I bought myself a $15 1 month sub for that Shareware Tracker (http://www.accusolve.biz/) thing and I've spent the last 2 days (or so it feels) tediously navigating myself around the 387 or so file upload sites it's got in it. And make no mistake, this tool does what it says on the tin so far, it's probably about a factor of 10 quicker than trying to do it manually and if that's not worth $15 then you're probably already in Nirvana and don't need to sell software to make a living.

But....

it's the Dark Ages, man!

Where have all these sites been in the last 5 years? Or even 10 years? What I'm doing with this tool is so brain-feckingly pointless it beggars belief! This is the work of MACHINES not men!

So I thought:

Why don't I set up a web service on my site, and tell you all about it. All you have to do - all you have to do - is type in a URL to your PAD file and click submit on some empty white page.

The URL goes into my database.

Every day, my little service reads in all the PADs looking for changes and makes a note of all the ones that have changed.

The next bit's the hard bit:

I have to convince 387 sites to install a complementary web service on their sites.

Every day, it makes a wee connection to my web service and asks it for all the updated PAD files. And that's what those 387 sites then do: parse a great big XML file with all the updated PAD files inside it, and do whatever they do with it. They can have the source code to the service so they know it's not doing anything freaky. They can directly extend it - it'll be written in Java - to interface directly with their databases.

Is this a good idea, or what?

Cas :)

Sounds like a good idea, and it's how things should be. I believe the widespread of PAD is a first step in the right direction.

However, this can be done already in most cases, with Shareware Tracker or else. Most of the sites already have a simple interface with one editbox (the PAD file URL) and a button (Submit). This can be easily automated with a couple of shell scripts and Lynx, for example.

It would be great if all sites had a standard interface (ie no additional questions, as some sites have)

I use Shareware Tracker, and I agree its a great tool. Likewise, I agree that the biggest pain about it is that it can't be more automated (because the web sites aren't set up in a way to facilitate automation very well). However, ST does a pretty good job at trying to deal with these PITA sites by identifying form fields and having a script paste values into them automatically.

What I think the biggest pain is are the sites that require you to create an account before submitting your software. If they were just to use an email address as verification, that wouldn't be so bad, but having to create an account as a prerequisite step sucks.

Regarding your idea, I'm not really sure what the point is. It seems kinda like an unnecessary middleman step. There is already plenty of free code for parsing XML files in any language/script (as I recall, the pad file is just XML, right). I believe there is also free code explicitly for dealing with PAD files, and for polling them on a regular basis. It's very minimal overhead to implement native pad support. It's just that most download sites either don't know about PAD (in which case, we need to tell them) or consciously choose not to support it (in which case, we need to nag them).

I've been using robosoft's submission service. 70$ and they do all the sites for you. Seems pretty good so far.

Incidentally many sites already do pad-polling.

- Steve

A lot of sites do pad polling but ultimately it's a bitty, fiddly affair. One thing that struck home with me using Shareware Tracker is just how many ingeniously different and daft ways these sites all have to enter PAD file information, when the whole fundamental purpose of PAD files is precisely so you didn't have to have 387 different ways of entering it.

I am amazed, for example, about the number of sites that require you to register and login, when all of the information they need is in the PAD file already.

So really what's needed is all 387 of those sites to be petitioned to sign up for a free service and get some free software that takes all the hassle out of it - for everyone.

Nowhere here do I suggest anyone spends any money. 387 sites' worth of PAD file bandwidth is just ludicrously trivial, even with a thousand new PAD files a day. I'd be entirely happy to write the software and host it for nothing. I might need some help selling the idea to the shareware sites.


Cas :)

But what do you offer over implementing PAD support natively? It looks like you are just a PAD middle-man (a no-fee middleman, but a middle-man none the less). What value would you be adding that could convince someone to implement your method when so far they haven't been convinced to implement PAD natively?

Yes it's kind of a pain, but that would be too easy to release a product else...

There's another thing SharewareTracker does, it provides you with the list of site, imagine just the time spent finding the +300...

pat.

Doesn't the ASP has this kind of service? I remember they do....

Yes, ASP does this sort of thing already... the problem is the download sites are too stupid to take advantage of it.

Well, okay, I'm not sure but maybe the ASP site doesn't offer an automated interface for download sites... does anyone know this?

At any rate, a central PAD repository that all download sites can easily use seems the best idea to me. I don't see why anyone would think this sort of "middleman" is unneccessary. I think it's practically essential. Don't think of it just as a middleman, think of it as a centralized, consolidated resource. Were most download sites to adopt this sort of a service, it would GREATLY simplify the process of submitting your software. Just create a PAD, submit it to the central repository, and BOOM, everybody features your new software!