Ticker Editor And Developer Resources

I’ve recently released the Ticker Editor – a shareware application that can be used to create pretty much any kind of ticker. Visit WS Tickers to learn more.

While building this application I came accross some of the problems many programmers are likely to encounter when doing a “serious” project.

  • Creating help files
    If your application is more than a simple two-button utility you’ll need to create some documentation for it – a manual, maybe some tutorials and context-sensitive help system. For Ticker Editor I chose to create a “classic” .hlp file, mainly because I quickly found an excellent editor – Shalom Help Maker (site down, mirror here). It’s free, relatively easy to use, and has all the features I needed. On the other hand, some sources say that .hlp files will no longer work in Windows Vista…

    Help files are also often created in the CHM format but (in my experience) .chm files load slower, plus most of CHM editors I found were either commercial or shareware.

  • Creating an installer
    When it comes to creating a setup program, my favorite is Inno Setup. Freeware, lots of features and easy to use.
  • Writing a license agreement
    Unfortunately I couldn’t find a tutorial for writing the EULA for your application and not everyone has the opportunity to consult a professional. What I did was look at various licenses from other software and try to construct mine in a similar fashion (it’s still lame, I know :P). The GripeWiki EULA library is an online collection of license agreements; you can use it to gain inspiration.
  • Selling your application
    My choice is Plimus, though you might want to check out other possibilities like Share*it, RegNow and other e-commerce processing services.
  • Artwork
    Producing good-looking menu icons and other interface elements can be quite challenging for many programmers. However, there are many royalty-free no-cost icon collections available on the Web – just do a Google search.
    If your application is more graphics-oriented and you feel you need to include some kind of “clipart collection” or templates, you can find a huge number of relevant links in this blog post :
    Where to Find Free Images and Visuals for My Blog.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 16:34 and is filed under Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Ticker Editor And Developer Resources”

  1. alex says:
    April 12, 2007 at 00:34

    hi nice site.

  2. Joe says:
    April 25, 2007 at 19:19

    Janis

    If I license your wsTicker can I upload the finished custom ticker to my own site or is there a database required that is only available on your site?

    Thanks! Hope to hear soon.

  3. White Shadow says:
    April 25, 2007 at 19:36

    Hey,

    The software was designed to upload to my server, which then generates the actual script that draws the ticker when you use it on the web. The Ticker Editor can’t generate the scritp by itself.

    Hovewer, if you really want to, you could upload the ticker to my server & I would e-mail you the files needed to put it on your own server.

    The finished ticker script (PHP) doesn’t need a database. It would need just a bit of editing to adjust file paths (fonts & such).

  4. Joe says:
    April 26, 2007 at 04:18

    Hi White Shadow! Thought maybe you might not see my message for awhile.

    So, if I use the demo to construct a ticker and upload it to your server (paying you of course) you’ll email back a version I can upload to my site? Would I be able to use this ticker on other sites as well…. paying your registration fee for additional sites of course. The server is Apache. Running PHP of course so everything should work.

    Basically I’m setting this up for a “maternity clothing site” who would like a lightly branded pregnancy ticker that people might use on forums and such. A secondary help would be the link back from the ticker.

    Thanks!
    Joe Cramblit
    Raleigh NC
    SKYPE salesdepartment.com (if you have SKYPE)

  5. Joe says:
    April 26, 2007 at 06:20

    Hi White Shadow

    The script is not what I thought it was. My apologies. I was in need of one that individuals to set up on their own and install on their own in forums and such. This is a very nice version of what I need.

    http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/pregnancy.php

    Any ideas on where to get something like this?

  6. White Shadow says:
    May 10, 2007 at 22:27

    Mmm, my e-mail service went down and I wasn’t notified of new comments :/
    This reply is probably way too late, but anyway —

    If I understood you correctly, you actually need a script that constructs tickers, right? Allowing users to set some options and such? Unfortunately my application doesn’t have that functionality.

    I guess it could be possible to rewrite it in Flash or similar and allow other sites to license it. However, that’s *a lot* of work and I currently don’t have the time to do that. Thanks for the idea though 🙂

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