Hello to all,
My new software “Clip Box - Advanced Video Manager” for Mac is online and free of charge. It can be downloaded from my brand new website nohl.lu
I have also 15 tutorial videos online.
I wanted to publish it on the Mac App Store, but saw that you need an $99 enrolment to do so and decided to abort this idea.
Now my question to you is: Where can I best promote my App ? - MacUpdate ? …
Best regards,
Pascal
Macupdate.com is definitely recommended for macOS. For Windows, it is best to use AppVisor.
For macOS you are going to codesign your software and you need pay $99 anyway. No way around that.
For Windows you also need to buy certs (that will set you back about $100 too).
But may I be very critical for a moment about your software? Users want a UI that conforms to their OS.
I see that your software for both Windows and macOS is not really conforming (and, in my opinion, also unfriendly and not good looking). Of course that is a personal opinion but from my +25 years of experience in making and selling software I can tell you that a non-UI compliant results in very low sales figures. This is certainly true for macOS. Those users are very critical when it comes to a UI. You have to use native controls anyway (NSScrollview, NSAnimation, NSTabelView, …). Basically to make your software look and work good and not toy-a-like. This is an absolute necessity to convince users of your software and especially that they want to give money for your software. In my case, switching to a native look for my apps at least increased sales tenfold.
Anyway, good luck with your programme.
Hi ChristopheDV,
Many thanks for your reply. I can live with critics 
Nevertheless, I think that you missed some points. First, the software is purely Mac software. There is no Windows version for the moment. Second, it is free of charge and I do not want to generate any revenue. That’s also why I do not want to pay $99 per year to Apple.
I do not agree with you about the interface. Many Pro products in the video and photo market do not use a standard interface, even Apples own Logic Pro and Final Cut use a custom interface. Da Vinci Resolve from Black Magic is another example. But it’s fine if you do not like the interface.
Free of charge? I do not understand. You must have spent a lot of time making your software and then you give it away for free? That’s plain nuts.
Free software is the death of software. Who wants to spend time on making good software if it doesn’t pay for itself (even as an hobbyist)?
Free software is ok-ish for very small tools etc… but for a full blown app, you are just plain nuts to not ask money for it. 
Forgotten to add:
You definitely do need an Apple dev license to get it working on ARM devices. Without, your software will not launch on those devices unless you are going to ask your users to codesign your software their-self. For Intel devices, you will need to tell users to do some things in the Terminal to make it work - not sure if that’s a good idea or professional.
About Final Cut Pro:
FCP does use native controls all the way (NSScrollView, NSAnimation, …) It looks and feels professional. Your’s isn’t… Sorry (no offence though - just being critical).
That’s what I am trying to explain here. That’s what 99 out 100 users who tries this app will do.
Yes, I’ve spend 3 years in this software. Free software isn’t the death of software. I was over 20 years in paid software business and many developers copied my ideas and one even the complete interface. My software was always somewhat different and sold very well. It is an ugly business and I can’t remember how many software I trashed that I paid a fortune for.
I developed Clip Box as I was unable to find a software that fulfilled my requirements. The alternatives I found cost either over 1000$ or 147$ for a no more supported app.
I use it 2-3 times a week and my database has over 14000 clips in it. The true value is under the hood. But as I do not earn money and just want to share it, it’s fine if people don’t like it.
It’s a shame that Apple gives no free certificates to developers of freeware. I’m an Apple fan since 1982 and I gave them much money over the 38 last years by buying a new Mac at least every 2 years, buying Macs for my children and my wife, but I feel less and less at home with Apple.
Beatrix,
Thank you for your return.
For point 2, yes it could be replaced with a button, but I’m not sure that this conforms to RGPD’s statement “expressly accept”.
For point 3, you don’t need to select a location as a default value is set.
For point 4, I didn’t see this behaviour on my machine and I use standard Xojo Text Fields. I may be dependant from the dark or light theme selected for the Mac. I will check this.
The App just checks the version to see if there are some updates available. I never saw the empty dialogue. Did you at least try to start Clip Box again ?
Again, thank you for your reply. I will take a serious look at the points you mentioned.
conforming to rgpd, you should ask first the user if he wants to check for updates at the first launch, and should be modifiable in the preferences panes.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes, I should ask the user first. This is still a beta release and the error here is that the default preference is set to on but was intended to be set to off.
No, for the GDPR. As Clip Box connects to my server and just pulls some information from my website. No personal data is transmitted to my server and no data is stored on the users computer. This is just like web browsing without cookies.
OK, found already the black labels in the database creation dialogue. They are black when your Mac uses the light theme and the culprits are standard radio buttons on a dark background and no way to change the colour. I just removed the labels and created my own ones with white labels.
You are giving us so many reasons to not release it for free but charge a little amount of money.
Good apps sell between 100 to 250pcs a month easily … so if you make your app available for $10 (If your competition does cost that many, it is a steal and users will happily pay for it). That’s $1000 to $2500/month. You would be utterly crazy to release apps for free.
You are not doing the macOS community a favour by releasing free apps. Trust me…
Or better use native controls and the OS will handle dark mode for you. 
That’s what you are saying/claiming. It needs to be transparant (hence GDPR). If you call home, ask the user for it or at least say the app does call home.
Christopher,
I have 20 years of that behind me. I started my life very poor, chasing behind the money and wasting my time by trying to make my software “business compliant”, ugly with native controls and implementing useless functions required by the guys with the money. That’s why I leaved the developer community six years ago. Today, I’m a manager, have enough money and live my dream. I develop for my fun, for a community of poor users, students and everyone who want’s to use my software as it is. This does not mean that I do not hear to users and implement what I think is useful. B.T.W, my shareware was sold some times by more than 1000 per month at 19.99$ (ten years ago)
Native controls are fine for some apps and may have their advantage. But custom controls make an application visually unique and if I decide to create a Windows version, what is not impossible, the interface will be the same on every system. My big mistake was to not check the interface with the light theme enabled on the Mac. This is a one men show and those things happen. I think that I already corrected 80% of these problems and I have to write 2 other custom controls. In 1-2 days the new release can be rolled out.
It works great with dark theme. So either wait for the next release to give Clip Box a chance, or switch your Mac to dark theme to try it.
I already agreed that the user should be aware of it. I change it in the next release, so that the user must expressly activate it in the preferences or select a menu to start the check.
But again, I’m involved into Data Protection and you can phone home if no data is transmitted. Clip Box loads a version number from the net and compares it to the application version, that’s all. GDPR states that any user must be aware of what is done with his personal data. No data goes to the other direction and nothing is stored on the computer, so no personal data.
LibreOffice. FireFox. Apache. MariaDB. Etc etc
Sorry Christophe, but you come across as incredibly prejudiced …
They didn’t get to be a 2 Trillion dollar company by NOT charging developers! I saw somewhere that 20% of their profit comes from 3rd Party Developers. Even though they’ve now lowered their cut from the App Store for 95% of 3rd Party developers, it is estimated to make a very minor impact as that 5% who make over a million dollars a year, account for 98% of their 3rd Party Developer Income!
Just to complete the discussion. A new version can be downloaded from my site nohl.lu. It should work fine with the light theme (windows still dark as intended, with some minor visual side effects that I may correct over the time like scroll bars in light color). Some elements like group boxes have been replaced by my own controls and on radio buttons the text has been removed and replaced by a label. I plan to write also my own radio button control array that makes the handling even easier. If someone finds some other glitches, thank you to report them to me.