The Future of Desktop Edition
October 15th, 2009 by Dario Solera | Filed under Community.I’m seriously considering to discontinue ScrewTurn Wiki Desktop Edition. It takes too much time to maintain the desktop server and most importantly the installer (which has always been a bit clunky, not even supporting in-place upgrades). If you ever worked with Windows Installer and WiX, you know what I mean (plus, consider that the upgrade from v2 to v3 adds a lot of complexity).
As you may remember, last spring I published a survey and it turned out that less than 18% of the respondents used the Desktop Edition at the time. It’s still a big amount of users, and I don’t want to disappoint them, but the problem persists.
There are only two ways to fix this problem: discontinue the Desktop Edition, or make it commercial (paid) so that it justifies the required work. I’m currently more inclined towards the second option.
I don’t have decided yet, so for now the Desktop Edition will continue to exist for v2 only.
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please discontinue develop the Desktop Edition, or transfer this product to something such as textbook writer or else….
it could be a ebook writer or else…
Not sure that it is really needed. Admin tools are needed – yes. for ex, perform batch operations, rebuild and view search indexes, merge or separate databases with advanced options, etc…
Also it is important to have ability to develop build-in applications (under different namespaces, like I did for BugTracking. now it is impossible to implement without coding in STW). These applications should be based on STW, because it needed to have connection to in-STW documents(pages).
Also think about Mobile-version of STW (as an application — for Windows Mobile/iPhone/Android/Symbian/…, or just web-version of STW)
I guess these different extensions for STW could be commercial (to warm up you desire in continuing development)
I just wanted to add that I do use the desktop edition at home for personal use, and like it a lot.
However, I understand “installer-hell”, and realize how much time could be saved by abandoning the desktop edition. If you make that choice, I’ll just run the regular edition on a local IIS instance. IIS comes with XP, Vista and 7 – it’s just not installed by default.
So, even though I like and use the desktop edition, here’s a thumbs-up for dumping it in favor of focusing efforts in other more critical areas.
Hi Jason, Maybe you could try WikidPad, which is a Wiki-like notebook for storing your thoughts, ideas, todo lists, contacts, or anything else you can think of to write down. http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/
Is the source still available?