Digital Workshop

I bought several products around the time that I bought Opus 6.
While Opus 6 is still one of my favourites, I have noticed something....

Most of the other products send me a monthly newsletter:
This includes tips , updates, demo's , etc.

DW does not seem to do this...

I wish that DW would send out a monthly newsletter.

n

n --

I get such a huge amount of junk mail and spam email each day, I normally just toss it out -- without reading it. I'm sure some of the material would be worthwhile reading, but there's just not enough time in a day to go over stuff that's only relevent to a few people.

While a DW newsletter may sound like a good idea, it would take someone at DW's time from answering phone questions or Qs this forum. As questions come up, this Message Board/Forum is a very good place to get answers. Do any of the other software packages you just bought have as active/helpful a forum as DW?

With limited resources, I'd prefer to have DW continue to work on adding features and answering questions from new and experienced users. Nitro, if you've got a topic you'd like to present there are several places on the DW Board for you to "publish." Even if you just put out a topic, I'd be glad to go into detail for you (assuming I have knowledge of your topic, of course). We could do our own "forum newsletter," that way we'd be sure to be relevant. The more I'm thinking about your idea, the better I like it. Please start the ball rolling with a specific, narrow topic. I'm sure others will contribute. Good idea!

Nitro

Let me play devil's advocate here.

1. Who is to write and produce this newsletter? Even if it is totally electronic, it still has to be written, laid out, proofed, etc. Having been involved in producing several of these I can assure you this involves significant resource, not the least of which is time.

2. If DW are to produce this, there is a cost to them in doing this. How much extra will you pay for this newsletter?

I believe that one of Opus' greatest features almost precludes production of an effective newsletter. To date, I have found nothing that I've wanted to do that I have not been able to do. This power and flexibility would make it difficult to produce a meaningful newsletter that would satisfy a majority of users.

Imagine for a moment that you are the editor. Just how would you choose what to include/exclude? Articles aimed at new users would have little interest/value for experienced users -- and vice versa.

My suggestion to you is this: each time you need to know something, log on to this forum and do a search. It's amazing what you will find. If you find nothing, post a detailed request for help.

I notice as I scan the forum just how infrequently people search this forum. In many cases, the problem posted has been covered before -- sometimes, many times

I've been using Opus for almost 7 years, and while I know my way pretty well around it, I do not regard myself as an expert. I find myself regularly searching this forum and am only disappointed rarely when I don't get the info I want.

Hi Sentosa,

1. I agree with you and DemoFred, I would rather see more features in Opus than an Opus newsletter. The reason I bought Opus over possible alternative products was it's ease of use.

2. This forum is a wealth of info. I always do a search before posting.
As I have already mentioned in a previous wish, I wished that all regular posters of good answers (not questions) get rewarded by DW in terms of free upgrades or similar compensation. I feel that this forum and contributors like you are one of the best marketing resources that DW has.

3. Perhaps instead of a newletter, this forum could have a section for "good examples" or "newsletter", these would have to be pre-approved by DW, before posted, to make it easier for novices like me to learn from.
Sometimes the search engine does not reveal all, as often the first keyword is critical. Do a forum search on "ini" and see what results you get.

I am sure that there are many posts on INI files, but I get no results.
The DW help files often concentrate on a specific example, that may not answer a novices question. I also learn a lot from doing google searches on specific topics, but this does not always help as these are often related to C languages, or Javascript 1.5 examples, etc.

I am not trying to shortcut my learning experience here, as a novice to any type of programming.
Ok, I once wrote (in 1995) a 400 line DOS batch file...but this was condemned by a programmer, who said that he could achieve the same result in less than 10 lines in Pascal.

I try not to post questions that I have not tried to research first.

Regards

n

PS: From your contributions to this forum, I think you are being modest , and if you don't consider yourself "an expert" in Opus , in my mind you are a valued contributor to this forum. MVC?

Hi DemoFred,

While, with the help of Mackavi, I have learnt a lot about using ini files in Opus, I feel that this is the first "Newsletter Topic" that I would like to post. It took me a while to understand the concept of ini files. The Opus help files often assume that the basics are known, while often they are not.

I think that this topic would be a great example to start a newsletter.
I found the following example on the web that helped me understand the basic concept of ini files:


Now for the first question on this subject:
How do you check if a section or a key exists and/or is not empty?

Regards

n

Hi Nitro

Thank you for your kind words. I honestly don't believe that I am an Opus expert. Sure I know something about many features, but my shortcomings become obvious when I start a new major project -- that's when the gaps appear. I only have to scan the index of the Help File to realise that it includes features that I don't even understand.

Some years back, I conceived the somewhat grandiose idea of developing a comprehensive guide to Opus. I saw this as a way for me to learn the features. I completed a small part of this (it took me 360 hours to do just this small part of a guide) and then wondered if other Opus users might be interested. I published what I had done, uploaded it to my website, and posted details on this forum. The response from this was zilch. That doesn't bother me, (maybe people evaluated it as crap) but it highlights a problem embodied in producing tutorials, newsletters, etc., which is the effort to produce vs interest of users.

Can I suggest that you never feel bad about asking questions. We were all novices at some stage. In my case I will be forever grateful and thankful that Steve Henson took me under his wing and guided me. If ever there is an Opus expert, it is Steve H. (Apologies to any who feel slighted by that comment.) I also benefited from from the down to earth advice given by the late Jim Wolfmeyer.

So hang in there and ask your questions.

I think we're missing the point of a newsletter here. I successfully co-edited and produced an newsletter for 18 months and there are a lot of benefits to putting some time and effort into a newsletter. Any newsletter does have to meet certain business objectives and DW could consider the following:

1. Cost: compared to other forms of advertising it is relatively cheap, produces better sales growth and enarges a loyal user base. In addition, related product advertising, or expanding product lines, e.g. educational and training software, can achieve an increase in overall company growth in profits. The set-up and maintenance costs are tiny compared to the returns that can be achieved by smart marketing.

2. Advertising: the comments so far have been restricted to 'users' of OPUS. Newsletters have a much wider use than an existing product user base including users of OPUS-produced products, commissioners of new OPUS-produced products, staff training and development courses, multimedia advertising, etc.

3. a newsletter can help to develop and exploit niche markets and products.

4. a regular newsletter can inform product users about limitations and work-arounds, or innovative ways of using it to solve problems.

5. a regular newsletter can alert users to updates and useful add-ons

6. a newsletter can advertise forthcoming events, shows and help other forms of advertising to be more effective, e.g. websites.

7. newsletters can run competitions to encourage and develop interest in the product. Serif and DarkBasic do this all the time.

8. more and more people are using online sources to find information, hence the decline in regional daily newspapers, but they still want coherent, integrated and informed opinion ~ they just want it faster.

The last point is the most important. A newsletter would take nothing away from the forum. In fact, it would more likely enhance and enlarge its user base. Some newsletter producers use their product forums to disseminate information and problem solutions to a wider user audience. The forum is a fantastic place to find answers to problems in using OPUS, but sometimes users and potential users want a little more in the way of direction and instruction in getting the most out of the product. I say a newsletter is a great idea.

If you really want proof that newsletters work I play the banjo and subscribe to a banjo newsletter produced in pdf format every month. In 3 years it went from a start of 20 subscribers to 10 million and is still growing at a rate of knots. It encourages beginners, provides material for the more experienced banjo player and more social snippets for fun and entertainment. It also carries adverts for new and discounted equipment, workshops, gigs and teaching and training courses.

A newsletter does not detract from a company's main work in developing, enhancing and promoting its products, it adds to those functions. Newsletters work and they can be REALLY profitable, they just need a little thought and some creativity and there is plenty of that in the OPUS community!

Paul
OPUS obsessed!

Paul

I look forward to your release of the first Opus newsletter.

One of my software clients sends a newsletter by mail to all their customers. I'm on the mailing list, so I can keep current with what they are doing. They have a website and a customer service telephone number, which are obviously meant for other purposes. They don't have an Internet forum like this one, so their newsletter reaches all their customers.

DW has 699 registered forum users (as of today). I image there have been many more copies of Illuminatus/OPUS sold, but for whatever reasons, the majority of people haven't bothered to become members. Possibly some of them visit this site as Guests. Many of them may only be casual users of OPUS.

My point is, an electronic newsletter is going to reach the same audience as this forum. I'll read anything that can make me more knowledgeable about OPUS, so if someone wants to write on a topic -- I'll read it. I'll even respond to it, if I can add something. We are just NOT going to reach a larger audience with an electronic newsletter than we currently reach with this forum.

(Have we beaten this "horse" to death yet?)

Hi Ray,

I would love to have a look at your Opus guide! Do you think you could put this up for download on your site again. I know that this was probably written for previous versions of Opus, but I am sure that I could learn a lot from this.

Regards

Neil

Hi Neil

I've re-loaded the Guide: http://www.jeelan.com.au/transfers/OpusGuide.zip

I'll leave it there for a few days to give you a chance to download it. It is just under 15MB.

Please remember that it is very incomplete.
The various menus contain the finished structure but as you will see, many of these are not active, and will remain that way until I find sufficient motivation to continue.

EDIT:
Some people have reported that they cannot download from this link. Several times I've tested the link from this post, and it works fine. I've also tested this link ( http://www.jeelan.com.au/transfers/OpusGuide.zip ) from within an email, and that works too.

I've no idea what the problem might be. If you feel the need for this file, email me sentosa@jeelan.com.au and I'll send you an email with the link.