WinCompose 0.7.0

Message

samhocevar · #1 Post by **samhocevar** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:41 pm

I just made this March 10, 2015 update: https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose/releases

The number of sequences in the description can be changed from “more than 1,600” to “more than 2,000”. There is a new GUI for symbol browsing which is a lot nicer and better organised, it would be nice if you could update it, too: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/samho ... /shot2.png

The software was fully rewritten, but its behaviour as a portable application should remain exactly the same. The major difference is that it is now a .NET executable rather than a 32-bit executable. Also, I was only able to test it on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Please let me know about any issues you may encounter.

Finally, could you please change the homepage from https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose to http://wincompose.info/? The former is mostly targeted at developers and I would like to set up a more user-friendly homepage.

SYSTEM · #2 Post by **SYSTEM** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:59 am

samhocevar wrote: The software was fully rewritten, but its behaviour as a portable application should remain exactly the same. The major difference is that it is now a .NET executable rather than a 32-bit executable. Also, I was only able to test it on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Please let me know about any issues you may encounter.

Well, we dislike .NET apps because .NET may not be installed in the host computer. As a result, .NET apps are always less portable than native apps. See http://johnhaller.com/useful-stuff/dot- ... table-apps.

I decided to change the download link into a direct download link of version 0.6.13 and add a note about 0.7.0 into the entry.

By the way, which version of .NET does WinCompose 0.7.0 require?

samhocevar wrote: Finally, could you please change the homepage from https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose to http://wincompose.info/? The former is mostly targeted at developers and I would like to set up a more user-friendly homepage.

Done.

#3 Post by **Midas** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:28 am

Ditto...

I am Baas · #4 Post by **I am Baas** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:41 am

@SYSTEM

Agreed.

samhocevar · #5 Post by **samhocevar** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:12 am

SYSTEM wrote:Well, we dislike .NET apps because .NET may not be installed in the host computer. As a result, .NET apps are always less portable than native apps. See http://johnhaller.com/useful-stuff/dot- ... table-apps.

I understand, and the situation pains me, too. However the efforts to develop a good GUI application without .NET are enormous (by "good" I mean: follows the desktop theme, follows the accessibility settings, can be translated to any language including right-to-left ones, is reasonably DPI-independent, fully supports Unicode rendering including higher planes). It would be IMHO a project management mistake to use anything else.

SYSTEM wrote:I decided to change the download link into a direct download link of version 0.6.13 and add a note about 0.7.0 into the entry.

Fair enough. I hope however that you are aware that previous versions were mediocre in comparison (only works properly with US keyboards, poor performance, would disable itself randomly, impractical GUI; all due to AutoHotKey which motivated the rewrite).

We probably can’t fully agree; it seems to me that I want to provide users with a great program that does as much as possible, and you want to provide them with a clean program that doesn’t have annoying dependencies. Unfortunately I see no technical solution that would accommodate both views :-(

SYSTEM wrote:By the way, which version of .NET does WinCompose 0.7.0 require?

It’s .NET 3.0. We need at least this version because of WPF, and there was no sensible reason to require a more recent version.

#6 Post by **Midas** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:28 am

samhocevar wrote:It’s .NET 3.0. We need at least this version because of WPF, and there was no sensible reason to require a more recent version.

I think we could call that a fair and sensible compromise, in view of the reasons evoked. We're not about to censor a good app just because it's DotNET dependent (cf. http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?sc2=261). SYSTEM opinion just happens to be aligned with TPFC's majority consensus...

SYSTEM · #7 Post by **SYSTEM** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:35 am

samhocevar wrote: We probably can’t fully agree; it seems to me that I want to provide users with a great program that does as much as possible, and you want to provide them with a clean program that doesn’t have annoying dependencies.

That's exactly right.

samhocevar wrote: Unfortunately I see no technical solution that would accommodate both views

It's fine. In any case, we highly respect when freeware developers develop software in their spare time. You certainly have the right to focus on whatever you want (such as making "good GUI applications") even if it clashes with our preferences.

Meanwhile, we'll try to keep our database in a state where it is as useful as possible for our visitors. If a program becomes less portable in an update, we can just stop updating the database entry, like in this case.

Sure, the world is not perfect. Let's just make it as good as we can.

joby_toss · #8 Post by **joby_toss** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:43 am

In this case, I'm FOR switching to the newest version, regardless of .NET. We did it in WeatherMate's case. For once, I'm FOR progress and almost everyone else disagrees!

We could add a Note to the entry regarding the older version, including a download link.

@samhocevar: thank you for taking the time to post here! Thank you for keeping a good app alive and free!

Edit: Checker already updated the entry. Thanks, Checker! Download link for the old version, anyone?

Checker · #9 Post by **Checker** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:53 am

joby_toss wrote:Checker already updated the entry. Thanks, Checker! Download link for the old version, anyone?

Download link to the old version added

SYSTEM · #10 Post by **SYSTEM** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:02 am

joby_toss wrote:Edit: Checker already updated the entry. Thanks, Checker! Download link for the old version, anyone?

Sigh. Whatever. Since I don't use WinCompose myself, I don't really care about the state of that entry.

However, it would be nice to have some discussion (and probably a vote) before switching entries like that.

I am Baas · #11 Post by **I am Baas** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:10 am

SYSTEM wrote:However, it would be nice to have some discussion (and probably a vote) before switching entries like that.

I share the sentiment, however... Checker is an update machine... unstoppable.

I am Baas · #12 Post by **I am Baas** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:11 am

Checker wrote:
joby_toss wrote:Checker already updated the entry. Thanks, Checker! Download link for the old version, anyone?
Download link to the old version added

You missed the new screenshot though...

Checker · #13 Post by **Checker** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:55 am

SYSTEM wrote:However, it would be nice to have some discussion (and probably a vote) before switching entries like that.

Sorry for that. I updated the entry, before I saw these posts here. So please don't hurt me. Feel free to change

bzl333 · #14 Post by **bzl333** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 11:18 am

joby_toss wrote:In this case, I'm FOR switching to the newest version, regardless of .NET. We did it in WeatherMate's case.

We could add a Note to the entry regarding the older version, including a download link.

i agree

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