, Excel, and of course, Mail. What I’m wondering, is it actually simple enough that it’s worth spending time learning and carrying out sandboxing, and trying to submit to the Apps Store??? (I take Shane’s warning/advice seriously). I’ve tried to follow the KISS principle in its operation. If not, is anyone please able to tell me what other options I’d have for distribution (I don’t want to handle it myself). Any links?? I’d prefer a monthly lease, and a two month free trial. Thank you to anyone whose read this far, and many more thanks to anyone that answers back. Regards Santa |
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2551phil
There’s no ftp in High Sierra, so you’ll have to rethink that. But
You’re going to need a website to give it a home page, deal with customer support, provide documentation etc. It’s a requirement for App Store submission, although from what I’ve seen they’re not particularly rigorous about enforcing it. As for self-distribution, just throw it up on MacUpdate and similar sites, register with an e-Commerce vendor like FastSpring to handle all the payment processing, set up a simple website to give it a home page etc and away you go. It’s a lot simpler than dealing with sandboxing I can assure you, and you’re typically only paying < 10% commission, including overheads, instead of Apple’s 30%. Best Phil Me on Twitter @philofishal @sqwarq Me on the web: sqwarq.com applehelpwriter.com Get DetectX - The mac troubleshooting app http://sqwarq.com/detectx |
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Huh? Interarchy is an FTP app. It has its own FTP stack, so it's not dependent on any FTP implementation in the OS. As for the app, Brian — to me it sounds very special-purpose, for a limited market. And the list of apps it requires is quite daunting! It doesn't sound like something that would work in a mass-market channel like the App Store. If I were trying to sell this I'd go for targeted marketing toward the types of professionals who'd have a use for it. —Jens |
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Brian Christmas
Thanks Phil & Jens. It IS a limited market, but the bloke (Aussie for ‘Guy’) who instigated this whole thing in the first place, believes a now much more versatile App than what I’ve written for my only Client, (who I’m in dispiute with), might have unforseen use in many industries, besides the die creation businesses. He thinks there’s LOTS of people who have to print 100% accurate images, and particularly the automation of PitStop Pro would be welcome. Pitstop Pro has a wide client base. Also automated ftp monitoring, downloading and printing can save lots of time.
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Typically, MM prepares and prints each image in roughly 15 seconds, on an i7 2014 iMac, with a per email overhead of about 30 seconds. Printing a 30 pdf email takes about 8 1/2 minutes, including PitStop Pro Preflight treatment. AND, as I said, the additional printing of a Barcode is optional, but, adding a barcode opens up a whole new world of monitoring. MM saves lots of Data, and one App displays past Clients, and how many emails and Jobs they’ve submitted. So, you instantly know who your most prolific Clientel are. Everything I’ve ever written has my Copyright notice on it. Who knows. I’d like to throw it out there and see. Phil, do you know if FastSpring offers free trials, and leases by the month? I have a Website for my Coding Company, but have never advertised it, so setting up a site will be easy. Jens, thank you for pointing out that Interarchy does not need external ftp support. My heart sank when I read Phils comment. Many, many thanks. Hopefully I can give Apples tight restrictions a miss. Just as well I remembered Shane’s warning, and re-read it. Thanks Shane! Regards Santa
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2551phil
I think you’ve got the wrong idea about what they do. They don’t lease anything. They act as a payment broker for your app. They can set up a page on their website that looks like your website, so that when customers click a ‘Buy’ button on your web page, it takes them seamlessly to the payment page on FastSpring's site. Unless customers actually notice the url in the header, they won’t even be aware that they’re not on your website any longer. The page customers get taken to has all the order details fields and can take all the various payment methods (visa, mastercard, paypal, even PO and cheque) that customers might want to use. The vendor sorts out all the taxes for your sales, then pays you on a fortnightly or monthly basis - minus their commission, of course (as I say < 10%). If you want to understand the process more clearly, have a wander around their website: FastSpring are not the only e-Commerce vendor around nor even the most modern or slick in terms of interface and APIs, but I’ve been using them for a couple of years and they’re both very reliable and have extremely good customer service. Jens, thank you for pointing out that Interarchy does not need external ftp support. My heart sank when I read Phils comment. Sorry, I missed the Interarchy bit. I just saw mention of ftp and remembered that I’d seen that the ftp command line tool had been removed in 10.13. Best Phil @sqwarq |
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Brian Christmas
G’day Takaaki
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Thankd for this tip. I use the GUI heavily, and haden’t thought of localisation. I usually use numbers instead of names, but have used names where newer versions of Apps change the number of a GU I item between version numbers. I’ll have to change manu lines of code, but it will be worth it. Perhaps you’ll now be able to answer the next question I’m asbout to post. Regards Santa
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